Rob's Blog

LATISM and social media

July 28, 2011

I’m in a small, impoverished village in Haiti, just over the border of the Dominican Republic. The heat is sweltering, and there’s no electricity or running water. Dozens of pregnant women, many of whom are in their teens and already mothers, are attending a free pre-natal health clinic staffed by volunteer doctors from the U.S., found via Facebook and Twitter. The women are advised to get regular checkups, though this is problematic as they are so isolated. The doctors perform a routine examination, and if they suspect any serious conditions they are referred to a hospital in the Dominican Republic, where they will be treated for free. One frequent condition is fistula, a serious medical complication that sometimes occurs in pregnancy, particularly in younger girls.

One of the young mothers at the makeshift clinic

This is part of a month long sustainable development project set up by Ana Roca Castro and her LATISM (Latinos in Social Media) organization. Ana, with a seemingly inexhaustible supply of energy, is shuttling us (myself, a video producer and a cameraman) from one location to another, so we can document the project. Back across the Dominican border in Monte Cristi, another isolated, but beautiful village on the northwest coast, we visit a “cyber room”, set up with dozens of computers donated through Latism.  Here, local “trainers” help educate artisans, and hotel owners, to use social media to connect with potential customers and organizations. The trainers will stay behind after LATISM departs, thus fulfilling the promise of sustainability, and ”using social media for social good.” We were able to meet the local artisans, mostly all women, who were visibly excited about taking pictures of their beautiful handmade pieces, and enthusiastic about sharing them on line. Many of the crafts will be sold at the upcoming blogging event, BlogHer.

Local artisans with their wares

Finally, the last aspect of the program is a summer camp, attended by the children of both the LATISM volunteers and cyber room participants, where they get to work on their English, Kung Fu skills and to generally have fun. It’s amazing how a relatively small, but extremely focused organization like LATISM can achieve so much in so little time. What they will leave behind are practical skills, knowledge, the promise of economic sustainability, and most importantly, increased self-worth and hope for a population too often ignored.

Ana Roca Castro and "gringo"

Where have I been?

Been a long time since I've posted. But social media is becoming hyper-social. You could spend all day on Twitter , Facebook , You Tube and I guess plenty of others. I think all those aforementioned platforms have become more popular than blogging, due to our obsession with multi-tasking, achievement, competition and measurement. You can only use 140 words in Twitter, and Facebook entries are similarly short. You can measure tweets, retweets, followers, likes, and now even your Twitter ranking on Klout. And of course you don't have to write at all with You Tube. And it's insidiously fracturing our lifes. It turns the riddle of "If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound?", to "If I don't tweet about it, is it real?"

But what have I been doing? Working a lot. Producing video from a series of "Mom blogger" conferences for J&J, asking Moms, and some Dads, "How are you using social media for social good?"  See highlights below. The last one, Mom 2.0, was held in New Orleans, where the weather was warm, the bread pudding superb and the mint juleps perfect!  I even tried an interview myself with comically horrific results. It was good to laugh though. I promise that I will blog some more. In fact, I'll try again after I tweet the fact I blogged, post the blog entry on Facebook, pinged Technorati, and had my third cup of coffee!

  

1000 Women Bloggers......and me!

July 18: First impressions of BlogHer 08, in San Francisco. Fantastic conference. And I'm just exaggerating, there are a bunch of us guys, but we are definitely a tiny minority. A new concept for white males! In many positive ways, this conference is unique by dint of its population, but on the other hand, a BlogHer is a blogger, is a blogger. And I'm finding there is ample common ground, information sharing and interests. One thing that you can't help noticing is the amazing positive energy here. It's palpable. It's also extremely well organized, and boy (or girl), do they know snack food - danish, Snickers, popcorn, chocloate, even Swedish Fish at the Sesame St. booth. It is also striking how non-commercial this is. Even though there are sponsors (J&J is here through the Safe Kids Worldwide organization, of which we are a founding sponsor), there is surprisingly little "pitching" going on. Maybe I'm stereotyping, but it seems that there is a female sensibility for "sharing" and connecting, as opposed to a masculine one of "selling" and deal making. Speaking of which, I'm reluctantly being impressed by Twitter, which the participants here seem to love. While it seems a bit like "social stalking" to me, it certainly is an interesting way to keep in touch. I noticed a twitter from BlogHer yesterday which read: "I'm amused that there are men here at BlogHer..............they're smarties! ;-)" I was kind of amused by THAT! But I think she may be right.

Katie's blog

Before I collapse tonight, I wanted to link to my niece Katie's hysterical blog
Halpyourself . Good work Katie. Keep up the Halper tradition of humor, sarcasm and disbelief!