When I realized that I could download the OPML file from the Power 150 site and then hack it around into a contact list of over 900 of the top advertising, marketing, PR, and SEO bloggers on the planet, I did so.

Ever since, I have been scheduling calls with all of the folks I have been admiring on a daily basis. Two days ago I spent an hour on the horn with Lee Hopkins, “one of Australia’s leading thinkers on communication strategy in an online environment,” who is, in fact, one of the World’s leading thinkers on communication strategy in an online environment.  We had a great chat — and amazing talk!

At the end, Lee asked me if he could blog the conversation and I jumped at the opportunity and late last night Lee published Is email marketing still relevant in a 2.0 world? which is not only the most complete description of what we at Abraham Harrison LLC do on a daily basis but it is said in a better, more comprehensive, way than I could even conceive of doing myself.  Here it is, in full.  Be sure to visit (and subscribe to) Better Communication Results, Lee Hopkin’s blog.

Is email marketing still relevant in a 2.0 world?

G’day – thanks for returning!

I just finished a fantastic conversation with Chris Abraham, the President and COO of AbrahamHarrison.

If you’ve been around the internet for a while, especially in the ‘marcoms’ (marketing communications) space, you would certainly have heard of Chris; if not of the man himself then certainly of one of his marketing and outreach programs.

Chris is one of those select few online marketers who’s text doesn’t read like a traditional online direct mail piece – you know, with LOTS OF CAPITALS and heaps of bold text and yellow highlighting and italics and

• bullet
• points
• a-
• plenty

and testimonials by the kazillion…

I could point you to a zillion of those sites – which is not to say that the style of marketing they use is not successful; it is, otherwise they wouldn’t keep doing it. But you know as soon as you see the huge, bold, bright red and often in CAPS headline what to expect for the rest of the (very) long toilet roll of a page.

Chris takes a much softer approach, always has done, and it seems to work for him and his style of copywriting.

Video, the radio star and plain ol’ bandwagon idjuts

With the advent of Web2.0/Social Media there were many ill-informed and just plain ‘bandwagon’ pundits who hailed the death of traditional communication tools such as email, web1.0 sites and – gasp – newspaper, magazine, radio and television.

Much as television didn’t kill radio as force it to rethink its place and find its niche, so too with Social Media. Every new technology platform or societal change brings with it a change in how all that came before it must view themselves and continue to offer relevancy.

Radio didn’t die, newspapers haven’t been killed off, I can still pick up plenty of magazines that appeal to all demographics and both genders from my local newsagent, and email hasn’t disappeared off the radar (if my bulging inbox every morning is anything to go by).

So it was fantastic to finally chat with someone who, like me, believes that email is STILL a fundamental part of the marketing toolkit.

In talking with Chris today, he was genuinely flattered that a fellow copywriter would find his material engaging; I thought it was brilliant reading and his deployment strategies for his clients brilliantly executed.

You see, Chris, like me, believes that email won’t go away, but WILL have to change in order to survive in the new communication landscape. Our shared view is that it will have to evolve in a couple of ways:

1. Shorter emails will be the best way of getting people’s attention
2. Long-form emails are best saved for newsletters; trying to ‘sell’ via email will become even harder to excel at.

If you’ve ever received one of Chris’ emails, you will be stunned by several things:

1. They are short – only 2-3 paragraphs
2. They link off to a SMNR (Social Media News Release) that gives a far more in-depth level of information (and all the material you might need to help you spread the word or get involved)
3. If you email Chris or anyone of his team back you WILL get a response, usually within 24 hours (Chris says they try to get back within the hour, but time zones can sometime defeat them)
4. The emails ‘read’ like they were written by a human being, not by a ‘PR’ flack or a ex-journalist hack; they aren’t full of ‘me, me, me’ stuff telling you how wonderful I (the company) am, but neither do they ‘strip-tease tantalise’ you so that when you do click on the link you end up feeling cheated
5. You get the very real feeling that there’s someone real at the end of the email.

Here’s an example (taken from my post about the Fresh Air Fund):

Hello again, Lee

On Sunday I asked if you would kindly help me spread the word about 200 inner-city children I have yet to place with host families in August. I apologize for following up so soon, but time is of the essence and you know how funny email can be. To make things simple, everything is collected into an online resource page http://freshair.smnr.us

This appeal comes straight from the top, so please do not hesitate to contact me directly.

Yours sincerely,

Sara

–
Sara Wilson
Fresh Air Fund
sara@freshair.org
www.freshair.org

Sara is a real person, not a ‘fake’ character. I sent her an email yesterday, wondering if her ears were burning, because Chris and I were talking about her:

G’day Sara,
Just finished the phone call with Chris — oh boy! Were your ears burning? They should have been!!!
Kindests,
Lee

From: Sara Wilson [mailto:swilson@chrisabraham.com]
Sent: Tuesday, 24 February 2009 2:02 AM
To: Lee@leehopkins.com
Subject: Re: Fellow Power 150 blogger

Hello Lee,
Just a quick note to re-confirm that Chris will be calling you at 10 am, your time, tomorrow (Tuesday).
No need to reply unless something has come up on your end, otherwise he will speak to you in about 7.5 hours!
Best,
Sara

In reply, Sara said,

Lee,
And I thought it was just hot where I was last night … 
It’s very kind of you to mention it, thanks.   Chris is a great guy to work for, and generous with compliments, but it’s always nice to know that someone appreciates you, isn’t it?
Cheers,
Sara

Controversy

Because Chris and his team start any campaign with an email-based blogger outreach, some of the ‘holier than thou’ social media purists occasionally give him ‘stick’, or snicker behind his back and call him a ‘spammer’. Not true – the team are very hot on ensuring only a good taste remains in the mouth of any blogger they contact, and of only offering bloggers something of actual value to the blogger.

Which is a behaviour totally unlike the hapless, clueless and insulting PR flacks who regularly show up on The Bad Pitch Blog and who attempt to fill my inbox with material about electronics, or sanitary napkins, or (ahem) extension kits, or pharmaceuticals shipped from Canada. Thank goodness I have SpamArrest to filter them out before they hit my inbox!

Chris and his team have painstakingly built up a list of nearly 35,000 bloggers across several different demographics and topic areas of interest. Visiting their blogs, they harvest their email address. They then politely email them once to offer them something of interest – if the blogger likes it, they very often blog about it; it they don’t then they don’t. What is fascinating is the response rate Chris gets for his clients.

Word of mouth and gossip-sharing amongst internet marketers has the average rate of sales of anything (be it a blog post or an ebook or a ‘course you cannot live without’) as around 0.01-0.05% from an initial mailing, with the follow-up mailings increasing that to, perhaps, 1.0-2.0%…

Chris and his team regularly get a takeup in the order of 5%, which is phenomenal. In addition, once you start developing an email relationship with anyone in their team (as I have with Sara Wilson) then all future mailings will receive much more attention than would otherwise be the case. A case in point is my own, later, post on the illegal cluster bombing being carried out in South Ossetia and The Survivor Corps run by activist and author of the very powerful book,  I Will Not Be Broken, Jerry White. It is only because Sara had taken the time to develop a relationship with me over previous months that I read and responded to the material from Jerry White. Without that relationship I would never have bothered with a topic outside of my normal areas of interest.

It is the classic ‘relationship marketing’ that Social Media Marketing pundits claim to aim for but rarely achieve.

Goodness, if I could have a dollar for every new ‘expert’ that’s popped up in the Social Media space I would retire a very rich trillionaire (and at the same time wondering how you could be a trillionaire and not be very rich – I guess if you were living in Zimbabwe you wouldn’t be…).

You wouldn’t believe the number of ‘leading social networking and social media marketing experts’ who have suddenly come out of the woodwork and set up communities in places like LinkedIn, Plaxo, Facebook, etc. Curiously, I’ve never heard of these folks before. Most of them don’t even have blogs, or if they do those blogs have only been around for less than a year. Curious, hey?

But Chris, on the other hand, has been around for a long time, has figured out what works and what doesn’t, and as evidence offers the following case studies:

• Energy Bill 2007 Case Study
• Financial Services Reputation Defense Case Study
• Firebrand TV Case Study
• Fresh Air Fund Case Study
• International Medical Corps Case Study
• Movie Producer Reputation Defense Case Study
• Snapple Antioxidant Water Case Study
• Survivor Corps Book Promotion Case Study

If you want to see the sort of posts that are associated with Chris’ kind of blogger PR pitch outreach, here are some examples:

• Thank You Operation Survivor Bloggers
• Thank You All Who Supported International Medical Corps!
• Thank You Again Survivor Corps Bloggers
• Thank You International Medical Corps Bloggers
• Thank You Fresh Air Fund Holiday Bloggers
• Thank You Fresh Air Fund Bloggers
• Thank You Fresh Air Fund Camp Counselor Bloggers!
• The Powerful SEO Benefits of Blogger PR Outreach
• Happy Thanksgiving from Abraham Harrison

Here are some examples of client SMNRs from Chris and his team that I especially like:

• http://anamigo.smnr.us
• http://freshair.smnr.us
• http://banclusterbombs.smnr.us
• http://freshairfundcounselors.smnr.us
• http://survivorcorps.smnr.us
• http://iwillnotbebroken.smnr.us
• http://internationalmedicalcorps.smnr.us

So what???

The whole point of this post is NOT to fawn at the feet of someone who clearly knows what he is doing.

The whole point IS to let you know that you don’t need to throw out your baby with the bathwater:

• Don’t jump on the Social Media bandwagon without educated advice
• Don’t take advice from a pimply 17 year old fresh out of high school
• Don’t take advice from a less-pimply 23 year old fresh out of university
• Don’t ditch all of your understanding of how ‘people’ and networks work
• Don’t take advice from someone who doesn’t even blog themselves, or Twitter, or Facebook… (see my post about Social Media Gurus)
• Don’t take advice from someone who has been blogging less than 24 months

Instead:

1. Download Todd Defren’s absolutely superb ‘Brink’ guide to Social Media and Richard Meyer’s great presentation, ‘Social Media : What you’re afraid to admit you didn’t know’ (he also has a great pharma and biotech-focused pdf presentation). Download and read Trevor Cook’s and my ‘Social Media Report’.
2. Talk to someone who actually knows what they are doing – in Australia that means folks like Stephen Collins, Laurel Papworth, Trevor Cook, Darren Rowse, Gavin Heaton and, humbly, yours truly. If WE can’t help you, we can certainly put you in touch with someone who can. Unlike the USA, where there seems to be a spirit of “You’ll prize my rolodex out of my frozen dead fingers!”, there is no fierce spirit of competition here in Australia – we have  ‘co-opertition’ wherein we all help each other out if the ‘fit’ seems better for the client.
3. Stick to reading the seasoned ‘pros’ of the online marketing and/or business communication space: you cannot go wrong if you start at folks like any of the above, or Shel Holtz, Neville Hobson, Chris Brogan, Darren Rowse, Mitch Joel, Joe Jaffe , Laura Fitton and Chris Abraham himself; see who they link to. Follow your nose from them – all the way along the path you will be reading ‘the good oil’ as we say here in Australia
4. Examine Chris’ examples above and see for yourself how simple but effective your online marketing can be if you do it with the right intention – of helping out the blogger, not flogging stuff for your client. Get the relationship right and you will flog stuff for your client anyway, trust me!

---

Technorati Tags: chris abraham, laura fitton, joe jaffe, mitch joel, darren rowse, chris brogan, neville hobson, shel holtz, gavin heaton, trevor cook, laurel papworth, stephen collins, richard meyer, todd defren, sara wilson, fresh air fund, chrisabraham, bad pitch blog, social media, blogger relations, social marketing, email marketing, email, spam, spam arrest, spamarrest, business communication

Currently listening to ‘Next’ by The Necks from the album ‘Next’. Superb jazz funk from one of Australia’s great cult bands.

