Download the MP3 (9.02 MB) Topics we cover in the interview How designing for the web has changed How to measure the impact of usability checks Life at Google - and how Measure Map is playing out The state of the industry URLS Mentioned Measure Map The blog analytics tool Adaptive Path Full transcription of the interview SD: This is Sarah Drew for Vitamin and I’m sitting here with Jeff Veen, who’s had a long and illustrious history and is at this moment in time at Google. I’d like to start with design and what you see as the evolution of design that may be happening, and understanding design in a much larger context than what we’ve maybe traditionally understood it. JV: Yeah, I think that’s true. Even if you look at the past couple of decades it’s changed phenomenally from the print-based, what-you-see-is-what-you-get design to being much more interactive. There’s a lack of control that’s going on in a lot of the design that we’re doing and I think that has historically been kind of difficult for a lot of designers to make that shift, but what’s really interesting now is I’m seeing designers who have come up only having ever designed for the web and while they may lack some of the finer nuances of typography or things like that, what they’re really good at is thinking about what the web is good at, what the web has in terms of constraint and working with that, and being really native to the web. So yeah, that’s changing an awful lot. SD: Do you see a wider application of how we understand design, I mean in the sense that design is applicable to genomes, to architecture, to graphics, to language, to urban design, to maybe even companies, and as a [web’ designer do you find yourself using a wider application of design…? JV: Well, I find myself doing design a lot differently. In the past I don’t think we had to think as much about use, and what people are trying to do with our design, and that’s an interesting set of disciplines. I think that product designers in the past have thought about those things, ergonomics and things like that, but people who are working with documents, graphics, layouts, that sort of thing, they never really had to consider that. A book was a book, and you knew what the constraint was and you designed to it. That’s so different now, so I spend far more of my time now understanding technology, doing user research, doing basic ethnography, anthropology, stuff like that which I never considered was going to be part of my career. That takes up probably more time than the actual design process itself, the actual arranging things on a screen that makes sense to people (…) is trying to build that level of empathy for what people are trying to do and try to embody that when we sit do to do that design. So, yeah, it changes a lot. SD: A lot of your work has been in the areas of both UI design and usability - how to track that, how to quantify that, how to communicate that, how to design and optimise that… JV: Well, usability is a little piece of that. Usability is a little bit like spell checking, like just making sure that the decisions we’ve already made, we’ve made correctly. I think a lot of people got on this usability bandwagon and put a little bit too much faith into it, to try to use usability to help them decide what to do rather than whether or not they’ve done things right. Deciding what to do, that’s the job of design, right? That’s where you have to figure out what people are trying to get done here, how can I help them do that, what are the expectations people have, what are the conventions that they already understand. Usability doesn’t help us with any of that, but it does help us understand whether or not I did it right, and so there’s an awful lot of different techniques. We try to go out and talk to people all the time, I do telephone interviews with potential users, I demo the thing that I’m working on to anybody who’ll take a look at it. I just want to make sure that I understand the kinds of things they’re trying to do, and that I can help them do that. SD: Do you find that when you’re showing a product to someone that general patterns tend to come up or is there a unique user experience that you’re seeing when you’re showing it? JV: There’s definitely patterns. Humans are wired to work a certain way, especially when you have everybody looking at a screen, everybody using a mouse, there’s certainly patterns there. There are also differences in those patterns based on the different types of audiences that we’re working with. I created an application for people who have weblogs. Those are people who have a desire to publish on the web, have a little bit of technical understanding, they’ve maybe edited a template before,so there’s some assumptions that I can make about that audience as opposed to an audience that’s trying to get information about their healthcare. That’s a much broader set of expectations that people have, perhaps a lot [of] different backgrounds in the kinds of experience they have with technology so we can’t just necessarily take for granted that people are going to understand all of this unless we have a really good understanding of who those audience segments really are. SD: I would imagine at Google that you have a lot of time for really researching your user base, right? JV: There’s no time! There’s no time for it. That’s the terrible irony about what we do. First, I don’t think that a lot of people understand the value of the research because it take time, and it’s time when people aren’t writing code or designing pages. It is all very qualitative, almost nebulous - I mean, you can create a research plan and you can follow the plan and everything, but it takes time and it’s kind of expensive when time is very expensive. So a lot of the research we do on the fly, really ad hoc, and I think that’s totally fine because a little research is always better than no research at all. But Google is the kind of company that really wants to invest in user experience, understands the importance of research - but even so we’re all doing a million things at once and we still want to get out ahead of the competition, so it’s always this balance between those things. SD: It was interesting to me in your talk how you contextualize Web 2.0, and I think we’re very much creatures of story: tell us a story and we will often as a group follow it or aggregate towards it, if you will. What do you think is the new story is for us? JV: I studied history when I was in school, it was my major, actually; ironically, here all I feel I do is work in the future now, but in the presentation I gave today at this workshop I started with a bunch of stories about how this cycle has happened in the past, how there’s been some sort of technological innovation that nobody expected. That’s happened throughout history, whether it was the steam engine or the Model T or the web browser, and a tremendous amount of capital tends to flow towards those technological innovations, so a bunch of people get really rich and it changes the way we do something, typically business - that certainly happened in the late nineties. There was this innovation and suddenly every business changed, some of them subtly, but some of them fundamentally, in the way in which they did their business because of web technologies and a tremendous amount of money went into funding and financing that, and a bunch of people got rich, and people thought this would continue forever. Of course it doesn’t, there isn’t an unlimited supply of capital. Eventually something has to pay off and everybody got scared and there was a big bust. Well, that’s going to happen again, inevitably. I don’t know if it will necessarily happen in this industry with these Web 2.0 companies that are getting funded now. Perhaps it won’t, perhaps it’ll shake out and things will level off and that will be good, but even if it does happen again there’s a lot that we can learn this time around: right, there’s these design techniques, there’s this way about thinking about our audiences, there’s this openness that these new companies have that old companies, traditional companies, never had before, and that’s the kind of stuff I try to tease out of these stories that I look for. SD: I also think just in talking with people and watching it seems that there’s definitely is a sense of people really building their foundations at this round in a way that was maybe not there before, I mean understanding that incremental growth and smaller, strong foundation, kind of lean and mean instead of bloated… JV: I wonder about that. Maybe I’m skeptical because I went through it before and certainly there aren’t people going out saying, “I am going to change way people buy groceries and I’m taking this company public and we are going to be a two billion dollar company next year.” That’s not happening, thank God that’s not happening, because that was exhausting. At the same time this idea of keeping things very small, trying to build a business first and then take the funding, like, those are great principles. I don’t think those principles, while they may be spoken a lot, are held by a lot of these companies to be honest, and again I might just be cynical about this, but I think everybody is doing this for the American Dream, right, well, not everybody, but a fair amount of people are getting into this thinking “I can build a web app, I can sell it, I can get rich”, and that’s not going to happen to most people, but I think a lot of people have the potential to think, “I can create a web app, I can build a community of users that like it, I can make a good living off of that”. Ryan Carson is inspiring to me, the way they have done their little web apps, that they are turning it into a business, it’s a great lifestyle for them, things like that and I’m sure there’s a potential reward out of all of that but perhaps y’know, making a living off of a web application, not a terrible thing, so we’ll see. SD: I appreciate that you have both the wide, the long, and also the deep view. Can you talk a little bit about the company you were at before Google? JV: Sure, about five years ago, 2001, at the worst possible time in the industry, the absolute bottom of the bust, I started a company with six of my friends, all peers in the industry, all designers in various fields of design, we started a company called Adaptive Path. It was a great time, frankly, to start a company, it was a really bad business environment but still there was projects going on and were able to find the little projects to get started and we sort of grew up out of that. We followed this rebirth of the industry and it’s been an absolutely fantastic experience to have because we tried to embody a lot of the principles of good design in our company and I think we’ve followed through on that pretty well. I miss it a lot, I mean I’m down at Google now, we did a product inside of Adaptive Path called Measure Map which we sold to Google and I went with that, to bring that over but I absolutely miss Adaptive Path as well, it continues to be a fantastic group of people doing really, really important work. SD: Measure Map, can you tell me a little bit about how that’s playing out as people are starting to use it? JV: Well, Measure Map was kind of interesting to me in that, much like Evan Williams who started Blogger and now is doing Odeo, he said in his talk today that he needed to make applications that he wanted to use. That’s what Measure Map was for me. I had had a blog for three or four years, I knew it was doing well because I got email, and people would leave comments, but I had no idea how well. I looked at all these analytics tools that were out there, the stat counters and so on, and I couldn’t figure them out. I thought, “I’m kind of a smart guy, what’s going on here?”, and it turns out that most of them were either enterprise level or very powerful open source tools for sysadmins that were managing servers. There was nothing to help people understand what impact they were having with a blog. So I said well let’s do a web analytics tool just for blogs, specific to that kind of traffic, to that kind of web site, and instead of measuring hits or advertising conversions or any of that stuff why don’t we just measure participation, how the blog is doing, and what you can you learn from that. We tried to make it as simple as possible. When you log into Measure Map, there’s just four numbers - how many people came today, and what did they do, did they link to you, did they leave a comment, how many posts did they read… Four simple things - you can drill into that, get a little more detail, but we really just wanted to show cause and effect. It’s like a garden, you pay attention to it and it will grow. SD: Within Google are you being asked to work on the next generation of the visual UIs for the display of data? JV: Well, I’m taking a variety of approaches to working in a giant company like that. I really have no intent on redesigning Google. I don’t even want the opportunity. We’re taking Measure Map and they have a Google Analytics product and we’re working with those guys to bring best practices together and help people understand how their traffic is doing and stuff like that. There’s a lot of amazing design work that’s happening at Google right now and we’re sort of looking at what the best practices are for this kind of audience, for these kinds of applications, and seeing how there’s all these points of integration and that’s kind of the work we’re doing so I think there’s going to be an awful lot coming out of all of this. SD: So, for our listeners, any last jewels you’d like to give? What would be your advice, from your professional career? JV: One of the things that I’ve always told designers is to go make stuff. Always be making stuff, and frankly it could not be easier now. It doesn’t matter if you’re a designer, a developer or what, the risk in building web application or frankly in visualising your ideas is so much lower now. Ten years ago it cost millions of dollars to try to visualise something. You had to buy very expensive servers, you had to get very expensive software to run on those servers, you had to pay for very expensive advertising before you could even get started. Now we have cost per click advertising for pennies, servers that are dirt cheap, software’s all free now, and the software is so good now. We developed Measure Map on Ruby on Rails and it was remarkable how little effort it took for us to iterate and change our ideas and to visualise stuff as quickly as possible. So that’s my thing, if you have an idea it’s a lot easier now to just go try, and that’s what I encourage everybody to do. Yeah, absolutely. SD: Well, thank you, really wonderful interview. Thanks. Transcribed by Scott Morris Like this article? Digg it!
