The Obama MySpace Drama

...or should I say "melodrama"?

In 2004, a guy named Joe Anthony created an unofficial fan page for Barack Obama, after hearing his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. "I was just blown away," he's reported to have said.

Thus began Joe's role as a volunteer. For over two years, he posted biographical info, answered emails, and helped to build a MySpace "friends" network of more than 30,000. When Obama entered the race, this gave Obama the largest MySpace presence -- unofficial as it was. The network grew, and as of April 30, it had reached 160,000. Over time, Anthony and the Obama campaign had built an amiable relationship.

But because of the increased growth, Anthony started having a difficult time putting in the long hours necessary to keep the profile up.

At the same time, Obama campaign officials began to become concerned about maintaining the accuracy of the profile, and about centralized control in general... which is vital to a presidential campaign.

So, Anthony asked the campaign to bring him on board as a consultant, and to pay him for his work. The campaign, in turn, offered to reimburse him for his efforts to date, and asked him to come up with a figure. this payment would apparently be a one-time fee, after which the campaign would control the profile.

TechPresident.com reports that Anthony told them:

I considered the time I had put into it from January 1st of this year, not counting the previous two years. It was about $39,000. Plus I asked that if any fees were to be paid to MySpace by the campaign up to that point in time, those should be shared with me, up to $10,000.

The campaign turned down that number, and eventually decided to ask MySpace to hand over control of the profile to them, which they did.

Anthony says the campaign scheduled conference calls with him to discuss the matter, but "each after another would be postponed at the last minute. This went on for weeks."

"It got to the point where I didn't feel comfortable turning the profile over to the campaign unless they paid for it. This was largely symbolic."

Motivations

Symbolic of what, Joe? Symbolic of the fact that you've lost sight of the goal? Symbolic of the fact that you apparently have forgotten the definition of the term "volunteer"? Or just symbolic of your righteous indignation?

Don't get me wrong here... If all you say in your email to Micah at TechPresident is true, the campaign botched their handling of this matter, and their relationship with you. Seems like they screwed that up completely.

In the end, though, I have to ask "What were you thinking?"

First, when your hours as a volunteer became unmanageable, why didn't you simply ask the campaign to take over the profile, at no cost to them? That way, all those long hours would be over, and the man you believe should be the next president of the United States would be given a leg up.

Sure, I might have asked the campaign to bring me on as a consultant. But when the campaign asked you to name a figure for a buy-out... why did you?

Why didn't you let the campaign name their own figure? It would have allowed you to make some money, the campaign would have been able to afford it, and you could have maintained your reputation as a volunteer, or at least as a generous, accommodating supporter. It seems to me that -- as a volunteer and a believer in the cause -- this would have been the wise and right thing to do... if, you felt somehow compelled to charge for your previously-volunteer work.

But, you came up with a number. You say you worked 5 to 10 hours a day. Let's average that to 8. There are about 120 days in the first quarter of the year, so that makes 960 hours if you worked 7 days a week. For a total of $39,000, that's about $40.63 an hour. Okay, not bad. I have no idea what a campaign consultant normally makes, but that wouldn't seem to me to be an unreasonably high hourly rate.

Then there's the $10,000 in fees linked to those paid to MySpace. I'm just not getting how that's supposed to work, since you say that's based on fees that were paid to MySpace, not you... but yet, you wanted to share them. You wanted parity with MySpace? Why? Seems like an arbitrary fee to me. Why not just ask to be reimbursed for your own time?

In any event, when the campaign turned down your number, why didn't you make another, lower offer? Or maybe you did, and I'm missing it in all the reports and blogs and emails.

The thing is that at some point in this process, you crossed a line from being an inspired volunteer to being a person who expects to get paid for his work... and then complained when the campaign didn't agree to go along with this new status you felt somehow unilaterally entitled to.

So... when did that happen? When did you stop being a volunteer? When did you stop believing in Barack Obama, and start believing that getting paid was more important?

I would imagine that your response would be "because they bullied me", as you've said elsewhere.

But did they? How and when did they do that? Didn't they offer to pay you something? Just because you and the campaign couldn't agree on a number... does that constitute bullying?

Just because they decided to take control of the profile that you, in principle, wanted them to take control of in the first place... does that constitute bullying?

Campaign professionals?

Again, the flip side of the coin is that you folks with the Obama campaign seem to have handled this very badly indeed.

Chris Hughes at the campaign seems to have been the point man. For those of you who don't know, Chris is the co-founder of Facebook, and serves as the campaign's online organizer.

