Chris Abraham » David Gelles

Does American Need an Intervention and Recovery?

Chris Abraham — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 19:48:54 +0000

: Cover of Rush Limbaugh

I would have shared the entire article with you but the Financial Times reminded me like five times not to. So, this article was co-written by my friend and FT report, David Gelles, America: Vanquished by vitriol, and does a smashing job of doing an intervention on us American as firmly suicidal addicts requiring a 72-hour hold and some serious time working the steps. What do you think? Are you along the lines of “how dare they, commie bastards — we don’t have a problem” or “we’ve hit bottom and are powerless and need to be restored to sanity” — or somewhere in-between? I would love your comments.

America: Vanquished by vitriol by Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson and David Gelles

[ . . . ]

After past murderous shooting sprees, US news media have been quick to speculate that violent video games, Hollywood films or heavy metal music may have tipped the suspected perpetrators over the edge. In recent days, as commentators struggled to make sense of the shooting in Tucson, many instead turned their lenses on themselves. The viciously partisan tone of much modern political coverage had set the stage for such violence, several argued.
[ . . . ]
On the right, commentators have equated healthcare reform with socialism, questioned the president’s citizenship and dubbed him anti-American. Glenn Beck, a conservative media star with a Fox News show, radio programme and two websites, joked about driving “a stake through the heart of the bloodsuckers” in the Democratic party. Along with Mr Beck on the right are Bill O’Reilly, another Fox News host, as well as radio personality Rush Limbaugh and Ms Palin, who left public office for social media and a platform on Fox.

On the left, Keith Olbermann, the MSNBC host who often names Fox rivals in the “Worst Person in the World” segment of his cable show, has called Scott Brown, the Tea Party-backed Massachusetts senator, a racist and homophobe and has urged the president to prosecute officials from the administration of George W. Bush for torture, “starting at the top”. Joining Mr Obermann on the left are Rachel Maddow, another MSNBC host, along with New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and media entrepreneur Arianna Huffington.
“When you flood the zone with language that suggests your opponents are not just wrong-headed but illegitimate and anti-American … this is dangerous and it provides a climate where a fringe group of extremists and mentally ill people are going to be encouraged to do something,” says Norman Ornstein, resident scholar at the right wing American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research.
[ . . . ]
Vicious media divisions predate the American Revolution and peaked again in the battles between William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, the witch-hunts of Senator Joseph McCarthy and the cultural battles of the 1960s. What has changed, says Mr Ornstein, is that extreme voices are not reined in: “We have virtually lost the concept of shame.”
But Martin Medhurst, professor of political science at Baylor University in Texas, says vitriol has risen since the mid-1990s because of economic uncertainty. “In dire economic times, rhetoric parallels the perceived crisis. Extremism of all types always preys on fears,” he says.
[ . . . ]
“If there weren’t an audience for this kind of polarised rhetoric on cable, it wouldn’t air,” says Mr Rosenstiel. “But it is also true that the most popular cable news host, Bill O’Reilly, has less than half the audience than the least popular network news host, Katie Couric.”[ . . . ]
Partisan news makes good money, Ms McBride notes: “The people that are most guilty of this kind of rhetoric know exactly what they are doing.”
Barring an economic revival, academics doubt the tone will change for long. “I don’t think the news media will change, because it’s all about ratings,” Ms Brown says. Attacks on Mr Beck or Ms Palin will only solidify their support, Mr Ruddy predicts.
On Monday evening, as the nation tried to come to terms with what had happened in Arizona, one of the most sober assessments came from Mr Stewart. The Daily Show host, who often paints the news media as a failing immune system for US society, chose not to attack them this time.
“I wouldn’t blame our political rhetoric [for Tucson] any more than I would blame heavy metal music for [the 1999 shootings in] Columbine,” he said. “Boy, would it be nice to draw a straight line of causation from this horror to something tangible, because then we could convince ourselves that if we just stop this, the horrors will end. But … you cannot outsmart crazy. Crazy always seems to find a way; it always has.”

David and Ali’s Wedding Announcement in the Times

Chris Abraham — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 16:40:51 +0000

Congrats to Ali and David on their wedding. They’re off on their honeymoon now. I was honored to stand with the groom as a groomsman. The wedding was phenomenal and overflowing with love and joy! I just saw on Facebook that they made the hallowed New York Times wedding section, a version of this article appeared in print on November 14, 2010, on page ST12 of the New York edition:

Alison Boyd, David Gelles
Alison Mann Boyd and David Gelles were married Saturday in San Francisco. Linda LeSourd Lader, an assistant Presbyterian pastor who became a Universal Life minister for the event, officiated at the University Club. Also taking part was William Morgan, a friend of the bridegroom and a Buddhist practitioner, whose role included leading a meditation.
Mrs. Boyd-Gelles, 30, is the associate director of the Renaissance Weekend, an organization in Charleston, S.C., that holds retreats for political and business leaders and was founded by Ms. Lader and her husband, Philip Lader. The bride, who works from San Francisco, is involved in the preparation and execution of the events.
The bride graduated from Roanoke College in Salem, Va., and received a master’s in international relations from the University of Sydney in Australia.
She is the daughter of Karen Mann Boyd of Bristol, N.H., and Marc A. Boyd of Bow, N.H. The bride’s father retired as the principal of the Maple Avenue Elementary School in Goffstown, N.H. Her mother is a reading specialist at the Bristol Elementary School.
Mr. Gelles, 31, is a reporter for The Financial Times, the London newspaper. He works in San Francisco, where he covers technology and media. He graduated from Boston University and received a master’s in journalism from the University of California, Berkeley.
He is the son of Bonnie Pitman of Dallas and George Gelles of Santa Barbara, Calif. The bridegroom’s mother is the director of the Dallas Museum of Art. His father retired in 2000 as the executive director of the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra in San Francisco, and then was until 2003 the director of planning for the English Concert baroque orchestra in London.
The bride and the bridegroom met at a Renaissance Weekend in Santa Barbara in 2006. Ms. Boyd was working there, and Mr. Gelles was a new participant.

FT Promotes David Gelles to U.S. Media, Marketing Correspondent

Chris Abraham — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:58:52 +0000

Finally! I have been keeping this under my hat! In addition to preparing for a wedding in November, my dear chum David Gelles has just been promoted from San Francisco-based Tech Reporter for the FT to U.S. Media, Marketing Correspondent. Here’s the official announcement from the Editor & Publisher newsroom:

‘FT’ Promotes Web Developer David Gelles to U.S. Media, Marketing Correspondent

The Financial Times Wednesday named David Gelles as its U.S. media and marketing correspondent, replacing Kenneth Li, who earlier this week announced he was returning to Reuters as its editor-in-charge of technology, media and telecoms.
Gelles has been the FT’s San Francisco-based technology correspondent and web content developer, covering social media, e-commerce and e-books.
In his new assignment, the newspaper said, Gelles will cover “long-established content and distribution companies, disruptive digital media innovators and the wider marketing industry.”
Gelles “brings a fresh perspective to the beat having covered the digital media revolution from the West Coast,” FT Media Editor Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson said.
Before joining the FT, Gelles served as the small business reporter for the Miami Herald and contributed to the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and Forbes.

This will bring him to the New York offices of that hallowed British business newspaper, The Financial Times, as early as January, 2011.

I am already planning to spend a couple-few months in NYC in the Spring of 2011 because as everyone knows, David’s life is a movable feast.

David Gelles Turns One at the Financial Times

Chris Abraham — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 15:40:19 +0000

My buddy, my best friend, my protege and my mentor, Mr. David Gelles, is now one-year-old at the San Francisco bureau of the Financial Times, the hallowed and respected Peach-ColoUred-Lady. Check out all of his work since back in 2008!

2008

Have You Had Your Daily Dose of David Gelles?

Chris Abraham — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 00:49:54 +0000

Have you checked out the official David Gelles web site and all his amazing work?

2008

2007

2006

2005

2003

2002

Would Folks Choose Facebook Over Google?