Source: feeds.feedburner.com

RiotACT business profile # 2 - Bottles of Australia
[Tony Pemmer with bottle printer] Jazz and I ventured out to the wilds of Hume to talk to Tony Pemmer, the owner of Bottles of Australia about his operation out there. For those who want the word whole (rather than my own inadequate translation), the recording of the complete interview (with intriguing ambient sounds from the busy factory) is available (there’s lots of good stuff in there). Tony described his product as a mobile billboard delivered via plastic drink bottles. BoA employs 28 people designing the graphics to go on plastic drink bottles, the bottles themselves, and printing graphics onto bottles right here in Canberra. This is no small operation, they do runs of over 100,000 bottles for the likes of Puma, Asics, and Warner Brothers’ Movie World as well as batches as small as 50. If you’ve got a branded plastic drink bottle have a look on the bottom and chances are it bears the BoA mark. The business began with a $5,000 overdraft in 1989 out of a bicycle retail outlet, importing stickers from Hawaii. Eventually the drink bottles took over the business. Previously all plastic drink bottles were imported from abroad. The production line starts with impressive stacks of boxes containing blank bottles awaiting an order [Boxes of bottles] The bottles have to pass through gauntlets of flamethrowers which change the surface tension to be amenable to holding ink. They stay this way for a few days before returning to their natural state. [Flaming bottles] Organising the positioning of bottles is a key to keeping things efficient. [Bundles of bottles] The big machines automatically flame the bottles before aligning them and coating them with ultra-violet sensitive ink, a pass under a UV light then makes them ready for printing with a different colour. [Bottle printing machine] [Bottles being printed] Here’s a short video of the machinery in action: At the end they shoot out lickety split. [Bottles come off the line] For more than two colours they have a different machine which can give it the full monty: [multi colour bottle printing machine] At the far end of the factory a team of piece workers put lids on the bottles while they check for printing errors. BoA operates at a well-better-than-industry-standard defect rate of between 1 and 3 percent. [Putting tops on the bottles] Tony thinks location is not a major limitation in dealing with customers, being closer to Sydney just makes him further away from Melbourne. However a lack of experienced staff with manufacturing skills has stopped them getting more ambitious and building a plastic moulding plant. That work is outsourced to Sydney. It would be cheaper still to import from China (the materials alone cost more in Australia than a finished bottle from China shipped to your door) but the responsiveness of the Australian manufacturer in a rapidly evolving design environment offsets the overall costs. As it is staff for the printing operation have to be trained in house. Customers range from major corporations rounding out a sports fashion line and the likes of BHP down to schools and sports clubs. Drink bottles are commonly used in branding exercises and when people want a branded drink bottle there’s BoA, they also do a big line in exporting. When they started printing bottles in 1991 they took delivery of a printing machine and then started learning how to print. Tony made the point that printing a sports bottle is essentially no different to “container decorating” a shampoo bottle. Tony started in business in Batemans Bay running a sports and bike shop aged 19. Since then he and his wife Mary have built a series of businesses in what he describes as a “tag team” bouncing ideas off each other. He credits being open to new ideas as a key to the success he’s had. Interestingly when dealing with fashion brands they have to lock in the “hot new colours” 18 months before they’re unleashed on the consumer market as something new, fresh and spontaneous. Currently Tony and Mary have the business at a point where they’re toning down their day to day involvement. Tony is an advocate of trusting and empowering staff and is doing his very best to not be indispensable. “Working on the business but not in the business” is a mantra for him. He concedes that part of this is about making the business potentially sale ready. To avoid burnout he advocates all business owners treat their business as an investment rather than a lifestyle (or worse, a money pit or a job). For those looking to start new businesses Tony advocates borrowing more than you think you’ll need. The last thing any business would want is to end up six months down the line needing more money and no longer credit worthy. Staff recruitment mostly comes through referrals, often coming through the piece workers in the lidding area. A sign outside the factory often handles recruiting needs and in the last resort an ad in the Canberra Times gets results. The traits most sought after in staff is flexibility and a willingness to learn. In BoA’s early days marketing was through magazine ads in trade journals and sports mags. These days aggressive branding through packaging and delivery trucks is used as well as catalogue product placement and sponsorship of Tony’s beloved Canberra Capitals (Tully Bevilaqua was answering the phones on reception as we left). When we asked about local Government policy Tony expressed his horror at the demise of Business ACT in the last budget. He had found them to be very effective in supporting projects which had lead to more Canberrans being employed. Additionally they had effectively encouraged network effects between local businesses. The massive slash and burn has seen an end to that which Tony felt was to Canberra’s detriment. On the federal level he was thrilled with the Free Trade Agreements negotiated by the Howard Government which had opened up markets for BoA bottles. He wistfully wondered what life would be like under a flat tax system liberating business from the vagaries of the current tax system. Aside from bottles BoA has worked on developing bottle related accessories. Next time you watch a Brumbies game have a look at what the drink carriers carry the water out in. [Bottle carrier] The V8 bottle carrier was designed with help from the design faculty at the University of Canberra. Interestingly Tony was very keen on handling efficiencies. He makes a compelling argument that a lot of businesses fail to account for the cost of making staff move product around through inefficient storage and handling. We were impressed with the way stock at BoA moves smoothly from one end of the building to the end. Looking ahead he felt the biggest risk facing BoA was staffing. Finding good people and hanging on to them. In the current environment with the public service recruiting heavily for high wages it’s hard to find good people for junior roles. In terms of business philosophy Tony compares business to a trip to the casino. But encourages people to take a risk and not be too downhearted if the risk doesn’t always come off. Here’s Tony and his wife and partner Mary at the doors of the BoA building. [Tony and Mary outside BOA] * RiotACT receives no inducements or considerations to produce business profiles. In this case we approached BoA for the interview. If there’s a local business you’d like to know more about email business@the-riotact.com with their details and why you think they’re interesting. The feed for podcatching the audio of this and future Business Profiles (~30mins) is the-riotact.com/wp-rss2.php?cat=46
Source: the-riotact.com

Daddy, what do you do?
Okay, sorry, a slight correction. I’m not going to bore you with a minute-by-minute description of what a business communications consultant does. Because what *I* do might bear little or no relation to what Shel Holtz or Neville Hobson or Andrea Weckerle or Josh "theHyku" Hallett or Allan Jenkins or Paull Young or Kami Huyse or Donna Pepsicola or Mitch Joel or David Jones or CC Chapman or… [insert your favourite Comms blogger here] does each day. Goodness, some days what I did *yesterday* bears no relation to what I do *today*! Thankfully there are so many specialities within the Business Communication industry that no two folks are likely to be doing exactly the same thing, although there will of course be many cross-overs. But it must be the Masters season at the moment because in the last seven days I’ve been contacted by two Masters students—Michael Allison and Sharon Rode—and asked for my perspective on Business Communication. With their permission here are their questions and my answers, including a small audio snackette I created for Michael and his project team. It may give you some interesting food for thought as you approach your end of year celebrations. Or it may not. —– Do you work from home? Yes, mostly, although sometimes I work within client sites. Certainly my office is at home and currently is shared as the living/family room of an evening.  No, I’m not entirely happy about that, but every bedroom is full and the garage shed in the back garden is so large it would be very expensive to insulate and kit it out as an office. For your business structure, are you a sole proprietor/ partner/incorporated? Currently sole proprietor. In a previous incarnation this business was incorporated (a Pty Ltd, limited liability entity) but I didn’t earn enough to warrant the extra expense of reports, fees, etc. An accountant friend of mine estimates that unless you earn over AUD$80k it’s not worth becoming a company. As I am still learning how to be better at managing money I take his advice. Do you employ anyone or have any partners or sub-consultants? No employees; I occasionally sub-contract work out when required (usually around design, web building, database back-end work). Do you have a code of ethics, or certain standards and guidelines by which you operate? This includes social media ethics. Personal code of ethics as a Christian (for what they are worth) plus I also abide by IABC Code of Ethics. Do you calculate an hourly rate, a daily rate, or a fixed fee rate? Taking my lead from the work of Alan Weiss, I usually prefer to calculate a value-based fee, as in I take into account the value of the project’s outcome to the client. If the value to the client is high I charge appropriately. If the value is low I may well decide not to get involved (projects that are perceived ‘low value’ by the client very often get railroaded, sidelined, mucked about, delayed… and so payment gets delayed. When the client is focused then things happen a lot more smoothly at their end, which helps me). However, turning clients around who are used to receiving a ‘daily rate’ quote can be hard, sometimes very hard. In those instances I charge a daily rate. Allan Jenkins and I discussed this at length in a couple of our podcasts (here and here). I often charge less than others in a similar but not entirely the same field, but then I ‘compensate’ by only travelling business class (at their expense). Those who really stick their heels in and say their policy is to only pay ‘economy travel’ rates have my daily rate increased to cover my upgrade charges. At what intervals do you demand payment from your clients? 50% up front, 50% within 7 days on completion. They receive a 10% discount if they pay in full up front (saves me having to chase them for payment). If the project is a long one (lasting more than 2 months) I work out a 30% upfront, stagger interim payments monthly, and a 10% final amount on completion. Have you ever had any clients who have not paid? What have you done? Yes, once. Repeated calls, letters and emails to them. When that has failed just write it off as a bad debt (and let my peers and friends know about it). We know you use social media to market your services. Do you use any other marketing methods, and which ones have been most successful? I have tried writing articles for a business magazine here in South Australia, but despite an article a month for over a year no contact came of it except from an old school friend who recognised me and who subsequently turned into a client. Because South Australian businesses, in the main, are very hesitant and risk averse in terms of anything to do with the internet, my efforts are usually spent networking with interstate contacts. I’ve not bothered advertising here in South Australia – I am very confident that it would be a complete waste of my money. Apart from social media I also put articles from my web1.0 website (LeeHopkins.com) onto article directory sites for others to republish on their sites and in their newsletters, etc. This is good for Google Juice but little else. What gives you a competitive advantage over others in your field? I am the only full-time consultant and trainer in Australia on Social Media as far as I know, and definitely the only one focusing on Business Communication. I am unique (but hey, we all know that! {grin}) Who are your primary clients? Are they in the public or private sector? Both public and private, but at the moment leaning more to the private sector. That may change because of the numbers of Government employees who recently attended my Social Media Workshops in Melbourne and Sydney. Who are your competitors? Do you compete with any big firms? At the moment I am very fortunate to have no real competition in the Social Media space in Australia. No doubt the big firms may try and compete at some stage (I know Hill & Knowlton in Sydney have set up, via Steven Noble, a ‘digital’ arm, but so far I haven’t heard much from them; I expect they are servicing and advising existing clients. Do you see yourself as a generalist or as a specialist? If