Author: adam

Protesting Arizona SB1070

Arizona always makes me feel uncomfortable around this time of year. I can still taste the clear skies, 70-degree afternoons, march madness and spring training baseball fresh on the palate, but anxiously sense the sun getting stronger, the air getting thicker and the dusty dog days of summer getting ready to roll on in.

This year feels especially foreign for me. Instead of swallowing my annual dose of Suns playoff heartache, I’m awkwardly jumping for joy after a sweep of the Spurs in the Western Conference Semifinals. Instead of being overseas, hunched over a computer, dealing with language and cultural barriers, I’m back in my hometown, celebrating with my friends and family.

As good as it is to be home, for travelers it can still feel weird. The sun seems to be beating down even harder on Arizona these days due to the passing of Arizona Senate Bill 1070.

As I find myself anchored in the desert for the foreseeable future, I’m making a conscious effort to get to know my city and state more intimately by implementing some of the exploratory tactics I used in other countries.

One of the first, and most exciting, events I covered while working in Santiago was a protest. So I followed suit and set out to photograph the SB1070 protest at the Arizona state capitol on Sunday, May 1, 2010.

I knew that a protest in Phoenix wasn’t going to have the tenacity, danger and adrenaline of a Santiago protest, but I figured that our wild-west culture combined with the intense way this new law has been polarizing the public made this an ideal time to get my hands dirty in some Valley public assembly.

No flying rocks, tear gas or fires, but I’m pleased with the pictures and working on compiling the audio and video into something (ideas welcome). As good as it felt to be back in that arena, I still find myself in the awkward state of being happy and comfortable while waiting, feeling and burning for whatever happens next.

Sunday night at The Trunk Space

“And there’s nothing short a’ dying
That’s half as lonesome as the sound
Of the sleeping city sidewalk
And Sunday morning coming down.”
–Johnny Cash from his song, “Sunday Morning Coming Down”

I’m not a big fan of Sundays either.

But I’ve learned that to treat them best, you’ve got to alternate the dosage and keep the prescriptions fresh and unexpected.

This past Sunday, I was feeling slightly lethargic, hunched over the computer, with a list of chores and admin work on the agenda for the day and night.

Fortunately I was aware enough to assess the situation, scrap most of the junk on the list and find a band I’d never heard of playing at a place I’d never been.

Mount Righteous out of Grapevine, Texas headlined the show at The Trunk Space that also featured the “Haymarket Squares” and “Hello Mind Control.” Mount Righteous reminded me of a smaller, whiter, more up-and-coming version of one of my favorite Chilean bands: Banda Conmocion, with horns and percussion instruments played to shatter glass and cause whiplash. Just what the doctor ordered for my Sunday night.

This outing also served as a means to practice shooting with my new Speedlite 580 exii flash. I’m still figuring out all the bells and whistles, but am pleased with the purchase thus far.

Works well with a zoom lens and is great for eliminating shadows in bright day shots. Indoors at night is obviously trickier and I think I can set it to work better with a softbox to soften the shadows there too.

Saying Goodbye to Geebye

Every group has that one quirky person that gets messed with and laughed at constantly. Think Johnny Drama from Entourage or Milhouse from the Simpsons. Despite all the jokes, put-downs and abuse, this quintessential role player rarely gets upset and remains content, rolling with the punches and accepted among the pack.

What is fascinating about this person is that as much crap as they take, they are a pillar of the group’s structure and are sorely missed when they are gone. Think about the times when that fall-guy is absent from your group. When the jokester at the office goes on vacation. When the dorky kid at the lunch table is home sick. What happens? Things go way off kilter and the group does not function as it should. There are lulls in conversations, awkward pauses, few jokes and no zen.

In my family the quirky, lovable, blunt of our jokes was Ginger: our golden retriever lab mutt. She was the oldest dog of four in our pack, had one eye removed due to a tumor, part of her liver removed due to another ailment and had been through a lot in her 15 years.

As a puppy she was tied up in blankets, dunked under water and given batteries to lick. We put peanut butter on her nose and laughed hysterically at how long it would take her to lick it all off. And you know what? She loved every minute of it, relishing in her role.

Ginger, who also went by Gin-Gin, Geebye, YanYaWooz, Coorglios and Girgenhelper, loved chasing leaves when she went swimming and barking at planes flying overhead.