Chris Abraham — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 17:05:40 +0000

: Image via CrunchBase

I just finished reading FT reporter David Gelles‘ article about Facebook, What friends are for, and I was really taken by one particular paragraph, which pits Google and Facebook in the war of “if you had to choose one, which would you choose:”

Certainly, those seeking to profit from Facebook are convinced of its prospects. “If you asked a 20-year-old today to give up Google or Facebook, they would give up Google,” maintains Mark Pincus, chief executive of Zynga, which makes applications that run on Facebook, and the founder of Tribe Networks, an early social network. “The social web is more personal and is more relevant to you.”

Which one would you choose? If you had to? I know that I spend a lot of time on Facebook and it has reconnected me very powerfully to all the people I have know since before high school; however, Google is become as important to me as as plumbing, tap water, electricity, or dial-tone.

What do you think?

The contorversy about Yelp

Chris Abraham — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 19:19:53 +0000

Jonathan Trenn popped this insightful article about Yelp over on Marketing Conversation, The contorversy about Yelp (and be sure to check out David Gelles’ article on a similar topic over at the Financial Times, Yelp rejects claims of extortion):

Ah, controversy.
Now, it’s with Yelp, the mega online review site. On Wednesday, the East Bay Express, an alternative newspaper that covers Alameda and Contra Costa counties in California, published a very provocative article , “Yelp and the business of extortion 2.0″ on the sales operations and tactics of Yelp. The paper made some very pointed accusations, some of them seemingly legitimate while others sounding too nebulous. They state that Yelp is both maniupulating the placements of restaurants reviews as sales tools and then using scare tactics to then solicit advertising sales from these same restaurants.
The accusations are alarming but, because I think the article was poorly presented, it’s left me thinking that Yelp perhaps had a major sales problem in one office as opposed to a company wide sleaze factor policy.
Yelp’s initial response, written on the company blog by CEO Jeremy Stoppleman is inept and insufficient. He’s likely satisfied that his blog posts are enough…and it may appear to be just that for the time being…but controversies such as this, be they true or just speculation, have a way of undermining a company’s integrity in a hurry. Especially a site that 1) is about user generated online reviews, and 2) has trust as a hallmark of its standing.
Oddly, the Yelp blog doesn’t allow comments. That’s not a good idea…especially for a site that’s about online reviews and citizen participation.
Here’s the gist of the article. Writer Kathleen Richards talked to “dozens” of business owners over the “past several months” and found that six of them said that Yelp sales reps promised to remove or move bad reviews if the business chose to advertise. And these businesses would often get sales calls from Yelp reps soon after they mysteriously started getting a rash of negative reviews. The theory here is that Yelp employees would start to or enlist others to write negative reviews on a company, those reviews would then appear at the top of a company’s page, and the company would get a phone call from a rep looking for an advertising by so those reviews can “go away”…usually to the tune of $300 a month.
For those that declined, positive reviews seemed to begin to disappear. For those that did manage to buy, negative ones began disappearing.
This is pretty damning stuff. If true, it shows a coordinted effort between people in sales those on the back end tech team. It made some establishments feel as if Yelp was acting as if it was the “mafia” in that Yelp was threatening establishments to pay (advertise) in order to not be damaged. That’s called “protection money” in organized crime.
But as I red between the lines I ended up scratching my head. Over several months, after talking to “dozens” of businesses, Richards found six restaurants that felt that either they were being offered a quid-pro-qo for advertising to reduce or eliminate bad reviews; or some felt that this extended to manipulative threats of the placement of poor reviews and the elimination of postive reviews.
“Dozens. “What does that mean? 36? 60? 84? How did Richards find these restaurants? Did she talk to one and then ask the owner/manager if he or she knew of any others that had similar stories? Both questions are important. The first because it leads to how widespread the problem actually is in the Bay Area and the second, because if there is a lack or randomness to all this, then the sample restaurants are self selected by the reporter.
The article relies on the how some of the restaurant owners “feel”. These feelings may be completely legitimate. But it is hard to counter a “feelings”e of another is the one with the feelings remain anonymous. I fully believe in using anonymous sources, but there should be greater evidence used. That is, if one is trying to prove that this is a consistent sales tactic used by the company as a whole.
And speaking of as a whole. This article seems to be focusing soley on the East Bay restaurant seen. True, it is an East Bay pub, but the article is written as if it is a widespread problem and the issue here is “the business of extortion”. It fully damns the Yelp based on a small sample of local business’ feelings.
Stoppleman has since written a few more blog posts, but he could use a change of attitude. There’s been enough discussion on the net about this article denigrating Yelp. Hundreds of tweets on Twitter, negative mentions on Technorati, and articles in substantial online pubs.
The reason why I say that Stoppleman could use a change of attitude is because he’s treating all of this as an illegitimate attack. The accusations, regardless of their veracity, at least sound reasonable. And his defensiveness doesn’t really address the issue.
He does have on post that does work, at bit, in my opinion. “Nine Myths About Yelp” is designed to negate what he feels are falsehoods. The most important one he lists is #3 (it should be #1, but he doesn’t seem to realize it). It is stated here:
Myth #3: Yelp salespeople manipulate reviews for prospective advertisers (for example, offers to remove a negative review if a new client signs up, or a threat to remove positive reviews if the business owner does not choose to advertise with Yelp)
Reality: We have every reason to trust the smart, hard-working and ethical salespeople who work at Yelp. Beyond this, to avoid even an appearance of impropriety, we’ve taken several steps to ensure no member of our team is tempted to game the system. Specifically:
1. Yelp salespeople do not have access to the system that deletes reviews; only a few members of Yelp engineering and user support team have this access, and they literally work on different floors within the office.
2. Every Yelp salesperson signs an agreement that s/he will not write reviews of any business while employed by Yelp. We trust our teammates in sales to live up to this commitment. We also have several monitoring systems in place to ensure nobody (accidentally or otherwise) crosses this line.
3. Through our vigilance, we once did find a salesperson who encouraged a friend to write a positive review for a prospective client (that the friend had actually patronized). The salesperson’s role at Yelp ended that day.
4. When a new advertiser signs up with Yelp, the relationship is handed off to an Account Manager. The Account Manager then takes the client through a 30 minute phone training session — and confirms that reviews have nothing to do with advertising.
5. After the training call, the Account Manager sends a follow up survey that asks each client how much s/he agrees with the following statement: “I understand that Reviews are completely separate from the Yelp Ad Program, and that there is an automated filter that may suppress some of my reviews whether or not I am a client.” Any client who does not click “Completely Agree” in this case gets yet another follow-up call for clarification.
Myth #4: Yelp removes positive reviews from businesses its staff does not like, or from businesses that do not pay for advertising
Reality: A review you may have seen on Yelp previously is no longer there; this happens. The review in question may have “disappeared” for one of three reasons:
1. The review may have been suppressed by Yelp’s automated Review Filter, which is always out there looking for suspicious reviewing activity (like those anonymous rants and raves you see on other sites).
2. The writer may have removed her own review; she has the right to do that at any time
3. Another user believed the review violated Yelp’s Review Guidelines and sent it to our customer service team for review. The customer service team agreed, then manually removed the review.
Both our customer service team and the Review Filter work exactly the same way for advertisers as they do for non-advertisers.
This is how he should have addressed the issue at the very beginning. Blown opportunity and his company has suffered and will continue to suffer as a result. And he has to go beyond stating that the sales people and the tech people with access to placement of reviews work on different floors.
My guess is what happened is that a few sales reps in that particular office would scour the reviews on Yelp, and when they found some recent newly written negative ones, they then picked up the phone and made a sales call, offering the package that places a selected postive review on top – one that is visibly marked as being sponsored. Some pitches probably went far beyond this…saying that they could make the negative one “disappear”. Sales people will say sleazy things. Stoppleman should understand this and not discount this. He should then conduct some sort of internal audit that would show the public that he is trying to address the problem and root it out if it exists. Retrain. Resolve.
Now is it possible that some sales types had relationships with the tech people. Absolutely. Different floors – HA! So the problem may have been more than a poorly written article. Yelp needs to look into that because, as Yelp knows, online reputations matter.
And to Jeremy Stoppleman…you should allow people to comment on your blog posts.