a generalist, do you feel that providing a wide-array of services weakens your ability to command higher fees? Before Social Media I purveyed my trade as a quasi generalist, with extended interests in Employee comms and Online communication. Social Media’s takeup has allowed me to focus solely on Social Media, but with the added advantage that my experience in online and employee communication is able to inform my knowledge about Web2.0 The websites [LeeHopkins.com and LeeHopkins.net] are very informative, but it seems like you might be giving away a lot of "free" information – how do you close the deal or turn a web site visitor into a potential client? Moreover, do you consciously take any steps to keep from giving away free consulting? I work from the position espoused by Robert Middleton, of being an ‘Information Guru’. Middleton suggests giving 10% of your knowledge away for free so that people can feel comfortable about your skills and abilities. Social Media and the web in general demand more than 10%, so I give away lots in the hope that by showing a lot of my thoughts and ideas any prospective clients can see that I have a long and focused background on social media, employee comms and online communication and so build up a level of trust about my abilities even before contacting me. I used to do a LOT of free consulting in the hope that Robert Cialdini’s ‘Reciprocity Principle’ would bring work and money back to me. I got burnt so badly by this that I now do nothing for free; I have found that people don’t ascribe any value to something they get for free. So even non-profits have to pay for my time and knowledge (sometimes at a reduced, ‘mates rates’ price). My colleague-in-arms Mitch Joel commented to this effect the other day about Podcamp Boston2 and how ‘free’ seemed to mean ‘of little or no value’ to attendees, guests and invited speakers who didn’t show up and didn’t advise anyone they wouldn’t be coming (after having originally said they would). How do you monitor the ROI from social media marketing in attracting clients? I don’t monitor it (gasp!). I do what I do because I genuinely love doing it (does my enthusiasm show?!? {grin}) and if I get to share that enthusiasm with others then even better! Because I am ‘supposed’ to be focusing my energies on my Doctoral research I am putting my business on the back burner. Well, that was my intention, but in the last 2-3 months the interest in Social Media within the Australian corporate environment has grown and as the only one that is doing this full-time in the corporate comms space I am getting more and more enquiries. I’m not complaining, but my own doctoral research is suffering… Can you give us a brief description about your PhD. project on Second Life? Will the knowledge you gain help you become better positioned to help clients? Will you be considered an expert on Second Life afterwards? Me? Be ‘brief’? You kidding?? {smile}. Okay, here goes: You can gain a richer, more informed picture of my research from my uni page (people.unisa.edu.au/lee.hopkins) but here’s a synopsis: We are in a mirror image of what happened at the advent of the world wide web in 1993/4: In 1994 corporations saw this new communication channel, didn’t know what to do about it but threw a few dollars and some staff at it, asking them to play and see what they could do with it. At the same time, solo entrepreneurs wondered if they could make any money out of it, giving birth to the ebook, making a lot of people (“infopreneurs”) very rich in the process. But SMEs (small-to-medium sized enterprises) could neither afford the money or the staff to ‘play see what shakes out’ with it, nor could they suddenly start creating digital versions of their goods and services without risking massive brand dilution, which their PR companies and marketing consultants strongly advised them not to do. If asked if they wanted to have a website, they very often replied, “why would I want a website… I have a Yellow Pages ad.” Fast forward to 2007: corporations can throw a few $m at Second Life (using it as the most prominent example of a 3D virtual environment) and ‘see what shakes’, see what the new rules of communication are in this new virtual space. Solo entrepreneurs can create and sell digital goods again – this time digital frocks and socks. But what of the SME? They can neither afford the money or the loss of productivity from moving staff away from their core responsibilities to ‘play’, and they can’t create digital versions of their existing products and services (for example, what could a plumbing franchise or chain do in-world?) without risking the hoary ol’ beasts of brand dilution and market confusion. SMEs that I talk to about Second Life say, “why would I want a Second Life presence… I have a website and a Yellow Pages ad”. I’m trying to find ways that the 3D virtual environment can provide value to SMEs, and my research will hopefully point out a few ways that they can profitably engage in these new spaces. For me the spin-offs from my research are two-fold: I will be able to offer consultancy services to corporates and SMEs about business communication in a 3D virtual environment; I will be placed at the forefront of the academic community about this (from a business comms perspective; there are already others who are ‘big names’ in 3D/online communities within academia, but not from a business/marcom perspective). How do we define the role of the communication consultant today? The role can be multifarious, dependent entirely upon the requirements of the client. For example, depending on our personal experience we can offer and provide advice—both strategic and tactical—on public relations, employee communications, marketing communications, print communication, online public relations, online marketing communication, online community relations… For me, with over two decade’s experience of employee communications and nearly 15 years of experience of online communication, I can responsibly offer only part of the whole ‘business communication’ package. Those who are able to offer solid, experience-based insight and wisdom are highly sought after, highly paid and rare as hen’s teeth. Many a mid- or senior-level PR practitioner will ‘tell’ you they can offer the entire mix, but it is the rare practitioner indeed who has got every base covered. What has affected the role of the communications consultant? The explosion of internet-based communication and community building has created massive earthquakes through the consultant community. The IABC—the International Association of Business Communicators—is a great reflection of the Business Communication consultant in general; many of the IABC members have experience of the traditional tv, corporate video and print world but are complete novices regarding the online world. The result is that online communication has been ‘handballed’ to professionals from other disciplines (most notably marketing and IT) without any consideration of the realities of ‘Communication’ practices within the online world. As an example of this, consider any major corporate website: it is full of marketing-speak, full of “best in class, world leading, paradigm realigning” nonsense. It is full of obvious ‘stock photos’ of bland corporateness, devoid of any real ‘humanness’. The site is also probably very technically adept, even laid out in an aesthetically pleasing manner via the designs of a corporate graphic designer. But it fails to ‘communicate’ to its publics precisely because the Business Communicators have not had any input into it. Even if they might have been invited to the early meetings, their lack of interest and experience meant that important decisions were left to the marketing and IT folks. The rapid development of the power of ‘community’ and its ‘voice’ (witness the turnaround of HSBC over student loan interest rates, and Cadbury over the removal of the ‘Wispa’ bar) has taken corporations by surprise, and most are unable to find the ‘talent’ to manage it. There is no lack of interest from younger members of their staff, but these staff members lack the overarching ‘Communication’ training and experience. The older and more senior ‘communicators’ in the company lack the experience and understanding of this new community power. Therefore corporations rely on the traditional methods of engagement and hope that this Social Media/Web2.0 world will ‘go away’, be just a fad, and that life can eventually go on as usual. After all, it could reasonably be argued, the investors are usually gray-haired or market savvy (or both) and so these ‘noisy uneducated masses’ can safely be ignored. Whilst the current ‘head in the sand’ approach for small to mid-cap enterprises (aka SMEs) remains, it will only be the Fortune 100 and Fast Company-style companies who will embrace these new communication channels and realities. Thus the Communications Consultant can, in the main, still ‘get away’ with only having experience of the traditional media. However, eventually progress will catch up with the SMEs and Communication Consultants with proven experience in these fields will be in demand. Of course, vacuums get filled by all sorts of detritus and there will be many who will claim ‘Consultant’ status who are little more than one-trick ponies. As if it has ever been any different in the b2b consultancy world… Why would an independent communications consultant be more appealing than an internal (in-house) communicator? Mostly due to the experience that the external consultant can bring to the table (assuming that the consultant’s experience was actually valued and required, rather than a consultant being brought in to ‘rubber stamp’ and ‘validate’ the governing viewpoint). Whilst an internal comms consultant should be very adept at managing the politics and understanding the culture, the external consultant can bring in a ‘fresh pair of eyes and ears’ to the environment, offering new ways of looking at situations and experience with new tools. Neither would, ideally, be more appealing than the other; in an ideal company both would work hand-in-hand to meet strategic goals in the most effective manner, a mix of cultural relevance and wider industry/technological experience. What skill sets and benefits should an entrepreneurial communicator offer in order to be competitive? The required skill sets for which they are being hired would be a plus (no, I’m not being facetious here; I have seen too many expensive consultants who can only talk someone else’s walk). They would need to be up to date on the new technology, and whilst not needing to be involved ‘in depth’ with every new tool, they would certainly need to be aware of the tools and what each tool’s strength and limitations are. In addition, they would need to be well connected so that they can bring in the ‘micro niche’ or particular tool expert when required. The consultant shouldn’t need to be able to ‘build’ the tools, but certainly know who can and have ready access to them. I also believe that they should be aware of their own limitations and honest with their clients about them. It does nobody any good when expectations are not met and when disappointment leaves a nasty taste in the mouth. A commitment to lifelong learning is a must; not only for their own professional development, but because their passion for their work drives them to learn and grow far above any monetary consideration of what a particular training course might mean to their resume (Bryan Person—aka ‘Bryper’—has a particularly good Social Media resume). In addition, the entrepreneurial communicator should be aware of what is happening in not only their own industry, but the industries of their clients. This is not just from a ‘broad’ business perspective but also a consideration of what their clients’ competitors are up to, what new threats or opportunities may be around the corner, what new legislation might mean. Given the trends, what changes will have to be made both by businesses and communicators to stay competitive and current? An understanding and embracing of Social Media imperatives and cultural drivers. None of the ‘old’ stuff will go away—print, tv, video, radio—but the new online communication rules (still being shaped by us all) will add to the communicator’s ‘mix’ of channels and responsibilities. A recognition that Communications can and must support specialists. The day of the Generalist Business Communicator has passed (although their wisdom is still invaluable and should be sought wherever possible) and specialist communicators will populate the corporate communications environment. These specialist communicators will need to learn to work in partnership, where no one specialist has the final version of ‘truth’; PR, Marketing, Employee, Online… all will need to work together to produce a communications output that is coherent across all channels and publics, yet also relevant to each distinct group in their own way, speaking ‘their’ language and helping to co-create the received ‘meaning’ of the communication. — And here’s the audio file I talked about at the top of this marathon post — an introduction to myself, what I would do differently if I had my time over again, and what regrets, if any, I have [5.89mb / 6mins 20 secs]. —– Technorati tags: mitch joel, shel holtz, kami huyse, andrea weckerle, josh hallett, neville hobson, allan jenkins, paull young, bryan person, bryper, iabc, business communication, pr, marketing, marcomms, robert french, donna pepsicola, donna papacosta, david jones, cc chapman, michael allison, sharon rode, alan weiss, robert cialdini, robert middleton, hill & knowlton, steven noble, marcom blog, lee hopkins Share This: email to others, bookmark to del.icio.us, etc.