In Joe's email to Micah at TechPresident, he says:

I was accused of using this profile for commercial purposes. I was threatened that I would be responsible if the profile was deleted (they even followed up via email to be sure I knew it was my fault!) The conversation really was about them taking control of the profile. There was no counter offer, or anything to suggest that they had any intention of paying me anything at all.

Chris Hughes: Why didn't you make a counter-offer?

It sounds to me like you were thinking of a much lower range when you asked Joe to present a number for the fee... and when he came up with nearly $50,000, you.. well, you just wigged out.

You thought he was trying to gouge you.

Now, while the best way to deal with some people who try to gouge you is to strong-arm them, that isn't the case with a high-profile volunteer for your organization-- an organization with very lofty goals and which seems to value inclusion and volunteerism.

Chris, this isn't Silicon Valley, and Joe Anthony isn't some venture capitalist involved in a hostile takeover of your company.

Why did you cancel repeated phone conferences and not talk to Joe about this before asking MySpace to hand over control?

Your actions say a lot about your inability to handle delicate matters, Chris... and I certainly hope that no matter what role you play in the Obama campaign, that you mature very quickly... or that you be denied a role in an Obama administration.

In fact, I believe that Barack Obama should fire you immediately.

Belief is demonstrated through action

Yes, Joe, they wronged you. They screwed up.

But is the point of all your hard work to teach some campaign workers a lesson?

I was under the impression you were doing it to support the Obama campaign and all that it stands for.

You built a gift, Joe. You lovingly hand-crafted it. But when it took longer to build than you thought it would, you asked the recipient to pay you for it... or at least part of it.

Would you do this to a friend? Or to a loved one, say, on Christmas morning?

"Glad you like the toys, kids! But, hey, Daddy found out that they cost a little more than he thought they would. So each of you will need to get a job for the next month to pay me back for that overage."

Sound silly? Sure. But the principle is the same.

When the hours became unmanageable, the right thing to do -- as a volunteer and a true believer -- would be to go to the campaign and say, "I can't handle this any more... Please take it over." If they then offered to bring you on as a consultant, or offered you some amount of money... well, that would be the Icing on your Cake of True Belief.

Either you're a volunteer... or you're not. There's no such thing as a "consulteer".

In other words, it seems that the right thing to do as a real volunteer would be to offer the profile as a contribution to the campaign. That's the kind of thing volunteers do.

Instead, by asking to be paid, you set these events in motion. You took your eye off the ball. Perhaps you never intended to act or look like a profiteer, but a lot of people now see it that way.

Righteous indignation toward the recipient negates any intended altruism. As the old saying goes, never give a gift expecting to one day be repaid.

Mistakes were made:

- Joe Anthony should have offered the profile to the campaign, free of charge.

- Chris Hughes should never have asked Joe to come up with a number for a fee.

- Joe should never have come up with a fee, and should have asked Chris to name a number he felt comfortable with.

- Chris should not have wigged out over Joe's number, and should have simply negotiated with him, while maintaining cordial relations.

- No matter what Chris' counter-offer might have been, Joe should have taken it.

...That is, if things had ever gotten that far.

It all boils down to this: you both screwed up royally. You both acted badly. But, sorry to say, Joe... you started it.

Now, after Chris Hughes is fired from the Obama campaign, let's move on to the real issues, and elect Barack Obama President.

A new meaning for "Going green"

And now for something completely different...

Want more flora in your world? How about carrying around your own little oxygen generator?

La Bague Gazon is a ring in the form of a porcelain pot. The hook is that you add a tiny bit of compressed potting soil, some seeds, and water.

After 15 days, you'll have a microscopic lawn that you can wear on your finger.

Pot colors vary, and prices range from 70 to 120 Euros (about US$95 to US$163 today), with a soil-and-seeds kit running 5 Euros.

No mention on the site of whether use of Scott's Turf Builder and RoundUp weed killer is recommended. And the Fantastic Voyage-style maintenance crew and equipment are apparently not included.

Nano-croquet, anyone?

La Bague Gazon, from Ratinaud Creations, Limoges, France:

http://www.labaguegazon.com/homeGazonA.php

As if to prove the point...

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/20/nasa.gunfire/index.html

Beholding and becoming

What could I possibly say that hasn't already been said about the killings at Virginia Tech?

That the police and the administration screwed up? Now that we're being told about the bad lead the police were following, it's clear they were confused. I might have made the same decision... But I believe I would have at least sent out a message to the students. If they had, lives might have been saved.

Might.

That this act was senseless, was horrific, is a definite. Easy availability of handguns didn't help the situation. On the other hand, a determined killer will do his evil no matter what.

