Most readers will know I’m an avowed new urbanist. This means that I care about growing up (literally) and not outwards as a city (towards and into the greenbelt). I want our city council to be leaders in sustainability, mixed use venues, and social responsibility. I want more bike lanes and garbage cans downtown and I want others to want this too.

I’ll be contributing twice a month to the Spacing Ottawa election coverage, sharing the stage with one of Ottawa’s most outspoken new urbanists, Vicky Smallman. Some have right pointed out that Vicky and I are both pretty proud New Democrats. While this is true, the municipal election is decidedly a non-partisan affair. So too will be our column--our bias will be towards forward thinking and innovation.

Click here to read my first take on the politics of change in Ottawa.

I’m extremely excited to announce a project I’ll be working on with Mountain Road Productions--one of Ottawa’s most up-and-coming television production companies. I recently worked with Tim Alp and his crew promoting the community celebration at Zen Kitchen for the Restaurant Adventures of Caroline and Dave.

I’ll be handling “digital casting” for their newest show in development. I’ll be collaborating over on their Facebook and Twitter accounts for a little while, developing some custom classes for their staff and reaching out to Ottawa based real estate, event, and niche blogs.

If you are even thinking about selling your home you are going to want to learn more about what Mountain Road is up to. More details to come in another blog post later this week!

So, about a year ago the New York Times pissed off an ugly little fish in New Zealand.

The venerable newspaper published an article on September 10th on A1 of the New York edition titled “From Deep Pacific, Ugly and Tasty, With a Catch”. It suggested that Hoki--also known as the main McFish meat at McDonald’s--was potentially being overfished. The New Zealand Seafood Industry Council, the industry association tasked with keeping exports of the fish alive and well, understandably chafed a little when the paper used their copyrighted image of the ugly creature to illustrate this screed.

This is where things got interesting. At the same time the New York Times was apologizing for the appropriation of the image, the association was hiring a defensive New York PR firm called CounterPoint to begin an online war against one of America’s largest newspapers. Hoki is a $151 million dollar part of the New Zealand fisheries industry, so it’s little wonder the New Zealand Seafood Industry Council found a firm that advertised itself as able to  “...help clients confront volatile media circumstances. We shield clients and counter attacks. We hold press accountable and challenge adversaries. With unique solutions and proven tactics, we safeguard clients through a hostile public affairs marketplace.”

In short, these folks at CounterPoint have no qualms about placing ads targeted at journalists, on sites journalists visit, and intended to inflict maximum pressure.

Campaign Elements

Elements to the campaign as reported in the widely cited interview with CounterPoint principal Jim McCarthy on the Nieman Journalism Lab:

1) Google Ads targeted at reporters, featuring their names and “misdeeds”

“When you include their name in the search, it draws attention to it and lets the reporter know that you mean business and you’re going to hold them responsible,” McCarthy told me over the phone.

2) Blog Ads:

"Targeting reporters where they hang out online is McCarthy’s grating specialty. He went after ABC News, on behalf of the Formaldehyde Council, with ads on Mediabistro’s TVNewser. 'It was virtually a guarantee that they and all their competitors were going to see it,' McCarthy told me with more than a little relish."

3) Convert existing established landing pages with better content to rebut and include proactive messaging

“...the Times had linked to it in the third paragraph of the article (at right), and 78,000 people clicked though, according to Sarah Crysell, a spokeswoman for the council. Taking advantage of that incoming traffic, the group transformed its hoki page into a rebuttal of the Times story.” The ads also pointed to this same landing page.

4) Pressure

Remember that apology for using the picture of the Hoki without permission? CounterPoint used this as the main hook for their Google Ads and targeted MediaBistro presence: “NYT Apologizes for story - Fisherman hold NYT to account”.

5) Tactician with gumption to apply pressure

Channel V Media Blog spent some time with McCarthy and described him like this:

“... he has a little bit different approach from the rest of us. While most of us publicists are busy pandering to the press in our efforts to get coverage for our clients, Jim is all about taking reporters on and holding them accountable for what they write. Sort of a one man Media Accountability Office. Okay, so it's not exactly like he does this out of the goodness of his heart-he gets hired by companies to monitor media and journalists for biases, inaccuracies or less-than-whole-truth reporting about them. (Thus the name, CounterPoint. Get it?)”

Who is using “Hoki-tactics”?

The Sharp Agency in Chicago talks about how they used similar “Hoki-style” ads in their political work. They aren’t the only ones.