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Audiocast: Digital Storytelling with Joe Lambert
  Like many other folks, I’m fascinated by the prospect of digital storytelling to restore "voice" to classroom activities. So often, schools are caught up in testing, and a focus on activities that do not engage us personally, as human beings. Digital storytelling, like blogs and podcasts, enable children and teachers to develop creativity. That’s important in a world that increasingly requires us to be more creative. Although I have had the opportunity to work on digital storytelling a la oral composition approach, I have to confess that I am a product of traditional schooling. As such, I’m text dominant and oral composition isn’t something I’m entirely comfortable with, although our children certainly benefit from the oral composition approach. In attending Lambert’s workshop, I hoped to explore the world that David Jakes had introduced me to via his web site and blog. On Monday, March 19th, three of my team and I took the short trip from San Antonio to Austin, Tx to attend Joe Lambert’s (pictured above) Digital Storytelling Workshop. The 3-day workshop was facilitated by Joe Lambert and Stefani Sese (profile shot below). I truly enjoyed the first day of the workshop because of its focus on the seven elements of digital storytelling. I’m grateful to Joe for allowing me to share the interview and audiocast of the Digital Storytelling workshop (Day 1 only…Days 2 & 3 were more about short minilessons and working through the creation of your digital story). Day 1 was particularly fun because of the StoryCircle. We pretty much started out the day in StoryCircle, sitting in a circle and going around the room to introduce ourselves, then share what our story was. Over the last few months, I’ve been meditating on how to do a quick homage to my Dad, and Garbed in Silver is an adaptation of a story I wrote 17 years ago. What was shared during the StoryCircle was the best. The rest of the session included short mini-lessons on Adobe Photoshop Elements and Final Cut Pro Express. With my focus on no/low cost software, I had only worked on Adobe Photoshop and Fireworks in the past. Since I’ve never been interested at all by art, graphic design, or anything like that, I prefer to work with single-use image editing tools…and if I have to use something, THE GIMP is what I use (even on my Macbook). Final Cut Pro Express, though, was a joy to work with. I was impressed at how easy it was and how much control it provided. Once you’ve worked with Final Cut Pro Express, it’s hard to imagine using PhotoShop or Moviemaker (that crashes every 10 minutes)…but that’s what our schools have, and not everyone is using Mac OS X. A Conversation with Joe Lambert, Director/Founder of the Center for Digital Storytelling Audio Recording of Day 1 of the Digital Storytelling Workshop - Not yet available AudioCast Links: Center for Digital Storytelling Miguel’s Digital Storytelling Resources Digital Storytelling Cookbook Contact information for the Center for Digital Storytelling: 1803 Martin Luther King Jr. Way Berkeley, CA 94709 USA www.storycenter.org 510-548-2065 phone 510-548-1345 fax DigiTales.us Helen Barrett on Digital Storytelling as ePortfolios Sound clips in the audiocast come from Free Royalty-Free clips available online at PlayItFree.com Digital Stories (in Quicktime Movie format): Family Time - Christina Morrow (2.2 megs) Garbed in Silver - Miguel Guhlin (21.5 megs) Alaska - Larry Stegall (13.7 megs) My Island - Greg Rodriguez (15.4 megs) Photos:  (Left to Right: Stefanie Sese (Facilitator) and Susanna)  (Left to Right: Christina Morrow and Joe Lambert) Prior to the workshop, an email went out announcing what would be done, goals and objectives. Here’s a copy…I really appreciated this step! In 1993, CDS¹s founders developed a unique workshop environment that assists people in creating video stories from their family photos and home video. It is based on a philosophy of emphasizing fundamental elements of good storymaking combined with a demystification of multimedia technology and tools.We have helped over 10,000 people to mine powerful and effective tales from the pictures of their lives, or the lives of their loved ones. The stories have covered every conceivable topic: tales of survival and achievement; corporate brand stories, travel adventures; love stories, health and healing; oral histories about cultures, historic periods, and work experiences; and memorials to loved ones.The class is a great introduction for the multimedia novice or the professional to working with digital imaging and digital video softwares. The workshops include hands-on instruction to Adobe Photoshop and Final Cut Express and script/storyboard development. The CDS teaching staff will give each student specific assistance on their projects, including design, scripting, and other issues regarding the specific use of their digital story.Students will complete a 3 minute piece which will be output to disk and mailed following the workshop. ————— COURSE OBJECTIVES 1. To provide students with an introduction to the tools of desktop video in a production context.2. To introduce storytelling methodology (point of view, emotional content, dramatic action) into a dialogue about new media content.3. Assist students in completing a project. ————— ROUGH TIMETABLE OF WORKSHOP DAY ONE Introduction Presentation of 7 Elements and Digital Stories to introduce digital storytelling and analyze story elements in prior student work. Story Circle to discuss students own project plans in group setting. Lunch Adobe Photoshop Elements Hands-on Tutorial Preparation and Digitization of Individual Materials including scriptwriting and revision, image selection and storyboarding, scanning and image preparation in Photoshop on student workstations. DAY TWO Adobe Premiere Pro Hands-on Tutorial Final Individual Script Review Record Voice-overs Assemble rough edit in Adobe Premiere Pro DAY THREE Complete Rough Edit in Adobe Premiere Pro Select and add Soundtrack audio Select and add special effects in Adobe Premiere Pro including image pan and zoom, motion, superimpositions, transparency and titles. Complete Final Edit Export Draft of final version of digital story for workshop presentation. ————— PRE-WORKSHOP PREPARATION To get the most of out the workshop we recommend preparing the following materials: an idea for a story you want to tell, a script, images, video and music.It is best if you come with a rough draft of a script. Since we are working on pieces that will be 2-3 minutes long, bring a script that is about 1.5 pages, double spaced or 250 words.Also bring photographs, art work, letters and items for your story. Images can be scanned ahead of time or during the workshop. Around 20 images is a good number. If you can scan them ahead of time we recommend scanning at about 300 dpi and bringing them on a CD if possible, or flash card.If you are planning on using video make sure you have previewed your tapes prior to the class and made notes about which 5-15 second clips you will want to capture. Video uses a lot of memory and can be time consuming to work with so we will use video efficiently and in small clips. If you are using a video format other than VHS or Mini-DV please bring along your camera for use in capturing your video clips to the computer.For background music you can bring music on CD. Choose a couple of possibilities and then you can choose the option that works best. We will also have copyright free music and software available at the workshop if you would like to use that, or you may find songs available on-line for purchase.Our web site has a copy of the Digital Storytelling Cookbook, the manual we have created to accompany the class. You will find the first sections helpful to read prior to the class. There is a PDF version of the front sections of the cookbook at www.storycenter.org/cookbook.You can also find helpful resources in the new text: Digital Storytelling: Capturing Lives, Creating Community by Joe Lambert which is available for purchase on-line at: www.storycenter.org/book.
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FLF Picks for Thursday…Enjoy!
Free and Affordable Thursdays Thurs. 3.22.07  ART   art opening & Reception:: Ben Schonzeit - Four Decades   @ Gerald Peters Gallery   Time: 6:00 PM Admission: Free   The first in-depth retrospective of works by Ben Schonzeit, including over 20 paintings representing every major phase of his career. Some works are on public view for the first time.   The exhibit will run from March 22 - April 21, 2007.   Gerald Peters Gallery 24 East 78th Street Upper East Side, Manhattan T: 212-628-9760   For information: www.gpgallery.com   Thurs. 3.22.07  ART   ART OPENING & RECEPTION:: Margo Victor - Space Oddity   @ Venetia Kapernekas Gallery   Time: 6:00 PM Admission: Free   Victor works in a wide range of media including 16 and 35 mm film as well as painting, photography and drawing. Victor’s minimal and non-conclusion oriented work in film celebrates the alternative with regard to positions of power that women must create within society, to include the very fact of making film, to the means by which she approaches the medium itself- a challenge requiring both the invention and discovery of alternative means of production in order to realize elaborate sound and visual effects. As the images in her short experimental films reveal, Victor’s methodology is steeped in old school studio animated special effects, making the artist a technician and participant, rather than a "fan" of the retro film making apparatus. The results of this approach are often both austere and inviting, slick and rough, purely graphical and abstract or entirely live action.   Venetia Kapernekas Gallery 526 West 26th Street, Suite 814 Chelsea, Manhattan T: 212-462-4150   For more information: www.venetiakapernekas.com   Thurs. 3.22.07  ART               art opening  & reception:: Carla Gannis - Jezebel A multi-media installation   @ Claire Oliver Fine Art  Time: 6:00 PM Admission: Free Carla Gannis 5 screen video installation Jezebel is part cultural anthropology and part dream-scape surrealism. Her "Jezebels" are set within fragmentary layered interiors, where past and present worlds collide. Ornate rooms, church sanctuaries and institutional green hospitals are "wallpapered" with urban graffiti and detritus. Jezebel is a woman caught between realities, existing in the future, present and past simultaneously. Approaching the work as a three dimensional moving painting, Gannis Jezebel intimates the mythology, history, and stereotypes that shape and define femininity within our collective unconscious. This icon is not one woman, but many, ranging from a villain to a non-conformist to a superwoman of human empowerment. The color red as a signifier of lust, sexuality, wantonness, as well as revolution, anger, and courage; we see this color wrapping not only the figure but her words.   Claire Oliver Fine Art 513 West 26th Street Chelsea, Manhattan T: 212-929-5949   For more information: www.carlagannis.com   Thurs. 3.22.07  MUSIC   Live Music with GABRIELLE LOUISE ARTIST IN residency   @ Pianos Time: 7:00 PM Admission: Free   Gabrielle Louise is a Boston-based artist with a free spirit and a big mouth! Her songs are rooted in folk and country while her melody and delivery show strong pop sensibilities. Her sound has the earthy feel of Joni Mitchell, and her performances the emotion and musical adventurism of Martin Sexton. She is at one moment folkie and ethereal, the next moment a smoky jazz chanteuse. Her clear, angelic voice draws comparisons to contemporary musicians such as Jewel and Kathleen Edwards, while her songwriting is reminiscent of a young Paul Simon. Pianos (upstairs) 158 Ludlow Street (Between Stanton and Rivington) Manhattan, NYC T: 212-505-3733 For more information: www.pianosnyc.com www.gabriellelouise.com   Here’s a video clip of Gabrielle Louise and Friends performing live on the television program, Backstage with Barry Nolan:     Thurs. 3.22.07  PARTY     launch party for tasty tees new artist-designed t-shirts @ Gallery Bar Time: 7:00 PM Admission: Free Tasty Tees is introducing its new tshirts and artists at gallery bar. DJ & sponsored drinks provided by Bison Grass Vodka. Tasty Tees mission is to create a T-Shirt label that is fun, emphasizes quality and creativity and puts the artist first and foremost. we embrace the tshirt as an alternative medium for artists to display their work and livelihood. our tshirt label is eclectic and reflects each artist’s individual flair. each tee is hand-printed and our designs are limited to no more than 1000 prints. a healthy portion of our profits directly supports each artist and nonprofit organizations that support the arts community. Gallery Bar 120 Orchard St New York, NY 10002 T: 212-802-8222 For more information: www.tastytshirt.com www.myspace.com/tastytshirt   Thurs. 