This past Fall Quarter I taught the MCDM course, “Leadership in the Digital Age: Establishing Authenticity Through Story.” I couldn’t have asked for a more dynamic news cycle to accompany the class: the death of Apple CEO Steve Jobs, the Penn State scandal involving Joe Paterno’s Nittany Lions football program, and internally, a heated debate involving UW President Michael Young and the UW Provost appointment. Each of these events provided rich case studies in accountability, transparency, and leadership style.

Beyond the discussions of personal story and individual leadership, the class also tackled issues related to the collective. Namely, the platforms and tools that are inherently social and can have profound effects on the way organizations engage internally and externally, and furthermore, the impact they then have in their communities. For one of the final assignments, an original film featuring 21st century leaders, MCDM Cohort 11-er Shanna Christie took a unique approach and featured her home of West Seattle, and in particular how the leadership of the hyperlocal West Seattle Blog has created a stronger sense of interconnectedness and involvement in the neighborhood. Shanna’s film is entitled West Side Story: A Tale of Technology:

A natural bookend to the themes presented in Shanna’s film is my subsequent piece this December in the 30th anniversary issue of ARCADE magazine, Found In My Own World: Leadership and Community in the Digital Age. In this article I argue what Shanna reveals to be her experience in West Seattle: the interplay between virtual and place-based communities not only strengthens the community overall, but provides new leadership structures that are less formal, but arguably just as effective.

While my Fall Quarter course has ended, my immersion in the topic has not. Starting on January 17, I will be part of a UW Communication Department delegation to South Carolina, including Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist David Horsey, covering the lead up to the South Carolina GOP primary on January 22. This partnership with the Seattle Times involves a blog that will be very dynamic in the next week and beyond, so keep a close eye on it. While the story from the 2008 election was the Obama campaign’s ability to leverage new media, four years later we have a transformed landscape where all campaigns are savvier with the digital tools. Therefore, I’ll be paying particular attention to the life stories the candidates share—and what tools they use to engage communities—and the pictures those stories paint about their leadership style.

Finally, speaking of stories and leadership styles, I’ll be posting more of the student films on the MCDM website over the next few weeks. The films spotlight leaders from across sectors and industries, each with a unique approach to the question of leadership in the digital age.

Last week UC Berkeley researcher Kentaro Toyama wrote a guest post on James Fallows’ blog in The Atlantic entitled, “Technology is Not the Answer.” It struck a chord with many. (The day it was published multiple people in my network sent me links—always a sign of buzz.)

In this first of a series of five guest posts, Toyama suggested that we have overemphasized the role technology can play in solving some of the world’s most pressing problems, at the expense of emphasizing the intent and capacity of partners on the ground. While Toyama readily admits that technology can provide incredible “amplification” of efforts, international development success hinges on the human beings that compose the partnerships, not the shiny new toys.

Toyama’s belief that people matter more than the products they use is one I share. To start, it informed my approach for my lecture at tomorrow’s Seattle Arts & Lecture – U Series, “’Let’s Do the Numbers’: Metrics and Maturation of Digital Media in Emerging Markets.” One of the central storylines of my talk addresses the “demographic dividend” that many emerging market countries possess: namely, the significantly young populations who can drive economic growth as they enter the workforce. Read more…

When I landed this past week in the O-R-Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg, I had been flying a cumulative 20 hours since leaving Seattle. After clearing customs into South Africa, I made a beeline to the restroom to freshen up. On the wall of the spotless restroom was the sign photographed to the right.

I haven’t yet seen a sign like that in SeaTac Airport, but in South Africa it’s not surprising given how ubiquitous cell phones and text messaging have become.

The breathless adoption of mobile telephony on the African continent–with South Africa leading the charge — means that I learn as much about the power of mobile adoption and use when I travel there as I do when I am walking around the hyper-connected city of Seattle.

The African continent has impressed me again and again the last seven years with their creative utilization of mobile–which in large part inspired the first course I taught for the MCDM, Emerging Markets in Digital Media. Today, the African market is growing to include producers as well as consumers. According to Erik Hersman, co-founder of Ushahidi and the voice behind the blog White African, the African continent is in a great position to produce relevant technology moving forward.

Why? Read more…

Department of Communication Chair David Domke recently blogged about 2009 Distinguished Alumnus Peter Clarke, and a particular a piece on health communication research that Clarke co-authored with USC colleague Suzanne Evans in the Stanford Social Innovation Review. Their story, “Disseminating Orphan Innovation,” traces the challenges of recreating successful social innovations from one distinct location to another, and how this requires customization, not merely replication.

Clarke and Evans illustrate their case through the project From Wholesaler to the Hungry, an initiative that links established food vendors with institutions who feed and support citizens at the margins of society. At the end of their piece Clarke and Evans offer “Eight Lessons for Customizing Innovations,” and after reading them I was struck by how the conclusions that Clarke and Evans draw mirror the kinds of lessons learned regarding new media adoption in emerging markets: taking time to build relationships of trust, anticipating barriers to adoption, and identifying local champions, to name just three.