“We’ve used similar tactics for a recent political campaign here in Illinois, working with a local political consulting group to blitz all of the keywords surrounding the candidates for a key state election on the day of a candidacy announcement. When you searched for the candidate’s opponent’s name on the announcement day, the first thing you saw was an ad for OUR candidate, with a message designed to counter-program. When you looked up the current office holder’s name, the first thing you saw was an ad for the new candidate for office, with a link to a site for donations with a nice video commercial. The campaign had the effect of blanketing the digital landscape during a crucial period in the media cycle.”

But is this SEO style AdWords war really going to work? Is this how applying political micro pressure works? I think this is one way, but it’s basic and crass. Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and targeted placement work to get attention--this is true. You can easily watch clicks turn to converts and converts to donors.

But the value is decreasing as a younger generation grows up. Gen Y are digital savvy realists with a finely tuned bull shit detector. Allowing for more nuanced ways of creating the kind of links online that Google loves makes long-term sense. As does fostering a community of supporters and advocates online before you need them--or before you resort to tactics like the ones our ugly little fish friend uses.

So who is to blame for the so-called “Twitter hoax” about Gordon Lightfoot death?

CanWest is reporting a Twitter hoax is to blame:

“Bernie Fiedler, Mr. Lightfoot's concert promoter, told the National Post that a rumour about the singer's death was started by "someone in Ottawa" and posted on Twitter.”

Yet, Toronto news channel CP24 claims CanWest’s David Akin was at fault. And, anyone watching on Twitter saw CanWest publish and retract the story all within an hour.

As the first word of Lightfoot’ “passing” came it was all going down it seemed fishy. So, I jumped onto Twitter search and called up the earliest reference to Lightfoot’s passing.

It looks as if Lightfoot’s manager could be right. A single tweet came before all the others - and might have set off this mess. I tracked down the tweet in question. And, it wasn’t David Akin or CanWest. But, it was repeated very quickly by them. Here is the image above of the tweet is from an account @fleminski - an account which no longer exists (the time stamp in the image says 1hour ago, as the tweet was one hour old when I captured the image). A well-known Ottawa tweeter @zchamu called it out very, very quickly. And the folks at Roots Music Canada tried valiantly to stop the impending carnage:

(see: http://twitter.com/rootsmusicanada/status/9297134904)

Now, somehow Ronnie Hawkin’s got mixed up into all of this. Perhaps he is even the real "very start" of this whole mess. CanWest's Akin quickly outed him has the source of the rumor. More to come as no doubt Akin will blog about this.

In the next few days I’m going to feature some stories on the digital tactics that firms are using to apply specific bouts of pressure to specific media outlets. These high-stakes, no-holds-barred firms are successfully using ads on Google, Facebook, and blogs to correct the record and and to skewer opponents.

Today’s case study is based on an article in Politics Magazine titled, “How digital ads helped turn CNN’s Lou Dobbs problem into a PR nightmare.” It’s a story about an old tactic turned digital with the end result being Dobbs resignation from CNN, citing this campaign as a factor.

Campaign Elements

Two partners at the consulting firm Chong + Koster (which describes itself as a “digital consultancy that specializes in high-stakes communications and win-or-lose situations around the world”) wanted to neutralize an opponent on behalf of their clients--America’s Voice, along with Media Matters, Presente.org, and others.

“The coalition aimed to take the poster child of the xenophobia movement—Lou Dobbs—out of the debate before it began.”

Here is a brief picture of the digital tactics used to support their strategic objective:

1) Create the hook

“We would make an amazing ad to drive donations, yet too controversial for CNN to accept. If the campaign raising enough money to air the ad during 'Latino in America' wasn’t enough to generate press, then the placing, the inevitable rejection and subsequent runs on other networks would. All the while, MediaMatters and Presente.org would run their own petition to drop Lou Dobbs, thus building a narrative that appreciated the commitment of the coalition.”

2) Get their attention

“If CNN thought of this as a three-day story, it would have passed. We had to get their attention at the very beginning, so they would set up Google Alerts to monitor the story, and to ensure each little hit was noticed and made them nervous. This is where digital ads shine.”

3) Ruthless targeting, Facebook Ad buy, $1750

“The Facebook feature 'workplace targeting' was our primary weapon. We targeted all CNN/AOL-Time Warner employees with 500 points per day (the Facebook max). We ran dozens of different ads, testing message hooks from 'Why did you let Lou Dobbs broadcast from a hate rally?' to 'Why is CNN profiting off racism?' We even called out CNN’s on-air talent by name...”

4) Hard sell fundraising asks via Facebook ads, undisclosed

“The majority of the Facebook budget was spent running the ads to progressives and Latinos with a hard fundraising ask.”