3.22.07  FILM   film screening::SACRIFICIO Who Betrayed Che Guevara?   @ Julia de Burgos Theater   Time: 7:00 PM Admission: $7.00 An investigative documentary directed by Erik Gandini and Tarik Saleh (2001). Julia de Burgos Theater The Julia de Burgos Cultural Center 1680 Lexington Avenue, 2nd floor (at 106th Street) El Barrio, NY info@barriocinema.com For more information: www.barriocinema.com   Here’s a clip from the film:     Thurs. 3.22.07  MUSIC   Free LIVE Jazz::Josh Irving Quartet @ Bohemian Hall & Beer Garden Time: 9:00 PM Admission: Free (no cover or drink minimum) RSVP not required. Moving forward while embracing the past. That should be the goal of any musician according to Jazz Saxophonist Josh Irving. Irving was born in Rochester, NY in 1977 and took to music at an early age. He picked up saxophone at age 11 and studied classical for 7 years. In 1995 at age 17 he was introduced to virtuoso trumpet player Paul Smoker and, through him, the expansive world of Jazz.   In 1999, Irving moved to New York. Since then, he has performed regularly as a sideman as well as with his own group The Josh Irving Quartet. He has performed at such well-known Jazz venues as The Knitting Factory, Cornelia Street Caf , Detour, and 55 Bar. In February of 2004, Irving recorded his first solo CD, entitled Outside to Play. The CD contains 8 original tracks, 6 by Irving. Bohemian Hall & Beer Garden 29-19 24th Avenue Astoria, Queens T: 718-274-4925 For more information: www.bohemianhall.com www.myspace.com/bohemianhall www.joshirvingjazz.com   Thurs. 3.22.07  MUSIC   live music with Ghsts n Guitars   @ Think Coffee   Time: 9:00 PM Admission: Free   Ghst has been drifting and dreaming in the subways for many, many, years… His favorite haunts are the J line over the Willie B & the F & Q to Coney Island. On occasion there is a report of a haunting when "A Society of faces" gather’s on late nite platforms…   Think Coffee is an independently-owned cafe with a socially and environmentally conscious bent and a community-oriented mission. We serve only Fair Trade, shade-grown, organic coffee, Fair Trade, organic teas, and local milk and ice cream fresh from the Hudson Valley.   Think Coffee 248 Mercer Street Manhattan, NY T: 212-228-6226   For more information: www.thinkcoffeenyc.com www.myspace.com/ghstnguitars   
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FOF #418 - Reality as a Form of Perspective - 10.30.06
How would you deal with the sudden and random death of your lover? In 1995 I had moved to Chicago to go to graduate school and knew almost no-one. One of my close friends at school, William Gaudiani was a beautiful, intelligent, funny, young man with a new future in graphic design. We had always made plans to meet his boyfriend Jeff Stahl but school and work got in the way and decided to have dinner together after the winter break. When I got back from Puerto Rico that January, I called William to see how his holidays were, when his partner Jeff picked up the phone and told me that William had died in a car accident on his way home from Indiana- his car slipped on a patch of ice, tumbled and he died on the spot. At first I thought this was some sort of odd joke William was playing on me, but after an hour on the phone I realized it was no joke. And I was floored. I wasn’t ready for William to be out of my life, and made it a point to get to know his surviving partner Jeff. We became close friends in the memory of my friend and his lover William. Eleven years later, many things have changed. Jeff now works as a therapist helping others deal with all sorts of issues, including sudden loss. Listen to today’s walk through memory lane as we talk with my partner Marc Felion about kissing and passion, growing up poor on Chicago’s South Side, coping with death, caramel apples and reality as a form of perspective. Like a candy apple: delicious, sweet and nutty- its the Feast of Fools. Featured Music: Don Juan Dracula - Young Debutantes II: iTunes | Amazon | CD Baby| Site RSS FEED | SUBSCRIBE VIA iTUNES SUBSCRIBE VIA: ODEO | YAHOO | PODZINGER | BLUBRRY CONTACT US DIRECTLY
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Slate: Table for 39
Table for 39 The Dinner Party, Judy Chicago’s iconic work of feminist art, stands the test of time. By Mia Fineman When Judy Chicago was a young artist in Los Angeles, a prominent male art critic offered her a friendly word of advice. “You know, Judy,” he said, “you have to decide whether you’re going to be a woman or an artist.” She spent the rest of her career proving him wrong. Chicago, who was born Judy Cohen in 1939, started out making luminous geometric paintings and pastel-hued Minimalist sculptures in the mid-1960s. By the early 1970s, she was incorporating overtly feminist iconography into her work hollow, rounded forms and symmetrical motifs that evoked flowers, butterflies, and vulvas. She was also a pioneer of feminist art education, founding unprecedented programs for women at California State University at Fresno and, with artist Miriam Schapiro, at the California Institute of the Arts. But Chicago’s crowning achievement, her great contribution to feminist art and education, is her iconic installation, The Dinner Party, which has just taken up permanent residence at the Brooklyn Museum as the centerpiece of the new Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. Housed in a specially designed glass enclosure, The Dinner Party serves as a grand historical anchor for this season’s flotilla of books, exhibitions, and symposia on feminist art. At the moment, these include WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution, a brilliant overview of feminist art from the 1960s and 1970s at Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles; Global Feminisms, an international survey of art by women from the 1990s to the present, also at the Brooklyn Museum; and Gail Levin’s worshipful new biography, Becoming Judy Chicago. Chicago began working on The Dinner Party in 1974; it took five years and the labor of 400 volunteers to complete. The installation consists of a massive banquet table in the shape of an equilateral triangle an emblem of equality. Along each side are 13 place settings, a reference to Christ and his 12 disciples at the Last Supper. Chicago said she wanted to reinterpret “that all-male event from the point of view of those who had traditionally been expected to prepare the food, then silently disappear from the picture.” The 39 settings commemorate significant women from myth, legend, and history, from “the primordial goddess” to Georgia O’Keeffe, with stops along the way at Sappho, Sacajawea, and Virginia Woolf. At each setting there’s a large ceramic plate that rests on a cloth runner embroidered with the woman’s name and lavishly decorated with symbols of her life and achievements. The plates are painted with vaginal forms, some rising up in high relief, and are also customized with symbolic attributes of the women they honor. The gleaming white-ceramic tile floor beneath the table bears the names of another 999 women painted in gold. The first time I saw The Dinner Party was in 1980, when it traveled to the Brooklyn Museum after making its debut in San Francisco. I was a starry-eyed, 14-year-old feminist with a growing set of convictions gleaned from Our Bodies, Ourselves, de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, and a friend’s mother’s late-night rants at the kitchen table. I made the pilgrimage to Brooklyn by subway and joined the crowd in a slow, counterclockwise procession around the table, carefully studying each place setting and reading the brief biographies in the accompanying brochure. I was spellbound: Who knew that Hatshepsut, the female pharaoh, donned a fake beard and reigned over ancient Egypt for more than 20 years? Or that Trotula, an 11th-century Italian physician, was the world’s first gynecologist? Even at my fairly progressive high school, this stuff was not on the curriculum. I realized, for the first time, that women’s achievements had been systematically forgotten, buried, or written out of history and it struck me as infuriatingly unfair. After several hours, I stumbled out of the show, newly radicalized. Twenty-seven years later, I considered a second visit to The Dinner Party with some trepidation. For one thing, I’m not 14 any more, and my taste in art and most other things has changed. But more importantly, feminism and my understanding of it has evolved in fundamental ways. By the time I got to college, the body-centered, second-wave essentialism of Judy Chicago’s generation was out, and a more fluid conception of gender identity was in. In feminist theory seminars, we learned that sex and gender are cultural constructs “performative identities,” if you will and that womanhood is not a natural essence but a masquerade, a role we are born into but never fully inhabit. At around the same time, artists like Cindy Sherman, Barbara Kruger, and Laurie Simmons were using photography and ironic references to Hollywood heroines and fashion magazines to “perform” feminine identity in their art. Their style was cool and cerebral and had little to do with the earnest, craft-oriented creations of the previous generation. In light of these changes, how could The Dinner Party with its hokey symbolism, its fertility goddesses and porcelain vaginas be anything more than a relic, a nostalgia trip, an embarrassing failure of taste? As I rode the subway out to Brooklyn a few weeks ago, I was ready to dismiss Chicago’s project as historically significant kitsch. But when I entered the darkened gallery and began to make my way around the table, I changed my mind. Certain works of art, like this one, have a physical presence that is far more persuasive than any verbal description or explanation of “what the artist is trying to say.” The Dinner Party is, as Chicago intended, a powerful pedagogical tool meant to raise awareness of women’s contributions throughout history. Like a great teacher, she gets her point across by appealing to the senses and the imagination, by entertaining, provoking, and engaging the viewer in a pleasurably interactive learning process. Much of this pleasure comes from deciphering the symbols, historical references, and period styles and techniques. The cloth runner for the “primordial goddess” is decked out in calf skins and cowry shells (an ancient symbol of female fertility). The plates also vary in style Byzantine Empress Theodora’s plate evokes the glittering tiles of a mosaic; Emily Dickinson is done up in Victorian-era pink lace though here the forms are limited by Chicago’s strict adherence to her signature flower-butterfly-vulva motif. The repeated use of vaginal forms Chicago prefers to call it “central core” imagery is, of course, the most contentious and easily ridiculed aspect of The Dinner Party. Chicago was one of the first artists of her generation to embrace “central core” imagery as a metaphor for the essence of womanhood, but she was not alone, nor was she the most provocative. In a famous performance in 1975, Carolee Schneemann pulled a 40-inch-long scroll from her vagina and read it aloud to a rapt audience; the same year, Tee Corinne printed and distributed the graphic C__t Coloring Book. (You can see these works and many more like them in the Los Angeles show WACK!) Making your way around The Dinner Party table, you can almost forget you’re looking at stylized pudenda. Almost. As you approach the age of women’s suffrage, the labia-petal-butterfly-wings begin to rise up off the plates (”a symbol of women’s desire to be free,” says Chicago), and there you are, staring down at Susan B. Anthony’s vagina in all its 3-D glory. So, is The Dinner Party great art? Well, not by the standards of today’s art world. It’s too middlebrow, too literal, and its earnestness is out of step with today’s endlessly self-ironizing sensibility. And its pudendal imagery, once radical, looks silly and heavy-handed today. But as an emphatically populist work with a clear set of political and educational imperatives, The Dinner Party has held its ground. It’s nervy, ambitious, uncompromising, and unlike most recent art, feminist or otherwise truly original. In her autobiography, Through the Flower, Chicago wrote that she created The Dinner Party “to end the ongoing cycle of omission in which women were written out of the historical record.” Now, with her magnum opus enshrined in Brooklyn, ready to receive a new generation of budding feminists, Chicago can finally claim her own place at the table.