When she got excited, she would smile and show her teeth, shake her behind and bury her head in her front paws, almost out of embarrassment for being so excited. She loved being scratched (as most dogs do) and meeting new people. But the irony was that given how excited she got and the amount of fur she shed, most people hesitated before petting her.

Once you dug in though, she let you know she liked it. Groaning, twisting, wagging, nudging for more…she remains to this day the best dog to scratch behind the ears I have ever met.

On March 6, 2010 we had to put Ginger down.

The old age, arthritis and osteosarcoma in her leg took their toll. She was in bad shape for about two weeks before she broke her infected leg on a routine misstep in the middle of the night. The doctors said that she would not have been a good candidate for amputation or chemotherapy.

This was the first time we had had to pull the plug on one of our pups and it was one of the most painful and difficult experiences our family has gone through in a very long time. But as gut wrenching as it was, when I think about how she went out, I cannot help but smile because it went right along with how Ginger did everything else in her life.

Prior to Ginger’s departure, my brother and sister, who live out of state, came back home for the weekend. We knew the end was getting near and they wanted to see her in case something happened. When Ginger’s leg broke, it was only hours after we were all back together. Like she knew the pack was complete again and the time was right for her to go. Her exit was also her most beautiful act: she brought the pack together one last time, to say goodbye.

So today, take note and give thanks to the Ginger in your pack. Buy your buddy a beer in between insults. Take the office spaz out to lunch. Or, just give that funny, tail-wagging, fur-shedding family member an extra cookie and a nice scratch behind the ears to let her know how much she means to you.

All dogs go to heaven, and Ginger is up there smiling, helping everybody get along.

Chile Earthquake on Twitter and Facebook

This weekend was the first time I can remember feeling a gnawing void in communication and a vested burn to get informed about a crisis. Social media came through in the clutch.

I lived and worked in Santiago, Chile as a freelance journalist from June 2008 to August 2009. From Rolando at the corner store, to co-workers at The Santiago Times and Revolver, to my furry housemate Leo (who loved to rummage through the fridge and take craps in the living room), every person I met and relationship I had, contributed to my unforgettable Chilean experience.

You can imagine my distress when I woke up to a text message Saturday morning that read, “Awful news in Chile.”

A rush of faces, worry and possible explanations ran through my head as I jumped out of bed and raced down the stairs to see what was going on. I needed to know what the heck happened and that my friends were safe.

I didn’t turn on the TV. I didn’t turn on the radio. I didn’t call my aunt, who sent the text message.

Without thinking, I opened up my laptop and checked Facebook and Twitter.

Within thirty seconds, I saw that #terremotoenchile was a trending topic on Twitter and read this on Facebook from a friend: “8.5 Earthquake about 345 am. Lasted about 2 minutes. Incredibly shaken up, lots of broken stuff. We are okay. Thanks for all the emails. Will update when possible. Communication is still a hit or miss right now.”

And like that, I was informed.

I rushed to read more posts, check profiles, tweet updates and search for more information. Fortunately, I did not have to go far, and the panic gradually subsided.

  • “All fine over here! My friends and i got through the quake safely. I was dancing to the cure at a local club when it all happened!”
  • “Yo estoy bien Adam! Hablé con [name of friend] también y estamos ok” (Translation: I am ok Adam! I spoke with [name of friend] also and we are ok)

  • “Hi everyone, we are really lucky and no major damage was done to my apartment or my being. I came home last night around 4am…Things started shaking, and I didn’t think anything about it at first, but soon enough we were huddled under the bathroom sink!! Very scary! Thanks for worrying everyone, love you guys, let’s hope everyone else is OK!”
  • “etamos vivos hueooooon!!!!! gracias por la preocupacion!” (Translation: we’re alive dude!!!!! thanks for the worry!)

  • “If someone hears anything from my parents please send me a message.” Followed by this, less than an hour later: “Mom and dad are ok… the house, not too sure.”
  • “if anyone in Chile needs me to phone someone in the UK/mainland Europe, just let me know who and the number.”

After about half an hour of exhausting Facebook, Twitter and Gmail chat, I finally turned on the TV and checked Google news for additional information. (Google News and Google Reader are usually the first two places I go when I log on.)

Aside from a few statistics, it was mostly old news to me. The video and photos added some color to the tragic picture, the weather center offered tsunami predictions and the fluid injured/missing/dead tallies did not shed much light.