One thing that I do know is that in airing Cho's tape and photos, NBC screwed up.

Their rationale: We aired it because we thought it would provide insight into why he did it.

So... their contention is that for that "insight" to be passed on to the police, the FBI, even the public, the only possible thing to do was to air the tape?

This, of course, is absurd.

NBC claims they carefully weighed the pros and cons of airing the "manifesto."

They could have passed the package on to law enforcement to allow analysis. They could have given copies of the tape to psychologists and counselors, who might have learned more about what to look for in a troubled human being. They could have verbally summarized the content in a telecast, so that the public might have learned about what to look for in family and friends.

But instead, NBC aired the tape.

NBC News said, "We have covered this story — and our unique role in it — with extreme sensitivity, underscored by our devoted efforts to remember and honor the victims and heroes of this tragic incident. We are committed to nothing less."

This is, of course, a complete crock.

Airing the rantings of this sadly deranged young man was a way of honoring the victims?

On what planet?

NBC is "committed to nothing less" than the almighty ratings-driven dollar.

To paraphrase one Virginia Tech student, "They showed him pointing guns at the camera. There are a lot of people here who didn't need to see that."

All NBC has managed to do is to pander to the basest of human urges; by feeding the urge to see destruction, the execs at NBC have fed their urge to drive Hummers — apparently programmed into them by a complete lack of self-esteem, resulting from a crappier-than-average upbringing.

Listen up, network executives: By airing tapes like this, you not only re-traumatize the victims of this tragedy, you encourage others to duplicate the act by offering them the gift of a last-words bully pulpit that they never would have had in an otherwise-normal life. Emphasis on bully.

By airing the tape, NBC has contributed to the escalation of violence. They may not have shot anyone themselves, they may not have raised a hand or even spoken a violent word of their own.

But it's a certainty that by exposing more people to the mind of violence, by adding melodrama to a tragic situation, by painting Cho with a brush of romance -- yes, "romance"... the romance inherent in international media coverage, no matter the serious/analytical/public service frame they might try to place on it -- NBC has planted seeds in the backs of minds, or watered seeds that are already there.

From The Hollywood Reporter:

ABC News president David Westin decided before the second hour of "Good Morning America" to air only a brief clip of the video without audio, in part after seeing a "GMA" interview with forensic psychiatrist Michael Wellner, who appealed to NBC News and other networks to stop running the video.

"This a PR tape of him trying to turn himself into a Quentin Tarantino character," Wellner said. "This is precisely why this should not be released."

But air it they did. Until there was something of a backlash, and then they stopped, or cut back, along with other networks. And as the networks withdrew the tape, they explained how very wise and how very sensitive they were to do so.

In stock market parlance, they "timed the market." They'd already made their ratings profits. But the market started to tank, so they shorted their stock in that tape, and dumped it.

To say that NBC's behavior is cynical would be the understatement of the millennium.

Maybe we all need to be reminded from time to time...

We become that which we behold.

A needling question

I just downloaded Google Earth for the first time. It'd been ages (obviously) since I'd checked for a Mac version, and there it was. On my list of Cool Stuff™, this app ranks way the heck up there. Flying around the Grand Canyon was very... deep. I used the web to get an address for Angelo's, a little restaurant in Monongahela, PA where we used to get take-out pizza when I was a kid, and then flew by there. My childhood home, the Eiffel Tower, my downtown loft, lots of early Saturday morning sightseeing, all from the unshowered, bed-headed comfort of home.

So I stop by The London Eye, clicking on various photos linked through the app... And I see one for "Cleopatra's Needle" in Westminster. It's a misnomer, of course; the needle is an Egyptian obelisk, and doesn't have anything to do with Cleo.

I've seen this artifact, and its sibling in New York (There's another in Paris... The City of Lights is still on my To Do list). People who live in these cities get to see them pretty much whenever they like. Back when it was popular — and profitable — to raid Egypt for antiquities and scatter them around the world, many objects were carted off to their various destinations, although the obelisk in New York is said to have been a gift to the people of New York from Egypt in 1879.

An obelisk in Central Park

According to Egyptology News summary of a New York Sun article:

Egyptian obelisks have been swiped for centuries: They are rare and precious things. Only 22 remain in the world. Egypt still possesses five and Rome has 13. The Romans originally looted the obelisks, but the 16th-century Pope Sixtus V directed their present locations in the Eternal City. Istanbul, London, Paris, and New York each have one obelisk.

The obelisk behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in Central Park, is the only ancient Egyptian obelisk in the Americas.