Source: www.slate.com

Media once again run with anonymously sourced allegation of Clinton eavesdropping
In recent days, numerous media outlets have reported on an anonymously sourced allegation that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) eavesdropped on a phone conversation involving Bill Clinton's political opponents during his 1992 presidential campaign — an allegation the Clinton campaign has said is “categorically untrue.” In the book Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton (Little, Brown & Co., June 2007), co-authors Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta Jr. cited a single anonymous source to claim that during the campaign, Hillary Clinton “listened to a secretly recorded audiotape of a phone conversation of Clinton critics plotting their next attack.” Gerth and Van Natta wrote that “Bill's supporters monitored frequencies used by cell phones, and the tape was made during one of those monitoring sessions” and described the tape as having been “obtained under questionable circumstances.” According to the endnotes of Her Way, Gerth and Van Natta's only source for this claim is an “[a]uthor interview with former campaign aide present at the tape playing in 2006.” Some in the media seized on the allegation before the book was even officially released and many failed to note that the sole basis for the claim is a single unnamed source describing events that allegedly occurred 14 years earlier. After numerous reports in June, the allegation did not surface again until an October 16 article in The Hill, headlined “GOP targeting Clinton on phone-call snooping.” The Hill article quoted an anonymous “GOP official” accusing Clinton of “hypocrisy” because she allegedly eavesdropped on political opponents but opposes the Bush administration's efforts to expand the government's authority to conduct electronic surveillance of communications involving people in the United States without a warrant. In reporting on the allegations, several media outlets — including the following — failed to note that Gerth and Van Natta sourced the claim to only one, unnamed person: Slate.com, National Review, CNN's Paula Zahn Now, ABC News' The Note, Fox News' Fox & Friends, MSNBC's Tucker, The Washington Times, and The American Spectator. From Her Way, Pages 93-94: Hillary's defense activities ranged from the inspirational to the microscopic to the down and dirty. She received memos about the status of various press inquiries;10 she vetted senior campaign aides;11 and she listened to a secretly recorded audiotape of a phone conversation of Clinton critics plotting their next attack. The tape contained discussions of another woman who might surface with allegations about an affair with Bill. Bill's supporters monitored frequencies used by cell phones, and the tape was made during one of those monitoring sessions.12 A lot had changed since the moment eighteen years earlier when Hillary had been aghast at the suggestion that the Clinton campaign use underhanded means to garner votes in rural Arkansas. Yet again, Bill Clinton's chances were being jeopardized by rumors of his womanizing. And yet again, it was up to Hillary to minimize the threat — and if that meant listening to a tape that had been obtained under questionable circumstances, then she would just deal with it. Associated endnotes: 10. Numerous 1992 campaign memoranda addressed to Hillary Rodham Clinton. 11. David Halberstam, War in a Time of Peace (New York: Scribner, 2001), 20. 12. Author interview with former campaign aide present at the tape playing in 2006. May 31 In a May 31 Slate.com blog post, Mickey Kaus wrote that he had “obtained a copy of page 93 of the unreleased Gerth-Van Natta Hillary Clinton book” and highlighted the allegation that Hillary Clinton “listened to a secretly recorded audiotape of a phone conversation of Clinton critics plotting their next attack.” Kaus speculated, “Isn't it not so legal?… I'm not an expert, but it looks like a potential minefield for Hillary.” Kaus did not note the basis for the allegation — a single anonymous source — nor did he note that, if he had only page 93 and not the endnotes, he was unable to determine the sourcing for the allegation. From the May 31 post (bold and italics in original): Hillary, Eavesdropper? Big Mama is Listening! Kf has obtained a copy of page 93 of the unreleased Gerth-Van Natta Hillary Clinton book, which describes how, during the '92 campaign, Hillary herself “listened to a secretly recorded audiotape of a phone conversation of Clinton critics plotting their next attack. The tape contained discussions of another woman who might surface with allegations about an affair with Bill. Bill's supporters monitored frequencies used by cell phones, and the tape was made during one of those monitoring sessions.” Hmm. Phone-monitoring was a key investigative method of what notorious California-based Clinton-friendly private eye and problem solver? Just asking! … P.S.: I'm not talking about Jack Palladino, who is explicitly mentioned in the footnotes as working for the Clinton team and would not have to be described as a “supporter.” But of course, it could still be him, or any other “supporter.” (Nor is it clear if the phones were being monitored in Arkansas or D.C..) … I don't know how common cell-phone-monitoring was in 1992. … P.P.S.: Wasn't there a character in Joe Klein's Primary Colors who did this sort of thing? … P.P.P.S.: Isn't it not so legal? … See also this exegesis of the elements of a violation of 18 U.S.C. 2511 (1) (a). I'm not an expert, but it looks like a potential minefield for Hillary. Think what Patrick Fitzgerald could have done with the provision criminalizing anyone who “intentionally uses, or endeavors to use, the contents of any wire, oral, or electronic communication” knowing it was obtained illegally. [E.A.] Maybe it all depends on what the uses of “uses” are! … Did I bury the lede? … Update: Actually, say the profs at the Volokh Conspiracy, it depends on whether they were cell calls or cordless calls! Gerth and Van Natta say “cell.” I don't think Hillary can take much comfort in Volokh's analysis. … 5:15 P.M. link June 1-6 During this period, nationally syndicated radio host Rush Limbaugh, Fox News host Sean Hannity, Fox News contributor and nationally syndicated columnist Dick Morris, and Politico reporter Ben Smith all seized on Kaus' post. On the June 1 edition of Premiere Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Show, Limbaugh cited Kaus' posting and claimed, “The Clintons have been engaged in illegal wiretapping. They're monitoring cell phone frequencies so they hear calls from enemies of the Clintons plotting their next attack and so forth.” From the June 1 edition (subscription required) of The Rush Limbaugh Show : LIMBAUGH: Mickey Kaus. Where was this — Slate.com. Headline: “Hillary, caught eavesdropping?” Page 93 from the yet-unreleased Gerth-Van Natta Hillary Clinton book has quite a bombshell, Kaus writes. Hillary Clinton “listened to a secretly recorded audiotape of a phone conversation of Clinton critics plotting their next attack. The tape contained discussions of another woman who might surface with allegations about an affair with her husband Bill. Bill's supporters monitored frequencies used by cell phones, and the tape was made during one of those monitoring sessions.” So the Clintons were out there just like that couple, the grandparents driving on I-75 here in Florida heading up to Jacksonville to do some Christmas shopping, and like every one of us they had a cell phone monitor in their car, right there in the dashboard, and they decided to tune in, and all of a sudden, just quite by accident, they said they caught a moment of history. They listened to Newt Gingrich talking to John Boehner. By the way, who was it, Jim Moran got this? Was it Moran or McDermott? Yeah, it was McDermott, Baghdad Jim McDermott. Anyway, this couple, just the sweetest people you'd ever want to run into, grandparents, accidentally tuning around their cell phone receiver in the car, like we all have in our cars and hear this conversation between Newt Gingrich and John Boehner, “Gee, this is history, what do we do with this?” And they decided to give it to Baghdad Jim McDermott, congressman from Washington, who then gave it to The New York Times, which then published the transcript of the conversation. So far McDermott has been in lawsuits, has lost up to 800-grand now in terms of reimbursing Boehner for all this. We find out now the Clintons have been doing the same thing. The Clintons have been engaged in illegal wiretapping. They're monitoring cell phone frequencies so they hear calls from enemies of the Clintons plotting their next attack and so forth. Now, don't get carried away here, my friends. This will not affect a single Hillary supporter or a single drive-by editor. It's like that picture that's out there. Hillary was making a speech yesterday and somebody on the graphic behind her misspelled the word “tomorrow,” with two M's in it, and Hillary is up there making a speech. Now, she didn't misspell it, but she's standing in front of it. If this were a Republican this would be all over the news today as in Dan Quayle and potato. So the drive-bys are not going to care about Hillary and, you know, monitoring people's cell phone calls, but what this sort of shows us is this: The last three major wiretap stories on American citizens have been — well, how many of you can name the three? What are the big three wiretap stories on American citizens? Going back a number of years. No, no, no, not the NSA, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Number one, Bobby Kennedy wiretapping Martin Luther King. Yes, he did. They wiretapped Martin Luther King and they were collecting a dossier on his infidelities. The Kennedy attorney general — the Kennedy Justice Department was doing it. Bobby Kennedy wiretapped Martin Luther King. Then we had Baghdad Jim McDermott passing on wiretaps of Republicans, as we've talked about. And now Hillary Clinton wiretapping anybody she says is an enemy, monitoring their cell phone calls with a cell phone receiver. Chairman Meow, we call her, Chairman Mao, Chairman Meow strikes again. And nobody's going to care. Well, it's going to be in the book. The book's not yet released, but Kaus has a copy of it and has put this on the website. We'll see what kind of traction it gets. In a June 1 blog post, Smith noted Kaus' posting and the allegations of eavesdropping, but later added an “Update”: “From a Clinton '92 source, no longer in Hillaryland: 'I never heard, saw or came across anything remotely like this…. Believe me, if a campaign or political operation had the capacity to monitor the cell phones of the opposition, people would be doing a lot more than listening to the supposed recordings.' ” Later, in a June 6 Politico article on Her Way and another recently released Clinton biography, A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton (Knopf, June 2007), by Carl Bernstein, Smith wrote that the “[m]ost tantalizing charge” in either book was that ” 'Her Way' reports that during the 1992 presidential campaign, Hillary 'listened to a secretly recorded audiotape of a phone conversation of Clinton critics plotting their next attack.” From Smith's June 1 post: Clinton eavesdropping? Mickey Kaus seizes on a passage from the Gerth/Van Natta book to speculate about private investigators and possible crimes, but I'm more interested in getting a bit more detail: Hillary, in 1992, “listened to a secretly recorded audiotape of a phone conversation of Clinton critics plotting their next attack. The tape contained discussions of another woman who might surface with allegations about an affair with Bill. Bill's supporters monitored frequencies used by cell phones, and the tape was made during one of those monitoring sessions.” I have calls out to James Carville and a couple of others, and am of course waiting eagerly by the phone. UPDATE: From a Clinton '92 source, no longer in Hillaryland: “I never heard, saw or came across anything remotely like this…. Believe me, if a campaign or political operation had the capacity to monitor the cell phones of the opposition, people would be doing a lot more than listening to the supposed recordings.” From Smith's June 6 article: Two new Hillary Rodham Clinton biographies contain a series of revelations. In “Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton,” New York Times reporters Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta Jr. report on Hillary's shifting approach toward the Iraq war and lingering questions about her billing practices as an Arkansas lawyer. The book also demonstrates the then-first lady's deep involvement in working to beat back the myriad scandals that beset President Bill Clinton's administration through much of the 1990s. In “A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton,” Watergate sleuth Carl Bernstein has more personal revelations, ranging from her father's exaggerations about his past to the fact that Bill considered leaving her for another woman in the late 1980s. […] Here are some highlights. […] Most tantalizing charge: “Her Way” reports that during the 1992 presidential campaign, Hillary “listened to a secretly recorded audiotape of a