My CEO, Mark Harrison, downloaded and installed a new 3D virtual world called Twinity, based in Berlin, that will recreate the world’s coolest cities, starting with Berlin.  Mark loves Berlin more than anything, so he tried exploring his #1 home from his #2 home, Mauritius, and here is his story, as reported in an email to his Berlin posse, I think I committed suicide in Twinity:

Mark Harrison – Mauritius – 22 February 2008, 14:05 — After over a week of trying – endless module and update loading, and countless crashes -  I finally got logged into Twinity.com, a 3D virtual world, a la Second Life, but set in renderings of real cities.  The first of these Twinity cities is Berlin, my favorite city in the world, and my summertime home (and apparently the best-mapped city in the world, as well as the home to Twinity’s headquarters).

I was incarnated as a completely physically average white guy in his late 30′s – quite accurate in many respects except for the color and quantity of hair, and the hue of my eyes.  The statistically average white guy, even in Germany – counter to stereotypes – has brown hair and brown eyes.  Average Guy Mark was dropped into existence at Hackischer Markt, which is a good place to come into the world, since it is essentially the center of the universe, if your universe consists of only Berlin, you are a wired hipster type, and you are a provincial just arrived in this big, big city and instantly lose your bearings if you can’t see the TV tower on Alexanderplatz.

I decided to walk home – to my apartment in Moabit – and take the path along the Spree river that I take on almost a daily basis in my real-life Berlin when I am there.  I walked over to Monbijou park (eventually figuring out how to run by holding down the shift key, which reduced my impatience a bit), bouncing off a few trees, but successfully oozing straight through a pissoir.  I walked over to the railing at the edge of the river, looked around, then took one more step.  To my surprise, I found can walk through railings just as effectively as I can walk through pissoirs.

I fell a couple meters and found myself standing knee-deep in the Spree – not very realistic at that point in the Spree, considering that it’s a major shipping channel, but convenient for me as an avatar in the river.  I could still walk.

I walked along the river a bit, thinking I could perhaps just walk all the way home in the river, maybe climbing up one of the stone staircases I knew should be coming up along the way, if Twinity’s mapping of Berlin is indeed that comprehensive.  After a few steps I came to what I assume was the end of the universe… a wall of beige halfway through Monbijou Park, cutting across the river, and t-ing into the riverside wall of the Boda Museum.  The end-of-the-universe wall was insurmountable, as was the vertical, stone wall bank of the river.  I didn’t really want to spend the rest of my virtual life knee-deep in a fetid central European river, so I hit the “map” button, assuming that there could well be a way to fly, or teleport or something like in Second Life.

This hubris clearly angered the gods.  I guess I should have accepted my humaness and walked back up the river looking for a ladder or something rather than thinking I might game the laws of the universe and escape the limitations of my corporal form.  My world was wiped from existence with a cold Windows dialog box announcing that Twinity was no longer responding to anything I might ask it to do.  Then Vista went looking for Answers as to the Reason for this caprice of the gods, and unfortunately came back, giving me only more questions.  Quite realistic, that part of Twinity.

A restart of the program, and a surprisingly quick login process later (considering logging in took me a week of trying and failing, then a good 10 minutes when it finally worked today), I was again granted a view of my Twinity existence.

I think I am dead.

I have only a setting sun in a golden sky, adorned with a few evening clouds and the pregnant belly of a pale, twilight three-quarter moon.  I have a 360 degree view of my heavens, and when I spin on my axis – my only remaining mobility in my gentle, but solitary, god-forsaken purgatory – the clouds tremble as if in silent horror at the eternity of loneliness I have been damned to by my unforgivable, cardinal sin of suicide (is self-murder through clumsiness officially suicide?  Anyone know a theologian?) in the murky virtual waters of my beloved Berlin.

Life is so short.  So meaningless.  So incomprehensible.

Mark Harrison
Born: February 22nd, 2009 18:52 Berlin, Germany
Died: February 22nd, 2009 19:04 Berlin, Germany
“Well, there’s always LinkedIn.”

Thanks to Wadds’ tech pr blog for hooking me up with this interesting article, Online PR basics in 30 minutes: DWPub white paper, featuring Daryl Wilcox’s free white paper,  Online PR in action:

Daryl Wilcox Publishing (DWPub) published an excellent 12-page white paper last week that is an excellent primer on digital PR for anyone in the PR industry. It’s free and is called: Online PR in action – an introduction to implementing and measuring a digital PR programme.

I’d go as far to say that it should be required reading for anyone that hasn’t yet explored the potential of audience and keyword planning, and PR-led content as a strategy for influencing SEO

On that last note, I would love to share The SEO Benefits of Blogger Outreach and Earned Online Media if you have not already seen it.

If you have not yet seen my deck about online PR and blogger outreach, please watch it below — also, feel free to check out my digital PR insights:

Cory Doctorow talks about the new law in the UK that makes in a crime to take a picture of a police officer or a building, Britain’s no-photographing-cops law: even the cops hate it — and the US isn’t very far behind, to be sure — and be sure to listen to the CBC article about this law in As It Happens (MP3):

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s radio show As it Happens did a great job covering the new British law that makes it a crime to take a picture of a police officer or a building, where that picture might be useful in “planning an act of terrorism.” First, they interviewed Peter Murray, Vice-President of the National Union of Journalists, who, predictably, worries that his members will find themselves with arrest-records as terrorists for violating the law. But then, they talked to Peter Smyth, Chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, who also thinks the law is ridiculous — and this is just stupendous. Smyth says that there’s no evidence that terrorists use photographs to plan attacks, admits that this is an invitation for scared officers to abuse the law, and says that it will needlessly create conflict with journalists and the public.

The program tried to locate someone — anyone — who supported the law, but no one was forthcoming.

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.

BL and I adore eachother so I was very excited to receive an email from her last night with a link to her latest article on Business Week, Using social media to market your business is a good idea. Just don’t plan on getting your whiz-kid nephew to do it for free — check it out and check BL out over on her blog, What’s Next Blog. Oh, and when BL asks “how many of them have actually created a successful campaign for clients using social media tools? I bet you’d be hard-pressed to find half a dozen with real track records,” I can proudly state that Abraham Harrison LLC has the expertise, the experience, and the track record to boot!  Anyway, here’s the article:

Debunking Six Social Media Myths

For companies, resistance to social media is futile. Millions of people are creating content for the social Web. Your competitors are already there. Your customers have been there for a long time. If your business isn’t putting itself out there, it ought to be.

But before you take the plunge, bear in mind the many myths that surround social media.

1. Social media is cheap, if not free. Yes, many of the tools that can be employed in social media marketing are free to use. These include Google’s (GOOG) video-sharing site YouTube, Yahoo’s (YHOO) photo-sharing site Flickr, the social-network building tool Ning, and content aggregators such as Digg and eBay’s (EBAY) StumbleUpon. Free blogging tools abound too; among them are WordPress, Twitter, and FriendFeed.

However, integrating these tools into a corporate marketing program requires skill, time, and money. The budget for an effective social media marketing campaign begins at $50,000 for two to three months. I’m sure companies have spent less, and I know they’ve spent more.

Building a site that incorporates interactivity, allows user-generated content, and perhaps also includes e-commerce doesn’t come cheap from anyone who knows what they are doing. Even taking free software like WordPress and making it function as an effective interactive site, incorporating e-commerce, creating style sheets that integrate with the company’s branding, takes more than time. That takes skill, experience, and money.

As a rule, a $50,000 to $100,000 budget can cover the creation of a simple multimedia microsite that becomes the center of an online community. Add in some widgets to help distribute the content and form a credible group on Flickr, Twitter, or Facebook and other networking groups to enhance the community aspect of the campaign. Complex functions add to programming and design costs.

A high-yield, highly targeted blog advertising campaign to kick off and support the program will cost an additional $25,000 to $100,000 a month. Advertising through Google’s AdWords, e-mail support, co-registration, and other tools that drive traffic would be additional costs.

2. Anyone can do it. A surfeit of whiz kids and more experienced marketers are claiming to be social media experts and even social media gurus. Search the bios of Robert Scoble’s 56,838 Twitter followers using Tweepsearch (www.tweepsearch.com), an index of the bios of Twitter users, and you’ll find:

• 4,273 Internet marketers
• 1,652 social media marketers
• 513 social media consultants
• 272 social media strategists
• 180 social media experts
• 98 social media gurus
• 58 Internet marketing gurus

How many of them have actually created a successful campaign for clients using social media tools? I bet you’d be hard-pressed to find half a dozen with real track records.

A successful social media campaign integrates social media into the many elements of marketing, including advertising, digital, and PR. Opinion and theory are no match for experience, and the best social media marketers now have more than 10 years of experience incorporating interactivity, blogs, forums, user-generated content, and contests into online marketing.

Video contests by companies hoping for viral buzz and Google juice are as plentiful as mosquitoes on a humid summer night. But, like their insect counterparts, most video contests suck.

It’s the rare video contest that gets as many as 2,000 entries. Many, like Denny’s (DENM) recent disastrous effort, get fewer than 10 entries. Apparently, 48 Denny’s breakfasts over four years wasn’t a big motivator.

3. You can make a big splash in a short time. Sure, sometimes a social media campaign can produce substantial and measurable results quickly.

Social media is great if you’re already a star, but that doesn’t happen overnight. Amid the recent launch of my T-shirt design business, Pawfun.com, I have relied heavily on my 4,000-plus Twitter followers and 120,000 readers of my What’s Next Blog, which I’ve updated as often as five times a day since 2003. Because that network already exists, with not one dollar spent on advertising, we were able to generate more traffic in our first three days than some major companies get after years online.

ZapposChief Executive Tony Hsieh, whose company has millions of customers who are evangelists for the great service that built the brand, quickly became a Twitter star, with more than 32,000 followers. When Dell (DELL), JetBlue Airways (JBLU), the Chicago Bulls, and other love-’em-or-hate-’em brands joined Twitter, they immediately developed huge followings.

Tweets can be used to drive traffic to articles, Web sites, contests, videos, and so on—if people already care about your brand, or if you have a truly original idea that people will want to share with their followers.

One recent example of a Twitter-generated success is Savvy Auntie, a community for aunts, godmothers, and “other women who love kids” that was launched six months ago by Melanie Notkin. She has counted on Twitter to drive traffic, help her find suppliers, products, and even investors. She developed a Twitter following before launching her business, then tapped into it for help when she launched.

4. You can do it all in-house. Wrong! You need strategy, contacts, tools, and experience—a combination not generally found in in-house teams, who often reinvent the wheel or use the wrong tools.

It is rare indeed to find an in-house team that can not only conceive and execute a social media campaign but also drive traffic to it with effective e-mail segmentation, search optimization, blogger outreach, blog advertising, Google ads, and more.

5. If you do something great, people will find it. Quite simply, that never was true. Until you can drive traffic to your social media effort, you’ve got a tree falling in the forest, heard only by those standing nearby. A great number of tools can drive traffic, including StumbleUpon, Digg, and Twitter, but nothing works better than word of mouse—one friend telling another, “Hey look at this!”

6. You can’t measure social media marketing results. You can use a variety of methods, including mentions on blogs and in media; comments on the content; real-time blog advertising results, and click-throughs to your company Web site. You can get very precise statistics from a variety of sites, including Google Trends, Twitter search, Google Analytics, BackType, and Compete.

The tools are there. The gurus who know how to use and interpret them—not so much.

Ochman, president of Whatsnextonline.com, has been creating new media marketing and online brand strategy since 1995 for companies including IBM, Ford, McGraw-Hill, Budget Car Rental, Stacksandstacks.com, and American Greetings. She tracks online marketing trends and campaigns in What’s Next Blog.

Here’s a smashing list from Lee Odden over on Online Marketing Blog, Best and Worst Practices Social Media Marketing:

• Start with a plan, not tactics.  Research and build a Social Media Roadmap involving:  Audience, Objectives, Strategy, Tactics, Tools/Technology and Metrics.