5) Blog ad buy, $10,000

“Within 24 hours, we also launched banner ads that paired the best performing imagery, hook, and call-to-action from the Facebook ads on political blogs.”

6) Google Ads, undisclosed (Blue State Digital was the vendor)

“delivering about 500,000 ad impressions per day, but we were also raising money from our clicks”

7) Access traditional earned media via trade media and online press

“We also leaked the story of the digital buy to ClickZ—one of the most well-read digital advertising publications. We chose them because an editor named Kate Kaye is the foremost journalist covering political digital ads, and they are exceedingly well syndicated and search engine optimized (anything that they post triggers dozens of Google Alerts). This post led to a post by MediaBistro—the insider rag for journalists—and the story exploded from there.”

This firm used tougher-than-nails tactics to get their clients point across to big American media. It worked like a charm. But at what cost?

It’s pretty clear that this firm doesn’t care about burning bridges with the traditional media. They only care about getting their point across. Suffice it to say that if someone in official Ottawa tried a stunt like this, they would probably be on the defensive for some time.

Tomorrow: What if you are on the other end of online ad-war tactics like these? We have a couple of pointers.

A USB media kit is a fun, and sometimes cheap, way to connect.

A provincial-level, non-governmental organization recently asked me to weigh in on using media kits as a method of introducing an organization to the media. I couldn’t attend the session in person, but I thought it was an amazing topic and offered to contribute via the blog.

A couple of points to help set up the organization's five questions:

• The program and the over fifty partner agencies feel they do not get the credit they deserve; they work in all communities across Ontario.
• It’s their organization's goal to make a “strong push to do more community engaging events and involve new partnerships.”
• As with most NGO’s, they need this product to “double.” In addition to being a traditional media kit, they also need it to act as a way to introduce these vital agencies  and their work to interested businesses, citizens, and potential community partners.

Media Kit Questions What tools are available for making your media kit--efficiently and effectively?

• Great writing; short, simple, and to the point: Information is great. But, concise and relevant information is priceless. Too many media kits feature too many pages about programs/events and ephemera best left in annual reports and newsletters.
• Good design: invest in templates; don’t let your designers provide only un-editable files. Make good design a prerequisite to products leaving the organization. Has it been time for a new overall look for years? Get on it. In the mean time, simplify pages, strip out clip art, and embrace white space. Keep the fonts to two, maximum. You don’t need Photoshop and InDesign to make great looking products. You need common sense and an inspiration (head to the local magazine store and try replicating simple, modern layouts).
• Amazing photos: what do people see first? A great big photo. The best one you have. Draw in the audience. Don't have great photos? Get some. Many photographers love working with NGOs and would be happy to help.
• Information journalists can use: I always giggle a little when I get big press packages with umpteen clippings from other papers. Select quotes should do it. Include relevant stats, a bullet point history (less than 150 words) and stories, anecdotes, and other information that can be used.

2) Can a media kit involve a simple cut and paste from your website? What tools should be included for media kits at events?

Journalists know how to visit your website. Don’t copy and paste.

Sections for a great event-based media kit:

Organizational bio (~200-300 words): have someone who works in your local coffee shop read it (Really!) and then ask them a few questions about your organization.

Event description: a short run down of the event narrative; what the journalist is going to see at the event and why; answer all the questions (who, what, when, where, why, and how).

Event scenario: a minute-by-minute breakdown of all things that will happen in the night.

Advance speeches: fork it over, it’s really nothing too secret--give journalists (and translators) copies of the speech in advance. They will like it, I swear.

Photo contact sheet: not required, but helpful. A one page colour print out of the 6 -10 photos available for download on your website. Photos of the prep and run-up to the event and of principal speakers/performers. Think, “photos that would look great on a blog or in the paper; unique shots no one else could have access to."

3) What are some common mistakes in media kits and their delivery?

• Too little information, too much padding.
• Too much information, too little colour.
• Way too much information with no design/navigation elements.
• Old materials, dated logos and fonts.
• Inattention to detail. Not everything needs to be custom printed, but it should look like you cared about the way it was put together.
• Forcing the kit on unwilling journalists.

4) What are some unique ideas to stand out? USB data keys or sticks are still popular and can be custom printed with your logo for less than printed/custom dye cut folders. Opt for the largest size you can afford.

I’ve seen kits delivered in paint buckets, pizza boxes, with “kidnapping” style notes attached, stuffed with sparkles and streamers, and delivered by sining telegram. Funny thing: I can’t recall what any of those zany pitches was selling. Stay fun, clever, and charming. Kooky and zany get in the way.

