Posts Tagged → Oil Spill

New Orleans Reflections For K10

The following post is a written letter by Michael Hecht, President and CEO of Greater New Orleans, Inc. I’m sharing the letter in its full format because I believe this is something more people should read and hope that by sharing it with you – readers of The Causemopolitan – that you’ll understand a little bit more the struggles and the triumphs of New Orleans and how we all work a little bit every day to undestand it more and to work towards a better future.

The “us” is all of us. It’s not just residents, it’s expats living elsewhere, it’s one-time residents now somewhere else, it’s college students and JazzFest visitoes. It’s all of us. We all have the power, passion and influence to keep New Orleans top of mind and continue to help her from whereever we may come from. I hope you’ll join me. Now onto Michael’s letter:

Reflecting at the fifth anniversary of Katrina — K5 — it is tempting to claim success.

Our population is back; we powered through the recession; global companies are moving to our region; reforms are making New Orleans a better place; and, of course, the Saints are world champions.

But the truth is, it’s too early to claim success. We have been buoyed by a short-term recovery economy, and significant long-term challenges remain. Decades are not reversed in days.

To really know if we have succeeded, to really know if we have created a New Orleans region better than before, we have to go out ten years. Here we will find the “new normal” that will come to pass after the Katrina money has run dry, and the economy is left to stand on its own.

At this point — at K10 — we will be able to sit back, and reflect. And, if indeed we have been successful, here is what it may look like:

  • New Orleans will be the great boutique city of America. In a world of creeping sameness, NOLA will shine with its unique culture and diverse flair, attracting professionals and tourists, alike.
  • Greater New Orleans will be a great region of America: cohesive and connected, it will offer a lifestyle or corporate option for everyone — and offer places like Houston and Atlanta a run for their money.
  • Globalstar, which recently relocated here from Silicon Valley, will prove to be the vanguard of a dynamic digital sector, as dozens of firms choose Greater New Orleans and create “Silicon Valley South.”
  • Showing that you can make lemonade from oily water, Southeastern Louisiana will have become a global hub for sustainable industry. Heralded by the recent move of Blade Dynamics to Michoud, this new sector will create thousands of jobs, diversifying our economy while sustaining our environment.
  • At the same time, next-wave oil production will remain an important — and safe — part of our economic mix — while Louisiana finally gets the royalty share it has so long deserved, to help fund the restoration of our coast.
  • Greater New Orleans will be on its way to reclaiming the mantle of “Gateway to the Americas,” with reinvestment in its ports, rekindling of relationships with partners like Brazil, and a refocus on value-added port-side production. Continue reading →

Director of Social Media at Pepsi Responds To My Post


Friends – It’s been a weary and arduous week for me as I’ve struggled with my next post to talk about the Pepsi Refresh Project for the Gulf. Especially after all of your comments in regards to the project. I was overwhelmed with the response and how much you care, truly care, about this space and about finding a way to right what I perceive as a wrong.

While the Refresh for the Gulf site launched with flaws that went unanswered for two days, within two hours of my post, Pepsi Refresh For The Gulf Is An Epic Fail, And Here’s Why: I received an email from the Director of Social Media for Pepsi, Bonin Bough. Along with Shiv Singh, Head of Digital for Pepsi, they reached out to me to have a phone call about the campaign, my frustrations, and how best to move forward.

I offered Bonin and Shiv the opportunity to write a response to my blog post about the campaign to be posted here on The Causemopolitan and it’s below.

What I’ve heard from YOU is that this area of online contests is not quite there yet. It’s still missing pieces and elements to have the maximum impact to the nonprofit and activist communities. So here’s what I’m going to do. Below is the response from Bonin and Shiv, take a look, leave comments about what you think and then I’ll write another post including comments from both posts and we can keep working together, as a community, to help move the needle forward and help tell brands what would make this less icky for us and really help the nonprofits and those with limited time and resources get the maximum impact they need and exposure.

Maybe it’s microsites like Refresh Everything. Maybe it’s not. We’re getting there. I’m glad I wrote that post last week. It reminded me that passion doesn’t have to be blindly optimistic. My eyes are open. I’m here to help drive the conversation forward and ignite the problem-solver in all of us. Help me figure out how to do that. In the meantime, the response from Pepsi is below.

*****
Sloane, thanks for giving us the opportunity to post on your blog. Before we address your points, we’d like to share the thinking behind Pepsi Refresh Project’s “Do Good for the Gulf” initiative.

About month-and-a-half ago, as the full extent of the oil spill’s impact in the Gulf of Mexico became more and more apparent, we began to think about how we could help communities in the Gulf states take a step forward with the Pepsi Refresh Project. The members of our core Pepsi Refresh working team were sitting at home following the oil spill coverage on-line and on T.V., like most people in the country, and wondering what we could do to help affected communities quickly. We figured we’d start to see ideas coming into the main Pepsi Refresh program over time but believed we could encourage more ideas to help the Gulf communities (more quickly) if we doubled our commitment for one month and created a Gulf-specific program.

