Wikileaks and Anon: The Death of PR?

If the recent controversy surrounding Wikileaks has taught us anything, it is that the internet is a wild beast that is hard to control. Julian Assange rocked the boat of entire governments, the media, and the people whenever Wikileaks started releasing the 250,000 leaked U.S. embassy cables over the internet. Some very important questions concerning PR come up whenever you take a look at the issues that manifested itself in the Cablegate scandal, especially through Anonymous and Operation: Payback .

If you haven't been following the story, you can Google it to get caught up. It will help you understand what I am talking about. Anyways, right in the middle of all the action a few months ago, fastcompany.com's article entitled Prepare for the Next Round of Hacktivism, talked about the mindset of your average hacktivist, aka Anonymous. In this article, the author, E.B. Boyd, makes a statment about dealing with hacktivists that I'm sure nobody on this website wants to hear:

Don't bother with PR.

That sound you just heard was Edward Bernays rolling over in his grave.

You read that right. Don't bother with PR. Whenever Amazon, Paypal, Discover and Mastercard cut off their support for Wikileaks due to "policy" concerns, the hacktivists that lead Operation Payback were very motivated to defend what they considered to be an infringement on free speech. There was no negotiating or reasoning with them. As Anonymous plainly puts it:



We do not forgive.
We do not forget.

So if you should ever find yourself in the midst of a major crisis in your company that results in being on the receiving end of Anon's wrath, what are you going to do? Is it really impossible to reason with them? What's the next step? I think there is still hope, PR practitioners just have to change tactics a little bit. Obviously, the odds of you being in this type of situation is very slim, and if the company you work for is engaged in illegitimate practices to begin with, you shouldn't be working for them. But let's say that for some reason, your company made a legitimate decision that Anonymous didn't like, and they are DDoS'ing your company's website, and drawing negative publicity to your company. What should you do? Step one:



Believe it or not, there is good news. DDoS attacks do bring down the systems running your company's website, however, these attacks are temporary, lasting hours at the most, although there may be more than one. However, taking a pacifist approach will do you no good in communicating with Anonymous. If this should happen, depending on the situation, you have some channels of communication. Everything that I am about to mention has never been used by Public Relations practitioners before, so please take this with a grain of salt.

1. IRC
IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat, and are used by Anonymous to coordinate their attacks. It is a lot like a chat room. If anyone here is daring enough to speak directly to Anon, this would be the best way to do it. First, you need to install an IRC client onto your computer, and then find the IRC channel that Anon is using at the time. They change IRC channels often, mostly because the ones they make get shut down, so you have to track down the channel that they are using first.

2. Torrents
Anonymous believes that ALL information should be free. So most of them are pirates. That means that they all use torrents to get whatever they want, from movies, to books, to music, to basically anything that can go on a hard drive. If you are not familiar with torrents, this should help explain how they work. You can make torrents work for you, though! This is a great way to communicate with Anon if you have a press release or video to distribute, just upload a torrent of that file to a tracker website, seed for a while, and then let the information spread itself.

So now that we have some channels in which to communicate with Anonymous, lets talk about some of the basic principles to follow when communicating your messages:

1. Don't try to stop them.
First off, that is just asking for trouble, because stuff like this will happen. Not only that, but it will only enrage them
further, respecting their power will go a long way.

2. Offer an olive branch.
Try to make amends with Anon, and see if there is any action that you can take to resolve the situation. Just talking to them is not going to help you out any, there needs to be actions to back up what you say. Of course that is a concept that goes along with any basic crisis PR campaign.

That is all for now, just remember, just keep a cool head, and everything will be alright.

Natural Instincts

Wouldn't it be freakin' cool to be completely free?



To just cut all ties to society and just go, and experience the world in it's most raw form?



This is a topic that has been heavy on my mind lately. Why do we push ourselves into these little holes every day and live life in society when we're missing out on this?