• “Give to get” – Successful social media marketing programs involve listening and participation. That participation centers around giving value before expecting anything in return. This is not “sales” as you know it. But companies can definitely increase sales as a result.

• Commit resources & time to be successful or you may very well fail. It’s important to forecast labor hours, who, what, when, how and where with the intention of succeeding, not just experimenting. If a social media effort is successful, scalability will be an even bigger issue if you don’t plan for it.  Hiring a community manager for example, may not be justified when a social media monitoring program is started or with a new company, but a job req and understanding of the role should be ready in case it’s called for.

• Be transparent with intentions & your identity or you may alienate the very audiences you’re trying to connect with.  Objectives, strategy and doing your homework about a community should make it pretty obvious what types of commercial messages are appropriate.  Being transparent about intentions might come in the form of stating a purpose:  ”Brand XYZ has created this Facebook page to help consumers make better choices about Topic XYZ”.  It’s fine if goals are to increase sales, but participation should be focused on providing the kind of value that facilitates sales – not attempting to make sales directly. When is the last time you purchased something other than a virtual cupcake on Facebook?

• Understand, you do not control the message.  Old habits die hard and there’s a tendency to want to treat social media participation like advertising where the ability to control messaging is the norm. Once information or media is available on the social web, people will inevitably mash it up, stretch it, pull it and reshape it according to their interests. Brands need to protect their identities, copyright and intellectual property for sure, but rather than “controlling the message” marketers should encourage the mashup and creativity.

• Welcome participation, feedback and co-creation. As comfort levels rise with social web participation, companies will see opportunties to encourage participation with communications, especially with brand evangelists. Developing relationships and community within social communities on the web can facilitate buy in, provide invaluable feedback and crowdsourcing opportunities.

• Metrics should roll up to objectives and objectives should be relevant to the channel.  More than a few companies see evidence of other social media efforts ranging from Superbowl commercials on YouTube to social participation during and after President Obama’s campaign, and “want that too”.  Direct marketing is the lens through which many social media efforts are first viewed, with a tendency to focus on action “A” resulting in “B” outcome. Social media marketing is more like public relations than direct marketing. It’s more like providing resource “A” results in “action “B” that influences outcome “C”. Metrics for success need to consider the pre-goal performance indicators like number of “friends”, comments, links, etc as well as commercial outcomes influenced by social media participation.

Check out his worst practices as well over at: Best and Worst Practices Social Media Marketing.

It is just the time of year when The Fresh Air Fund begins preparing for the summer full of summer camps filled with happy faces and lots and lots of kids from the cities who get to spend their summer vacation out of the city and in the country. It is also a very important time for finding and hiring camp counselors for the summer as well as locating, vetting, and securing host families as well. All of this information is collected on a little informational web site you can check out, but I will excerpt some of this below.

Fresh Air Fund Needs Counselors for Summer 2009!

You love working with children, and that’s probably what we like most about you. Running across the ball field, washing off the glitter glue, or swimming in the lake – with your cabin group laughing around you – you’ll be in your element.

Are you going to be the counselor the children learn to paint with? The one they play soccer with? The one they want to hang out with? Or perhaps the one they read a bed-time story with? Whatever your role becomes, you’ll thrive on the challenge and commit yourself to the cause.

You’ve got to be 18 or over by June 20th to apply, and you’ll usually have completed at least one year of college by the summer. Any previous work with children should always be included on your application.

The experience you’re about to apply for will be like no other, and it’s going to take patience, flexibility, creativity, and a whole lot of self-motivation. But the rewards will be great… overcoming challenges, meeting new friends, playing games in the sun, jumping into the cool lake, painting face masks, hitting a home run, telling stories around a camp fire…

…and then seeing that smile brighten a child’s face.

We’re looking for counselors and program staff for all five of our summer camps – but places fill fast, so get your application in today.

We are now accepting applications for the 2009 season.

What I think the fine people at Fresh Air Fund are looking for Camp Counselors right now, so if you’re interested in applying to become a Fresh Air Fund camp counselor, please apply here. And, if you are on the fence, be sure to check out the below video, see through the eyes of some Fresh Air Fund counselors:

One of my goals in life is to be on Boing Boing, so in many ways my dreams are coming true every day in so many ways in the form of getting a guest blog post on Boing Boing Gadgets about the ultimate gadget, my hand-made, bespoke, Randall Model 1 knife — many thanks to my buddy John Brownlee for inviting me over and for not only considering my knife a gadget but fancying it worthy of bbG:

Knife Porn: Four years waiting and one month with the Randall Model 1 Fighting Knife Posted by John Brownlee

Guest Review by Chris Abraham

After four years, I finally received my bespoke, hand-made, Randall Model 1 “All-Purpose Fighting Knife.” Unstead of tearing right into the box, I paused and filmed a nine-minute unboxing video and took some photos of the knife — knife porn.

There are two iconic fighting knives known the world over for their service in World War II. The British Sykes-Fairbairn dagger and the American style of fighting knife, inspired both by the Bowie and the American hunting knife. There was one knife, above all other, that I coveted… coveted not just because it was considered “the best” by all of the knife magazines I bought but also because it was associated with doing hard service during World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. That knife was the Randall Model #1.

Because I wanted a Randall that was as authentic to the knives that have served our military since WWII, I ordered the Randall with a carbon blade, since it predates stainless steel. There are some challenges associated with owning and using a carbon steel knife, be it in the kitchen or in the field.

First, they can — and do — rust. Since rust is normal with daily use out in the field, don’t freak out if it happens to you. A little sandpaper should do the trick if the rusting isn’t too bad.

Second, even if you spend the time and attention required to make sure your knife remains dry and sealed under a light coating of oil, there is still the issue of discoloration. Unlike stainless, carbon steel reacts with the things it touches. The acids and oils of the leather sheath could discolor the blade. Cutting meat will discolor the blade, too.

The instructions also suggest that cutting meat with the carbon blade results in discoloration, so you’re pretty much screwed unless you don’t use your Randall at all. Luckily, that’s not true. Go ahead and use it, if you’re not a strict collector — it was meant to be man-handled. Like I said above, all of the discoloration can be easily polished out of your knife. Working carbon knives always end up looking a little like they were made of silver because of the way silver tarnishes.

When I received the knife, the blade was coated with a light oil. The instructions recommend keeping the blade dry and lubricated with WD-40. After I posted the unboxing video on YouTube, someone commented that I should be really careful with the carbon steel blade and not store the knife in the leather scabbard but rather keep the blade (but not the handle) wrapped in an oil cloth.

And how does it feel? Perfectly-balanced. It’s right where it’s supposed to be: the shiny brass hilt rests the handle right on your forefinger, as it should.

There is an after-market for Randall knives if you’re unwilling to wait for 4-years for one like I did. I checked out A.G. Russell, a popular knife store, and I found the Randall Model 1 for $600. Instant gratification for Randalls generally starts at $600 for a brand new knife of someone else’s design, usually with a micarta or stag handle, and quickly tops out at thousands for a specialty, rare, or vintage knife. If you want a knife made by Bo Randall himself, it will cost: older Randall knives are worth five to fifteen times their value.

These are collectors knives, that’s for sure. If you explore the catalog, you’ll get a feel how extensively you can pimp your knife. I ordered mine plain vanilla “traditional” with the pressed-leather handle, 7″ blade, and Duralumin butt cap. Some options I could have requested were a longer or shorter blade in stainless steel. There’s an assortment of brass hilt shapes and sizes along with a myriad of handle types, including bone, tusk, horn, micarta (a mixture of layered linen and resin), or just about anything else that could be shoehorned onto the full tang.

I don’t know if I like the big and bulky sharpening stone pocket on the front of the sheath since I don’t plan on being far enough in the wilderness to not be able to come home to sharpen the knife. I did a little research and you can get just about anything you want from Randall, including getting the sheath without the stone pouch, although a replacement sheath from Randall costs almost two-hundred dollars, nearly the cost of the knife itself. If my Google searches are true, you can even get sheaths in other leathers and colors, including ostrich, alligator, and zebra. All I need to know is the length of the blade, which is a very standard and popular 7″ (8″ is also very popular).

The man behind Randall Made Knives, W.D. Bo Randall, started making hand-forged knives as a hobby back in 1937 and started selling them in the years leading up to World War II. A reporter wrote a story about Bo during the early years of the war and there was so much demand for his fighting knife, now known as the Model 1, that Bo became a full-time knife-maker. According the website, Bo Randall hand-crafted each knife no matter how much demand or the temptation to mass-produce. Throughout WWII, the knives became legendary. Ronald Reagan carried a Randall Model 1 knife.

And, if you ever have a chance to buy a used Randall on the cheap, don’t reject a knife just because it’s rusted or the sheath is rotted. Some oil, a fine grit emery cloth or steel wool, a little polish, and you’re good to go. These knives were made for duty so there isn’t a lot you can do to “kill” the knife. And, if the knife looks a little far gone, don’t worry, you can probably find a knife-maker in your area who can fix it up by reshaping the blade and restoring the bits and pieces. If you want to restore your Randall in style, to this day you can buy replacement sheaths from the company, made to order. Additionally, you can send your Randall home to Orlando, Florida, where it was born, they can do a lovely job restoring it.

Why did I buy a knife like this? Well, that’s an odd thing, and the reason dates back over 24 years to when I was a strapping teen. When I was in high school, during the mid- to late-80s, I was a teenage commando. I went to an all-boys Catholic school in Hawaii called Saint Louis School and we had an JROTC program that I joined because it was either that, PE, or band (shudder). After joining JROTC I joined the Ranger club. On the surface the Rangers were a bunch of boys who did calisthenics and ran around campus and were entitled to wear black berets and bloused jump boots on the days every member of JROTC was required to skulk around school in Class-A Army uniforms. Still, that wasn’t all the Rangers did. We also spent weekends playing the part of Opposition Forces (OPFOR) for Hawaii’s National Guard and Army Reserve. As part of all that, we were issued camouflaged fatigues (BDUs), ALICE packs, web gear, and M-16s. Yes, real M-16s with real banana clips and real brass casings filled with real smokeless gunpowder, but without bullets with a blank-firing adaptor.

I was motivated and dedicated. I became obsessed with everything military. I bought copies of SOF and shopped at Army surplus stores. We all prized authentic gear and many of us bought Vietnam-era slash-pocket OD fatigues and Ka-Bar knives. I was obsessed with knives and started a collection.

That was 1984. I didn’t end up ordering my own Randall until twenty-years later while I was supposed to be working for Pete Snyder at New Media Strategies during the Summer of 2004. I put down $50 as a down payment, clicked “order” and then obsessed about it for nearly five years! I paid off the balance of $264.00 about a year ago. It was supposed to be delivered in June but I received a letter letting me know that delivery had been delayed until October.

Why does a knife take four-years? One of the reasons my order, #57224, order date September 2004, took so long is because I ordered my knife in a time of war. Randall Made Knives is a purveyor of hunting knives during peacetime; however, during a time of war, most of their capacity is spent on providing for our troops. According to their FAQ, “spare time and space is devoted to filling military knife orders for our active military customers. I think that’s fair, since the Model 1 was a military knife from the very beginning.

It was finally ready for delivery while I was in Berlin so I had the knife FedExed to my mom’s house in Arlington, Virginia, and counted the days until I returned home for Christmas. I arrived on Christmas eve but kept it in my pants until Christmas day, when I took this unboxing video and these photos.

After four years, the knife more than lives up to my expectations, especially since there were a couple of cool surprises that I didn’t know about, including red, white, and blue patriotic spacers between the hilt and the pressed-leather handle and between the handle and the Duralumin butt cap — I’ll photograph it with my Nokia N95 camera phone. To be frank, I have been waiting for this Randall Model #1 for twenty-four-years, since I fell in love with this perfect thing back when I was a Freshman in high school.