phone conversation of Clinton critics plotting their next attack. The tape contained discussions of another woman who might surface with allegations about an affair with Bill. Bill's supporters monitored frequencies used by cell phones, and the tape was made during one of those monitoring sessions.” (Former Clinton aides say the anecdote is unfamiliar.) On the June 4 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, Hannity also cited Kaus' posting, claiming, “Slate reports that, on Page 93 of one of these new books coming out, the Gerth-Van Natta book, that they literally talk about Hillary and describe a scene where she would listen to recorded audiotape conversations taken by her operatives.” Morris then claimed, “The whole secret police, yes. Hillary was in charge of the secret police. Hillary was in charge of the eavesdropping, the damage-control operation.” From the June 4 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes: HANNITY: Slate reports that, on Page 93 of one of these new books coming out, the Gerth-Van Natta book, that they literally talk about Hillary and describe a scene where she would listen to recorded audiotape conversations taken by her operatives. MORRIS: Right. HANNITY: Now, this goes back to a lot of what you have described as secret police. MORRIS: The whole secret police, yes. Hillary was in charge of the secret police. Hillary was in charge of the eavesdropping, the damage-control operation. Betsy Wright, who was her person, was in charge of that. And the Bimbo Patrol, they called it, but it was more than that. In his 1997 book Behind the Oval Office: Winning the Presidency in the Nineties (Random House), Morris acknowledged that he was not involved in the 1992 Clinton campaign. From Page 8 of Behind the Oval Office: My impatience backfired in 1992. Bill Clinton, the “dead end” I had abandoned, won the Democratic nomination and the presidency. I was not at his side. Initially, I did not believe he was really going to run. Then I didn't think he'd win. When I realized I should have had more faith in him and that he was, indeed, a serious candidate, it was too late. He had his consultants all set, and it made no sense to dislodge them. That was a fight I'd never win. Besides, they had had the courage to bet on Clinton and I hadn't, so they deserved the right to win. June 8 On June 8, Her Way was officially released. June 12 In a June 12 review of Her Way and A Woman In Charge, National Review White House correspondent Byron York wrote that “Gerth and Van Natta report that on one occasion Mrs. Clinton listened to a 'secretly recorded audiotape' of Clinton adversaries talking on the phone about the next possible bimbo eruption.” York added, “Who knew that Mrs. Clinton was an early advocate of warrantless wiretapping?” He did not address the sourcing of the allegation. From York's review: The Defense Team's job was to knock down any allegation, no matter how well founded, about Bill Clinton's girlfriends, his avoidance of the draft, Whitewater, Hillary Clinton's legal work — anything that might hurt the campaign. And to do it by any means necessary, legal or not: Gerth and Van Natta report that on one occasion Mrs. Clinton listened to a “secretly recorded audiotape” of Clinton adversaries talking on the phone about the next possible bimbo eruption. “Bill's supporters monitored frequencies used by cell phones,” Gerth and Van Natta add, “and the tape was made during one of those monitoring sessions.” Who knew that Mrs. Clinton was an early advocate of warrantless wiretapping? […] Underneath her appointment to the health-care initiative was the suspicion, held both inside and outside the White House, that Bill Clinton had to give his wife something pretty big because he owed her so much for the work she did knocking down those bimbo eruptions. She put her own credibility on the line, and under her supervision the Defense Team had procured false affidavits, kept up with that anonymous domestic spying, and crafted denial after denial. Also on June 12, Gerth and Van Natta appeared on CNN's Paula Zahn Now to discuss their book. Host Paula Zahn teased the segment by saying, “Wait until you hear what they [Gerth and Van Natta] have to say about her listening to secretly recorded phone conversations.” Zahn later asked Gerth and Van Natta, “So, if she would do these kinds of sneaky things to protect this man that she wanted to see become president, what might she resort to as president?” Zahn did not discuss the sourcing of the claim. From the June 12 edition of Paula Zahn Now: ZAHN: The authors of the hottest and most controversial book yet out about Hillary Clinton. Wait until you hear what they have to say about her listening to secretly recorded phone conversations. […] ZAHN: There is something you had in the book that I hadn't heard about before — and this was the idea that — how she was involved in President Clinton's run for the presidency, when he was governor, going back to 1992. And you wrote, “She listened to a secretly recorded audiotape of a phone conversation of Clinton critics, plotting their next attack. The tape contained discussions of another woman who might surface with allegations about an affair with Bill.” And then you go on to say: “Bill Clinton's chances were being jeopardized by rumors of his womanizing and yet again, it was up to Hillary to minimize the threat. And if that meant listening to a tape that had to be obtained under questionable circumstances, then she would just deal with it.” So, if she would do these kinds of sneaky things to protect this man that she wanted to see become president, what might she resort to as president? GERTH: Well, I think the '92 effort is interesting because she headed up a defense team that operated sort of secretly, dealing with her husband and her liabilities, whether it was the draft record, the womanizing, or her legal practice — and the idea was to do whatever had to be done to get her husband elected president. ZAHN: So, it didn't matter that the conversations were secretly recorded and probably illegal? GERTH: Well, we don't know whether they were illegal and we don't say so in the book, but the more interesting thing is she had come a long way in the years in Arkansas. She started in 1974 as an idealist and working in Bill's first campaign and wasn't really getting mixed into the political fray and, by 1992, when he was running for president, she was prepared to do most anything to get him elected president. And we show in the book that, as a senator, she's not been terribly behold tonight rules sometimes and has an attitude as described us to by people in the Senate as cavalier about the rules and not necessarily following them all the time. June 13 On the June 13 edition of his radio show, Limbaugh again mentioned the eavesdropping allegations, saying that Clinton had an “elite group” in 1992 that engaged in “a warrantless wiretap program.” He also cited York's review of Her Way. From the June 13 edition (subscription required) of The Rush Limbaugh Show: LIMBAUGH: I have shared with you constantly my question: What in the world is it that recommends this woman to be president of the United States other than her name? Other than her last name? And the fact that she's owed this because she's put up with so much — I mean, there's so much mythology around this woman. That she could have had this great career on her own. She could have been elected president or senator as early as 1992. She came out of Wellesley. She came out of Yale. And she gave it all up for this hayseed hick in Arkansas, then she had to put up with his peccadilloes, and basically keep his [unintelligible]. These books talk about how she ran the bimbo eruptions operation. It wasn't Betsy Wright. Betsy Wright was the public face in it, but it was Hillary running the bimbo operations in 1992, trying to find all these women who'd might pop up and accuse Clinton of having dalliances with them. And she was in charge of getting hold of them, getting signed affidavits saying it wasn't true and — you know, who knows what kind of threats. And they were wiretapping cell phone calls, Hillary and this unit — it was a group in addition to the war room. The war room was Clinton and [Paul] Begala and [George] Stephanopoulos — or Carville and Stephanopoulos and Begala. And Hillary had a further elite group — forget the name of it — but they were intercepting, monitoring cell phone calls of Clinton opponents, trying to find out what their next plan was — get a head start on it. And that's a warrantless wiretap program that they were engaged in. Well, that's domestic surveillance — wireless domestic surveillance, wireless wiretapping. Whatever. I mean, Byron York's story, it's in National Review Online, NRO, it's just a devastating review of the information in these two books that the drive-bys haven't touched. June 19 On June 19, Gerth and Van Natta appeared on Hannity & Colmes to discuss their book. Hannity claimed that “lot of press has come up to Page 93 in this book, where there were these recorded phone conversations that she had listened to about the potential of another Clinton woman being exposed. More importantly, the fact that she may have been listening to conversations that were recorded illegally caught my attention.” From the June 19 edition of Hannity & Colmes: HANNITY: There's so much that I want to get to — including their 20-year plan or strategy, as you call it here — but a lot of press has come up to Page 93 in this book, where there were these recorded phone conversations that she had listened to about the potential of another Clinton woman being exposed. More importantly, the fact that she may have been listening to conversations that were recorded illegally caught my attention. GERTH: Well, we don't say that they were illegal. HANNITY: You don't say that, but I'm assuming they may have been. GERTH: This was part of an effort in 1992, where she headed up something called “the defense team,” which was really designed to manage the liabilities of both her and her husband. He had his draft record issues, and we uncovered new documents that they withheld from the press. He, of course, had womanizing issues, and she had her own issues with her law practice and her finances. And the idea in 1992 was, “Do whatever it takes; cover it up; suppress it; keep it out of the press,” and we, in fact, when you talked about retribution in 1992, Hillary told someone on the campaign, “If you let out these records” — there were tax returns which they later made public — HANNITY: Right. Right. GERTH: — “you will never work in Democratic politics again.” ALAN COLMES (co-host): By the way, a lot of this is unsourced. You don't mention names. You don't — GERTH: That is not unsourced. That is on the record. October 16On October 16, the article in The Hill reported that “Republicans plan to seize on an allegation from the 1992 presidential campaign to tarnish Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) on the red-hot issue of government surveillance.” The article added: “Republicans are focusing on an allegation in a recent book by two Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters, which suggests Clinton listened to a secretly recorded conversation between political opponents.” The article also quoted an anonymous “GOP official” saying, “Hillary Clinton's campaign hypocrisy continues to know no bounds. It is rather unbelievable that Clinton would listen in to conversations being conducted by political opponents, but refuse to allow our intelligence agencies to listen in to conversations being conducted by terrorists as they plot and plan to kill us. Team Clinton can expect to see and hear this over and over again over the course of the next year.” The Hill added, “Gerth told The Hill that he learned of the incident in 2006 when he interviewed a former campaign aide present at the tape playing. He has not revealed the aide's identity.” The Republican National Committee (RNC) highlighted the story on its website. Internet gossip Matt Drudge linked to the Hill story by 7:04 a.m. ET, with the headline “Republicans targeting Clinton on phone-call snooping…” ABC News' The Note also highlighted The Hill's article: “Here comes the next piece of the RNC assault on Clinton.” The Note also added that a “Republican source tells The Note that the Arkansas Republican Party today will be asking the state attorney general to investigate that allegation.” The Note made no mention of the sourcing of the allegation. By 8:29 a.m. ET, Drudge had linked to The Note with the headline “GOP Asks Arkansas AG to Investigate…” Following The Hill's report, the Arkansas Republican Party issued a press release that “called on State Attorney General Dustin McDaniel to investigate the fact that New York Senator Hillary Clinton may have eavesdropped and recorded political opponents' telephone conversations while her husband was Governor of Arkansas.” Dennis Milligan, chairman of the Republican Party of Arkansas, asserted: “This is a very serious allegation, which is why Arkansas Attorney General McDaniel should investigate whether or not Hillary Clinton eavesdropped and recorded her and her husband's political opponents' phone conversations without legal authority.” The release also quoted Milligan stating: “If these allegations are true, Arkansans have a right to ask the Senator from New York: why were you willing to break the law and use wiretapping for personal political gain, but you're unwilling to vote for measures that would provide our nation's intelligence community with the tools they need to catch potential terrorists, as they plot and plan to kill Americans?” The chairman of the Michigan Republican Party, Saul Anuzis, also highlighted the Hill article in a post on the Michigan Republican Party blog. Anuzis wrote: “This is the highest form of hypocrisy and is a clear example of how the Clintons will stop at nothing to recapture the White House. For Senator Clinton to deprive federal agencies of tools that can be used against terrorists after she has used similar tactics herself — illegally — is an absolute outrage. Senator Clinton owes the American people an apology for this unacceptable behavior, and her supporters, including Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, a former attorney general, should not endorse someone who so cavalierly flaunts the law for political gain.” Similarly, the Georgia Republican Party also issued a press release citing The Hill's article and claimed that Hillary was engaged in “hypocrisy.” From the press release: ” 'Hillary's hypocrisy knows no bounds,' said Sue. P Everhart, Chairman of the Georgia Republican Party. 