So, my question is, how it is that "Cleopatra's Needles" are still weathering in all of these cities, and not back in Egypt, preserved like other objects? It's said that the environments they're in now are rapidly wearing away inscriptions that had survived for thousands of years previously.

Granted, many of the objects and structures in Egypt are now weathering badly, e.g. the Great Sphynx. But wouldn't the Egyptian desert, and the care of the Egyptian antiquities officials be a better place for these artifacts than surrounded by wet winter winds and exhaust fumes in Central Park?

Many other pieces of great art and antiquities have been returned to the countries from which there were looted over the millennia. It's become a celebrated process. And it's funny... I thought a quick Gargle for "Cleopatra's Needle" controversy return Egypt would yield lots of articles on pleas and negotiations and snubs regarding these ancient chunks of chiseled red granite. But... I didn't see any in the first page of results.

Finally, at the bottom of a second page was a link. to a page that mentioned a story at Bloomberg.com.

The New York Parks Department rejects claims by an Egyptian official that the city is neglecting the 3,700-year-old Cleopatra's Needle in Central Park and refuses to address his demand to give the obelisk back.

Zahi Hawass, head of Egypt's Supreme Council on Antiquities, wrote to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to protest the city's care of the 71-foot obelisk...

...Department spokesman Warner Johnston... calling the obelisk a Central Park treasure. ``It is a 3,700-year-old granite monument and our Arts & Antiquities division inspects it regularly.''

Perhaps... but what do they do about what they find? Are claims that the New York obelisk is wearing away... just an excuse to get the stone returned to Egypt? One face of the New York obelisk is now said to be severly damaged— after it had been preserved in the sands near Alexandria since it was toppled sometime after the reign of Augustus Caesar. The Wikipedia article (I know, I know) says "Three sides of the New York needle's inscriptions are well-preserved due to the long burial of the needle, although one side, exposed to the New York prevailing winds, has been almost totally weathered away."

So does the City of New York deny any weathering? Does anyone have documentation of the condition of the stone over time?

Sure, the New York obelisk is "a Central Park treasure." But if the weathering is happening, would The City rather see the obelisk flake and crumble away to dust rather than give it up?

Or would New Yorkers, Parisians and Londoners really mind if their versions of the needles were replaced with reproductions, and the originals were packed off to the Cairo Museum for cleaning and preservation?

I mean, there's nothing like having the real thing right there to look at or even touch... but what good is it if no one's going to have it in a few years?

Hey... I'm just asking.

Twitter: Without a privacy policy, am I a twit for signing up?

Since I am so very susceptible to the digital zeitgeist, I just signed up for Twitter.

My first question would be... Where's their privacy policy?

It never ceases to amaze me how many very popular companies and web sites ignore this vital bit of communication with their users/customers.

A smart surfer will always assume, for the sake of safety, that any company that has no posted privacy policy will sell your email address and other personal information into spammer slavery. So what does that say about Twitter?

Since there's nothing posted, they got a tagged email address from me. And I still haven't put in my IM or phone, since they don't say what they will do with that info.

Naturally, you can't always assume that a company will always abide by its posted policy. There have been several high-profile examples of companies selling info when they said they wouldn't. But these days, there's so much public and media pressure to get it right that companies at the front of the Internet community's collective mind -- like Twitter -- are usually more likely to do what they say with your info.

Now, if only Twitter would say what they do.

This is Customer Relations 101, kids. Get that policy posted!

links:
+ Twitter
+ Bob, Twittering

White House E-Mail Lost in Private Accounts

From a story by Michael Abramowitz and Dan Eggen in the Washington Post, Thursday, April 12, 2007:

White House E-Mail Lost in Private Accounts
Messages May Have Included Discussions About Firing of Eight Prosecutors

The White House acknowledged yesterday that e-mails dealing with official government business may have been lost because they were improperly sent through private accounts intended to be used for political activities. Democrats have been seeking such missives as part of an investigation into the firing of eight U.S. attorneys.

Administration officials said they could offer no estimate of how many e-mails were lost but indicated that some may involve messages from White House senior adviser Karl Rove, whose role in the firings has been under scrutiny by congressional Democrats.

. . .

[White House spokesman] Stanzel conceded that the White House had done a poor job of instructing staff members how to save politically oriented e-mail and said that it has developed new guidance for the more than 20 staffers who have official as well as political e-mail addresses. He also said that the White House is trying to recover the lost e-mails.

Once again, it appears that the Bush administration thinks the American people are as stupid as the administration is willing to seize and maintain power through whatever unethical, unconstitutional means they deem necessary.