Worth the wait? Yes! Any hype associated with the entire experience? No, I don’t think so at all. It couldn’t be better-crafted or more beautiful. I am no longer a knife collector — or an anything collector — so the only two remaining knives in my collection is a Cold Steel Tanto I got back in 1983 and this Randall Model 1.

Randall Made Knife Unboxing Porn

Randall Knife Unboxing Pics [Flickr]

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When not waiting four years for a knife to be hand crafted for him, drunkenly stumbling away with me from a disreputable Berlin pub, or being one of the sweetest and smartest guys it is my pleasure to know, Chris Abraham runs a crackerjack conversational marketing firm, Abraham Harrison. This technically makes him a scumbag, but I love him anyway.

This is the full text of President Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration speech, courtesy of NowPublic, KansasCity.com, thanks to a link from @Aisle7

Full text of President Obama’s Inauguration Speech 2009

My fellow citizens:

I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.

Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents.

So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans.

That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.

These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land – a nagging fear that America’s decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.

Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America – they will be met.

On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.

On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.

We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things.

The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted – for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things – some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.

For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life. For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.

For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn. Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.

This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions – that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.

For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act – not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do.

Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions – who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them – that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works – whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account – to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day – because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.

Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control – and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous.

The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our Gross Domestic Product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart – not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.

As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience’s sake.

And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more. Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.

We are the keepers of this legacy. Guided by these principles once more, we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort – even greater cooperation and understanding between nations. We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people, and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan. With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of a warming planet. We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus – and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society’s ills on the West – know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world’s resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.

As we consider the road that unfolds before us, we remember with humble gratitude those brave Americans who, at this very hour, patrol far-off deserts and distant mountains. They have something to tell us today, just as the fallen heroes who lie in Arlington whisper through the ages. We honor them not only because they are guardians of our liberty, but because they embody the spirit of service; a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves. And yet, at this moment – a moment that will define a generation – it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit us all.

For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter’s courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent’s willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends – hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism – these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility – a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

This is the price and the promise of citizenship.

This is the source of our confidence – the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny.

This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed – why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall, and why a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.

So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have traveled. In the year of America’s birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:

“Let it be told to the future world…that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive…that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it].”

America. In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children’s children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God’s grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.

Image via CrunchBase

John Brownlee of Boing Boing Gadgets cracks me up. He is one the reasons why have so much fun in Berlin. I just got off the phone with him and he dropped that he blogged about my business partner, Mark Harrison.

A private moment with Steve Jobs by John Brownlee

My friend Mark Harrison is an intriguing sort: a globe-trotting alpha male who spends winters rubbing elbows with bikini models down in Mauretius and summers either indulging in sport in Berlin or piloting yachts around Cape Horn. He’s also got some fantastic stories about his run-ins with various eccentric business tycoons. One of those tycoons is Steve Jobs.

According to Mark, the year was 2000, and the company he worked for had set up a meeting with Jobs. Their pitch was simple: while Apple at that time owned the educational market up until the end of grade school, they completely lost all of their users by the time high school started, where computer labs became dominated by PCs. Their proposition was simple: team up with Apple and leverage their presence in thousands of schools to expand Apple’s educational market share.

From the very second he sat down with them, Jobs seemed agitated. The second his ass hit the chair, Jobs began rocking back and forth autistically. But as Mark’s colleagues made blunt and undeniable appraisals of Apple’s presence in high school computer labs, the rocking dramatically increased, then exploded… along with Jobs.

A purpling shade of apoplectic, Jobs launched to his feet, flecking the table with spittle. “You’re shit! Your company’s shit! It’s nothing compared to mine!” he screamed, an outstretched finger jutting accusingly up and down. Eventually, his fury was spent, and the situation was defused by some politically expedient cooing noises.

Still, it’s all just so Jobs, isn’t it? Ever since I heard the anecdote, I can’t help but think of Jobs that way. Turgid with rage and quivering in front of a PC or DAP or mobile phone, spraying its display with spittle: “You’re shit! SHIT! DO YOU HEAR ME? Your operating system’s nothing compared to mine.”

Mark used to be a big cheese for Primedia in New York at the turn of the century but I had never heard this story. Please read and laugh. The funny thing is that back in the day, Mark and I were big proponents of Apple and their Apple for the Teacher and Apple for the School program. We were inspired by the Apple Evangelist, Guy Kawasaki, and both wondered why Apple kept on dropping the ball and ceeding market share to Microsoft. Well, after reading this post you will see that is was probably hubris.

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Today is Veteran’s Day, a day that pays homage to every man and woman who has served in the United States Armed Forces, in times of war and peace.  Please consider donating any amount today to help our returning troops.  If you donate now your funds will be matched dollar for dollar!

I have personally pledged to raise $1,000 of the $10,000 that Survivor Corps is raising this week to help returning soldiers in remembrance of Veteran’s Day, today — please help me make my goal. Honestly, a couple-bucks is cool — feel free to donate whatever you want. There is always the “Other” tab. If we have lots of small donations, it all adds up!  Please join me over on Facebook Cause in support of my pledge.

Our soldiers need our help now. Which is why, this Veterans Day, I’m asking you to honor their service with a modest gift to Survivor Corps’ program for U.S. Armed Forces veterans, Operation Survivor.

Survivor Corps is aiming to raise $10,000 over the next week, with your help. We currently have just over 600 members in the cause. If each member donated just $20, we would have well over $12,000. In addition, Survivor Corps is currently running a matching-gift program so your donation will be doubled for the returning troops! Please join Survivor Corps on Facebook Causes to help them reach their goal of $10,000!

Right now, about 620,000 veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injuries (TBI), major depression, or a combination of the three. Many returning veterans are facing family, employment, and other community reintegration issues. Using our ten years of experience helping survivors of violent conflict find a way back to peace, within their own bodies and minds, and in their communities, Survivor Corps founded Operation Survivor to provide the same kind of life-changing services to American veterans.

NEWS FACTS
Within the United States there are over one and a half million service members that have served in military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Over thirty thousand have been physically wounded, but many more have experienced less visible, psychological wounds. Traumatic Brain Injury and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder have emerged as signature injuries of these conflicts, with recent reports suggesting an increase in rates of suicide, alcohol and drug abuse, homelessness, and domestic violence among returning service members and veterans.

These traumatic affects of conflict, left unaddressed, could have far-reaching negative consequences for the individuals affected, their families, and our country. Survivor Corps’ work in some of the most conflict affected countries in the world has shown community reintegration to be the key factor in those that overcome their traumatic experiences, and those that are consumed by them.

• 1.6 million servicemembers have deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001
• 300,000 have reported symptoms of PTSD and major depression. (RAND)
• Over 5,391 service members haveben killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001 (hostile and non-hostile)4,447 killed in Iraq, 944 killed in Afghanistan (iCasualties, 06 AUG 08)
• Over 30,000 injured
• Over 1,000 lost limbs
• Walter Reed Amputee Center serves 100 veterans daily

The main issues for returning soldier since WWI have been:

• Major depressive disorder
• Alcohol abuse
• Domestic violence
• Suicide
• Homelessness
• Unemployment

All of these issues repeat after each war, and are symptoms of the much greater problem facing Veterans: How to reintegrate into families and communities upon return. We’ve seen these issues in our overseas networks, US citizens have seen these symptoms after past conflicts, and we are seeing these same symptoms again today..

PTSD:

• 53% of soldiers with PSTD receive treatment. (RAND)

SUICIDE:

• Since 2002 suicide attempts have risen from 350 to approximately 2,100 in 2007. (VA)
• The Army is committing $1.4 billion this year to add to the quality of life of a soldier including an informal peer support program through distribution of ACE of hearts playing cards.
• ACE cards: Ask your buddy, Care for your buddy, Escort your buddy.

SUBSTANCE ABUSE:
According to the Department of Defense heavy drinking occurred in 18.5% of those individuals from the U.S. Armed Forces surveyed.

• 41% of veterans who drank reported problems at work
• 24.7% of veterans who drank reported problems at home
• 31.2% of veterans who drank reported depression

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE:
A study conducted by the National Institute of Health showed returning veterans listed alcohol as the second most frequent cause of spouse violence.

UNEMPLOYMENT:

• 11.2% of returning young male veterans are unemployed (US Dept. of Labor)

HOMELESSNESS:

• 40% of homeless men are veterans. (National Coalition for the Homeless)
• 200,000 veterans are homeless. (NCH)
• Already 600 returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan have sought transitional housing services from the VA. (NCH)
• Women are 2 to 4 times more likely to become homeless. (NCH)
• After Vietnam, it generally took 9 to 12 years for veterans’ to become homeless…Returning veterans from Iraq are seeking housing services only months after returning. (NCH)

OPERATION SURVIVOR

Ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan are creating a generation of veterans in the United States from all branches of the armed services and all 50 states who are struggling to overcome physical and psychosocial injuries. Most combat veterans convalescing in military hospitals across the country will survive physically, but getting on with their lives after returning home to their families and communities is proving a significant challenge for hundreds of thousands. Among the 1.6 million who have served since 2001, suicide is on the rise, as is unemployment and incidents of substance abuse and domestic violence.

The successful reintegration of returning service members is an issue that will have a long-lasting impact on American society, and may become the single defining struggle facing this new generation of veterans. Survivor Corps and its partners are determined to avoid the mistakes made when veterans returned from Vietnam, which resulted in tens of thousands of post-war suicides and over 200,000 men and women living on the streets.

To head off this tragic outcome, Survivor Corps will build peer support programs at the community level that will bring service members and veterans together for mutual support and encourage both individual responsibility and collective action to help others in need.

Survivor Corps is offering an alternative “treatment” that can be made readily available in all communities, regardless of proximity to traditional military or govern¬ment centers of support. Our approach is nimble enough to address the needs of individual survivors, while still broad enough to build a coalition of survivors and service providers working to effect long-term positive change.

This new program will help the recovery and reintegration of hundreds of thousands of returning U.S. service members at a critical time for them and their country.

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I just received this moving tribute from Jerry White of Survivor Corps to what the election of Barack Obama means — the end of the American Civil War — and a bold move towards “breaking through historic barriers of discrimination and promoting true inclusion, participation and equality around the world.”

A Hopeful Look Forward By Jerry White

Here at Survivor Corps we often talk about dates–before-and-after moments that change our lives forever.  No matter if you are a Democrat or Republican, I think we can all agree the life of our nation is changed by the historic election of Barack Hussein Obama as the 44th President of the United States of America.

I read Thomas Friedman’s article “Finishing Our Work” this morning in The New York Times, he writes, “And so it came to pass that on Nov. 4, 2008, shortly after 11pm Eastern time, the American Civil War ended…that is why we awake this morning to a different country. The struggle for equal rights is far from over, but we start afresh now from a whole new baseline.”  Friedman’s words struck a chord that harmonizes with our perspective at Survivor Corps as a global network helping people recover from war.  It takes decades.

This election rings true to the founding principles of Survivor Corps, breaking barriers and promoting inclusion, participation and equality.  Whether we are drafting legislation to protect the rights of 650 million people with disabilities or bringing survivors together to rebuild communities destroyed by war, landmines and hatred, we are creating the hope and change in the world that we all wish to see.  This morning the Survivor Corps staff took a moment to reflect on this historic day; and we discussed how this election would impact our daily work with survivors in the United States and abroad.

US Army Captain (Retired) Scott Quilty pointed out Senator Obama’s longstanding campaign pledge to bring home combat troops from Iraq within 16 months, and what that may mean for service members reintegrating into families, work, school and communities upon return.  ”At Survivor Corps we’re working with government, businesses and veteran service organizations to develop a strategy for homecoming and reintegration, and with this potential ‘reverse surge’ of returning service members, it seems that the urgency of that work just increased,” stated Quilty.

Tirza Leibowitz, an Israeli who serves as our Director of Rights Advocacy, spoke of the new expectations we need to set for the three major treaties we are working on: the ban of landmines and cluster bombs and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. “Now we will be able to advocate for the United States to sign onto these multilateral treaties, when before the political environment made that an impossible dream.”