Social Media and Blogging Ethics and a Code of Conduct

Chris Abraham — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 02:55:07 +0000

Bloody great, best-in-breed, article about online PR and marketing ethics by my buddy David Gelles of the Financial Times — he is surely a golden child and new media journalist rock star… be sure to put this article in front of your boss, whether you are a PR flack or are a corporate stooge — I think this article is actually going to be printed into the pink pages of the FT on Thursday, February 12 — go pick it up and hand it to the members of the C-suite, Blogs that spin a web of deception:

A web of deception By David Gelles
An overenthusiastic employee from the computer supplies maker Belkin posted an offer online last month – $0.65 for anyone willing to write a positive review of Belkin products on Amazon.com. Several people took up the offer, producing gushing appraisals of Belkin products they had never used.
After a blogger exposed the scam, news organisations jumped on the story. The offer was removed and Belkin’s president weighed in with an apology.
The incident was a public relations disaster for Belkin. It was also a prime example of “Astroturfing”, the unsavoury marketing practice of generating fake grassroots enthusiasm for a product.
Given the anonymity afforded by the internet, it is hardly surprising that deceptive marketing is on the rise. Consumers are spending more time online and companies are seeking new ways to reach them.
But now, in an effort to regulate how employees behave on the web, companies and industry groups are developing their own online codes of ethics. They want to ensure that when staff do engage with social media, they act ethically.
Last year, Coca-Cola established its own set of social media guidelines and distributed them in a memo to all employees. The policy emphasises the need for transparency and encourages employees to use common sense when discussing the brand online. “We’ve always had very diverse channels to reach consumers,” says Adam Brown (pictured), digital communications director. “Wherever they are, that’s where we go. That’s now evolved into the need for a social media policy.”
So when Mr Brown went online to promote Coca-Cola’s Super Bowl advertisements, he followed the guidelines. On Facebook, Mr Brown announced that he was a Coke employee and pointed other users to the Coke ads on YouTube. On Pittsburgh Steelers fan forums, Mr Brown, who is from Pittsburgh, named his employer and then directed fans to the Coke blog, which had an interview with Steelers’ defensive star Troy Polamalu.
Mr Brown said more deliberate engagement with online conversations was a necessity for a global company such as Coca-Cola. “We’re mentioned several thousand times a day on blogs, and there are several hundred tweets about us on Twitter,” he says. “There is a lot of conversation taking place about our brand without us. Where appropriate, we wanted to start getting involved.”
Companies began interacting with social media years ago. But only recently have those involved with the industry perceived a need to develop ethical standards. Among the first to do so was The Word of Mouth Marketing Association, an organisation for the viral and buzz marketing industry. Womma published an ethics code in 2005, emphasising honesty of relationship, opinion and identity.
Since then, many companies have used the Womma code as a blueprint for their own guidelines. “Companies are learning every day that there is a right way and a wrong way to engage with social media,” says Paul Rand, vice-president of Womma’s board and head of its ethics project. “Some companies are learning by touching the burning pot; some companies are learning from the mistakes of others.”
One company that “touched the burning pot” is Shelfari, a social networking site for book lovers, owned by Amazon. As it battled for market share in late 2007, it came under fire for its poor design and clunky user interface. Soon, comments appeared on more than 50 blogs attesting to Shelfari’s greatness. “I have been on Shelfari for a couple of months now and absolutely love it,” read one. “Shelfari is such a great site. I joined a couple of months ago and I have been hooked on it ever since,” read another.
But all the comments were posted by the same user, “schaufferwaffer”, who was soon exposed as a Shelfari employee. Shelfari’s chief executive admitted to the Astroturfing (he blamed it on an intern who knew no better), and promised it would never happen again.
Such behaviour is declared out of line in the “disclosure best practices toolkit”, an ethics code drawn up by the Blog Council, an organisation for heads of social media at big companies. The document advises employees and agencies to announce whom they work for when communicating with blogs or bloggers. It also encourages employees to provide a means for contacting them directly, if someone they interact with via social media wants to follow up with a two-way conversation. The toolkit also warns against using pseudonyms.
IBM was one of the first companies to develop its own social media policy. In 2005, it published its “social computing guidelines”, which insist that employees write under their own names, using the first person, and make it clear they are speaking for themselves and not on behalf of IBM. It also prohibits employees from referencing clients, partners or suppliers without their approval.
UPS is developing its own online ethics policy after recognising how damaging Astroturfing and other online misbehaviour can be for a company’s reputation. “If one of our airplanes goes down, we have a very clear plan for getting information to the media,” says Norman Black, director of global media services. “We realised we did not have a good plan for responding to a crisis on the internet.”
In some countries, deceptive marketing practices are not only frowned upon but also illegal. In the UK, the law identifies “falsely representing oneself as a consumer” as a punishable offence. And in 2006, the US Federal Trade Commission issued regulations stating that word-of-mouth marketers must disclose their relationships. But in spite of these new rules there has been little enforcement of the measures.
Even without prosecution, Belkin seems to have learnt its lesson. Melody Chalaban, speaking for the company, says Belkin will soon be holding seminars to teach employees how to interact ethically with social media, and is also considering joining Womma. “We want to stress that this is an isolated incident,” says Ms Chalaban. “We don’t endorse or condone unethical practices like this.”
Side Bar: The last post: underhand tactics can end in a PR disaster
* Flogging. Fake blogs can help companies get a personal voice behind a marketing campaign – but they risk a PR disaster if they are uncovered. When Sony tried to boost sales of its PSP portable gaming unit, it started a blog supposedly by two boys who wanted PSPs for Christmas. When it was revealed as a fake, Sony apologised and took it down.
* Astroturfing. A technique that gets its name from the practice of generating fake grassroots enthusiasm. One Florida company, PayPerPost, serves as a matchmaker between companies willing to pay for good press and bloggers willing to plug products that they have never used. After receiving criticism, PayPerPost now requires bloggers to disclose that their posts are sponsored.
* Comment spamming. Flooding the comment fields of blogs with enthusiastic notes about a company, even with full disclosure, is not welcomed by web users. When a Motorola employee commented on dozens of posts on a technology blog – each comment a plug for the new Motorola Krave – bloggers responded with snide criticisms of his spamming, which duly ceased.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009

Social Media Reputation Management

Chris Abraham — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 21:32:53 +0000

My buddy David Gelles writes for the Tech section of the FT, my favorite paper. Check out his latest article, New corporate firefighters. Sadly for me, he can’t shamelessly promote my company, Abraham Harrison LLC, because he has ‘journalistic integrity;’ however, it is awesome he works there because he writes awesomely-accessible articles about my space, including social media marketing, social media PR, blogger engagement, Twitter, and also the world of online and social media crisis-response. It is amazing! I beat up Pepsi Max over on AdAge and a couple weeks later, Gelles writes an article about the space. I am both amazingly proud and a little paranoid!