As we have discussed in this fall’s MCDM Emerging Markets in Digital Media course, new media innovations in Beijing, Buenos Aires, and Bombay all require unique adaptations given cultural contexts–exactly the customization Clarke and Evans address. Tune in to the MCDM livestream channel on December 4 between 8:45 AM and 3:30 PM PST for student presentations that highlight topics of innovation in emerging markets, or join us in person in CMU 302.

New York University professor, author, and nutritionista Marion Nestle held court in a packed Kane Hall this past Wednesday as the third featured speaker in the UW Program on the Environment’s speaker series, “Eating Your Environment.”

Nestle talk, “Food Politics: Advocacy for Social Change,” chronicled the USA’s contemporary food industry, food consumption trends, and food policies. An avid blogger and tweeter (over 36,000 followers and counting), Nestle is one of the most well known voices in this country within the modern discourse on food.

One section of her talk addressed emerging markets and the food industry, which I found particularly resonant given my current MCDM course, “Emerging Markets in Digital Media.” Domestic industry giants pitch a wide range of products to emerging markets—from computer platforms to breakfast cereal. Regardless of what is being sold, the dynamics of access, power, strategic partnerships, marketing, and brand strength all still come into play. When Nestle revealed that the Pediatric Association of Guatemala endorsed Kellogg’s Chocolate Frosted Flakes (“Choco Zucaritas”), you have to wonder who Tony the Tiger paid off.  “Industry goals and health goals are not the same,” Nestle reminded the audience.

Nor are they necessarily the same when it comes to digital media. As emerging markets shift from primarily consumers to the producers of new technology, so too will the dynamic between indigenous and external industries. On the one hand, there are examples of strong partnerships that marry strengths–inside knowledge with established expertise–but the question of what happens when collaborators become potential competitors is one that must be asked.

Malcolm Gladwell has a piece in in the most recent New Yorker where he questions the ability of online social networks to mobilize groups to organize for social change. I won’t comment on his premise here, but I will say that online social networks are a great platform for mobilizing groups to buy a taco. Or an ice-cream cone. Pulled pork sandwich, anyone?

The food truck revolution is closely tied to the social network revolution. As mobile dispensers of food, trucks rely on customers tracking their routes via their personal mobile devices.  You can catch Molly Moon’s ice cream cones in Capitol Hill on Wednesday, and Marination Mobile in Ballard on Thursday. Legendary food writer Jonathan Gold of the LA Times just published a piece about food trucks in LA that drew attention to customers who “obsessively monitor [the] Twitter feed” (“tweaters”) of particularly beloved trucks.

This synergy between the digital revolution and the food revolution is one of the reasons why the MCDM was asked to join the inaugural “Geek Row” in Seattle’s Mobile Chowdown this Friday just north of Qwest Field. We’ll be there with the likes of Urbanspoon and Ben Huh, flying the Department of Communication flag, sharing the work of the MCDM, and likely eating a taco or two.

There are many yardsticks to measure the health of a community: from disease burden to a free press to a shrunken digital divide. I want the MCDM to continue to ask important questions related to these measurement tools and contribute meaningfully to the conversation.

Case in point:  the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has asked the MCDM to consider hosting TEDxChange, which will take place in NYC on September 20, with live streaming around the world. TEDxChange will look at the Millennium Development Goals in particular, which are currently one of the most well known—and well debated—measuring sticks when it comes to health indicators in the developing world.

This opportunity builds well off the MCDM’s successful TEDxSeattle in April of this year. To relive some of the energy from that magnificent day, here’s a recently completed “behind the scenes” look at TEDxSeattle, edited by Aaron Seeley and Terry Short. Footage shot by Michael Bean, Scott Macklin, Xurxo Martinez, Aaron Seeley, and Terry Short. The music is courtesy of Hanson Hosein.

This is right where the MCDM wants to be. Stay tuned for more details on TEDxChange as plans firm up and I hope, wherever you are in the world,  you’ll join the TEDxChange conversation come September 20.

It was widely reported this April that according to a report put out by the United Nations University, there are more cell phone subscriptions in India than sanitary toilets.

This fact speaks to India’s breathless proliferation of mobile telephony, contrasted by their staggering gaps in basic health services. Must one come at the expense of the other? What relationship exists between the two? What are the opportunities for connectivity to elevate one’s social or economic status?

Questions like these were raised in the course I taught at the MCDM last fall, “Emerging Markets in Digital Media.” The course content was informed by my work at the UW Department of Global Health, where I was based before moving to the north end of campus to join the MCDM full-time three weeks ago. I’ll be offering the course again this fall, as the inaugural class in the new MCDM “Emerging” academic pathway, which includes not only scholarship related to emerging markets, but emerging trends in digital media.

While strategic communication, storytelling, and leadership development are my background, I maintain a firm commitment to the value of global health scholarship and reporting, and work to see synergies in all of these fields. So when Journalism That Matters contacted the MCDM in early July about a survey they were designing with the global health thought leaders in this area, I was keen to share it broadly within the Department of Communication community. In a nutshell, they are collaborating to improve global health journalism in the Northwest, and see this survey as one of the first steps at crafting reporting that is relevant, accessible, and memorable.

Please take five minutes if you’re so inclined, and check out the JTM survey. They’d welcome responses in by July 31.

- Anita Verna Crofts

Related on Flip the Media:

• Mobile Phones in Developing Countries – Is Building Social Capital Enough?