Write across media

Journey Beyond Road Trauma classroom resources launched today

Today is the launch of the United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2021. To commemorate this important date, Sandra Cook and I (who are the founders the Journey Beyond Road Trauma (JBRT) online community), with the support of the Alcohol Education and Rehabilitation (AER) Foundation, are launching the JBRT Classroom Resources.

The resources use content and videos from the JBRT community to educate students about the effects of careless driving. The JBRT platform provides teachers with a motivational tool for interactive learning in the 21st century classroom. With web based content and resources, a teacher can conduct a JBRT unit of study entirely digitally.

We are promoting this to 31,000 teachers in Australia and New Zealand. Encourage your local school to use this resource!

A big thank you to all community members who are sharing their story on JBRT to make a positive impact.

Visit the JBRT Classroom Resources now!

Journey Beyond Road Trauma classroom resources launched today

Today is the launch of the United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2021. To commemorate this important date, Sandra Cook and I (who are the founders the Journey Beyond Road Trauma (JBRT) online community), with the support of the Alcohol Education and Rehabilitation (AER) Foundation, are launching the JBRT Classroom Resources.

The resources use content and videos from the JBRT community to educate students about the effects of careless driving. The JBRT platform provides teachers with a motivational tool for interactive learning in the 21st century classroom. With web based content and resources, a teacher will be able to conduct a JBRT unit of study entirely digitally.

We are promoting this to 31,000 teachers in Australia and New Zealand. Encourage your local school to use this resource!

A big thank you to all community members who are sharing their story on JBRT to make a positive impact.

Visit the JBRT Classroom Resources now!

Tapping into the 'super conscious'

Leslie Gray, in a chapter in the book titled Ecopsychology; Restory the Earth, Healing the Mind, explains how a synchronous experience is considered a sign of ‘health’ and that a lack of synchronicity is a sign of deterioration. She defines ‘health’ as a ‘balanced relationship with your environment’, which really resonates with me. Gray also argues that meaningful coincidences help one feel more congruent and notes that, more often than not, these meaningful coincidences happen in nature.

Perhaps it’s because I have been doing a lot more gardening lately, but I have experienced a number of ‘meaningful coincidences’ in the past few days about the role of the writer and it seemed fitting to share these in what will be my last post for 2010. 

Yesterday, my friend and fellow writer Marian Edmunds called me to tell me about a free seminar by Michael Rowland on film script and story writing, which she had attended in Tweed on the weekend (Michael’s also running seminars tonight in Mullumbimby, in Byron Bay tomorrow night and in Bangalow on Thursday night). To be honest, I was a little sceptical of Rowland at first given that the crux of his message seems to be ‘if you learn my secrets, you will be able to write brilliant and original works that will have publishers and producers enter into frantic bidding wars’. But then this morning, as I drove to the New Brighton Farmers’ Market, I heard Michael being interviewed on Bay FM and his theory that good writers successfully tap into the ‘super conscious’ absolutely fascinated me.

Rowland also noted in his interview on Bay FM that Steve Spielberg had called his production company Dreamworks, because he recognised that great stories come from somewhere other than the conscious mind. As well as calling it the ‘super conscious’ Rowland remarked that some people call it ‘genius’ (a theory also propounded by Elizabeth Gilbert in a fascinating TED talk on nurturing creativity). 

Of course, others call it the ‘collective consciousness’ but lately I have started to feel more comfortable with the idea that it’s actually the ‘universe’, that ‘one-ness’ that unites us all.

I have been doing a lot of work this year with an awesome Gestalt therapist who shared with me a wonderful quote about creativity by Carl Jung, who wrote, “The artist's role is to liberate the divine secret that sleeps in matter”. 

As they say, all things come in threes. The third meaningful coincidence for me about the spiritual aspects of writing revealed itself to me in none other than the ‘Media’ section in yesterday’s The Australian. In a full-page advertisement, Droga5 celebrates the role of advertisers as those who “conjure up, produce and ultimately defend these strange fragile things called ‘ideas’”.