New corporate firefighters By David Gelles

When advertisers launched a campaign last September for the pain reliever Motrin, they hoped to attract the attention of mothers whose backs might be sore from wearing baby-carriers. The advertisements implied that while baby-carriers might be fashionable, hauling a child around could be painful.
Mothers were not amused. Soon after the ads were released, anti-Motrin campaigns appeared on Facebook and blogs. Outraged mums, furious at the suggestion that their babies were a hassle, posted rebuttal videos on YouTube. Through Twitter, the micro-blogging service, thousands of people attacked the company.
Motrin was caught off-guard. For days, no company representative replied. Critics accused the company of being not only insensitive but also unresponsive.
Eventually a marketing executive at McNeil Consumer Healthcare, the subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson that markets Motrin, e-mailed individual bloggers to apologise for the campaign. But the damage was done.
Jeanette Gibson of CiscoThe “Motrin moms” episode illustrates the power of social media — the expanding network of websites that allow users to interact with each other and, increasingly, with companies. It also demonstrates the perils for enterprises that are unprepared to interact with social media.
But now a growing number of companies, including Ford Motor, PepsiCo, Wells Fargo and Dell, are creating new high-level jobs to ready themselves for engagement with social media, with titles such as director of social media, head of communities and conversation, vice-president of experiential marketing and digital communications manager. The role of these new executives is to monitor and influence what is being said about their companies on the internet.
Johnson & Johnson made its own appointment in the wake of the Motrin debacle. Having already dabbled in social media, in December the company promoted Marc Monseau, a 10-year company veteran and former director of media relations, to director of social media. “My responsibility is to work with the corporate office and the individual companies to better interact online,” Mr Monseau says. “It underscores the fact that we realise this is an important audience and one that we need to develop relationships with.”
These new jobs represent a broad shift in media relations strategy at large companies. “Corporate communications has radically changed,” says Andy Sernovitz, chief executive of the Blog Council, an organisation for heads of social media at big companies. “It’s no longer just companies talking to the press, and customer service talking to customers. All these other people showed up in the middle. They may not be press and they may not be customers, but suddenly their collective voice is bigger than the traditional channels.”
The essence of social media is conversation. Rather than a one-way stream of information, where companies make announcements to the press and customers, social media enables a great deal of interaction, where companies are in constant dialogue with the public. “We’ve seen a shift from doing things the old way to now having conversations with our customers,” says Jeanette Gibson, director of new media for Cisco Systems (pictured).
Ms Gibson, who began her job in 2007, says there is now a mandate at Cisco that all staff be attuned to what is being said about Cisco online. “It has definitely shifted how we’ve done communications,” she says. “Our executives are video blogging every day. Everybody’s job is now social media.”
Dell, the computer maker, has one of the most robust corporate social media programmes. Bob Pearson, former senior vice-president of corporate communications, became vice-president of communities and conversation for Dell in 2007.
He now has 45 people working for him. The core team works on “blog resolution” — trawling the web for dissatisfied customers, then attempting to contact them to make amends. Others on Dell’s social media team manage the company’s 80 Twitter accounts and 20 Facebook pages. Still others manage IdeaStorm, Dell’s forum for customer feedback.
Dell is taking its customer feedback seriously. When the company launched the Latitude laptop last summer, six of the features, including backlit keyboard and fingerprint reader, were ideas that came from IdeaStorm. “It’s always worth talking directly with your customers. It’s always worth listening to them,” says Mr Pearson. “It’s the wisdom of crowds.”
Peter Shankman, a social media expert and founder of Help a Reporter Out, a service that broadcasts reporters’ requests to a network of experts, says many companies are still reluctant to get involved: “Companies are slow to adapt because they’re still not 100 per cent sure they can make money with social media,” he says.
Yet Dell, for one, has made a business of it. By broadcasting discount alerts on Twitter, it says, it has generated more than $1m in sales. And in the US, 59 of the 100 leading retailers, including Best Buy and Wal-Mart, now have a fan page on Facebook, according to Rosetta, an interactive marketing agency.
Other savings can be realised through the Web’s ability to reach many people at once. “If you solve someone’s problem on the phone, nobody knows,” says Mr Sernovitz. “If you solve that same problem in writing on a blog, it costs you no more, but thousands of people are satisfied. And then, if 100 people never call because they found the answer, you very, very quickly get to multimillion-dollar savings.”
Other companies are using Twitter to douse public relations fires before they erupt. Scott Monty, head of social media for Ford Motors, used Twitter to appease users who were angry after the carmaker sued an enthusiast website that was selling unauthorised Ford merchandise. When fans of the enthusiast site posted angry messages, Mr Monty “tweeted back” to explain the company’s position.
Bonin Bough, who was appointed director of social media for PepsiCo last year, also used Twitter to defuse a brewing crisis after the company released a series of advertisements depicting a cartoon calorie character committing suicide.
“Social media is much more than getting out there and having conversations,” says Mr Pearson of Dell. “It transforms a business if you use it correctly.”

Twitter PR from the Financial Times

Chris Abraham — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 16:42:22 +0000

My buddy David Gelles is now a Technology reporter and blogger for the Financial Times and I was so happy to see David writing about Twitter PR, something very dear to my heart, Companies use Twitter to pack PR punch, including Scott Monty of Ford as well as the gang from PepsiCo’s Pepsi Max controversy:

Companies use Twitter to pack PR punch
By David Gelles in San Francisco
Published: December 30 2008 19:16 | Last updated: December 30 2008 19:16
Twitter, a booming micro-blogging service, is inspiring business to manage its message in 140 characters or less.
Its streams of short text messages, publicly broadcast over the web, are being treated as the new frontline of internet conversation. Companies including Ford and PepsiCo have been dousing public relations fires with pithy communication bursts to the Twitter community.
“There’s a rapid-fire element to Twitter that causes conversations to go viral when something bad happens with a company,” says Jackie Huba, co-founder of the Society for Word of Mouth, an organisation that monitors social media. “Companies that have a Twitter account are prepared. If something goes wrong they can respond.”
PepsiCo turned to Twitter this month after users began posting criticisms of a Pepsi Max advertisement, which depicted a cartoon calorie committing suicide.
Huw Gilbert, communications manager for PepsiCo International, “tweeted”, or posted a public message, in reply. “Huw from Pepsi here,” he wrote. “We agree this creative is totally inappropriate; we apologise and please know it won’t run again.”
Critics saw Mr Gilbert’s post, with one “tweeting” back: “Thank you?.?.?.?for having the guts to get on Twitter on behalf of Pepsi and give us an update on the suicide ad.”
Such personal interaction from a company representative helps defuse a crisis, says Ms Huba. “People like feeling like they’re being heard,” she says.
Scott Monty, head of social media for Ford Motors, used Twitter to deflect criticism away from the carmaker after it filed suit against an enthusiast website that was selling unauthorised Ford decals. Fans of the site posted angry messages but Mr Monty used Twitter to explain the company’s position.
“Part of my job is to humanise the company – you want to interact,” Mr Monty says.
Starbucks, Comcast, JetBlue and Home Depot are among companies using Twitter accounts to promote products and provide customer service.
Bob Pearson, head of communities and conversation for Dell, said his company had generated $1m in computer-related sales through alerts posted to Twitter.
San Francisco-based Twitter is also becoming a platform for a range of media and social networking start-ups using its tools to develop communities and content rapidly, and at low cost.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008

Road Trip Driving Gelles to En Why See (NYC)

Chris Abraham — Wed, 30 May 2007 15:33:42 +0000

I am sitting next to Mr. David Gelles of Blog Vivant fame as he pilots my 530i up I-95 on our way towards moving him to the East Village for the summer. He is going to be a summer intern at Forbes, a pretty sweet gig. We’re listening to old Springsteen on route to the New Jersey Turn Pike. I am moblogging from my T40 laptop thanks to a T-Mobile data PC card via slowass GPRS. Mildly frustrating.

A diary of moving from 1,000 CDs to 1 HD and memories from every album

Chris Abraham — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 11:56:50 +0000

My buddy David is going to journal the experience of ripping over a 1000 of the CDs that journal his life in music, and he’ll talk about technique, gear, solutions, and memories, “Along the way, I’m going to keep a running tally of the discs I import, and occasionally wax philosophical on a particularly meaningful import.” He is just setting up now. read more or digg story

David Gelles Reports from Turkey for Berkeley J-School

Chris Abraham — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 09:31:58 +0000

I have been a bad best friend. David Gelles has been reporting his heart out from Turkey since March 22 and I haven’t mentioned a thing. Well, first, go read his missives, compiled into Reporting: Turkey 2007.