Robert Mugisha, a Rwandan who works as our Africa Program Associate, spoke of his previous experience lobbying the President and Vice President Elect, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, on issues related to survivors in Darfur to Congo.  Mugisha added, “There is a strong possibility we will now have leaders in the White House who have pro-African foreign policies. This could really change how the United States interacts with the entire world.”

Yes, hope is rising in tandem with survivor expectations.  Survivor Corps is more dedicated than ever to breaking through historic barriers of discrimination and promoting true inclusion, participation and equality around the world.  We join you in this time of hope and survivorship as we create history, break cycles of violence and build a peaceful future for survivors worldwide.  

Visit Survivor Corps at http://www.survivorcorps.org

• Survivor Corps – Peer Support
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  Let’s face it, we’re in a recession. In the past five weeks, the stock market has tanked, the credit market has dried up, and a very large rescue/bailout plan has seemingly had little effect. Companies are now cutting back and employees are being let go.
• Daily Herald – Before and After
  On Oct. 2, 2006, Capt. Scott Quilty, 26, was leading a foot patrol in Rustimullah, a town south of Baghdad. An improvised explosive device, or IED, detonated near him. He lost his right arm and right leg.
• DEFENSE STANDARD: Wounded Not Broken
  Her husband, Capt. Scott Quilty, lost an arm and a leg and spent two years at Walter Reed recovering. She wants the patients she sees to live the life her husband now enjoys.
• Before and after Iraq – Los Angeles Times
  On Oct. 2, 2006, Capt. Scott Quilty, 26, was leading a foot patrol in Rustimullah, a town south of Baghdad. An improvised explosive device, or IED, detonated near him. He lost his right arm and right leg.
• * photo op at Walter Reed – pics – Democratic Underground
  President Bush, right, shakes hands with the prosthetic arm of 1st Lt. Scott Quilty during a visit with patients at the physical therapy wing of Walter Reed Army Center in Washington, Friday, March 30, 2007. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
• KarlfromNH.com Weekly Columns
  This interview was followed by yet another inspirational young man on my June 1st radio show. Captain Scott Quilty, a Francestown, NH native and son of friends of mine, related his experiences in the military
• Briefing on the importance of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
  Scott Quilty, Program Manager for Survivor Corps; and Anne Somers, Policy Counsel for the American Association of Persons with Disabilities.
• Organizing Committee Contacts
  Survivor Corps
  Contact Scott Quilty 202.250.3946 squilty@survivorcorps.org
• Johns Hopkins University | Today’s News
  Capt. Scott Quilty, a rifle platoon leader with the 10th Mountain Division, had been in Iraq for two months on Oct. 2, 2006, when he stepped on an improvised explosive device while on patrol near Baghdad. Surgeons amputated his right arm below the elbow and his right leg below the knee.
• Bush Issues Apology Over Conditions At Walter Reed | National Security Network
  At Walter Reed, Bush awarded 10 Purple Heart medals and chatted with patients. In a physical therapy exercise room, he shook Lt. Scott Quilty’s prosthetic right hand, hopped onto an elliptical exercise machine next to Staff Sgt. Gregory Robinson (who lost a leg) and admired a naked woman tattoo on Sgt. Mark Ecker’s left shoulder.
• ON EDUCATION; Graduating Into the Real World, And Preparing to Take Up Arms – New York Times
  These 17 had entered R.O.T.C. for different reasons. Cassandra Crosby could not have afforded college without the program’s scholarship. Benjamin Keating had absorbed ”the idea of citizenship” in his classics courses. Scott Quilty and Megan McGrevey embodied the third generation in military families.
• Survivor Corps – Survivor Corps Staff
• Welcome to New Hampshire and to the homepage of Karl from New Hampshire.
  On June 1st, 2008, I was joined in the studio by Capt. Scott Quilty of Francestown, NH.
  Capt. Quilty suffered the loss of his right arm and leg, below the elbow and knee, respectively, while gallantly serving his country in Iraq.
  He is now involved with SurvivorsCorps, a non-profit organization based in Washinton, DC which is developing programs to reach out to other injured veterans to help them realign their lives.
  Scott currently lives in Maryland with his wife, also a veteran.
• Iraq Today: War News for Friday, July 04, 2008
  Scott Quilty, 28, lost his right arm and leg in October 2006 to a roadside bomb while serving in Iraq.
• June 3rd Briefing on Capitol Hill | RatifyNow.org
  Scott Quilty, U.S. Program Manager, Survivor Corps; Disabled U.S. Veteran
• At Ease!
  Scott Quilty, a 28-year-old Iraqi war veteran who lost part of an arm and leg while on foot patrol in Baghdad, presented the award to Lee Woodruff, who said she accepted it on behalf of all caregivers, parents and wives of those who have been injured in war and on behalf of anyone serving in the military.
• M?u Thân 68
  Ba tháng sau l?i tiên tri toán pháp này ?ng d?ng vào ??i úy Scott Quilty, 26 tu?i; anh d?n trung ??i ?i tu?n ti?u t?i Rustimullah, m?t th? tr?n phía Nam Baghdad, ngày mùng 2 tháng M??i 2006. Quân Iraq cho n? m?t qu? mìn, anh b? m?t tay m?t và chân m?t.
• ??? PoEnglish: Bush Apologizes for Poor Conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center
  President Bush, right, shakes hands with the 1st Lt. Scott Quilty during a visit to Walter Reed Army Center in Washington, 30 Mar 2007
• Bush Apologizes for Poor Conditions on Visit to Walter Reed Army Hospital «
  March 30: President Bush shakes hands with 1st Lt. Scott Quilty during a visit to the Walter Reed Army Center.
• \jeff{krimmel} » Blog Archive » Americans Dying at Alarming Rate in Ira
  First Lt. Scott Quilty, 26, had to have his right leg amputated below the knee and his right arm amputated below the elbow, his father told The Sentinel.
• Nashuatelegraph.com: Benefit bake sale rescheduled
  MILFORD – The bake sale to benefit the family of 1st Lt. Scott Quilty has been rescheduled to this Saturday from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. It will be in front of the Toadstool Bookshop, Lorden Plaza, Route 101A, Milford.
• President Bush shakes hands with the prosthetic arm of 1st Lt. Scott Quilty · Scaz.Net
  President Bush, right, shakes hands with the prosthetic arm of 1st Lt. Scott Quilty during a visit with patients at the physical therapy wing of Walter Reed Army Center in Washington, Friday, March 30, 2007.
• Today in Iraq
  Lieutenant Scott Quilty, a native of Francestown, was injured in Iraq Sunday night when an improvised explosive device was detonated while he was on a dismounted patrol with the Army platoon he led. As a result of his injuries, Quilty, 26, had his right arm amputated below the elbow and his right leg removed below the knee, according to his father, R. Scott Quilty, who said he had not been told where in Iraq the attack had occurred. A state lawmaker stationed in Iraq has been injured.
• Bush Apologizes for Poor Conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center
  President Bush, right, shakes hands with the 1st Lt. Scott Quilty during a visit to Walter Reed Army Center in Washington, 30 Mar 2007
• LJWorld.com / Bush apologizes at Walter Reed
  President Bush meets Army 1st Lt. Scott Quilty during a visit with patients at the physical therapy wing of Walter Reed Army Center in Washington, D.C. Quilty has a prosthetic arm because of injuries suffered during his Army service.
• reaching out «
  March 30: President Bush shakes hands with 1st Lt. Scott Quilty during a visit to the Walter Reed Army Center.
• Before and after Iraq — O Papel dos EUA no Sistema Internacional Pós-1989
  On Oct. 2, 2006, Capt. Scott Quilty, 26, was leading a foot patrol in Rustimullah, a town south of Baghdad. An improvised explosive device, or IED, detonated near him. He lost his right arm and right leg.
• U.S. Programs Office of Survivor Corps
• Roadfood.com Forums – For a Debt That Can Never Be Repaid
  On Oct. 2, 2006, Capt. Scott Quilty, 26, was leading a foot patrol in Rustimullah, a town south of Baghdad. An improvised explosive device, or IED, detonated near him. He lost his right arm and right leg.
• Survivor Corps – Programs – United States
  Scott Quilty
  Survivor Corps
  2100 M St. NW Suite 302
  Washington DC 20037
  Ph: 202.250.3946
  F: 202.464.0011
  squilty@survivorcorps.org
• Acinetobacter Baumannii in Iraq the Casualties
  First Lt. Scott Quilty
  “Doctors had to amputate a portion of one of Quilty’s arms, and part
  of one leg.
  He is really battling infection, so he has a very high fever. He is still
  in critical condition
• BLOG.DEFENSESTANDARD.COM
  For Quilty, the motivation to come to work each day is intensely personal.
  Her husband, Capt. Scott Quilty, lost an arm and a leg and spent two years at Walter Reed recovering. She wants the patients she sees to live the life her husband now enjoys.
• Untitled Document
  Brotheres, Just finished reading the 31st. Inf newsletter. I was disconcerted to find out that, on 9/19/o6, Spec. Bobby Callahan from Jamestown, N.C was killed in iraq, when the vehicle he was in turned over. On Oct.1st.P.F.C Satieon V “T” Greenleewas killed by sniper fire in Baghdad, he was from Pemdleton, S.C. Also on the 1st., Lt. Scott Quilty lost an arm and leg (improvised explosive device) while on dismounted patrol. These men were and are with A/4/31, the unit, since 2001, has had four combat tours. Our’ brother Polar Bears are still under the hammer. With deep regret, Ed. Pro Patria.
• Military & Veterans: Politics for the deserving: 5/11/08 – 5/18/08
  On Oct. 2, 2006, Capt. Scott Quilty, 26, was leading a foot patrol in Rustimullah, a town south of Baghdad. An improvised explosive device, or IED, detonated near him. He lost his right arm and right leg.

  The best worst injury

• Photo from AP Photo by Gerald Herbert – Daylife
  President Bush, right, shakes hands with the prosthetic arm of 1st Lt. Scott Quilty during a visit with patients at the physical therapy wing of Walter Reed Army Center in Washington, Friday, March 30, 2007.
• President George W. Bush watches U.S. Army 1st Lt. Scott Anthony Quilty of Francetown, N.H., demonstrate his walking abilities Friday, March 30, 2007, during a visit to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. Standing with the President is Lt.
  President George W. Bush watches U.S. Army 1st Lt. Scott Anthony Quilty of Francetown, N.H., demonstrate his walking abilities Friday, March 30, 2007, during a visit to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. Standing with the President is Lt. Quilty’s wife U.S. Army Capt. AnnMarie Dora Quilty. Lt. Quilty was later awarded the Purple Heart by President Bush. White House photo by Eric Draper
• President Bush, right, shakes hands with the prosthetic arm of 1st Lt. Scott Quilty
  President Bush, right, shakes hands with the prosthetic arm of 1st Lt. Scott Quilty during a visit with patients at the physical therapy wing of Walter Reed Army Center in Washington, Friday, March 30, 2007. At center is his wife Annmarie Quilty,
• President Bush watches as 1st Lt. Scott Quilty goes through his exercises as he visits with patients
  President Bush watches as 1st Lt. Scott Quilty goes through his exercises as he visits with patients in the physical therapy wing of Walter Reed Army Center in Washington, Friday, March 30, 2007. Between them is his wife Annmarie Quilty.
• Bush Apologizes for Poor Conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center
  President Bush, right, shakes hands with the 1st Lt. Scott Quilty during a visit to Walter Reed Army Center in Washington, 30 Mar 2007
• The UNH Connection: An Electronic Newsletter
  PROUD VETERAN
  In 2006, while serving in Iraq, Scott Quilty ’04 (pictured with President Bush at Walter Reed Army Medical Center) lost his right arm and leg in a roadside bombing. But he didn’t lose his commitment or his hope. He tackled his rehabilitation process with determination, married his high school sweetheart, AnnMarie Dora Wilcox Quilty ’03 (also pictured), and today is leading a pilot program that will help train other survivors of traumatic injury. Focusing on his blessings is a poignant exercise for Quilty, whose close friend and UNH roommate, Ben Keating ’04, lost his life while serving in Afghanistan. “Knowing that for whatever reason I was still here and a guy like Ben isn’t — who was my better on every measurable level — kind of solidified within me that I needed to, regardless of the situation, push through the darker periods to rise above being a victim of it all,” Quilty says.
• The long road back for a wounded warrior
  There were dark days, but a retired Army captain who was injured by a roadside bomb feels lucky to be alive. First of two parts
• Soldier wounded in Iraq bombing
  FRANCESTOWN (AP) – A Francestown soldier serving in Iraq was seriously wounded over the weekend in a roadside bombing.