We consulted with our partners, including GOOD, Global Giving and our local bottlers, and determined that we could play a role in helping Americans support the families, schools, businesses and individuals who are working to move forward in the wake of the oil spill. So, on July 1, we launched Pepsi Refresh Project: Do Good for the Gulf, a Gulf-focused program that would mirror our national effort. Since then, we received hundreds of great submissions that are now up for voting through the end of this month – and we’re really happy about that. But we’re not happy that there were some speed bumps with the new Gulf-specific site, as Sloane pointed out in her post last week. We certainly understand the frustration this caused, and we’re sorry for the inconvenience people may have experienced.

Here’s a timeline of what happened:

  • A few hours after launch the Google maps API was fixed, but it took a few days for the cache to clear completely.
  • We learned about the bit.ly code error on Tuesday at 5:00 p.m. and the correct code was implemented at 8:40 p.m. Both the original bit.ly code and the new code direct people to submitted ideas.

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Pepsi Refresh For The Gulf Is An Epic Fail, And Here’s Why:

Houston We Have An Error

Let me start by saying this is a rare, but necessary rant stemming from the launch Monday of Pepsi’s Refresh Everything for the Gulf contest, to which I have a project in the running. The contest launched Monday on an unstable platform, lacking key functionality, changing the URLs given to entrants to share after it was launched and without updates to any of the entrants about why the site was unstable, when it would be up and running and why it only worked periodically those crucial first 48 hours.

Interested? Read on. It gets better.

Ok, so Pepsi decides to do something cool this year. They launch the Refresh Everything project. They have $1.3 million to give away in grants every month to projects ranging from $5,000 to $25,000. Voters receive 10 votes they can use daily. After the oil spill, they announce a special contest awarding $1.3 million just to the Gulf. I have, frankly, been torn about the contest from the start. On one hand it’s money to organizations and individuals with good ideas. On the other hand, it promotes this “popular kid in high school” mentality for nonprofits where they have to focus on asking people to vote for them (a simple action requiring nothing monetary) and then the person feels like they’ve helped, but if the organization doesn’t win they spent time and resources on something with a zero return. This is a serious problem for organizations with already thin resources and an industry-wide problem that has been written about extensively, but I won’t touch on here. This is focused on the debacle of the Refresh for the Gulf campaign.

Let’s talk about what went wrong.

1) Launch was disorganized. This is PEPSI mind you. As an proposed project, no one was told at what time the contest was going live (8AM EST? 3PM PST). In fact when I filled out the form, I did get a confirmation screen but no email and no correspondence at all the past month. I assumed my project was accepted but couldn’t be sure. The site only said that voting would launch 8/2, not what time. I saw some projects start promoting in the morning, before it launched telling people to get ready. By my accounts, it went live around 10AM. I was given this extension to use in promoting the site: http://refresheverything.com/votenow (I chose the votenow when I filled out the form, most people put their organization’s name) and then on the live page, this was the shortcode: http://pep.si/cwPSej.

2) Site was unstable the first 48 hours. Everyone who knows about these contests knows that you have to get ahead early. Since one of their pulldown menus is “Current Leaders” projects want to get their fans voting from the very second the flood gates open to get their votes up. This means that marketing strategies are done in advance of the launch if you’re good and know what’s up. For me, this was built into the second series of Gulf Coast Benefits happening on August 25th. When we were building this second series of benefits, there were three calls to action: Attend, Donate or Vote. 100% of this effort is volunteered time from experts in the cause space who agreed to push out the Gulf Coast Benefit shortcode once it was live and use in their own blog posts and across the web. The site worked fine the first few hours, then this happened:

Live Screenshot From URL Pepsi Refresh Provided http://refresheverything.com/votenow

Uhm, sorry? I looked around at other projects I was supporting and some worked, some didn’t I tried the full URL and the shortcode given to me by Pepsi. Same error. A few hours later, everything seemed fine again and so we all thought it was a slight glitch.

We were wrong.

By Tuesday morning, the links we were given were rendered useless by that error page. Let me tell you what I had done in the meantime and where I had put those wrong links:

  • Changed my email signature on my three emails inboxes
  • Created customized away messages for all three acconts
  • Updated my status on the 4 Facebook accounts I’m admininstrator on
  • Updated my Facebook profiles
  • Updated my Twitter profile
  • Updated all three Gchat status messages and my Skype status update
  • Voted for 10 projects and left a comment with a link to my project
  • Left comments for 10 other projects supporting them and leaving a link to my project
  • Emailed 145 of my closest and most high profile friends with a plea for their help with the links
  • Written 3 blog posts
  • Posted a link to my weekly newsletter going to thousands.
  • Posted 50+ direct messages to friends asking for a retweet about my campaign
  • Gchated with 10 friends asking them to support my campaign.

(This doesn’t even take into account the personal support I’ve given the campaign, the blog posts I’ve written encouraging people to submit ideas and support the initiative – all of which is frankly, now an embarrassment).
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Vote for Gulf Coast Benefit to Win $25,000 in the Pepsi Refresh Competition for the Gulf Coast!