The Armenian Issue
by David Gelles
March 30, 2007. Izmir, Turkey
A Planned House Vote on the Armenian Massacre is Angering Turks, the Times is reporting.
In chats with Turks young and old, secular and religious over the last week, I’ve heard two main arguments as to why Turkey should not acknowledge any “genocide” against the Armenians in the years around 1915.
1) Turkey didn’t exist in 1915. Those were the last days of the Ottoman Empire, and with the founding of modern Turkey, the people
2) The killings that did happen occurred in a region engulfed in World War I. War is hell, people die, and while Turks may have won the battles, they were not spared on the battlefields.
The Times sums most of this up rather succinctly: “Turkey vehemently denies the genocide, in which 1.5 million Armenians died during a period of several years, beginning in 1915. It contends that the deaths occurred in the chaos of war, as the Ottoman Empire was falling apart, and that many Turks were also killed when Armenians sided with Russian forces in the hope of claiming territory in eastern Turkey.”
European politicians say that Turkey’s acknowledgement of a genocide would ease their entry into the European Union, but Turks balk a what they see as a double standard. Other E.U. members, such as Bulgaria, have been allowed entry to the Union without repenting past sins. To Turks, this is yet another example of a subtle but systematized campaign of prejudice against Turkey and efforts at “Europeanization.”
Lax Taxes
by David Gelles
March 30. 2007. Izmir, Turkey
Finish a meal in Turkey and they bring you the bill. Pay the bill, and they bring you change, but no receipt.
This little detail is telling of an endemic problem affecting all of Turkey’s economy: Most Turkish businesses, and individuals, don’t pay their taxes.
Tax evasion “reduces the overall growth potential of the Turkish economy” because unregistered companies cannot apply for loans, the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said in an October report. Fewer than 50% of small businesses pay regular taxes. Only 4% of Turkey’s 71.8 million people were registered taxpayers in 2004, according to an OECD survey.
The easiest way to cut corners for a business is with receipts. They can have a bustling night of business, but if the till only shows a few customers, who are the auditors to know any better. And if there is a fuss, a little baksheesh usually gets the job done here. “Corruption is this country’s biggest problem,” said a prominent businessman friend of mine.
I’ve asked for receipts time and time again, for dinners, taxis, and snacks along the way. Time and again, I get a dismayed look, the nod of a head, and in broken English, “Not available.”
My expense reporting is going to be a mess.
Puff Puff
by David Gelles
March 29, 2007. Izmir, Turkey
Cigarette smoke has been mentioned in almost every one of my narrative entries since I’ve arrived in Turkey.
With good reason. A World Bank Report found that nearly 50 percent of the Turkish population are smokers.
It shows. And smells.
Everywhere in this country, from government offices to white-tablecloth restaurants, to clothing stores and museums, the population is puff, puff, puffing away. I haven’t had a toke, and my entire wardrobe reeks from second-hand smoke.
Here on the non-smoking floor of the Izmir Hilton, as I write, the scent of smokers from the floor below me is seeping up through the carpeted floor.
Now, I’m not a smoker, and I have a pretty high tolerance for cigarettes. I don’t really mind them around me, and have learned, in the last week, to tolerate eating a meal while my companions take drags. But I have to admit, it’s getting old. I’m locked alone inside my room, on a non-smoking floor of a fantastic hotel, and my whole world smells like an ashtray.
Hotel Bombing in Turkey Not Actually a Bombing
by David Gelles
Turns out the “bombing” earlier today was not a bombing, but an accidental explosion.
Gas Tank Blast at Turkish Hotel Kills 1
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: March 29, 2007
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — A liquefied petroleum gas tank exploded at a five-star Mediterranean hotel on Thursday, killing one person and injuring 10 others, including five tourists, private Dogan news agency reported.
Read the rest of this entry »
Is Turkey European?
by David Gelles
March 28. 2007. Izmir, Turkey
A five hour bus ride this afternoon took me to the edge of Eurasia, from inland Bursa to seaside Izmir. The ride was smooth and speedy, and our coach was modern, fitted with TVs, personal headsets, and a waiter serving complimentary Coke and cookies. Looking out the window, I saw the occasional peasant, whipping a mongrel donkey that pulled a rickety wooden cart.
Cresting a hill and descending into Izmir shortly before dusk, the sun hung low in the sky, bobbing in a smoggy haze so think you could almost look directly into the light. Giant concrete factories spewed noxious smoke from their towers, and Turkey’s third-largest city is bordered by endless miles of shantytowns. From the greyish jumble of unplanned sprawl, the domes and minarets of mosques sprouted like mushrooms.
Every day I’m here I ask myself if Turkey is Europea, Middle Eastern, or what? There’s no easy answer, of course, but as Turkey pushes for membership in the European Union, country and world are desperate for some sort of clarification.
When I see the diesel-choked streets, the anarchic traffic, the crumbling slums and the proliferate trash, I am reminded more of Bombay than Brussels. But amid all this, the modern Turks I’ve met dress in Armani suits, eat grilled chicken salad for lunch, and drive Porche Cayannes.
Perhaps a people can modernize faster than the country they live in. But if it’s merely a matter of modernization, what makes a Turk a Turk?
The impossibility of succinctly answering this question and all those that come after it is the reason I am here, the reason Turkey is one of the most fascinating countries on the planet.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Barack Hussein Obama
by David Gelles
March 27. 2007. Bursa, Turkey
A fundamental anxiiety simmers just below the surface of every Turk I’ve met in the last six days, and it seems tied to one very complex issue – namely, the upcoming national elections (presidential in May, parliamentary in November), and the uncertainty as to whether Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, leader of the Justice and Development Party, will run for the presidency.
Erdogan’s party(known as the AKP)is the moderate Islamist party making waves in this decidedly secular state that just happens to be 99 percent Muslim. Erdogan himself is a moderate, and as mayor of Istanbul did not infringe on thecity’s debaucherous ways. He supports E.U. membership, and has been careful not to give his critics much to work with. Indeed, he hasn’t even announced that he is running for president. (Though he is expected to run, and probably win.) Still, his wife wears a headscarf, and there is concern that his election could usher in a divisive and potentially regressive era for national politics.
The headscarf issue here cuts to the root of Turky’s identity crisis. In keeping with Ataturk’s vision, headscarves are currently prohibited in government buildings such as universities, and, importantly, the presidential residence.
Critics are looking ahead to a steep slippery slope. They figure that conservative Islamists will argue that if the first lady can wear a headscarf in the presidential residence, women should be allowed to wear them anywhere.
I’m not going to capture all the nuance and profundity of the headscarf issue in this post, but suffice it to say that it is paramount in the national discussion. (See Orhan Pamuk’s Snow for a beautiful literary look it.)
But headscarves are merely the silky embodiment of this country’s split personality. They have been politicized to represent the tacit religious opposition to the secular principles on which modern Turkey is founded.
And it is this tacit, murky opposition that many modern Turks fear the AKP and Erdogan represent.
Though the issues are different, my friend Cenol provided a useful analysis as I tried to understand the national anxiety. ???It’s like in America, where people wonder if the country is ready to elect Barakc Obama, a black president,??? he said.
Again, it’s an entirely different set of circumstances, but Cenol’s observation was a helpful one – It’s about a democracy’s strength and a people’s self-confidence.
Has America confronted it’s demons? Are we ready to be led by a man who vaguely resembles the Africans we recently enslaved? And has Turkey outgrown its revolutionary adolescence? Is it ready to be led by a man who vaguelyresembles the Islamists the country has divorced itself from?
Each one, Obama and Erdogan, may prove to be the most qualified candidate, and it will be interesting to watch each political drama play its course.
As for Cenol, who is 25, secular, and as modern as Turks come, he said he would support Erdogan. ???If they do their job, I don’t care about their political party,??? he said. ???We need to locate the institutional wisdom and let it do its work.???