  First Lt. Scott Quilty, 26, had to have his right leg amputated below the knee and his right arm amputated below the elbow, his father told The Sentinel.

• A Need to Take the World Seriously
  Capt. Benjamin Keating ’04 and 1st Lt. Scott Quilty ’04 began their UNH journey together in 2000, when they enrolled in the Army ROTC program. They participated in countless early morning field exercises, spent many a late night studying for exams, and, as seniors, became roommates. By 2006, they had something else in common: both were assigned to serve in war zones, Keating in Afghanistan and Quilty in Iraq.
• U.S. Programs Office of Survivor Corps
  Survivor Corps and the global consulting firm Booz Allen Hamiliton are hosting an Initiators Conference on the Community Reintegration of Service Members and Veterans in an effort to bring together the leaders of key government, business, nonprofit, and academic institutions currently engaged on this issue. Booz Allen Hamilton, which has a long history of commitment to America’s service members and veterans, has joined us in this effort, bringing their extensive experience in helping leaders and organizations collaborate to address complex issues across sectors.
• Scott Quilty with George W Bush — PHOTO
  Bush, right, shakes hands with the prosthetic arm of 1st Lt. Scott Quilty during a visit with patients at the physical therapy wing of Walter Reed on Friday.
• Bush promises vets a better Walter Reed – USATODAY.com
  Bush, right, shakes hands with the prosthetic arm of 1st Lt. Scott Quilty during a visit with patients at the physical therapy wing of Walter Reed on Friday.
• Rockingham Ambulance Online – News
  Two Stars of Life proudly represented Rockingham Regional Ambulance, Inc. this year. EMT – Intermediate Scott Hurst and Operations Center Coordinator Scott Quilty were selected by their peers and managers to represent both Rockingham Ambulance and the State of NH at this annual event.
• LSN – Landmine Survivors Network – Bios
  Scott Quilty – U.S. Program Manager
• UnionLeader.com – New Hampshire news, business and sports
  Capt. Scott Quilty, center, and his wife, Capt. AnnMarie Dora Wilcox Quilty, pose with President Bush during Scott’s Purple Heart ceremony at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington. (COURTESY)
• PC World – Unlocked G1: Not (Yet) Worth the Effort
• Scott Quilty ’04 – UNH Alumni Association
  In early October 2006, Scott Quilty ’04 was seriously wounded in a roadside bombing in Iraq. Read more
• Facebook | Scott Quilty
• Neighbors Working To Help Family Of Injured Soldier – New Hampshire News Story – WMUR Manchester
  Neighbors are reaching out to help the family of an Army soldier from Francestown who was seriously injured in Iraq.

  First Lt. Scott Quilty was on foot patrol near Baghdad last week when he was taken down by an explosion. Doctors had to amputate a portion of one of Quilty’s arms, and part of one leg.

  “He is really battling infection, so he has a very high fever. He is still in critical condition,” said Raisa Marshall, Quilty’s neighbor.

• A MEMORABLE MEMORIAL DAY – KarlfromNH.com Weekly Columns
  On October 1st, 2006 after being in Iraq for just six weeks, Scott was struck by a roadside bomb while on patrol. He was a platoon leader, 30 men, and he had trained at Fort Drum in Watertown, New York. They were members of the 10th Mountain Division, a Combat Infantry Unit. At the tender age of 26, Scott was to lose a leg and an arm. He was lucky to have survived at all. Flown first to Germany, and then later to Walter Reed, he is still in rehabilitation there. Not once, through any of this ordeal, did he complain or regret his service. His family stood by him for months as he underwent over 15 surgeries. Skin grafts, closing of wounds, countless procedures undoubtedly painful beyond reason, and still never even a hint of “poor me”.
• Does the board wish to help out? – Viper Alley – Dodge Viper Forum
  Neighbors are reaching out to help the family of an Army soldier from Francestown who was seriously injured in Iraq.First Lt. Scott Quilty was on foot patrol near Baghdad last week when he was taken down by an explosion.

  Doctors had to amputate a portion of one of Quilty’s arms, and part of one leg.”He is really battling infection, so he has a very high fever. He is still in critical condition,” said Raisa Marshall, Quilty’s neighbor.

  Quilty is now at Walter Reed Medical Center. His mother and father have rushed to his side. Quilty’s mother quit her job at a New Hampshire Inn, anticipating his need for care when he returns home.”It’s time for the community to step up.

  It’s time for the community to take responsibility, help take the burden off of Janet and Scott’s shoulders so that they can focus on their son, not worry about the electrical bill,” said Marshall.Marshall decided to help by writing a compelling letter outlining financial needs.

  The letter was emailed to dozens of peo

• GI SPECIAL 4J5 – 5/10/06
  Francestown Soldier Injured In Iraq

  Lt. Scott Quilty, 26, a UNH graduate, had his right arm amputated below the elbow and his right leg removed below the knee.

  Oct. 4, 2006 By STEPHEN BEALE, Union Leader Correspondent

  Lieutenant Scott Quilty, a native of Francestown, was injured in Iraq Sunday night when an improvised explosive device was detonated while he was on a dismounted patrol with the Army platoon he led.

  As a result of his injuries, Quilty, 26, had his right arm amputated below the elbow and his right leg removed below the knee, according to his father, R. Scott Quilty, who said he had not been told where in Iraq the attack had occurred.

  “He had only been there six weeks and they have been moving him around,” Quilty said today in an interview. “He didn’t have any permanent station at the time.”

  Quilty said that his son was initially taken to a hospital northwest of Iraq and then transported to a military medical facility in Germany on Monday. He is scheduled to arrive a

• U.S. President George W. Bush Visits Walter Reed Army Medical Center | Article from Getty Images (by Event) Individuals | HighBeam Research
• Francestown soldier injured in Iraq
  Lieutenant Scott Quilty, a native of Francestown, was injured in Iraq Sunday night when an improvised explosive device was detonated while he was on a dismounted patrol with the Army platoon he led.
• Shindig benefits injured GI’s family
  Go back about a month ago, for instance, and put yourself in the shoes of Scott and Janet Quilty, well-known residents of the tiny Monadnock village of Francestown. Early one Monday morning, some of that dreaded news found them: Their son, Army First Lt. Scott Quilty, 26, a college scholar who’d gone to Iraq just six weeks before, had been seriously injured when a roadside booby trap blew up his platoon.
• Survivor Corps US Program Update
  Last week was a busy one for the Survivor Corps US Program. On August 18th and 19th, Survivor Corps hosted a round table discussion for organizations serving the recovery and reintegration needs of US Veterans. Participants discussed the value of connecting newly returned service members and veterans with other veterans who had been through the same experience for support. This type of relationship helps both individuals to overcome traumatic experiences and participate in community.
• A Day in the Life of President Bush (with the troops at Walter Reed): 3-30-07
  A Day in the Life of President Bush (with the troops at Walter Reed): 3-30-07
• The long road back for a wounded warrior
  Scott Quilty has always been a leader who shows us how to beat our own doubts
• Hosted by Siteleader.com
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• Roger Wolfson: Why Obama Supporters Need to Do More than Vote
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On behalf of the International Medical Corps and Abraham Harrison, thank you so much for all of your support over the last four weeks to get the vote out to help get the International Medical Corps into the top-five of the Members Project and then for securing the $100,000 from American Express, to be used to feed hungry children worldwide. Here’s a thank you video blog entry from Paige Strackman, who was the PaigeS who submitted IMC in the first place under the title, Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children.

Here’s the official, final, press release you can read, directly from International Medical Corps:

International Medical Corps Wins $100,000 Grant from American Express to Save Malnourished Children

October 14, 2008, Los Angeles, Calif. –International Medical Corps (IMC) has been awarded $100,000 through the American Express Members Project. The grant will be used to treat malnourished children worldwide. IMC is one of five organizations to receive funding in the nationwide campaign where American Express Card members submit and vote for projects that are meant to bring people and organizations together for positive change.

The funding will be used to implement the project, ‘Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children.’ Submitted by American Express cardmember Paige Strackman, the project focuses on treating malnutrition through nutrient-rich, ready-to-eat food, which International Medical Corps provides to more than 35,000 children every month through a network of 215 supplementary and therapeutic feeding sites in some of the world’s most food-insecure environments, including Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Sudan, and Somalia. The project was selected by an elite panel out of 1,190 others and received more than 14,000 votes in the final round of competition.

“I submitted this project because, as a mother, I cannot ignore that five million children under five die every year due to malnutrition,” says Paige. “This funding will save thousands of malnourished children around the world who otherwise may not have been reached. I am so grateful to everyone who supported this project and helped make it a reality.”

While the project was submitted by one individual hoping to make a difference, it gathered public momentum. The project’s message was shared in the media from Los Angeles to New York, on nearly 200 blogs across the Internet, through thousands of emails and on social networking sites, including Facebook, My Space and Twitter.

The grant from American Express comes at an opportune time when rising food costs are driving millions deeper into poverty everyday while trying to afford basic staples. As a result, hunger and malnutrition kill more people each year than HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria combined.

“We are incredibly grateful to Paige for not only submitting the project, but also for fueling it with the passion to make it so successful,” says Rebecca Milner, Vice President of Institutional Advancement. “There are approximately 178 million children around the world who are malnourished and only 3 percent get treatment. This funding makes it possible for International Medical Corps to reach more of those children who desperately need our help.”

In Democratic Republic of Congo alone, International Medical Corps’ supplementary feeding centers admitted 3,500 new children in the past two months. At one center for severely malnourished children, IMC has a 35-bed capacity, but is accommodating 82. Another 30 children await treatment. This trend is symptomatic of the food insecurity affecting East Africa and much of the developing world. The World Food Program estimates that 15.7 million of those in need are in East Africa, and another 8.6 million are in Afghanistan.

With a mission that focuses on training, International Medical Corps works to empower individuals and communities, providing education on how to treat malnutrition, identify warnings signs, and intervene before malnutrition worsens. Health care workers and parents are educated on proper diet and hygiene, and communities are equipped to grow their own food and reduce their vulnerability to rising prices.

*The ‘Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children’ project can be viewed here: http://www.membersproject.com/project/view/OZH1P1
**Videos of children’s dramatic recoveries from malnutrition can be seen on International Medical Corps’ YouTube Channel: http://ca.youtube.com/user/IMCMembersProject

For more information visit our website at www.imcworldwide.org.

Also, thank you to every single blogger and social media maven who was so generous as to help us spread the word out and get as much attention as possible for both the Members Project as well as for International Medical Corps as well. You were all more than generous and all of us at IMC and AHLLC would love to thank you for being so generous and selfless.

