I'm an Activist I Swear

In mid-march #StopKony first started trending on twitter and one of the biggest social networking movements began. Millions of people were talking about the warlord who has been stealing children from poor African villages and turning them into child soldiers, and the half hour video about the matter posted on Youtube by Invisible Children has been viewed over 88 million times to date. There was a Cover the Night campaign started up across North America, where people would go and plaster the streets with wanted posters of the warlord. The campaign started out with huge numbers of supporters, getting word out through sites like twitter and facebook. Places where everyone goes on, and word is easily spread. The downside of those sites is that the word, no matter how important, is also quite easily forgotten on these social media sites. Many of my friends were full to bursting with information and excitement about the Kony campaign, but when April 20th came around (the night of the Cover the Night plan) an underwhelming amount of people participated in the event. This is tying right back to the information age, where people here about a cause, they want to help, but they want results immediately. If the Cover the Night campaign was organized for say 2 weeks after all the news broke, I feel like it would have been much more successful and much more effective. After a month of waiting, no one remembers the "commitment" they had made to bring down this monster. In the day and age where a school shooting can reach millions of ears in five minutes, it isn't advisable to allow these kids to wait around and immerse  themselves in the hundreds of other charities and causes they are subjected too each week. Business strategies need to become hard, fast, and viral, or else they are going nowhere.

As the Papers Fall

I'm watching a documentary about the New York Times and the demise of newspapers across the world. It's sad that something that has brought news to generation after generation is going under so quickly. In 2010 the Boston Globe was losing millions of dollars a week. One of the largest newspapers on the East Coast, and it is going into a free fall. The biggest reason these traditional media outlets are fading fast is because of social media. A terrorist attack in the middle east for example, can be trending on twitter twelve hours before the newspapers can say anything about them in print. The internet has made news instant, and newspapers just aren't instant.

This overlaps greatly with the declining record sales that is trending around the world right now. With more and more record stores and record labels going out of business, the internet is wreaking havoc on all these business' that have flourished for so many years. The ability to share and connect with people instantly has taking away the need for traditional sources of anything. The whole world of media has been flipped on its end over the past few years, and it has been a long time coming. Media is a technology business, and technology like a printing press or a compact disc is just becoming a thing of the past. TV is getting to be the same way. Cable companies are realizing now that if all TV shows are online, there is no point for people to be paying for cable anymore, so they need to figure out how they are going to deal with that, or they will become dinosaurs like The Rocky Mountain News in Colorado, which had to close its doors last fall. Technology has been taking over our lives for the last 10 years, and we are reaching a pivotal time in our technological growth, where everything is accessible from both mediums. It won't stay like this for long, so cherish your hard print newspapers while you can, because Ra McGuire of Trooper said it best: We're here for a good time, not a long time, so have a good time, the sun can't shine everyday.

TSAlways Too Touchy

I am not new to flying at all, having been to four different national capitals, as well as other cities around the world, but this trip made me realize how much more intense security has gotten when traveling. I got pulled aside twice to go through that special scanner thing. Now I figure I don't look like a classic drug mule or terrorist to these security officers, so it just shows how often these random security checks happen. I personally don't have a problem with them, and I am curious to know why others do. I've got nothing to hide from these people, and all it is doing is is making our trip more safe. Some rules have gotten a little ridiculous though, and the TSA has realized that. Things like the nail clipper rule have been let go, which was a smart move. Anyone who can hijack a plane with nail clippers can probably do it just as well without nail clippers.