jamescannonboyce's Open Salon Blog

175 Chickens in 1 Minute?!

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 13:04:09 -0400

You'd think the USDA would see the flaw of logic in letting the people who make the food inspect the food and decide if it is actually safe to eat.

The USDA has decided in its infinite wisdom, despite pink slime and a few other debacles of the food industry, to test a program allowing chicken companies to check their own livestock and decide whether or not the chickens are safe to eat.

The USDA claims this will save them tens of millions of dollars.

Well, USDA, I can save you even more. If you're going to let the chicken companies inspect their own chickens, just trash the whole program, because I guarantee you they will decide "ALL of our chickens are safe!"

At some point, you would hope someone at the USDA (and I looked it up, there are over 100,000 employees there) would have raised their hand and pointed out the glaringly obvious: "Uh, since these guys are selling us chicken/beef/fish/whatever, don't you think they are going to say that everything they're selling is safe?"

Ideally, another person (we're up to 2 out of 100,000 - a push perhaps, but I woke up optimistic this morning) would have seconded the first person's statement and then, just maybe, we could have our food actually inspected before we eat it.

Which, I will point out to the USDA and its 100,000 employees, is generally considered to be their core job.

And it gets worse.

Right now, the USDA inspectors (who are independent, don't work for the chicken companies, and aren't driven by chicken company profits for holiday bonuses) inspect 35 chickens a minute for lovely things like bile, feces and random spare parts that got through processing.

That's a chicken every two seconds.

Should you so desire, take two seconds to inspect the next chicken you see at the store. It's really not a lot of time, but with some practice you could get pretty good at it - which is a nice thought because you are essentially performing the task that stands between me eating a relatively clean chicken or a feces- and bile-covered chicken. (There is a difference, Mr. USDA, trust me on this one.)

Well, under this new program, the chicken companies will rubber stamp - er, I mean inspect 175 chickens a minute. 175! That's just under three chickens a second.

Are you thinking, "Wait a minute, 175 chickens a minute? That's impossible!" Well congratulations - you are now ahead of 100,000 USDA employees in the class on food safety.

I have a little test for you and the USDA: if you can even count to 175 in sixty seconds, I might reconsider my opposition.

If you can't, you need to sign this petition, share it with the world, put it up on Facebook.

Even better, if you know anyone at the USDA, send it to them and ask them to see what they can do for you, for me, and for everyone who prefers their chickens to be properly inspected, let alone inspected at all.

This post originally appeared at HandPicked Nation.

Social Media & the On May 12 Protests

Mon, 16 May 2011 16:05:15 -0400

Last week thousands of protestors descended on Wall Street to send Mayor Bloomberg and the banks as simple message: It’s time for millionaires to pay their fair share. The occasion was the release the new budget in New York City, a budget that would cut teachers jobs and social services for low income families.

We started working with the groups organizing the protest just three weeks before May 12. Our plan was pretty simple: leverage existing social media channels to build a strong fan base. In this case, the obvious choice was Facebook.

We put up the On May 12 Facebook page and immediately began a fan ad campaign. With such a short window (18 days) we knew we had to build fans quickly and to prime the pump, sort of speak, we knew fan ads would be the most effective way to quickly grow the group to a size where some real organic growth could occur.

The groups involved with the On May 12 movement focused on creating high quality video and blog content to share on the page. This steady stream of rich content gave new fans a better idea of what On May 12 was all about. And the frequent churn of content also gave fans a reason to come back to the page and more content to share with friends.

As we approached May 12, the day of action, we began shifting resources to advertise events on Facebook to existing fans. We wanted fans to RSVP to the May 12 events to help generate newsfeed items.

On the day of May 12, we also added a sponsored story ad to our campaign in Facebook. This would ensure that On May 12 posts would not get lost in our fans newsfeed items. We knew there would be a steady stream of protest related posts and we wanted all the fans to see them.

Overall, in just 18 days, the On May 12 group picked up more than 6,000 fans. It’s impressive for most organizations to pick up 6,000 fans in less than three weeks, but to go from zero fans to 6,000 is pretty incredible.

A lot of factors contributed to this impressive growth, like all the groups involved who emailed their large email lists and let their own social networks know about the movement. The power of unions in and around New York who leveraged their bases to grow the network, and the rich content that produced were also driving factors. But Facebook ads were a critical element to jumpstarting this campaign. We were able to bypass what is normally a stagnant period of growth and build a strong community in less than three weeks.

$15 Billion For Mother's Day - How About $4 For A Brick?

Mon, 25 Apr 2011 10:04:58 -0400

According to the National Retail Foundation, Mother's Day is big business and it looks like this year, total spend could top $15,000,000,000.

Besides this making me feel that the chocolates and card I give my mother every year is dragging the average down a touch, it makes me hopeful that this is a good year to ask everyone to consider donating $4 for a brick to not only honor their mother, but help a mother out in Costa Rica.

While here in the United States, we are starting to think about what restaurant to take Mom to or trying to remember what we got her last year, in Costa Rica, the mothers of one small village have much simpler things on their minds. Working with the amazing folks at the Mastate Charitable Foundation, these mothers are trying to build a small community center for their children to gather and play in.