• Help Feed Hungry Children via Danny Fisher.
• Help Save Kids via Three Sons and a Princess.
• Seeking $1.5 million to feed malnourished children via http://www.cabraham.com/node/693.
• International Medical Corps Matched With Top 25 American Express Members Project, via The Colombo Times News Blog.
• Altruism – For Whose Sake? via Jakartass.
• Cast a Vote, Help Save a Child via The Blog That Ate Manhattan Goes to Italy .
• Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children via Here There and Everywhere.
• International Medical Corps Matched With Top 25 American Express Members Project Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children via Samotalis.
• International Medical Corps responds to the food crisis with emergency nutrition programs, food relief aid, agricultural assistance, and training via Holly’s Fight to Stop Violence.
• Calling All American Express Card Members via All 4 My Gals.
• Russia using cluster bombs and humanitarian efforts for children… via Glass City Jungle.
• I’ve got this via E-Mail To Publish on this site, For the sake of children via The Triple Gem!.
• In This Election, The Winners are the Children via The Blog That Ate Manhattan.
• International Medical Corps via Christefideles.
• saving malnourished children via Lotusinthemud.
• Help Save the Lives of Malnourished Children With International Medical Corps via Myrtus.
• Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children via Ontario.
• International Medical Corps via Sakshum…cultivating dreams.
• International Medical Corps Matched with Top-25 via Jumping Monkeys.
• Banner on Site via Nerds Eye View.
• Fabulicious Friday #26 via cookienotes.
• Sharing Saturday – AmEx and Int’l Medical Corps via My Life as a Hot Professional.
• Cause Everyone Needs to Eat via Grassroots Activism.
• International Medical Corps via Yoga and Judaism Center.
• Radyo Inteligentaindigena-09-20-2008 via Inteligentaindigena Novajoservo.
• Help IMC save the lives of malnourished children in Africa! via A Romanian in Africa.
• Fighting Deadly Malnutrition: This Time, A Morally Imperative Rescue via The Cogitamus Blog.
• Fighting Deadly Malnutrition: This Time, A Morally Imperative Rescue via litbrit .
• Do the right thing via Bloody Brilliant.
• Let None Go Hungry via Pipecleaner Dreams.
• Click to Help Malnourished Children! via A Red Thread Connection.
• Tweet via Bloggapalooza.
• Here’s Something Cool via Cool Mom Picks.
• A Different Vote: Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children via Sexy Spanish Club in Buenos Aires.
• Saving Lives for Malnourished Children via Connorcolesmom.
• This won’t take a minute. via Miss Cellania.
• People Watching in Lipscani via Writers Bloc.
• A Good Deed via My Boyfriend is a twat.
• Corporate do-gooding: Vote for the best ideas that American Express is sifting through via Religion Blog: Dallas News.
• Please consider voting via Living in shkoder Albania.
• Banner via Andres V.
• Help Save the Lives of Malnourished Children via Progressive U.org.
• International Medical Corp via Jaden’s Journal.
• We Get Stuff via Winds of Change.
• International Medical Corps, Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children via Art of the Possible Online.
• Banner via Postcards From Across the Pond.
• Another AmEx Submission… via Fat Doctor.
• Up to 5 million children a year die of malnutrition – with one mouse click, you can help via Shakesville.
• Help International Medical Corp Save Starving Child With Just One Click via William K. Wolfrum.
• International Medical Corps Needs Your Vote via The Rotten Word.
• Give ‘em a vote via Army of Mom.
• Int’l Child Relief NGO Needs Our Votes…1.5Million At Stake via The Democratic Daily.
• Members Project by AmEx is amazing. Vote to send their money to help children here. via Craphammer.
• Reaching Out in the Love of Christ via The Day of the Lord.
• Do you Hear the Cry? via Christs Redeeming Passion.
• Compassion that makes a Difference. via Passion that Redeems.
• The Greatest Gift is Love via About the Father’s Business.
• Making a Difference via Redeemed by the Passion of Christ.
• Be a Light that Makes a Difference via Life in Christ.
• Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children via What’s a Delmer Look Like.
• banner via The Legless Blog.
• Contribution to a Noble Cause via Aa..Ha [Thinking Inside The Blog!].
• Help International Medical Corps Earn $1.5M via Turning Left.
• Help International Medical Corps Earn $1.5M via eNews Park Forest.
• They Need Your Vote … via Freaked Out Fathers.
• posted widget via Albtranslator.
• Please check this out via Braveheart Does the Maghreb.
• Saving the lives of malnourished children via Tongue and Cheek.
• American Express’ Members Project International Medical Corps via Sugar and Spice.
• International Medical Corps Matched With Top 25 American Express Members Project Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children via Budget Nomad – US Ex – Pat on the Move.
• Vote for International MedicalCorps to Help Children in Need. via humorgrafe .
• Voting for International Medical Corps via Tall Skinny Kiwi.
• Revealing myself as a LOTR nerd via Journey Mama.
• Thank You for Blogging About International Medical Corps! via Chris Abraham Because the Medium is the Message.
• Dora, the sheep droppings explorer via The French Mountain Dweller.
• Int’l NGO Needs Our Help To Win $1.5 M For Starving Children via Daily Kos.
• Thank You Bloggers for Blogging about International Medical Corps via Memes.org.
• Thank You International Medical Corps Bloggers via Abraham Harrison.
• “Vote for International Medical Corps to Help Children in Need” via Ben Heine.
• Feeding Hungry Children via Kuru Lounge.
• Your click could mean $1.5 million for malnourished children around the world via Pirate Pappa.
• One Click to Save Lives via So a Blonde Walks Into a Review.
• Members Projects via OBVI.
• With One Click You Can Save Thousands Of Malnourished Children via Blogher.
• Help International Medical Corps Feed Hungry Children via Chrisfernando.net.
• Thursday, September 25, 2008 via Island In the Pacific.
• Your click could mean $1.5 million for malnourished children around the world. via Fresh Motivation.
• Click for $1.5 million – A win-win-win situation via Stet.
• Vote to make a difference via Onlinefundraisingblog.
• Something About Saving Lives? via NDAGHA.
• Click to Donate via More Than An Army Wife.
• Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children via The Existential Lip.
• International Medical Corps via Backyard Missionary.
• International Medical Corps Matched with Top 25 American Express Members Project, ‘Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children’ via Bio-Medicine.
• Time is Running Out!!! via Pre School Mama.
• “The International Medical Corps: Please Consider This Good Cause” via Working With Word.
• Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children via javajive.
• Things I should have avoided whilst pregnant via Whitterer on Autism.
• American Express Members Project: Join me in voting for the project, “Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children.” via Make College Pay Off.
• Interested in Saving a Child From Malnutrition? via Reservoir.
• Go Vote for the International Medical Corps via Christian Spirituality w/ Edges.
• Vote for the International Medical Corps! via Understanding The Psychology and Effects of Abandonment Issues.
• International Medical Corps via Stories on Malawi.
• The Least of These via Paravanes: Christian Meditations .
• Vote to help feed hungry kids! via Happy at HFC.
• Please support International Medical Corps and help feed hungry children via The Sreisaat Adventures in cambodia.
• Tela’s Finds via Working Moms Against Guilt.
• Save Lives with Your Vote via Servant of Chaos.
• FYI via Left of Centre.
• International Medical Corp via Desert Phoenix.
• sidebar via Pardon Me For Asking.
• One Day Left – the AMEX Members Project via A Mom a Blog and the Life In-Between.
• widget via Psychiatryforpublic.
• sidebar via Tamil Newsfeed.
• Help Save the Lives of Malnourished Children via Progressiveu.
• A Little Charity Is All It Takes. via Anchor Rising.
• When Snark Just Isn’t Enough via World-O-Crap.
• International Medical Corps via Portrait of a Writer.
• The Members Project via Earnest Parenting.
• Vote to Feed Hungry Children via Looney Bin 4 Sure.
• American Express Members Project via Big Blueberry Eyes.
• Vote Now!! Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children via Lost Girl’s World.
• International Medical Corp Matched… via Chris Zenzine.
• We get letters via Skippy the Bush Kangaroo.
• Just a Note via Code Yellow Mom.
• International Medical Corps – Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children via Awakening To Enlightenment.
• Save the Lives of Malnourished Children via Contented Woman.
• Beyond THE FUTURE: International Medical Corps via Beyond Understanding .
• Beyond THE FUTURE: International Medical Corps via Publishers Marketplace.
• Banner via Arwin Soelaksono .
• Vote to Help Feed a Hungry Child! via Three P’s in a Pod.
• I get mail — worthy causes via The Reaction.
• I get mail — worthy causes via Newshoggers.
• I get mail — worthy causes via The Impolitic .
• Vote to Help Hungry Children via Dad Talk.
• Social Media News Release via Nandigram United.
• IMC project: Saving the lives of malnourished children via Motherscribe.
• Nobody likes to go hungry – especially kiddos. via Jelly Mom.
• HELP FEED CHILDREN via Smart Christian.
• International Medical Corps via Mama Speaks.
• International Medical Corps–Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children via This Mom.
• I don’t usually do this, but… via Non-Essential Equipment.
• Before I Forget (Again) via Drye Portents.
• Haiti Update via Gonna Make a Change.
• Vote to save hungry children! via Make it Happen.
• Please vote via All 4 My Gals.
• Att: American Express Card holders via Writers Bloc.
• Hey..Vote Again via ZenZine.
• Vote For These Guys and Save Some Children via Intuittech.
• Widget via The Disenchanted Forest.
• Vote for the International Medical Corps! via understanding the effects of unresolved abandonment issues.
• Help the International Medical Corps Feed Hungry Children via Danny Fisher.
• Help Save the Lives of Malnourished Children via Progressiveu.
• Saving the Lives of malnourished children via The French Mountain Dweller.
• Last chance to Save The Lives of Malnourished Children via Simple Green World.
• International Medical Corps’s Good Deeds Triumph!! via Three P’s in a Pod.
• Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children – NEWS FACTS via Ontario.
• $1.5 Million For Malnourished Children Around The World Possible – Your Vote In The American Express Members Project Could Help This Happen via Medical News Today.
• International Medical Corp Vote Now! via Holly’s Fight for Justice.
• International Medical Corp Vote Now! via Holly’s Fight to Stop Violence.
• International Medical Corp via Jakartass.
• widget via Andres V.
• widget via Que es El Testamento Del Paisa?.
• Part II Vote to Help Hungry Children via Dad Talk.
• Continue Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children via What’s Delmer Look Like?.
• Sharing Saturday – Bloggers Rule! via My Life as a Hot Professional.
• Banner via Earnest Parenting.
• International Medical Corps needs your help via Sociolingo’s Africa.
• Food Charities via Grasshopper New Media Presents….
• That good deed that some of you did …. via My Boyfriend is a twat.
• Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children via Paravanes: Christian Meditations .
• Giving back to Africa via Africa Safari Blog.
• Can Social Media Make the World A Better Place? via Digital Podcast.
• Vote to Feed Hungry Children via South Africa.
• Members Project Submissions Due 8/19 via The Drew Blog.
• Help International Medical Corps Save the Lives of Malnourished Children via International Medical Corps.
• Help International Medical Corps Save the Lives of Malnourished Children via Chris Abraham.
• Help International Medical Corps Save the Lives of Malnourished Children via Marketing Conversation.
• Help International Medical Corps Save the Lives of Malnourished Children via Chris Abraham: Because the Medium is the Message.
• Help International Medical Corps Save the Lives of Malnourished Children via Chris Abraham: Internet Analyst and Web Strategist.
• Vote AGAIN!!! for “Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children” via finding joy in Liberia .
• International Medical Corps needs your vote ! 4 days left “ via Ben Heine.
• International Medical Corps via Worldfoodvision.com.
• Calling All American Express Cardholders via Everything Finance.
• American Express Members Projects 08 via Ground.
• Its Easy to Make a Difference via Baer This In Mind.
• Hello guys! via Halo Scan.
• Help Feed Hungry Children! via Friends of the World Food Organization.
• International Medical Corps now in American Express Members Project Top 5, Vote Today via Yubanet.
• American Express Members Project Contest: Support the International Medical Corps via The Human Trafficking Project.

CHALLENGE: This was a two week, high pressure campaign focused on getting International Medical Corps (IMC) into the final five of the American Express Members Project $2.5 million giveaway competition. 1,190 projects were nominated for participation in the competition, Amex cardholders could vote for their favorite project, and the top five projects receive a portion of the $2.5 million in grant money.