I’ll point you to my thoughts on Social Media Releases as well. I think they can be used to great effect, provided you don’t pay too much and have a strategy to get them into the hands of journalists.

5) Can media accept gifts?

Yes and no. They will certainly snap up swag (t-shirts, bumper stickers, coffee mugs) directly related to the pitch or event, but real gifts (over $10-15)? That places journalists in an awkward situation. The same holds true for lunches, drinks, and dinners: if it’s work-related and the point is to get ink, it’s best to let the journalist pay for themselves.

Blu Dot is a modern design-oriented furniture company that grew up in New York City. As they tell the story:

“When we opened our SoHo store in 2008, we became surrounded by the resourceful culture of 'curb-mining': the act of finding furniture and art on the street.”

This past November they took twenty of their “Real Good” chairs, equipped them with GPS tracking and let them loose in the Big Apple. The video below is the eight minute documentary about the experiment. Below I break down a few of the elements and ideas that make this work.

Blu Dot Real Good Experiment from Real Good Chair on Vimeo.

Campaign elements

• Microsite: smartly located at realgood.bludot.com (key part here: they didn’t go for a wholly separate URL for the short campaign)
• GPS-tracked modern chairs with map displaying locations online
• Flickr feed: displaying photos from behind the scenes and artful shots of the chairs
• Twitter account that was conversational and is still operational
• Vimeo-based documentary as a lasting record of the promotion

Why it works

• Superb planning: meticulous filming and cheeky editing
• Consistency: this wasn’t the first film or experiment Blu Dot has engaged in (other contributions to the “Good Design is Good” ethos they promote are here)
• Harnessing the inherent community spirit: this experiment wouldn’t work everywhere. But in SoHo, Blu Dot recognized the “curb-mining” culture and ran with it
• Design: most importantly, the production, film, and accompanying social tools were designed beautifully, echoing their overall point: Good Design is Good

Earlier today Jack Layton sat down with CBC’s the Hour in his first one-on-one interview since revealing his prostate cancer diagnosis. Stroumboulopoulos’ show provided me with these exclusive clips of my former boss talking about the New Democratic Party and whether it can ever be elected to lead the federal government. (Note: the Vimeo video should be finished uploading/encoding by 8:00 EST)

Exclusive: Layton tells Strombo he can “stare death in the face” from Ian Capstick on Vimeo.

“Canadians like to do things step by step,” started Layton. After reacting amicably to the George-esq rejoinder of “there’s no fear of you become Prime Minister anytime soon.”

“Canadians have begun to elect NDP mayors," said Layton. "That’s like sticking your toe in the water. They’ve begun electing provincial governments. If you had asked Alexa McDonough ...  if there was every going to be an NDP government in Nova Scotia she would have said “yes” and everyone would have laughed. We now have Darrell Dexter in Nova Scotia.”

The second clip is much more personal and talks about his cancer diagnosis, being fearless and what it has taught him so far. Layton says he’s “very comfortable with the balance we were able to strike with what lays ahead”.  The entire interview airs tonight on CBC News Network, check your local listings for the time (11pmEST).

Ryan Taylor is a fair trade jeweler. No, it’s not an oxymoron. It’s just really not that common.

The standard business model in the mass-market jewelry business is to design your wares to appeal to the lowest common denominator, source and buy materials as cheap as possible (regardless of the long-term social impact), then sell the jewelry at the highest price point.

Ryan’s business model at The Fair Trade Jewelry Company reverses the unsustainable model.

Ryan sourced his materials. That’s not easy, considering there are only a handful of artisanal mines left in the world. His research lead him to the Choco rain forest in Columbia. He uses only certified Canadian diamonds for his engagement, bridal, and custom rings.

As he builds his business--literally renovating much of the Parliament Street store himself--he does it in an open, sustainable, and transparent way using the internet to open his workshop to the world.

Philanthropy runs to the core of his business, so much so that people volunteered to help him renovate his shop. His community of Cabbagetown loves him and he rains thousands of dollars on the Daily Bread Food Bank (along with his other HoHoTO cohorts) and War Child.

Why do I tell you all of this?

Because, Ryan didn’t vote in the Toronto-Centre by-election.

You might be getting a touch pissed off at our fair trade jeweler. Or maybe, like some some in Ryan’s online community, you are downright angry. You might be saying to yourself, “He is so socially conscious, so committed to his vision, so cute, so smart--but he didn’t vote? What’s wrong with him?”