Droga5 goes on to write about the role of creatives as thus: ‘When they’re young, wobbly and unformed, they can’t defend themselves, and depend on us to stand up for them – an increasing challenge in these increasingly brutal times… We dream, albeit surreptitiously, of making something brilliant, captivating and, yes, even enduring.”

I look forward to channelling more stories and standing up for some beautiful ideas in 2011.

 

Don't kill the messenger

I loved the ABC TV series The Hollowmen, but it's all too easy for the mainstream media to bemoan the use of focus groups in politics.

I tackled this subject in an article for the current edition of Research News, after many in the media blamed focus groups and the major parties' reliance on them for the uninspiring Federal election campaign and lack of good policy. 

In fact, the use of focus groups by politicians became a major theme in the post-election analysis. Numerous journalists and commentators criticised politicians for taking as gospel the word of focus group participants.

Emma Tom (in The Australian on 10 August) argued that focus groups were the political equivalent of Hollywood test screenings. 

‘Rather than informing or nuancing pre-existing platforms, they're used to propagate policy on the run,' she wrote. ‘Just as film test screenings are predominantly about investor bottom lines, focus groups don't have the fragrance of democracy, engagement and consultation. They reek of panic, desperation and greed.'

While some of the critics might not know much about research (perhaps relying on impressions formed after watching the ABC satire The Hollowmen, which featured Santo Cilauro as the head of the market research for the Central Policy Unit), at least two of the detractors had considerable experience with the method.

Neil Lawrence, who oversaw the Kevin 07 campaign was quoted in The Australian as saying, ‘In the wrong hands, problems arise. Focus groups replace real policy development based on principles - and leadership becomes a reflection or shadow of the findings'.

Veteran pollster Rod Cameron accused Labor of grievously misusing focus groups, saying that modern campaigning had become so dependent on market research that focus groups had been vastly overplayed to make policy instead of being a useful tool to explain policy. 

He was particularly critical of the party for accepting ‘the verdict of inexperienced and naive focus group moderators'.

On the other side, Simon Webb, research director for Parker & Partners and Ogilvy Public Relations Australia, argued that the criticism of focus groups was undeserved in an article published in the Sydney Morning Herald on 27 August.

Dr Vicki Arbes, CEO of Hall & Partners Open Mind, also argued that focus groups are not to blame for vacuous campaign slogans and politicians' timid performances.

‘If there is any certainty in reading the mind of the Australian public, it is that no group of voters would ever ask for their politicians to play it safe or to shy away from vision, passion and authenticity at every turn,' she told Research News. 

‘The real problem is that bad methodology, poor interpretation and weak and arrogant decision making by strategists and advisors is being blamed on the poor people who bothered to get involved in group discussions. And for their trouble, these people suddenly find themselves being derided as "the lowest common denominator". This is ironic given the praise the media has heaped on the community forums held in Sydney and Brisbane which allowed members of the public, rather than journalists, to directly question major party leaders.'

Eva Cox also challenged the ‘demonising of the technique' in an article published by Crikey on 9 August in which she aimed to set the record straight by pointing out the apparent gross misuse of a very useful tool.

‘The researchers seem to have had really thick party apparatchik clients who tested the wrong things. No one needs focus groups to tell them that immigration, boat people, crime, tax, the unemployed and youth will raise anxieties and prejudices. The correct use of focus groups would be for finding out how sensible policies could be sold in this area and slogans like "stop the boats" is not in that category.'

However, while defending the correct use of focus groups, Cox acknowledged that the technique has appeared to have been ‘cannabilised'. She was particularly critical of the use of new technology in focus group analysis. 