The challenge that Abraham Harrison faced was to take IMC, a relatively low-profile $100MM per year organization that gets all its money from government grants and had essentially no support base among the general public and activate a mass wave of support and votes for the organization – in two weeks.

International Medical Corps is a global, humanitarian, nonprofit dedicated to saving lives and relieving suffering through health care training, relief operations, and development programs.

STRATEGY: Abraham & Harrison has developed strong relationships with a large group of bloggers interested in humanitarian issues who in turn act as influencers in their communities of readers. The goal, as with all online influencer outreaches, was to earn these bloggers’ support and their willingness to act as repeaters and amplifiers of our client’s message, get their implicit or explicit endorsement, and motivate their readerships to action – in this case to vote for IMC in the Amex Members’ Project competition.

Abraham & Harrison was in constant consultation with the client, advising International Medical Corps on their message copy, their use of widgets, their posting of banner ads, and guiding their broader strategic decisions.

TACTICS: Abraham & Harrison reached out to close to 4000 bloggers across a spectrum of demographics. The Abraham & Harrison team reached out to these bloggers multiple times over the course of two weeks directing them to the Members Project website and the helpful, blogger-friendly Social Media News Release that made blogging on the topic an easy cut-and-paste action. http://internationalmedicalcorps.smnr.us/

Abraham & Harrison also turned to its strong presence on Facebook, Twitter, and several other social networks, building groups and messaging followers as well as the broader Abraham & Harrison community. To drive SEO and further traffic, every one of the over 190 blog posts was posted on Digg and several other social bookmarking platforms.

RESULTS: Within two weeks the team at Abraham & Harrison had achieved close to a 10% response rate to the outreach emails, leading to over 190 blog posts with more trickling in daily. Millions of impressions were made, and given the permanent nature of blog posts and the resultant presence on the search engines, impressions will continue to be made into the future.

International Medical Corps was able to fend off challenges from those organizations in 6th and 7th place, finally finishing in the top five, guaranteeing them a portion of the $2.5MM in grant money.

"Abraham & Harrison has been a tremendous asset to International Medical Corps during our American Express Members Project campaign. Their online strategy and outreach helped introduce International Medical Corps to many new audiences and raised our visibility during this time-sensitive campaign. International Medical Corps was written about in more than 170 blog posts.

"Abraham & Harrison brings a unique approach to online public relations. The worldwide web is a vast space, yet Abraham & Harrison has found a formula to reach out to target audiences, effectively raise awareness and get online readers and activists to take action.

"The entire Abraham & Harrison team has been fantastic. Each team member brings creativity and passion to the cause. Without a doubt, International Medical Corps would engage Abraham & Harrison for another campaign."

Rebecca Milner
Vice President, Institutional Advancement
International Medical Corps

If you have not been keeping on top of all of the great comments streaming in to the AH Poll entitled “If John McCain died or became incapacitated, would Sarah Palin be competent to be President?” you are really missing out! Some of them are the most insightful, thoughtful, and brilliant collection of thoughts representing the best and the worst of the right and the left! Roll up your sleeves and batten your hatches because you’re going to have one hell of a ride. Oh, also, these comments are in reverse-chronological order so the most recent are at the top. If you want to keep track of them live, please go visit them where they love and breathe. Read below for the most amazing Sarah Palin comment thread of the Internets!

And, here’s an embed of the poll, if I’ve piqued your interest by now:

Firstly, please vote now for the Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children. Secondly, I really want International Medical Corps to do as well as possible in the American Express Members Project. IMC has an amazing worldwide mission, “dedicated to saving lives and relieving suffering through health care training and relief and development programs.”

My team and I have been working with the IMC team for the last three weeks. After the first two weeks, we all were were able to collectively get IMC into the top-5, which was an amazing feat since there were quite a few organizations who were really hot on our heels!

The project? Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children. Now that the Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children project has made the top-5, we’re all pushing for the last 5 days and we need your vote! We’re currently in 4th place, which guarantees $100,000; however, if we are able to secure number 3, International Medical Corps would receive $300,000; then, if we could make it to second, IMC would receive $1,000,000. Making first would mean $1,5 million dollars to help feed hungry and malnourished children worldwide, saving the lives of malnourished children.

If you want to learn more about the project, Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children, feel free to check out the Social Media News Release we created for this campaign. If you wan to learn more about the International Medical Corps, please check out the IMC web site and their about page:

About International Medical Corps

International Medical Corps (IMC) is a global, humanitarian, nonprofit organization dedicated to saving lives and relieving suffering through health care training and relief and development programs.

Established in 1984 by volunteer doctors and nurses, IMC is a private, voluntary, nonpolitical, nonsectarian organization. Its mission is to improve the quality of life through health interventions and related activities that build local capacity in underserved communities worldwide.

By offering training and health care to local populations and medical assistance to people at highest risk, and with the flexibility to respond rapidly to emergency situations, IMC rehabilitates devastated health care systems and helps bring them back to self-reliance.

The International Medical Corps and my team have been working on winning $1.5 Million dollars through American Express’ Members Project. IMC needs to be in the top 5 in order to win. Please check out the Member Project page, Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children, and then please vote.  I would like to personally thank each and every one of you who have blogged about the issue and about the contest — see below:

• Help Feed Hungry Children via Danny Fisher
• Help Save Kids via Three Sons and a Princess
• Seeking $1.5 million to feed malnourished children via Bearing Drift
• International Medical Corps Matched With Top 25 American Express Members Project, via The Colombo Times News Blog
• Altruism – For Whose Sake? via Jakartass
• Cast a Vote, Help Save a Child via The Blog That Ate Manhattan Goes to Italy
• Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children via Here There and Everywhere
• International Medical Corps Matched With Top 25 American Express Members Project Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children via Samotalis
• International Medical Corps responds to the food crisis with emergency nutrition programs food relief aid agricultural assistance and training via Fight to Stop Violence
• Calling All American Express Card Members via All 4 My Gals
• Russia using cluster bombs and humanitarian efforts for children… via Glass City Jungle
• I’ve got this via E-Mail To Publish on this site, For the sake of children via The Triple Gem!
• In This Election, The Winners are the Children via The Blog That Ate Manhattan
• International Medical Corps via Christefideles
• saving malnourished children via Lotusinthemud
• Help Save the Lives of Malnourished Children With International Medical Corps via Myrtus
• Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children via Ontario
• International Medical Corps via Sakshum…cultivating dreams
• International Medical Corps via Jumping Monkeys
• Banner on Site via Nerds Eye View
• Fabulicious Friday #26 via cookienotes
• Sharing Saturday – AmEx and Int’l Medical Corps via My Life as a Hot Professional
• Cause Everyone Needs to Eat via Grassroots Activism
• International Medical Corps via Yoga and Judaism Center
• Radyo Inteligentaindigena-09-20-2008 via Inteligentaindigena Novajoservo
• Help IMC save the lives of malnourished children in Africa! via A Romanian in Africa
• Fighting Deadly Malnutrition: This Time, A Morally Imperative Rescue via The Cogitamus Blog
• Fighting Deadly Malnutrition: This Time, A Morally Imperative Rescue via litbrit
• Do the right thing via Bloody Brilliant
• Let None Go Hungry via Pipecleaner Dreams
• Click to Help Malnourished Children! via A Red Thread Connection
• Tweet via Bloggapalooza
• Here’s Something Cool via Cool Mom Picks
• A Different Vote: Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children via Sexy Spanish Club in Buenos Aires
• Saving Lives for Malnourished Children via Connorcolesmom
• This won’t take a minute. via Miss Cellania
• People Watching in Lipscani via Writers Bloc
• A Good Deed via My Boyfriend is a twat
• Corporate do-gooding: Vote for the best ideas that American Express is sifting through via Religion Blog: Dallas News
• Please consider voting via Living in shkoder Albania
• Banner via Andres V
• Help Save the Lives of Malnourished Children via Progressive U.org
• International Medical Corp via Jaden’s Journal
• We Get Stuff via Winds of Change
• International Medical Corps, Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children via Art of the Possible Online
• Banner via Postcards From Across the Pond
• Another AmEx Submission… via Fat Doctor
• Up to 5 million children a year die of malnutrition – with one mouse click, you can help via Shakesville
• Help International Medical Corp Save Starving Child With Just One Click via William K. Wolfrum
• International Medical Corps Needs Your Vote via The Rotten Word
• Give ‘em a vote via Army of Mom
• Int’l Child Relief NGO Needs Our Votes…1.5Million At Stake via The Democratic Daily
• Members Project by AmEx is amazing. Vote to send their money to help children here. via Craphammer
• Reaching Out in the Love of Christ via The Day of the Lord
• Do you Hear the Cry? via Christs Redeeming Passion
• Compassion that makes a Difference. via Passion that Redeems
• The Greatest Gift is Love via About the Father’s Business
• Making a Difference via Redeemed by the Passion of Christ
• Be a Light that Makes a Difference via Life in Christ
• Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children via What’s a Delmer Look Like
• banner via The Legless Blog
• Contribution to a Noble Cause via Aa..Ha [Thinking Inside The Blog!]
• Help International Medical Corps Earn $1.5M via Turning Left
• Help International Medical Corps Earn $1.5M via eNews Park Forest
• They Need Your Vote … via Freaked Out Fathers
• posted widget via Albtranslator
• Please check this out via Braveheart Does the Maghreb
• Saving the lives of malnourished children via Tongue and Cheek
• American Express’ Members Project International Medical Corps via Sugar and Spice
• International Medical Corps Matched With Top 25 American Express Members Project Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children via Budget Nomad – US Ex – Pat on the Move
• Vote for International MedicalCorps to Help Children in Need. via humorgrafe
• Voting for International Medical Corps via Tall Skinny Kiwi
• Thank You for Blogging About International Medical Corps! via Chris Abraham Because the Medium is the Message.
• Dora the sheep droppings explorer via The French Mountain Dweller.
• Int’l NGO Needs Our Help To Win $1.5 M For Starving Children via Daily Kos.
• Thank You Bloggers for Blogging about International Medical Corps via Memes.org.
• Thank You International Medical Corps Bloggers via Abraham Harrison.
• Vote for the International Medical Corps! via Ben Heine.
• Feeding Hungry Children via Kuru Lounge.
• Your click could mean $1.5 million for malnourished children around the world via Pirate Pappa.
• One Click to Save Lives via So a Blonde Walks Into a Review.
• Members Projects via OBVI.
• With One Click You Can Save Thousands Of Malnourished Children via Blogher.
• Help International Medical Corps Feed Hungry Children via Chrisfernando.net.
• Thursday September 25 2008 via Island In the Pacific.
• Your click could mean $1.5 million for malnourished children around the world. via Fresh Motivation.
• Click for $1.5 million – A win-win-win situation via Stet.
• Vote to make a difference via Onlinefundraisingblog.
• Something About Saving Lives? via NDAGHA.
• Click to Donate via More Than An Army Wife.
• Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children via The Existential Lip.
• International Medical Corps via Backyard Missionary.
• International Medical Corps Matched with Top 25 American Express Members Project, ‘Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children’ via Bio-Medicine.
• Time is Running Out!!! via Pre School Mama.
• The International Medical Corps Please Consider This Good Cause via Working With Word.
• Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children via javajive.
• Things I should have avoided whilst pregnant via Whitterer on Autism.
• American Express Members Project: Join me in voting for the project Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children via Make College Pay Off.
• Interested in Saving a Child From Malnutrition? via Reservoir.
• Go Vote for the International Medical Corps via Christian Spirituality w/ Edges.
• Vote for the International Medical Corps! via Understanding The Psychology and Effects of Abandonment Issues.

Also, please let me know if I missed your post in the Chris Abraham comment area — and if you want to post about the contest and the issue, please feel free and pop the URL into the Chris Abraham comment section and I will add you and thanks in advance!

If you need more information, please check out our informational page, International Medical Corps Matched With Top 25 American Express Members Project, “Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children”