It boggles my mind. We have traded exploration for white walls, freedom for money, green fields for materialistic objects, and our lives for "the life."

A Brief Review of Twilight

You have now officially entered...



Why did a guy like me read Twilight? Because I could.

I have heard an endless stream of praise about this book from friends (who are mostly girls), so I decided to borrow the first one and gave it a read. It's probably one of the most poorly written novels I've ever had the displeasure of reading. I have honestly never seen the word 'glare' used so much in my life. "Bella glared... Bella grimaced... Bella cringed... etc.." Seriously, if you are going to read Twilight get used to those verbs because you're going to be reading them a lot. Not only that but the book is also riddled with grammatical errors. It's akin to reading a novel written by a middle school girl, which it might as well be as the plot, while pretty much nonexistent, leaves a lot to be desired.



As for the story, you can't really write much on it. The girl moves to
a town named Forks, yes its name is actually Forks, and she makes it
known that she hates it there. Trust me, you will know by the end of
the first chapter that she really hates Forks. She hates Forks. Man,
does she hate Forks. Forks is so stupid and she hates it. Forks sucks.



I basically just recapped the first chapter for you there. The following chapters include:



Glaring

Grimacing

Cringing

Edward being perfect, because he's so perfect and he's perfect.

Glaring

Glaring

Glaring

Edward is perfect



There, you've now read the entire novel.



The main character is extremely shallow. She wouldn't even care about Edward if he wasn't so "perfect" looking. There are a couple characters she runs into in the first chapter, one of which is attractive and one that isn't. They were both helpful and her thoughts on each were, "man, I don't want to be around this boy much longer," to the ugly one and, "man, this kid is really helpful! He's so nice!" to the more attractive one. Then she sees Edward, which, if I haven't mentioned already is perfectly perfect, and falls head over heels in love. He loves how she smells or whatever. It's pretty much true love....

....If you're 12 years old.



Oh yeah, Edward is a vampire. I forgot about that in all his perfectness.



Anyway, after what seems like 50 chapters of pure dribble some other vampires show up and decide they want themselves some Bella too. Predictable drama ensues and people run around a whole bunch, then Edward takes care of it. He's so perfect. After that Edward and Bella glare at each other over and over, and then the story ends.



Terrible book. A few notes:



Bella Swan sounds like Belle Swam, which translates into Beautiful
Swan. I'm sure the name isn't a coincidence but rather the author
thinking she was clever. You sure fooled me!



There are glittering vampires. Seriously, what?



Glare. Glare. Glare. Glare. Glare. Glare. Glare. Glare. Glare. Glare. Glare. Glare. Glare.



Edward is perfect.



Bella smells nice.



In summary: Twilight is pretty stupid.



Don't ever read this poorly written novel. I'm going to go read a Sherlock Holmes book to get this garbage out of my head. I think The Adventure of the Speckled Band or The Red-Headed League will do.







Glare.

The Jamie Sanders Experiment

"Who is Jamie Sanders?"

That's the question I asked myself whenever I received a friend request from her over Facebook last year. So, being the curious guy that I am, I took a look at our mutual friends. We had about 15 friends in common, so I decided that although I didn't really remember meeting her, that I would add her. After all, if she knows my friends she's got to know me from somewhere.

Time passed, and every now and then, I would go through my friends list and look for people to reconnect with. And every time I did that, I would see Jamie Sanders there.

"Who is Jamie Sanders?"

I would keep asking myself. I don't remember her, and I don't recall seeing her around campus. She must be somebody that just adds friends for the sake of adding friends. Oh well, I might never meet her.

Facebookers add friends of friends for various reasons. Some people just want to get out there and meet new acquaintances, and some people just want as many friends as they can get. With sites like Facebook and Twitter, it is increasingly easier to increase your circle of contacts. I for one thought she was just wanting to meet new people.

Whatever her reasons were, curiosity got the better of me one day, and I finally wrote on her wall:

Hey, I don't quite remember you, could you refresh me on where we have met?