Be careful before you write him off as a democratic laggard. Ryan is a highly engaged citizen. Politics isn’t engaging him. And this isn’t just Ryan. It’s the demographic that academic Richard Florida has defined as the “creative class”.

Perhaps the problem isn’t with Ryan. Perhaps the problem is with politics. The robust partisan pugilism turns off voters. The goal of some political strategies is to turn off voters--perhaps not entirely intentionally--but it’s most certainly the outcome of playing “wedge issues” and dividing to conquer a majority in the House. Negative ads work, but not on all people. Most often they work to keep voters home, depressed about the state of discourse in politics.

Jesse Hirsh’s work has informed my ideas and opinions about technology, politics, and how the intersection of both sits a deeply rooted orthodoxy. I’ve learned that you need to look past your own personal beliefs and long held “truths” to ask if there is a better way.

I’ve long been an advocate of voting reform. I prefer mixed-member proportional systems. I think they work more often that not. This isn’t going to happen anytime soon. Why not? Sadly, Ontario, PEI, and BC have all rejected voting reform. So this means people who want change in politics need to be open to incremental voting change.

In Australia they force you to vote.

Greece, Serbia, Ukraine, all have variations of “none of the above”.

A political party exists in the UK for the sole purpose of recording the votes of the disgusted.

The Globe’s Doug Saunders pointed me to trends coming from Switzerland and India showing lowering voter turnout as average income rises. Both, as he called them, “relatively successful democracies”.

This post is ostensibly about voting, but perhaps my real message is that we are informed by the people who surround us. Wherever they are.

If you want to know more about why Ryan didn’t vote, visit this post on his personal blog. Join in the conversation there by submitting a response to his query at the end of the post. Ryan is attending ChangeCamp Toronto armed with this human data from the creative class.

Breaking down my own personal orthodoxy I’ve reconsidered my own long held view on non-voters. I now understand why some people aren’t voting. But, the rights of a citizen come with obligations as well. Voting isn’t the only measure of a persons commitment to democratic society. It’s only one expression of it.

Just engage. Vote or don’t vote. Commit to engaging with your community.

Personally, I know that not voting isn’t an option for me. But. it might be a legitimate option for others. Who am I to judge?

Should people be forced to vote? Should people refuse their ballots, spoil their vote, or join a political party?

Toronto is collectively confused this morning as a rising political star with a week-old mayoral campaign has confirmed he had “an inappropriate relationship with a young woman.”

Adam Giambrone, seen above with partner Sarah McQuarrie, has apologized for his relationship with university student Kristen Lucas. He is no doubt mortified--but that won’t be enough to stop the questions about the future of his campaign.

This isn’t over by a long shot. Why? As evidenced by last week's casual outing of a Conservative Minister, it’s often the case that elected-people will simply refuse to comment on their “private lives”. As a result, the story simply goes away. It happens more than people would think.

However, when the private life and the public life collide there is bound to be an issue. Like with Maxime Bernier. His issues with Julie Couillard only became a full-fledged scandal when she went “public” about her time with the Minister, and in the course of those interviews she revealed that secret-level documents were left at her home for weeks.

Giambrone stands accused of staging the announcement of his partner to benefit his campaign (and attempting to keep an ongoing fling with Lucas), telling her about TTC fare increases and, as the Toronto Star reports, several more salacious details:

Giambrone told Lucas that he hoped they could continue seeing each other,and assured her, "I had to have someone political." In recent interviewswith the Star, Lucas said she's been involved with Giambrone sincelate 2008 and, on several occasions, had sex late at night on a couch in his City Hall office.

In short, watch out: it’s going to be a feeding frenzy. The private and public just collided.
Giambrone was already in for a rough ride. “Troubled” is the most frequent adjective attached to the Toronto Transit Authority--of which Giambrone is chair. The Toronto media, egged on by frustrated transit riders, have been sticking it to the troubled TTC’s service “issues” for a few weeks now.

But the real problems are right in the facts as presented in the Toronto Star. The two parties are kilometers apart. He says the relationship “consisted of text messages and conversations in public places only.” She says it was a year-long, intimate affair.

His campaign needs to sort out the truth, get him onto the most sympathetic TV set (with partner Sarah) and tell the whole story. All of it. The only real hope is being more human than the people who are gloating gleefully about the scandal.

Whether or not he can recover from this depends less on his team orsupporters and more on his partner’s reaction.

So, is this what you sign up for when you are elected? What do electors have the right to know? How much should a citizen need to know before casting a ballot? Please comment below.

Photo credit: Tsar Kasim