‘Then new technology now comes into play in the analysis, where texts or recordings are put through programs such as cloud analysis and counts of the frequency of particular words or phrases and comes to conclusions on what is said. This misses out the vital dimension of exploring how people get to the views they express, their tone, hesitancies, tensions and avoidances. Who leans back and says nothing? Who changes their views because of what others say? Who argues the issues? Who gets excluded or judged on what they say?'

For what it's worth, Julia Gillard officially rejected allegations that the ALP's policy and campaign style was driven by focus group findings any more than the Coalition's was.

‘I would like some accurate accounting on both sides of politics about the use of focus groups, would like some sophistication in this debate,' she told the media assembled at the National Press Club in early September.

Arbes concludes that, rather than dismissing focus group research, the Australian public should be insisting that governments commit to running a lot more group discussions. 

‘Lack of broad public engagement with the work of government is a problem that extends well beyond elections. In my experience group discussions are integral to correcting this want.' 

Like Cox, she believes that the intelligent use of group discussions over recent times would not have led our leaders to take the stand they have on population size or on new arrivals. 

‘Intelligent use of groups would have ensured the groundswell of goodwill around environmental issues had not been squandered,' she adds.

‘The bad press focus groups have attracted confuses the process of listening to public thinking through groups with the flawed ways in which the outcomes of these discussions are being used.'

Cox believes the whole debate raises questions on the responsibility researchers have for the use made of their research, an issue she raised while moderating the polling panel at the Australian Market and Social Research Society conference on 8 September.

‘I know the Code of Professional Behaviour defines the roles vis a vis clients and the actual people who are researched, but is there a responsibility to the wider community?'

Cox encouraged researchers to continue to debate this point.

View the article where it was originally published.

Journey Beyond Road Trauma officially launches this Easter

In the lead up to the official national launch of JOURNEY BEYOND ROAD TRAUMA over Easter, more than 10,000 pages have been viewed in the past week by hundreds of founding members, who have signed up during the Beta (trial) stage.

Along with Sandra Cook, I am one of the produces of the site, which is an online social network for anyone affected by road trauma. Since the Beta site went live around Australia Day, people from all over the country have joined up, demonstrating that it meets a huge need in the Australian community. 

Behind every fatality and serious injury statistic there are thousands of stories. Around 1600 people die on Australian roads each year and another 140 people are seriously injured each day. Thousands more are affected by road trauma through their work in the emergency services, legal professions and disability sector. 

By joining JOURNEY BEYOND ROAD TRAUMA people can tell their story and connect with each other. Under the guidance of road safety experts, the community can channel their grief into positive action by collectively campaigning for road safety. The online space can also be used as an educational resource to complement already existing road safety campaigns.

Sandra and I believe that people affected by road trauma – either by a serious injury or a fatality - often feel voiceless and need to be heard. 

This has proven to be true; with an astounding initial response from people sharing stories about both recent losses and also people who lost a loved one 20 years ago. People living with an acquired brain injury, road crash rescue workers and counsellors have also joined. 

On joining the community, members can set up a profile, create memory spaces, connect with others affected by road trauma, tell their story with blogs, upload video, watch short documentaries and make a tribute pin by marking the scene of the collision on a Google Map.  

Existing support groups or road safety campaigners can set up their own group within the community, as a place to keep members informed or to engage in debate. 

This community-based project has been sponsored by Screen Australia, the Royal Automobile Association (RAA) in South Australia, the AER Foundation and the South Australian Film Corporation (SAFC). 

We are currently looking for additional funding for stage two of the community, which will include a real time calendar, the ability to make hard copy books, a more sophisticated campaign engine and a community manager to organise special events. 

Visit the community at www.journeybeyondroadtrauma.org

You can view the press kit, FAQs and images at http://journeybeyondroadtrauma.org/cms/marketing-materials

You can listen to me being interviewed about the site on Bay FM at 10.10am AEST next Monday, 29 March. Tune into 99.9FM if you live in the Byron Shire or listen online at www.bayfm.org

Googlegram announces: The YouTube generation looks like us

According to a new study Research International conducted on behalf of Google, seven out of 10 Australians don't mind watching ads on YouTube if they relevant and entertaining and one-third who see an ad on the video site will click on it.