A day or so later, I got a reply:

We took a Sociology class together in the fall, remember?

Strange, I wrote her back:

You might have me mistaken for somebody else, I've never taken a Sociology class in my life.

She never replied back. I didn't think anything of it at the time, because I have people say that I look like various celebrities/relatives all the time (I wish I was kidding). I didn't do any further investigation into the matter, nor did I check her profile again. But little did I know, that perception of how we were connected was shattered on January 26, 2010, when this seemingly innocent friend request turned out to be much more than what I had imagined.

It was past midnight, and I was doing my last round of Facebook surfing before I went to bed. Something caught my eye, however. My friend Sarah had made a status update concerning Jamie Sanders:

Sarah - is pretty sure Jamie Sanders isn't real. If someone can prove she isn't a #CreepyOldManOnFacebook I'll give ya a million bucks! ;)

I guess I wasn't to only one asking the question.

Me and our friends started talking in the comments under Sarah's status, and I discovered that NOBODY knew Jamie Sanders. My friend Ryan said that she had deleted him after he confronted her about who she is. My suspicions were raising quickly, so I checked her profile. She had deleted me. Something was up. We were all wondering:

"Who is Jamie Sanders?"

I decided to go to bed and get some rest, and tackle this issue after classes that afternoon.

After classes were through, I decided to start a Facebook group dedicated to tackling this mystery. I invited all of my mutual friends with Jamie, and I got to work. I brainstormed with the group members and my friends, and this is what I came up with:

1. If Jamie was not lying about her age, she should be a senior right now.

2. She has a lot of friends involved in the Baptist Christian Ministry at UWF, as well as Flamingo Road, Olive, Marcus Pointe and Hillcrest churches.

3. She is or has been a member of UWF judging from the Facebook groups she is in.

4. She has a tendency to delete you off of it's friend's list if you confront her about who she really is.

After compiling that information, I logged off of Facebook and went to my job, hoping that the people in my group would be able to brainstorm and come up with information about our mystery person.

I came home that night to a shocking revelation.






...Guess who decided to join our little manhunt?



Jamie Sanders herself.

She decided to become a member of my group so she could clear up the issue and reveal her agenda. This is what she had to say, word for word:

Hello. You all have been very gracious in participating in my social experiment. I'm deleting my account at the end of the week for everyone's peace of mind.

To begin with, I do go to UWF, but that's all you'll get from me. I'd rather not be “That nut who freaked everyone out on Facebook”.

This 'project' began as a discussion between a friend and I in the fall semester sometime. She mentioned that she had a Facebook friend request from someone she didn't know and asked if I knew them. I said no. My friend then added that she'd accepted the request, since they had 20 mutual friends. I told my friend that was a bad reason to add someone, and that I only added people I could recall having a conversation with. She shrugged and said, "Well everyone else knows them I guess." This turned into a late-night bet that I could create a false account and gather 100 friends before the week was up - meaning people would be adding "it,"( as Garrett so eloquently christens Jamie) based solely on connections.

Well, I began by crafting this profile. Originally she was named Shannon Cole, with a picture of a tree as her profile. I made her profile appear to be that of a conservative, Jesus-loving good girl; unintimidating, cute, and friendly. As time went on, people starting asking (approximately 2% of people Jamie added) who on earth Shannon was. So I switched to Jamie Sanders, and Googled "cute blonde" images until I found one which looked authentic. Needless to say, this went well, and then my friend and I upped the bet to 1,000.

Approximately 3 times a week I'd log on, add all of the people Facebook suggested for me (which spiraled around the Pensacola/BCM/Church area, consistent with Jamie's image), “like” a few random statuses, and leave Happy Birthday messages on peoples' pages - to try and make Jamie look authentic. For a while Jamie joined Farmville, since it was so popular with Jamie's friends and would probably buy her rapport, but her “puppeteer” thought it was the dumbest thing ever. (Sorry FV lovers.) I never bothered looking at people's pages or “stalked” anyone, I can do that well enough on my real account just like everyone else. Admittedly, my strategy for dealing with Jamie's interrogators was dull; I'd delete them to keep them from blowing Jamie's cover.