by David Gelles
27 March 2007. Bursa, Turkey
Bursans are a proud lot. They are proud of their city’s hiistorical imporatance as the first capital of the Ottoman Empire, proud of their textile and automotive industry, and proud of their kebab.
Iskender Kebab, Bursa’s specialty, is a savory mess consumed sometimes twice daily by the city’s hungry populace. The dish calls for pieces of pita sliced and marinated in tomato sauce, covered in thin slices of specially spiced kebab meat, drenched in yogurt and sered with slices of tomato and mouth-scalding peppers.
It is typical mountain food: meat and starch, good for developing a quilty layer of fat to keep the body warm.
But Bursans take it one step further. No sooner had my heaping plate of Iskender Kebab been placed under my nose this afternoon, than my waiter, with his other hand, produced a scalding copper pot of perfectly browned butter, which he tipped over my plate, drenching the dish in a fresh coat of fat. As it splashed over the meat and yogurt, it seemed to chemically react, releasing a fresh burst of delicious scents that were sucked directly into my nasal passage.
???Turkish food is very suitable for putting on weight,??? said Cenol, a portly blue-eyed Turkish friend who was with me. ???I think everyone who visits our country goes home with extra weight.???
He’s probably right. I ate it all and washed it down with a sugary cup of Turkish coffee.
In Praise of Second Impressions
by David Gelles
March 26.2007. Bursa, Turkey
A bit groggy from after a night of celebrating the country’s spectacular rout of the Greek team in Athens, I made my way slowly on Sunday morning, first to breakfast, where I drank a gallon of coffee while watching the Bosphorus come to life, full of barges and tankers and fishing vessels, and then to the ferry dock, where I boarded an enormous boat bound for Yalova.
(A short nod to Turkey’s impressive network of public ferries: Around Istanbul, they are indispensable. They transport hundreds of thousands of the city’s 15 million residents from this shore to that, and they connect the metropolis to smaller ports along the Marmara Sea. And they are cheap. A thirty minute ride from the European to the Asian side of Istanbul costs about a dollar, and my +1 hour ride across the sea was under ten dollars. They are clean, fast and fun.)
Onboard, TVs replayed the highlights from last night’s game. I watched for a moment, but took the opportunity to doze as the ferry zoomed across the sea. A few babies screamed as the engine roared, and a few cosmopolitan twentysomethings wearing US Navy uniforms from the 1940s served cokes and sandwiches to the commuters.
Disembarking at Yalova, I hopped on a public bus that snaked gradually into the Asian piedmont. The hills were yellowish, and the occassional town on the side of the road seemed centered around the odd lime quarry.
Arriving in Bursa, I was agitated. The weather here has been muggy, I was leaving the comfort of my friends in Istanbul, and great quantities of booze were seeping out my pores.
I had an interview in the evening, in Badelim, ???The Beverly Hills of Bursa.??? My host was Neslihan Dostoglu, a professor of architecture at nearby Uludag University. She lives in a modern suburban home, quite unlike most Turkish dwellings. An open living room – dining room area was decorated with modern prints. Outside, a manicured grassy lawn was home to a white Siberian Husky.
???This kind of a house, with a big garden, is a recent development in Turkey,??? Neslihan said. So is the middle class wealth and education that makes this kind of a house possible.
Neslihan did her doctorate of architecture at U. Penn in the 1980s, where she worked with the papers of Louis Kahn. ???It was so exciting,??? she said of her work with the Kahn archives. ???I was the first person to open all these boxes that came from the Kahn office. I found some unknown charcoal drawings of his, one of the downtown Philadelphia master plan. I was already in love with Kahn before I went to Philadelphia, and it changed my life.???
We chatted for two hours on her back porch. As dusk settled and a chill pierced the air, the evening call to prayer echoed across the perfectly manicured lawn, which was somehow surreal to me. I thought I was going to have dinner with Neslihan, but that didn,t pan out, and while it was a productive interview, it didn’t leave me in a great mood. I was hoping for some company in this new city, and was also hungry when I got back to the hotel. At almost 10pm I shuffled to a restaurant across the street for some Iskender Kebab, Bursa’s famous dish, a greasy milleu of meat, yogurt and bread. Outside, the city was dark and dirty. The mountain loomed in the distance, funneling cold air into the streets and through the windows.
Though I passed out early, I had trouble sleeping. At about 2:30am I woke and worked for a couple hours before nodding off again. Around 4am, the morning call to prayer jarred me awake. The piercing drone was booming from a nearby minaret, one of hundreds that rise above this hillside city of almost 2 million. Now, I have Muslim friends, appreciate much of the Koran, and can enjoy the sound of Arabic, but something about this sound chilled me to my core. It sounded ominous and ghastly, made my skin crawl. Call me an infidel, but something about a religious man of any creed waking me up from a wet dream when I’m desperate for sleep just doesn’t sit well with me.
This morning I began interviews, and the day quickly turned around. My first contact, Lamia Avsar, was joyous and sharp-witted, and after chatting about Bursa’s infrastructure and touring the new light rail system, we strolled through the Bursa’s historic market district. The sun was out, the air had warmed, and at lunch we ate Turkish meatballs while overlooking a bustling square and discussing Bursa’s rich history as the first capital of the Ottoman Empire.
In the afternoon I met with silk merchants, who continue the city’s other great claim to historic fame (Bursa was the westernmost link on the Silk road), and toured a nearby Renault dealership run by a young brother and sister team educated in Boston (Bursa is the center of Turkey’s auto industry).
After a short involuntary nap I rejoined Lamia for a lengthy dinner of mezze, fish and raki. In a cloud of cigar smoke eminating from a nearby table of businessmen, I bonded with this 54-year-old single Turkish mother. We discussed scientific history, American politics, astronomy and Joseph Campbell. Lamia possesses a voracious curiosity and is a keen judge of character. Over tea, she offered up a frighteningly accurate analysis of my character, my parents’ characters, and my relationships with them, based on the theory of birth order, which I was only vaguely familiar with. Lamia was an expert, and I teased her that she was a gypsy fortune teller. ???Everyone says that,??? she said.
Walking home in the dark, I saw Bursa in a different light. I knew more about the city, and more about its children. It is not Istanbul, and in many ways, not a great place for tourists. There is grime and sprawl, and the gems are burried, not so easy to spot. But I’m coming to believe that in many important ways, the neighborhoods and industry of Bursa are in fact more representative of Turkey than the glitz and glamour of Istanbul. This is a country in its modern adolescence, growing quickly and trying to understand itself. Here, in Bursa, this drama is played out on a human scale — the family-run car dealership, the silk merchant who in recent years has lost business share to China, the newly yuppified architecture professor, the young single man fresh from military service who struggles to keep a job. Each face represents a different aspect of Turkey’s complex identity, and this evening, in the shadow of Mt. Uludag and the birthplace of the Ottoman Empire, I’m feeling grateful to know the many personalities that make Bursa whole.
Gol! Gol! Gol! Gol!
by David Gelles
24 March 2007, 21:30
Istanbul — In Europe, some wars are fought not with tanks and guns, but with one round ball and 11 players to a side. Greece and Turkey have fought plenty of wars, real and imagined, literal and metaphorical. The latest battle is tonight, when Greece hosts Turkey in Athens, on the eve of Greece’s national Independence day — the celebration of their 1829 freedom from the Ottoman Empire, a.k.a., the Turks.
Some additional context: “Greece is the European champion, and they became arrogant,” says Melis, my Turkish friend. “Turkey hasn’t been doing so well. So this can be our revenge.”
The game begins at 21:30, as Melis and I are finishing a fish dinner at a restuarant beneath the Galata bridge, which connects the Golden Horn and the new city. Fifty Turkish men have crowded around a big screen TV in the corner of the restaurant, and plumes of cigarette smoke are filling the room.
Through the screen, we sense the electric atmosphere in Athens. The Greeks in the audience are painted blue and white, the capacity crowd is on their feet. Greece is in white, Turkey in red, and they begin darting across the green field. The ball looks golden under the stadium lights. The symbolism is lost on no one.
