360DigitalInfluence

Several weeks ago, what some might consider the most unlikely government agency to embrace social media decided to launch a blog. The FDA Transparency Blog was aimed at bringing a level of transparency to an agency that its own leader FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg recently described as a “black box that makes important decisions without explaining them.” Central to this effort for transparency was the creation of a “task force” of individuals that would examine the inner workings of the agency and provide recommendations on how to make it more transparent by the end of this year (2009).

To do this, they have posed 6 big questions:

1. How can the agency better explain its operations, activities, processes and decision making?
2. What specific information should FDA provide about agency operations, activities, processes, and decision making, including enforcement actions, product approvals, recalls and other actions?
3. What tools, techniques, processes, or other mechanisms should FDA use to be more effective in providing useful and understandable information?
4. What, if any, legislative or regulatory changes are needed to improve FDA’s ability to provide useful and understandable information to the public?
5. As FDA becomes more transparent, what information should remain confidential in order to promote key internal and external policy goals, such as preserving patient privacy, and how, in these cases, should FDA explain the importance of confidentiality?
6. What metrics should FDA use to gauge the effectiveness of its transparency efforts?

continue reading

Along with a group of 11 diverse consumer tech influencers, Ogilvy PR worked with our client Intel recently to host a day-long visit to the company’s Santa Clara headquarters that included conversations about the digital divide, the latest in mobile technology, eco-computing, and more. The “Upgrade Your Life” event participants, who are prolific gadget and performance content creators, talked with Intel’s executive leadership about ways that technology is improving the lives of women and girls globally.

Photo by Intel’s Ken Kaplan.

continue reading

Being a newbie to the sphere of employee communications, I knew I was in good company at a session OPR hosted last night about the importance of clear messaging within organizations when I saw the following note on each table: “Employees are on the front line of brand and reputation creation. What they tell their friends and families and post on YouTube and Facebook can define a company more quickly and more surely than anything the CEO tells The Wall Street Journal.”

continue reading

One of the most useful free tools out there is Google Trends and I’m continually surprised by the innovative ways I see it used by my colleagues. Beyond the obvious function in SEM and SEO campaigns, the half of all internet users who are starting their session with a good Google must be giving use some other useful information. Google showcased this recently with their Flu Trends project and it got me thinking about other ways to bring the line graphs to life. Here are some of my favorite examples (including Quail Man) of interesting Google Trends and I ask you to add your own ideas and provide links in the comments.

continue reading

So we go running off the edge to jump back in (with memories of the hot summer day, the swimming hole and the cool, yet not cold, clear water - nice thoughts in the dead of winter) 

Blogs matter. They are a foundation of the social media phenomena that will not pass in the night like CB Radios or printed ezines. While we add Twitter, Friendfeed, Tweetbacks, iPhone apps and more to our digital lives, blogs remain the relevant platform for sharing opinions, insights and knowledge that require more than a 140 characters or a smartphone interaction.

Our blog has just relaunched with a new design that will continue to evolve. We have been blogging and applying social media to our lives for years now - this is just the next iteration of our “blog platform.” This is our team’s “homebase” on the Internet. Our 360° Digital Influence team at Ogilvy PR, uses this platform to share knowledge with our global team, our clients and anyone interested in the strategic use of social media in marketing and public relations. We have a lot of smart, insightful people so we created the tools and the channel to share those points of view.

It is more than blog posts
We use this platform to aggregate more of our digital activity and to create that homebase of social media for our team. Here’s what you will find and what you can expect in the future (near as we can tell - remember, it’s evolving….)

• Multimedia-rich blog posts: we have integrated our YouTube and Flickr channels here and simplified our own publishing interface to help us tell richer stories
• Aggregate Twitter feed: we have pulled together our twitter streams into one to make it easy for us  to stay tuned to our team.
• Our Blog Network Feed: we have a lot of blogs hosted by Ogilvy thought leaders in Public Affairs, Technology and globally. Now we can all see a composite feed and get to those platforms quickly.
• Events calendar: we speak, host, attend and pay attention to real-world events in our space an now we will be able to list them in a more accessible place. You can also know where we will be this year and which events we feel are more relevant than others.
• Careers as a Digital Strategist: okay “careers” is not the right label but we are looking for new team members and we wanted to simplify how we could let people know about these jobs.
• Our portfolio of client work: rather than drive people to another web site just to see best practice cases, we will put them all here over time. The format will evolve too as we do more “How-to” content and try to share our experiences as learning and skills-building cases not simply “look at the great work we did” cases

Our blog is a our own town square (with a swimming hole), a place to launch a thousand ideas and conversations. Many of us will maintain our own personal blogs while remaining members of this community platform, as well. Personally, I believe one of the biggest benefits of our blog platform is encouraging the voices of everyone in the team to come through. We have a deep, global bench.

• Hearing Kristin Foster’s ideas on using Twitter for business
• Brian Giesen’s interviews with Search Engine Strategies leaders or coverage of our Government 2.0 event
• Laura Halsch’s coverage on the WOMMA Summit
• Sarah Marchetti’s thoughts on the Motrin episode
• John Stauffer’s point of view on Change.gov
  

And so much more.

Join in the conversation here - the water is fine - or wherever the links take you.