As my friend and I discussed this, we realized just how many “creepers” could be out there, and how simple it must be for them. Also, every group, page and application you add to your profile can get as much information from your profile as the friends you add. So when you consider that... nothing's private on Facebook.

Over the past month, Jamie has been getting lots of messages and wall posts about who the heck she might be. Oddly enough, she's also been getting friend REQUESTS, presumable based on Facebook suggestions, since she's friends with half of Escambia County by now. So I decided I'd make a “public service announcement” similar to this one soon, that Jamie Sanders was indeed a false account, created to test a sociological theory. However, Garrett proved the inquisitiveness of the human spirit yet again, and made this wonderful group. So I suppose the time has come, for her demise.

If you learn anything from my experiment: Don't talk to strangers. This time it was a bored college student. Next time you may not be so fortunate. Go through your friends list and delete those people “everyone else knows.”

I'll leave Jamie up until the rest of the week so you can peruse/deface/flame/genuflect to her page if you wish. Then I'm “deactivating” her. RIP Jamie. But believe me, there's probably more out there. Peace, Pensacola.

Wow. I was floored! So why is this important? Although she raises a very good point about cyberstalkers, she also shown us how strong the herd mentality can be through social media. Throughout "The Jamie Sanders Experiment," she had gathered 1,284 people in her list of friends in the UWF network. Nobody had met Jamie Sanders in person, not ONE! And yet people would interact with this puppet, even I tried talking to her! A person that didn't exist had a social life. Throughout the discussions on my group, I discovered that a person at the BCM even remembered talking to Jamie, and said that she was a nice girl.

All I have to say is, bravo Jamie. You got us good.

So who IS Jamie Sanders?

Is Jamie a guy or a girl? What is Jamie like? What does Jamie want to accomplish in his/her life? We will never know. None of us will. However, Jamie Sanders showed us how powerful social media can be. Jamie Sanders can be our biggest strength...and our biggest weakness. So, whoever you are Jamie Sanders, Thank you. You have taught us a very important lesson on how we connect to each other.

After talking with Jamie for a short while, we decided that it was best for me to publish this. She did not want her identity to be revealed, and through this blog I am acting as a proxy to reveal the results of all her hard work. All the credit of "The Jamie Sanders Experiment" and everything in this blog goes to you.

America: Land of the Divided and Home of the Two-Party System

Ok, I decided to shift gears, and rant about politics today (I can hear the groans now) but bear with me, ok? It'll be worth it! Promise! I'm going to try and keep away from siding with either Republicans or Democrats, and present an argument as to why we need a non-partisan democratic system in America. Ok, here goes!

If the recent election has told us anything, it is that mudslinging is every political person's favorite activity. There is a lot of fighting and nitpicking going on between the left and the right. A lot. Seriously, I get sick and tired of hearing about "socialist" Democrats and "redneck" Republicans, it's almost as if we didn't have anything better to do than to tear each other down.






The political spectrum has degraded to a point where Ad hominem attacks based on stereotypes run rampant, and are now a part of our culture. The topics that are being debated are no longer relevant, and the focus of the argument is not about reaching a comprimise and/or solution, but about showing the other side who the biggest dunce is. (Because, obviously, if somebody doesn't agree with you, they don't know what they're talking about, because you are right. All. The. Time.)



I think it's safe to say that the dunce is right under your nose.

One nasty side effect of the two-party system is the polarization of topics. Now what do I mean by that? Well, it's when there are only two perceived outcomes as to how a controversial issue may be addressed, and those views are skewed by the individual parties beliefs. If I confused you just then, I'll show an example using abortion to illustrate my point:

Republican opinion on abortion: Protect life, period. EVERY baby has the right to life.