The first comprehensive Australian YouTube research, the findings are based on a survey of 3,000+ YouTube users.

Here's a profile of the Australian YouTube audience:

• Includes all the family - 14-17 year olds only make up 7% of Australian YouTube users, 18-29 = 32%, 30-39 = 20%, 40-49 = 18%, 50-59 = 13% and 60+ = 10% 
• Are workers, students, stay-at-home mums and retirees - 57% are working, 19% are stay at home, and only 15% are studying 
• Encompasses all life stages - 55% are married, 35% are single and 9% are divorced 
• Are not just techies and nerds - 61% of YouTube users are not tech-savvy 
• 86% of the community say YouTube is their favourite place to watch videos and 63% agree YouTube is one of their favourite websites 
• 79% stay longer than they intended (on average 1 hour and 09 mins per week). 
• 62% visit at least once a week 
• 47% share videos when they find a video which they love 
• 86% spend time on YouTube for entertainment 
• 2 out of 3 people do more than just watch videos in YouTube 
• 20% uploaded video 

Australian YouTubers watch a broad range of content:

• 51% music videos 

• 31% movie trailers 

• 27% user-generated content 

• 26% TV shows 

• 25% TV ads 

• 22% news clips

• 18% sports news/highlights 

Research International interviewed 3,000 males and females nationwide aged 14+, who had visited the YouTube website in the past three months.  

Who is using Twitter in Australia?

Since my last post ("Young people questioning the authenticity of social networks"), I have tracked down some recent data about who in Australia is using Twitter, while working on an article about Twitter for the August edition of Research News (which will be published on 7 August).

Back in March, when I set up my first Twitter account (@evolvemediaoz), use of the micro-blogging site among Aussies was relatively low compared to other nationalities. According to Nielsen Online, 44 per cent of all Twitter users had only been using the service since October last year. 

In April, Hollywood actor Ashton Kutcher became the first Twitter member to reach one million followers. CNN (which also now has more than a million followers) noted at the time that some bloggers and Twitter users "expressed concern that the once-cultish site is being overwhelmed by celebrities and media hype".

In the first few months of this year, Australia’s Hugh Jackman also enjoyed exponential growth in followers, particularly after he announced in April that he would donate $100,000 to one follower’s favourite charity after they convinced him why in 140 characters or less. 

By June, 21 million unique visitors around the globe had found their way to Twitter, up from 1 million in June 2008, making it the fastest growing web brand and the fourth most visited member community site (after Facebook, MySpace and Blogger). At the time of writing, 1.665 million Aussies had visited Twitter during April, May and June 2009, according to Nielsen Online. During the same time, the active online universe was about 13.647 million.

Deanie Sultana from Nielsen notes that the data reveals a skew to an older audience - a larger number of people over 35 are using Twitter than the general active online audience profile. Twitter users are also more likely to be female in comparison to the overall active online audience.

As noted in my previous post, according to a recent Urban Market Research (UMR) report from Lifelounge, a growing number of young adults are questioning their heavy reliance on social networking. 

When asked specifically about how young people are using Twitter, Lifelounge says they found that, unlike Facebook and MySpace, which were was taken up by the “early adopters” before these social networking sites went mainstream, Twitter happened the other way around. In other words, given the celebrity usage of it in the United States (i.e. Ashton Kutcher and Oprah etc), Twitter went mainstream FIRST, before the “cool kids” got a sense of it. So the UMR study found that when surveying the participants, there was almost a sense of reluctance or antagonism towards Twitter, as the trend had already gone mainstream, making them hesitant to follow the crowd.

 

Additionally, the UMR found that most had a view of Twitter being more for corporate use and not so much a “young person” thing.