Minute 5: Greece takes an early lead. “A corner by Kostas Katsouranis was cleared by the Turks, but the Greek midfield were quick to pick up the ball and play it into the path of defender Sotirios Kyrgiakos, who banged his shot home from close range.” Greece 1. Turkey 0.
There are no theatrics in the room. Just some sighs and discontented murmurs. More cigarettes get lit. Soon, a fistfight erupts outside the restaurant. It is broken up quickly, but not before punches are landed. The atmosphere is unpleasant.
Melis and I continue drinking, and, Jodi, a British television journalist friend joinsus, fresh from the south of the country, where she was in a small riot. A colleauge of hers was hit with a thrown stone during the melee, and has swelling on the back of his head. Looking at the screen, Jodi says, “If we score, the whole city with shake.”
“An earthquake was reported in Istanbul,” I quip.
Minute 27: Meanwhile, the game continues. Turkey is pressing, but to no avail. Then, “A free-kick from his own half by Tumer made its way to Sabri on the right. His neat cross was too good for the Greek defence and Tuncay did well to hit a powerful right-foot shot beyond Antonis Nikopolidis from 12 yards.”
Gol!!!! The room erupts. Cheering. Drinks are spilled. Men embrace. People are jumping. The room is shaking. It does feel like an earthquake.
Tied 1-1 at the half, and we catch a taxi to Istiklal Avenue, which is relatively empty for a Saturday night. “The whole country is watching the game,” Melis says.
During halftime, we take a taxi to Balan Brau, Turkey’s second microbrewery. The game is being projected on a screen large enough for a movie theatre. Hundreds are watching here. Hundreds outside. Millions around the country.
Minute 55: “Tuncay headed narrowly over, before Gokhan fired them ahead with a powerful 20-yard strike.”
Gol! Another earthquake. The crowd sings together. We raise our mugs and beer spills onto my wrist. Turkey leads 2-1.
Up by one, but the crowd is still nervous. “The Turkish team is famous for getting lousy in the last 10 minutes,” Melis says. There are some close calls. Greece is pressing hard. One shot bounces off the left bar of the Turkish goal. Another header just clears the top of the net.
Minute 70: “Tumer’s low strike from the edge of the penalty area nestling into the right-hand corner, giving Nikopolidis no chance.”
It is pure grace. The Turkish players are manouvering the ball perfectly. Cunning footwork and anticipatory teamwork. More celebrating. More beers. More cheers. Turkey leads 3-1.
Minute 82: “Substitute Karadeniz grabbed a fourth immediately after coming on, pushing the ball home from close range.” Turkey is rout?ng the Greeks. F?nal score 4-1, Turkey.
The crowd now accepts the victory. Men and women dance together. The untainted joy is palpable. “Now the party begins,” Melis says. We walk outside, down Istiklal. We pass the Greek consulate, where a dozen Turkish police are guarding the door in riot gear.
“It’s different when you beat Greece instead of Germany or Belgium,” Melis says. “It’s been awhile since the country had such success.”
Coverage quotes from Sporting Life.
A Walk with a Turkish Judge
by David Gelles
24 March 2007
In the afternoon, in the shade of a sprawling maple tree in Sultanahmet, I meet my friend Mustafa Okyay for a glass of tea. He arrives with a surprise — his father, Turgut — who has unexpectedly dropped in from Ankara for a visit. Mustafa is compact with a round face, and wears short dark hair. His father, by contrast, is taller than me, long faced with wispy grey hair. He is wearing a tie, even though it is Saturday, and a Turkish flag pin pierces the lapel of his tweed jacket, as if her were a politician.
Turns out, he sort of is. Turgut Okyay for years was chief judge of Turkey’s criminal courts. He has rubbed elbows with Turkey’s presidents and PMs, and in his later years of service became the face of Turkish justice to the world. In 1999, Judge Okyay presided over the case of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, sentencing him to death.
For those unfamiliar, the PKK is the Kurdish separatists’ movement in Turkey. Fighting between the party and Turkey has claimed upwards of 30,000 lives over the years, and Ocalan was long notorious for leading the fight. Despite his death sentence, he is alive today — Turkey abolished the death penalty in 2002, and Ocalan’s sentence was converted to life in prison. There are reports he has been tortured behind bars.
And though the trial was eight years ago now, it is evidently still fresh in the minds of many Turks. As I walk around Sultanahmet and the Grand Bazaar with Judge Okyay and Mustafa, strangers approach, asking to shake the Judge’s hand, thanking him for his service to the country, and getting his autograph.
Retired now, Judge Okyay politely obliges. By his mannerisms, I can tell this is an everyday occurance for him, perhaps even more so in the capital of Ankara. The Judge does not say much though. He has not been to the Grand Bazaar in 40 years, since he did his military service in Istanbul when he was a young man, about my age. So, after he shakes a strangers hand, he moves on to the next stall in the bazaar, eyes wide, almost boyish, marvelling at the incalculable volume of colorful merchandise.
A Turkish Newsroom, An American Editor
by David Gelles
10am. Friday, March 23, 2007
Before I left, several seasoned international reporters, including Sany Tolan of NPR and Andreas Kluth of the Economist, all suggested that upon landing, I find the English-speaking media and get the low down. Reporters, I’ve found, are generally more collegial than competitive, especially when not jockeying for the same column space. With this in mind, I traced down Melis Senerdem, a J-School alum now working at Referans, a Turkish language business weekly. By happy coincidence, Referans shares a floor of the Hurriyet Media Tower with The Turkish Daily News, the country’s main English-language daily.
The tower is deep into anonymous Istanbul. I caught the company bus there, and during the nearly 40 minute ride, I for the first time grasped that this is indeed a city of 13 million people. There is no open space. There are no single family homes. It is just mile after mile after mile of apartment building, industry, and commerce. The rain continued, and I can not say it was a terribly pleasant sight.
But a newsroom is a newsroom, no matter the country. The 13th floor of the Tower was busy as a beehive, reporters pecking at keyboards and chirping on the phones. It was a young staff, reflecting Turkey’s extraordinary demographics, and they were extraordinarily helpful with my stories. The leads they provided will percolate in the coming week or so, but now, I share my conversation with David Judson, the American ex-pat editor of the Turkish Daily News.
I spoke with Judson in his corner office at the Hurriyet Media Tower.
“The mission of the paper is to complete the Turkish story,” he said. “Our competition isn’t Today’s Zaman, it’s the foreign media. Turkey actually has a fairly large media presence abroad, but there’s only five stories that get written: the Kurdish seperatists, the Armenian genocide, the honor killings, the “east is east” and “west is west” with a colorful lede at the Spice Bazaar, and the EU issue.”
I might have added Turkey’s recent decision to block YouTube, and the slaying of Hrant Dink, a newspaper editor, but what ever.
Judson continued: “Turkey is much more complex than this, but foreign journalists have a difficult time understanding this. Even in this newsroom, there are so many stories. We have Armenian reporters, Greek, Italian, Australian and American reporters. We have a Muslim Armenian reporter–that’s almost an oxymoron. Izmir and Istanbul have bureau chiefs who are Kurds. This newspaper represents a paradigm that’s at odds with the Western perception of Turkey.”
At this point, the sports editor burst into the door. There was a crisis: Tomorrow Turkey and Greece would play a football, or soccer match, and it wad decided, before my eyes, that after 49 years of refering to the game of “soccer,” the TDN would begin calling it “football.”
“It’s part of a broader debate about whether we want to use American or British style,” Judson said. The move towards British style reflects the demographics of the ex-pat community in Istanbul — more English than American.
Judson then shared with me his own story. He’s a Californian to the roots, born in Tiburon and schooled in SLO-town. He first visited Turkey when he was a teenager, learned the language, and kept coming back. Stateside, he worked his way up the ladder at Gannet, landing at their Washington News Service during the late ’90s. “That burnt me out,” he said. “I had just had it with journalism. When the Monica Lewinsky thing happened, that’s all we covered for 8 months. Meanwhile, Rwanda had a genocide and the Asian economy collapsed, but all we cared about was did he fuck her and if so how hard.”