Democrat opinion on abortion: Protect the rights of the mother, it's HER body, after all.

Now, I will bet $10 to the first person that can do a survey and find one person in either party that has a viewpoint on the issue that is different that the two I have listed above. Seriously, if you can find that person, let me know, because your $10 will be well deserved.



...Give up yet? It's really hard to find a person like that. THAT'S what I'm talking about. No thought is given to alternative means of settling the issue, and there is no attempt at compromise. Our system is one that likes to pit two differing viewpoints against each other, and sometimes both viewpoints may not be right. (I'm not making an argument for or against any viewpoint on abortion, I'm just saying)

I think George Washington said it best:

"It serves to distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the Public Administration....agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one....against another....it opens the door to foreign influence and corruption...thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another."

- George Washington's Farewell Address To the People of the United States, published in The Independent Chronicle - September 26, 1796

He's telling us that not only does it divide our country in two, but it makes way for corruption, as well...sound familiar? Bank bailouts? Two unconstitutional wars? A growing gap between the lower and upper class? Our two-party system has made way for lots of unqualified individuals to take office. That in itself is reflected in the current state of our land. If we were to switch to a non-partisan system, It would force us to look at the person, not the party. I really think that in itself would help push a lot of useless politicians out of the system, and help us out in the long run.

Anyways, That's all I have to say on the issue, and remember: the two-party system in America is like running in the Special Olympics, even if you win, you're still retarded.



(Ok, that was just mean, I'll own up to that)

On a more serious note: fight the power, go non-partisan! That is all. (That turned into an opinionated rant pretty quickly, sorry guys. :/ )

-Garrett Pace

Social Media

So, first. Blog. Ever. Whoop! I decided to write a little about social media, because whether or not you want to admit it, Facebook is more addicting than you think.

But why? Why is this new trend seeing more and more popularity? According to Nieslon Online, an analytics firm, social media has surpassed e-mail in popularity. Heck, it's probably more popular than Michael Jackson was (don't quote me on that one). But unlike Mr. Jackson, the internet has stayed pretty sane since it became popular, and is still alive....and didn't have lots of plastic surgery....and didn't dangle babies from rooftops.

Although technically since this photo is now on the internet, one could argue that the internet is dangling the poor child BUT ANYWAYS, that's beside the point. Where were we? Ah, social media according to companies and you!

Even multi-million dollar companies are trying to make a profit off of our socializing over the internet. They like to go to where the fish are. I can safely say that it is the "social" in social media that is driving this trend. Because lets face it: talking to friends is fun. This shift from linear one-on-one forms of electronic communication to more public methods begs the question: Does social media serve any good to us, or is it just a fun waste of a high speed connection on a Friday night?

The answer to that question depends on who you are talking to. Major corporations would say yes. You know those annoying ads that pop up on the right side of the screen when you log into Facebook? The latest movie being advertised over Myspace, with colorful graphics that cover up the entire screen? There's your proof. Because of social media's intense popularity, it provides a new medium for marketers to get their message across to you, the consumer.

Marketing aside, as social media networks get bigger by the day, a vast, modern, multicultural watering hole has risen. Of course, this should be obvious unless you have been living under a rock for the past 10 years (no offense to anyone who actually lived under a rock).

We all know that technology has connected us more than ever, but has it CONNECTED us? That is the million dollar question. Do we socialize and mingle with folks that we have differences in, or do we just sit in our little corner of the interwebz with all our closest friends? You may be part of a larger community, but it is still divided. Seriously, a lot of hate is floating around out there. A huge opportunity for furthering unity within the human race is in our grasp, the only thing that we need to do now is show some love and reach out to our fellow man.

So, in conclusion, I can't answer my own question. Is the internet any good? It all depends of what you make of it, so make the best of it!