So, I kept the TV on for background noise, the Google News tab open in my browser, and went back to social media. CNN, The New York Times and The Guardian may have served well to inform the masses, but my Facebook and Twitter channels provided the instant information I needed from the sources I cared about and trusted.

No newscast, newswire or newspaper could have replaced the tweets, comments and status updates I read on Saturday morning. And that is one of the many reasons why social media channels like Facebook and Twitter are not going anywhere.

If you are trying to contact a person in Chile and haven’t been able to locate him/her, Google is providing this application that could help: http://chilepersonfinder.appspot.com/

Reading between the lines of @OGOchoCinco

I get about 10 pitches a day offering tips, case-studies and seminars that promise to improve the way I use social media. After I scan the last of the morning’s barrage of tweets, emails and blog-posts, my eyes usually glaze over and turn inward, just in time for lunch.

Self-proclaimed experts do provide valuable nuggets from time to time, but most of the advice from the guru lot is regurgitated redundancy.

So, in efforts to liven up my daily feed and diversify my cabinet of social media advisors, I have turned to Chad Ochocinco, a different kind of guru all together. While he may not be a seasoned public relations professional or the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, he can teach you a few things about social media, and make you laugh in the process.

The flamboyant, outspoken and captivating Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver (born Chad Johnson, before legally changing his last name to match a loose Spanish translation of his uniform number: 85) uses an array of social media channels to create that intimate, “my-boy’s-a-superstar reality” for hundreds of thousands of people.

Why should you care about this?

Because, unlike other celebrities who use the new media sparingly and primarily for promotional and commercial purposes, Ochocinco’s all-access, comprehensive and constantly hilarious social-media model provides key values and takeaways that can be translated to anyone’s use of social media.

Be Interesting

“Anybody have anything they want to confess before the new year gets here#handraised-I dated Jennifer Anniston for 2 hours and 34 minutes” — posted to Twitter on December 31, 2009 by @OGOchoCinco

The six-time Pro Bowl, three-time All Pro, multimillionaire’s personality makes Rod Tidwell look like Ron Weasley. And even though he does post about mundane day-to-day issues, he makes it interesting and adds value by injecting himself and his attitude into his messages.

Obviously not everybody has his draw or built-in prominence and celebrity, but what you can take away from this is that you need to find that unique, interesting and personal angle on your seemingly mundane messages to make them valuable to your audience. Nobody cares what you had for lunch or that you are on your way to pick up your kids from school, but they will care if you provide something useful like a heads up on traffic, a new recipe or something whacky your kid said.

Be Honest

“Oh hell na, I need ustream right now to discuss me not having a f ing VALENTINE, this is gonna be classic cuz I’m level 5 pissed” — posted to Twitter on February 12, 2010 by @OGOchoCinco

One of the many beauties of social media is the natural filtering process that occurs between the audience and the speaker. If a person is not getting any value out of what is being said, they will just stop listening. That kind of selection process gives power to the receiver and puts pressure on the sender. If you are fake, selling something or working towards an agenda, people will usually sniff you out and turn you off.*

So be genuine in conversations, celebrate true accomplishments and, most importantly, embrace and expose your flaws. As scary as this may be to some, you will have more credibility with your audience and receive the same respect in return.

Be Active

“If I break it, you might as well believe it.” — Slogan for OCNN (Ocho Cinco News Network)**

Ochocinco is online almost 24/7. He broadcasts an Internet TV show, tweets all day from @OGOchoCinco, plays video games online (gamer tag Esteban 85), has a massive Facebook fan-base and recently launched OCNN in efforts to eliminate the middleman in mainstream sports media and break sporting news directly from the sources. He responds to fans, courts love interests, complains about NFL policies, calls out other athletes, posts pictures of his family and much, much more.

I am not saying that everybody should tweet as much as @OGOchoCinco or that I’m going to start my own ustream.tv station. I am saying that we all need to experiment with various forms of social media and maintain a constant and appropriate presence on the channels that we deem valuable.

Chad Ochocinco may never keynote a social-media seminar or dissect his tactics for the public, but the next best thing for anybody looking to get more out of their social media efforts is to filter the feed from the “certified” experts and start reading between the lines of OchoCinco.

Who’s your off-the-beaten-path social-media advisor? How do you filter your feed?

Find Chad Ochocinco on:

*Copy Chat expands on this concept in a nice post
**Source: Mashable