So, we're trying to help them, one brick at a time.

For the sum of four dollars, which pales next to the close to BILLION DOLLARS that will be spent on spa packages for mothers here this year, you can donate a brick to the Community Center (we need three thousand more bricks to finish the center._

Now, I am not suggesting that a brick be the only present you give this Mother's Day, and of course, if you are a mother, maybe you'll relate to the mothers in Costa Rica whose wish is for a better life for their children.

But I am hoping with the billions and billions spent this year, we can together donate $20,000 to help build this community center. After all with the great foundation in life your mother gave you, it would be nice to help another mother do the same.

To learn more or to donate a brick, please click here.

Tonight in NYC, a Celebration, a Feast, & a Reason to Tweet.

Mon, 7 Mar 2011 11:03:32 -0500

Tonight, in New York City, Gay Men’s Health Crisis will celebrate with Savor; one of the top events of the year, but this year’s event is going to be one for the ages and reason for all of us to celebrate with them. If you can’t make the event we have a really special way for you to get involved on Twitter (hint: keep reading).

First, GMHC is celebrating thirty years of serving those in New York City who are living with HIV/AIDS; providing critical services and support to literally tens of thousands of New Yorkers over the decades. That is reason enough for all of us to pause on an early Spring Monday and say thank you to this remarkable group.

Next, tonight’s event promises to be the best Savor ever and yes, there are still some tickets available should you be looking for a great night out. Hosted by celebrity-chef Ted Allen of The Food Network’s Chopped and featuring some remarkable chefs such as Peter Hoffman of Savoy, Stephen Lewandoski of Tribeca Grill, Francois Payard of Francois Payard Bakery and Carmen Quagliata of Union Square Cafe, over 500 guests are expected to descend on Gotham Hall tonight and enjoy a remarkable feast for a very good cause.

At tonight’s event, for the first time GMHC will honor the inspiring work of Joan Tisch with the inaugural Judith Peabody Humanitarian Award. This award tonight honors not one but two of the most distinguished activists and philanthropists that have enriched GMHC over the past thirty years and all the men and women GMHC has served.

At last, but not least, especially for everyone who is not in New York City and can’t make the event, here’s a great reason to follow GMHC on Twitter. GMHC’s partner Kimpton Hotels is giving away a two-night stay if you follow GMHC and re-tweet about the event. All the details are here. But here are the highlights.

How to Enter:

In order to become eligible for the Kimpton Hotel 2 night giveaway, you must be at least 18 years of age. There is NO purchase necessary in order to become eligible for this give-away.

Directions:

Follow GMHC on Twitter (twitter.com/GMHC_online) and re-tweet the original message to become eligible:

RT @GMHC_online 2 honor Joan Tisch @ SAVOR #celebrateGMHC. Follow us & RT 4 chance to win 2 nights @Kimpton hotel http://bit.ly/foFQKO

Deadline for the give-away is Friday, March 11

Power Of Social Media In Egypt & Around The World Is Basic.

Tue, 1 Feb 2011 08:02:53 -0500

As a new and social media group, we often get questioned and asked about the power of social media, how it works and how it can help either their cause, or business. Most of the questions are really about the fringes of the media and about frankly somewhat esoteric uses of the media.

What we usually try and do is two things.

First,we explain that as tools and technologies develop, they are not fundmentally changing what we as humans have always done. What I mean is that the WHY has not changed. For example, the Cornell Lab Of Ornithology is one of our clients and ‘birders’ have always been about communities; ‘birders’ have formed small or large birding groups in their communities going back since the first person wrote a note about seeing a bluebird on a winter feeder.

But now, the HOW has changed, the tools one can use to create a birder group are not flyers on the wall of a local store, or writing letters to friends. Now, we can create a Facebook group and the community is global, instant and free to join. How does it work? Well, the Cornell Group is just a few months old and has over 17,000 members.

Or Twitter. Yes, it’s only 140 characters and no, I am not sure about the revenue model. But over the weekend, if you wanted the best real time updates, going onto Twitter and searching #egypt was the way to go. You could see reactions from all over the world, and even some coming out of Cairo. Was it perfect journalism? No, but it was real.

As regards Egypt, or any powerful country that has relied on the holding of information as a key to power, the Internet, again in its fundamentals, is very powerful. It allows for information to be exchanged quickly, freely and easily. It allows people in Egypt to communicate with people around the world - we did a live blogger chat for our client Human Rights First a few months ago with a blogger who was on the ground in Egypt.

Imagine if the uprising had tried to take place a generation ago? How would the people in Cairo communicated with the people in Alexandria? Far less London? It would have been far harder, more time-consuming, more dangerous and more expensive.

Today, there’s a story about evening news anchors ‘rushing’ to Egypt to cover the story. Why? Being on the ground five days later, are they really going to bring anything to the conversation that we haven’t already seen, tweeted, YouTubed and Facebooked? I don’t think so.

Every day we see groundbreaking technologies and cutting-edge tools emerge online. But we still are far more likely to be reminded that every day, the power of what is happening around the world is not at the edges but at the core.