Judson quit Gannet, bounced around for six years, but through a string of circumstances, eventually wound up in the newsroom he now oversees.
“I thought I was done with journalism,” he said. “But it’s like smoking.” Judson took out a pack of Marlboro Lights, lit his third one since we began talking, and took a deep pull that left a long nub of ash. “I just can’t give it up.”
Thursday Night in Istanbul: Communists and Fish
by David Gelles
7:30pm March 22, 2007
Like New York, Istanbul is a city that becomes more alive as the night gets darker. When I leave the Hilton in the evening, the city is teeming. Youth are pouring onto the streets, merchants are just setting up shops, street performers beginning their shows. I meet Mustafa Okyay, my Turkish friend, in front of the French Consulate at Taksim Square. We embrace, and I meet his wife, who leaves almost immediately. As Mustafa and I walk down Istiklal (Independence) Avenue, I give him a Cal Berkeley baseball hat. He loves it, and will wear it during the walking tours he leads throughout the city.
Istiklal Avenue is one of the great social wonders of the world. A mile long and thirty meters wide, it is closed to traffic, and thronging with masses at any hour of the day. People come to shop at the hundreds of boutique shops. The come to smoke and play backgammon. Now, they come for Starbucks. The American coffee chain has “sprouted like mushrooms,” according to a Turkish friend of mine. People come to Istiklal to walk, to look, to laugh and court. Some come to pickpocket tourists. I estimate there were 100,000 people there on a Thursday night.
Mustafa and I duck into the Demir Cafe, a nondescript tea house off the main drag. Blue smoke hangs thick under fluorescent lights, and the crowd was mostly older men. The Demir Cafe, Mustafa explains, was one of the last hang-outs of the revolutionary Turkish hippies and communists who enjoyed a moment of hope in 1968. They are easy to pick out through the smoke, each, it seems, sport a long grey ponytail and a leather vest. “They still complain about the system,” Mustafa says, “but during the day many of them are lawyers. Their moment has passed, but they come here to reminisce.”
We walk back to the hotel briskly, weaving through the growing crowds. I have a date soon, and as I walk into the Hilton compound, Z, my friend and pen pal, pulls in to pick me up. In her Mercedes, she takes me to a fish house on the Bosphorus. At white table cloths, we eat delicious mezze–octopus, sea bass and calamari–and drink a bottle of raki. Z is delightful and complex, cynical and radiant, very smart. She orders part of an enormous frisbee shaped fish from the Black Sea. It comes grilled and accompanied by a green salad. The food is extraordinarily fresh here. Simple, not over-flavored, not over-salted. Just simple. Fresh.
In the restaurant with us, Z points out a group of what she calls Russian Mafia. In the corner, two Germans and two Turks are discussing a banking deal. People smoke while they eat. I am getting tired, and ocassionally stare out the window, looking at a mosque on the river basked in golden light.
On the drive back to Taksim, we pass the HSBC building that was bombed in 2003. It remains abandoned, its windows shattered. “There is a stigma about that place now,” Z tells me. She points to a mall 100 yards away from the building and tells me that when the bomb went off, all the windows in the shops shattered.
Also in the car, Z weighs in on time and space in Turkey. “There are no accurate numbers in Turkey,” she says. “As soon as you count it, it changes. Nothing is fixed.”
First Interview in Istanbul
by David Gelles
March 22, 4pm. Istanbul
My first appointment is at the Turkish American Business Association, a nonprofit that works to promote trade between the two countries. Even after the cab dropped me off on the right block, I have trouble finding the correct building, a shabby concrete behemoth along a busy commercial corridor. Outside, rush hour is especially loud because of the rain.
After entering three lobbies unsuccessfully, a doorman in the fourth nods me on when I said “TABA.” I take the elevator to the seventh floor, where I am met at the door by Ahu Unluata, a sprightly young woman in a black tank top. “Welcome, Mr. Gelles,” she says in typically perky Turkish English. Her hair has streaks of blond dyed into it and the skin of her shoulders are olive in color. I kick myself for not wearing my suit. Ahu introduces me to Nilgun Guresin, coordinator for TABA, who I had come to interview.
Ms. Guresin is short and intense, clad tight black leather pants and heavy make-up, a good look for a businesswoman in her fifties, if you ask me. We sit at her desk under bright fluorescent lights. On the wall, an enormous mural made of slik flowers depicts the Turkish and American flags waving together. Later, I will take her picture in front of this. An assistant brings some tea, and Ms. Guresin gives me the official schpeal about TABA–it was founded 20 years ago, it has 650 members, etc., etc.
Ms. Guresin speaks in quick, snappy sentences. When she finishes each, she sits back in her chair and folds her arms, looking at me expectantly, as if to say, “Did that satisfy you? What else do you want to know?” This comes naturally to her. For most of her career she did PR for multinationals like Goodyear, working in Canada, Holland and Germany. She says she returned to Istanbul because she was homesick.
I finally get her speaking, not reciting her pitch, when I ask about Turkey’s potential membership in the European Union, “a very hot issue,” she calls it. “We are hoping to get into the EU, so we are trying to adapt our laws to the EU standard. It’s an attitude thing. It’s an economic thing, too.It’s a young country, you can find lots of qualified workers.”
“You have to remember that Turkey has a certain image. This is a Muslim country and that can be a negative thing in an investor’s eye. There’s a log of stereotypes and prejudice. Investing is like tourism–until they come here, there are negative impressions. But when they get here, they see that Turkey is stable. It’s opening up. “We’re trying to change the image. We have symphonies and ballets here. It’s not only belly dancing, not only turkish delight.” Read the rest of this entry »
Into Istanbul
by David Gelles
March 21 — 22, 2007
I overslept by an hour. Scrambled to bathe and wake. Missed the bus I had planned to catch, but got the second one on time. The TransBay bus took me from Berkeley to downtown San Francisco, through a crisp and glorious California morning. Amid the morning bustle of the financial district, I boarded another bus to SFO. I was in a suit, and I had my suitcase. I was on my way to Istanbul. Looking out the window, I saw locals going to work, and in a meaningful way it struck me–I was also going to work. I’m a reporter now, and this week my work is in Istanbul.
In Chicago, all flights were delayed. Bad weather across the midwest. Thunderstorms boomed outside the terminal where I wolfed down Chinese food. Lightning flashed off the fuselages of idling jumbo jets. Some routes were canceled, but my flight was on time. The monitor, however, showed no gate. 5:45pm, and my 6 o’clock departure is still showing on time, and still no gate. Then, suddenly, “Now Boarding” flashes. Still no gate. I panic. I ask a guard where the gate is, and am informed that it is in a different terminal. I must exit security, take a tram, go through security again. I run. I run hard and fast, fantasizing about spending the night at a hotel in Chicago. Kicking myself. How had this happened. I knock people over, running like a linebacker who recovered a fumble, and arrive at the gate, literally as they are closing the door. I am the last one to board the plane. I am sweating, panting, embarrassed.
We sit on the runway, in the rain, for an hour, and finally take off. I speak with a gentle Turkish man, Yaser, sitting next to me. He lives in Denver, and is a tailor. He is returning to Mersin, in southern Turkey at the Syrian border, to visit his daughter. He recently had a hernia, and asked if I could change seats so that he might lay down. I move.
Before I fall asleep, I watch some in flight entertainment. Along with the women in headscarves all around me, I watch a Style channel segment about the many gowns Charlize Theron has worn on the red carpet. All are enraptured.
I wake up somewhere over the Atlantic. It is light and the ocean is below me. We are only an hour away from Istanbul. Read the rest of this entry »

New York Times Article Down and Dirty by David Gelles Most Emailed Story

Chris Abraham — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 19:54:14 +0000

David Gelles is a New York Times Reporter

Chris Abraham — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 07:18:51 +0000

David Gelles is a Lush

Chris Abraham — Wed, 01 Jun 2005 16:12:45 +0000

David Gelles may be a lush, but he has also become a mighty fine pool shark.

To quote him, his “final month of tabs at Zack’s: $275 . . . and that doesn’t count the buckets of quarters I poured into the pool tables and jukebox.”