Interestingly, Hugh Jackman hasn’t posted a Twitter update since 25 May. His manager says he’s taking a hiatus because, with 421,816 followers, he found it was "getting too time consuming" - presumably, even with the help of a ‘Ghitterer’ (ghost Twitterer)*. 

* I am trying to get this new word accepted into the Macquarie Dictionary by 2010...

P.S. My Twitter post on Friday 24 July has proven popular, being re-tweeting numerous times. It's also very relevant to this post - "Great edition from anthillonline.com Kevin Spacey explaining Twitter to Letterman http://bit.ly/183Y7A" 

Young people questioning authenticity of social networks

I have just started editing the August edition of Research News and this morning I am compiling the 'Topline' column, which is a summary of recent research findings. While doing so I came across a media release from Lifelounge's Urban Market Research that claims that young people are starting to question the authenticity of social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

UMR is an annual trend report into the attitudes and behaviours of Australia's young adults (aged 16-30). It contains quantitative (1,662 participants) and qualitative (25 participants) data based on the five lifestyle pillars of youth culture: music, entertainment, fashion, sport and travel, and the key three influences: communication, finance, and sex, health and wellbeing. The research is weighted against ABS statistics and was conducted online between late January and March this year.

According to the more comprehensive UMR Report on Key Findings and Trends that was circulated with the media release, young Australians are seeking to balance their online worlds with more meaningful offline contact. The report concludes that young people believe "technology should assist, not dictate, how they interact with one another". As a sign of a growing backlash against impersonal digital communication, UMR says talking to friends on mobiles has increased to 97% (up from 95%) while SMSing has remain unchanged. And the modern form of the written word - emailing - is also on the rise, particularly among 16-19 year olds, increasing more than 15% from last year. 

The UMR report goes on to say that while the popularity of Facebook has doubled over the last 12 months (43.8% listed it as their favourite website, up from 21.3%), a growing number of young adults are questioning their heavy reliance on social networking. They see it as too commercial, superficial and time consuming, and are questioning its authenticity as they seek to reclaim their privacy and connect with their real friends. MySpace is on the wane (down to 10.7% from 17.5%), although it’s still considered the best online social destination for music.

There is actually no mention of Twitter in the report, so I am going back to the PR folk to find out. 

If you know of any research about how many young people are using Twitter in Australia, please comment below.

Ten things you can do

The first Australian screening dates have been announced for The Burning Season and we've launched a companion site at www.tenthingsyoucando.com, which has been designed to give audiences who see the documentary some practical suggestions about how they can bring about positive change. The philosophy of this web site is based on the belief that the future does not have to be scary - sustainability and abundance are possible. As one of the proud supporters of the site (and the person who produced it with the help of designer Nathan Betts and web developer Yari McGauley) I sincerely hope it helps us work together to create a future based on renewable energies and operating systems that value and respect the natural world.

Learning to read when IE was launched

The theme of the June edition of Research News is 'Researching children and youth'. It features a range of articles about how research needs to be done differently with those born after 1990, remembering that this is a generation that has grown up with computer technology and media multi-tasking - as author Daphne Hume points out, the oldest of the teen group were just learning how to read when Internet Explorer was launched in 1995.

In the spirit of the theme, I decided as editor to commission a young designer/photographer to create this month's magazine cover. Full disclosure here: it was my niece Siobhan, who is is studying media and design at Box Hill TAFE in Melbourne. I was delighted to be able to phone her on her 18th birthday to ask, "How would you like your first paid design gig?"  

Siobhan then proceeded to impress the socks off me. Firstly she came back with a very professional pitch (two concepts mocked up). Secondly she delivered on time. Thirdly she wrangled a bunch of her friends to not only take part in the photo shoot but also to get their parents to sign a release form before doing so.

There's a lot of people talking about Gen Y and "co-creation", some of it genuine; a lot of it lip service. But I think Siobhan's cover speaks for itself.