Photo Courtesy of Kris Krug for #TEDxOilSpill


100+ days. Can you believe it? That’s how much time has passed since the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded on April 20th. Since then hundreds of millions of gallons of oil have poured into the Gulf of Mexico. I’ve been frustrated. I’m sure you have too. We’ve tried a lot of things. Plugging the pipe. Creating fundraisers for wetlands restoration, wildlife preservation and support for families. I don’t care what anyone says. We can make a difference. You and me. Ready? Here’s how.

Vote now at http://bit.ly/votegulfbenefit

As of yesterday, you can take two minutes to cast your votes (at http://bit.ly/votegulfbenefit) and win $25,000 for a project that will create fun interactive community birthday parties for kids and families. For those who have followed my journey, you’ll remember Cause It’s My Birthday where for my 30th birthday I raised $19,500 with Doug Campbell for Netting Nations, with 100% of the funds going to malaria nets in Ghana by throwing 7 birthday parties in 7 cities in 7 days. Fast forward to April, when in the wake of the oil spill, I co-produced a series of 35 nationwide concerts called Gulf Coast Benefit raising $45,000 for Gulf Restoration Network’s Gulf Future Campaign that gives aid directly to fishing families who need it. Our second round of benefits are happening August 25th, and we’ve partnered with CitizenEffect, Social Media Club and a handful of rockstar partners to raise money, again directly going to families, through Catholic Charities.

In January 2010, PepsiCo created the Pepsi Refresh Project, an online competition that will awards up to $1.3 million to social improvement ideas that receive the most votes each month. The Pepsi Refresh Project has announced a special round, with voting beginning on August 2nd, for ideas designed to help States along the Gulf Coast. Your votes (at http://bit.ly/votegulfbenefit) can help Gulf Coast Benefit. Our goals are:

* Alleviate stress of families by creating community birthday parties
* Provide activities and entertainment that refresh the spirit
* Showcase strength of the community
* Create community days where families can come together

Mental health experts and research shows that people who have a history of depression or PTSD (as a quarter of Katrina survivors do), are at greater risk of future mental health issues when another disaster occurs. With your votes, we’ll be able to alleviate those stresses by providing an opportunity for light-hearted fun. That’s an important release for these families. We’ve provided a detailed budget breakdown of where the money goes, coupled with our track record and my personal commitment to helping the Gulf Coast, I hope you’ll vote DAILY this month to support the project.

With your votes – and your support – we can make a real difference. Here’s how! Go to http://bit.ly/votegulfbenefit and VOTE ONCE EVERY DAY BETWEEN AUGUST 2ND AND AUGUST 31ST!

Please send this to your friends, family and contacts and ask them to do the same. I’ll be posting more updates this month, and sharing what other projects I support. If there are projects you support you want me to share and talk about, drop me a line at sloane@thecausemopolitan.com.

Reflections From The First International CrisisCongress

CrisisCongress Photo Courtesy of Taylor Davidson on Flickr


Back in January, when the earthquake happened in Haiti, I felt like I do in all catastrophic disasters. Sick to my stomach. Human suffering is always hard to see, but for me, I’ve always been really sensitive to the suffering of others, and my whole life these instances had left me feeling like what could I do to help. Me, only one person.

As I’ve grown into my activist and humanitarian roles, technology has helped me find a place where I feel like I belong in the response. It’s not my primary profession, per say, in life. But it is a place where I feel like I can make a difference.

How?

Sometimes, from using our voice. Our voice online has the ability to multiply and make a bigger impact. Using your voice on the internet (and this could be Facebook or your own blog) is a way of standing up for what you believe, asking questions, and seeking answers.

That’s what happened to me in January. The earthquake happened and I turned to the Internet to see what the response would be. I had heard of Transparency Camps happening last summer, but only pieces, as I had been in the Philippines on my Kiva Fellowship. I had heard more about CrisisCommons from friends like Alex Rose and Chad Catacchio and with my incessant need for information learned more about the Camps. I started to see them pop up around the country and people were reaching out to me, since I now lived in New Orleans, asking to connect with people who had been instrumental in the response for Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and wondering when there would be a CrisisCamp in New Orleans.

From the bottom of my cause-filled activist heart, you could say this is how I was roped in to creating CrisisCampNOLA.

I was helped by Robert Fogarty, who himself has a nonprofit focused on evacuation techniques called Evacuteer.org and by Barrett Conrad, who leads up a monthly developer event in New Orleans and could tap into those networks to get developers to attend.

So I had Alex and Chad rooting me on, and Robert and Barrett partnering and helping shoulder the load, and the local New Orleans community donating space (LaunchPadNOLA), food (Naked Pizza) and press/promotion (New Orleans Tech) and all of the pieces were coming together. But more than all of that, all CrisisCamps would be remiss not to mention Heather Blanchard.

Heather’s passion for creating CrisisCamp and moving CrisisCommons into a viable entity were never far off from the overall goal of having a successful campaign.

We held CrisisCampNOLA, we invited local Haitians to come and tell their stories and we built a local response and also helped on the national scale. It was, by all means, a success.
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