'How she can think it is wrong to allow our intelligence professionals to prevent and disrupt terrorist attacks through intercepted conversations between plotters, but not think it is wrong to spy on her political opponents is beyond me.' ” Fox News' Fox & Friends co-hosts Brian Kilmeade and Steve Doocy also discussed the story during the October 16 edition of Fox & Friends, shortly after 8 a.m. ET. Kilmeade asserted that Gerth and Van Natta “say there's a bit of hypocrisy going on any time Hillary comes up and criticizes the president or the administration about amending the FISA laws.” Doocy replied — repeating a falsehood commonly leveled against congressional Democrats, that they oppose any wiretapping — “That's right, because she has refused to allow our intelligence agencies to listen in on conversations being conducted by terrorists as they plot to blow us up.” Neither Kilmeade nor Doocy, nor co-host Gretchen Carlson discussed the sourcing of the allegation. At 9:02 a.m. ET, blogger David Knowles discussed the Hill article in a blog post on AOL's Political Machine blog, writing, “the timing of the release of this fifteen year-old-scandal, as anonymously sourced in a widely panned book, couldn't be worse for Mrs. Clinton.” He noted unanswered questions about the allegation, writing: “If the allegation of listening in on an enemy's phone conversation was true, this would, indeed, make her something of a hypocrite. In fact, it would make her a criminal, just as Verizon may yet be found to have broken the law. So, the obvious question is, why hasn't law enforcement looked into the matter? Another intriguing aspect of the story is, why didn't we hear about the other woman named in the purported phone call? If she indeed existed, why wouldn't the Clintons' foes trot her out into the light of day as threatened?” The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder also noted the Hill article in a blog post at 10:30 a.m. ET. Ambinder described the article as “[a] story placed by the RNC in today's Hill.” After quoting from the article, which opened by stating that “Republicans plan to seize on [the] allegation” from Her Way, Ambinder wrote: So — what will the Republicans seize, who's doing the seizing, and why telegtraph [sic] your plans in a newspaper article? 1. This is a trial balloon floated by the RNC to see whether anyone bites. 2. The RNC is willing to associate itself with the Clinton sex stuff. Also: the Clinton's [sic] tenure in Arkansas is fair game. 3. The RNC wants state parties to start challenging Clinton. As if on cue, this news release came this morning from the Republican Party of Arkansas: “Today, Republican Party of Arkansas Chairman Dennis Milligan called on State Attorney General Dustin McDaniel to investigate the fact that New York Senator Hillary Clinton may have eavesdropped and recorded political opponents' telephone conversations while her husband was Governor of Arkansas.” 4. The RNC doesn't mind the world knowing that they're going to throw everything, including the kitchen plumbing, at Hillary Clinton. 5. From a reader: “My guess on that RNC thing was that they did it that way because they knew it would get them a story on Drudge — classic ploy, “we plan to use this in an attack” sources say … whereas if they'd actually used it in an attack, it would have been widely ignored, because it's so thin.” Discussing the Hill article during his radio show, Limbaugh asserted: “So, she's out there monitoring these phone calls about potential bimbo eruptions. So, the point of this story in The Hill is that the Republicans are gonna go after her on this. Van Natta and Gerth totally stand by this in their book.” In addition, Limbaugh claimed that Clinton is “the most-cheated on woman in the history of the world, folks. And she knew it. And she let it happen right in front of her eyes — right behind her back. She let it happen. She let it happen. She was — she allowed herself to be humiliated and disgraced because that's what it required to get her to where she is now. She had to keep her husband in office wherever he was, if she was ever to have a chance to go anywhere.” From the October 16 edition of The Rush Limbaugh Show: LIMBAUGH: So, Hillary was doing this. She was in charge of the bimbo eruptions. Everybody thinks that it was Betsy Wright that was in charge of the bimbo eruptions. It was Hillary because she knew about them. She's the most-cheated on woman in the history of the world, folks. And she knew it. And she let it happen right in front of her eyes — right behind her back. She let it happen. She let it happen. She was — she allowed herself to be humiliated and disgraced because that's what it required to get her to where she is now. She had to keep her husband in office wherever he was, if she was ever to have a chance to go anywhere. So, she's out there monitoring these phone calls about potential bimbo eruptions. So, the point of this story in The Hill is that the Republicans are gonna go after her on this. Van Natta and Gerth totally stand by this in their book. “A Republican official said that Hillary Clinton's campaign hypocrisy continues to know no bounds. It is rather unbelievable that she would listen in to conversations being conducted by political opponents but refused to allow our own intelligence agencies to listen in to conversations being conducted by terrorists as they plot and planned to kill us. “Team Clinton can expect to see and hear this over and over again over the course of the next year.” She's made it very plain — they've made it — Republicans have made it plain that they're not gonna forget about this. As Media Matters for America noted, on MSNBC's Tucker, host Tucker Carlson and guests A.B. Stoddard, associate editor of The Hill, and Politico staff writer Josephine Hearn discussed the allegation without noting it was anonymously sourced. The segment also featured a series of false and baseless claims, including Carlson's attribution of the controversy to a “new book” (in fact, the book is more than four months old) and Hearn's claim that the Clinton campaign “apparently … never challenged anything in the book at all” (in fact, the campaign has challenged this claim and at least one other). As Media Matters also noted, minutes before the Tucker segment, on Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume, chief Washington correspondent Jim Angle noted that Clinton's presidential campaign “flatly denied” the allegation and quoted Clinton communications director Howard Wolfson saying, “This story is categorically untrue.” Special Report aired an audio clip of Gerth saying, “The person who told us about this was present at the playing of the tape recording,” but did not otherwise discuss the sourcing of the allegation. CNN Headline News host Glenn Beck led his Headline News program, Glenn Beck, by discussing the story. Beck compared Clinton to former President Richard Nixon and suggested that she had a “bag of campaign tricks,” including “wiretapping equipment, stolen cell-phone calls, and a special set of rules that apparently only she gets to follow.” Beck added that “Hillary Clinton is a hypocrite. And while her sex-scandled husband probably likes to watch, it seems that Senator Clinton prefers to listen.” Later, Beck baselessly claimed that Clinton “seems to have purchased a high-tech digital scanner to monitor and record cell-phone calls.” Beck also repeated the false assertion that “Hillary's campaign staff has not disputed one single thing in this book [Her Way],” when, in fact, as Media Matters has noted, the campaign has challenged this claim and at least one other. Beck then hosted Gerth to discuss the allegations made in his book. Beck asked Gerth why he “believe[d his] book, when it first came out, kind of just went away.” Gerth replied that “the Clinton camp spent a lot of time trying to knock down and sort of either ignore or suppress the book, as the case may be.” Gerth added: “But I'll leave it for others to decide why some books fail and others don't.” During the interview, Gerth said that the allegation was “based on someone who was in the room,” and Beck pursued no further discussion of its sourcing. Later, Beck interviewed National Public Radio commentator John Ridley about the allegations and asked, “Who do you think is behind the releasing of this report now? … Is this the GOP waking up and saying, 'Uh-oh, there's really nobody on the other side maybe to take her down?' Or is this possibly somebody like [Democratic presidential candidates Barack] Obama or [John] Edwards that is releasing this?” In fact, The Hill article cited an anonymous “GOP official” and otherwise strongly suggested that Republicans were responsible for pushing the story. From The Hill: Republicans plan to seize on an allegation from the 1992 presidential campaign to tarnish Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) on the red-hot issue of government surveillance. […] Republicans are focusing on an allegation in a recent book by two Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters, which suggests Clinton listened to a secretly recorded conversation between political opponents. […] A GOP official said, “Hillary Clinton's campaign hypocrisy continues to know no bounds. It is rather unbelievable that Clinton would listen in to conversations being conducted by political opponents, but refuse to allow our intelligence agencies to listen in to conversations being conducted by terrorists as they plot and plan to kill us. Team Clinton can expect to see and hear this over and over again over the course of the next year.” The Hill article made no mention of Edwards, and mentioned Obama only while reporting that “Clinton voted against an emergency law that temporarily expanded the government's power to conduct surveillance on American soil without a warrant. … The Senate's other Democratic presidential candidates, Sens. Barack Obama (Ill.), Chris Dodd (Conn.), and Joseph Biden (Del.), also voted against the bill.” Beck's program first airs at 7 p.m. ET. At 7:45 p.m. ET, in a post on CNN's Political Ticker blog, CNN Congressional correspondent Dana Bash wrote that “Republicans on Capitol Hill and around the country engaged Tuesday in a coordinated effort to paint Hillary Clinton as hypocritical on the issue of government surveillance, seizing on an allegation in a recent book that Clinton secretly listened to phone conversations of political opponents in 1992.” Bash added: “The orchestrated attack is part of an evolving GOP strategy to attack Senator Clinton with dual goals: tarnishing her image and rallying the GOP base.” Bash also reported that “Clinton Campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson told CNN, 'As Hillary Clinton continues to beat all Republicans in poll after poll this is just politics as usual from Republicans who can't defend this president's failed policies. The story is categorically untrue.' ” Regarding the sourcing of the claim, Bash wrote: “Gerth told The Hill newspaper that he learned of the incident in 2006 from a former Clinton campaign aide who claimed to be present at the taping. Gerth has not revealed his source's identity.” October 17 An October 17 Washington Times article also reported on the allegation. The article stated: “State Republican Party officials across the country yesterday assailed Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton for possibly eavesdropping on political opponents' cell-phone calls during her husband's tenure as Arkansas governor.” The Times also reported that “Clinton campaign spokesman Howard L. Wolfson said the campaign had not responded to the accusation sooner because there were too many accusations in books to answer them all. 'The story is categorically untrue,' said Mr. Wolfson. 'This is partisan politics as usual from the Republicans who can't defend the failures of this administration.' ” The Times did not note the allegation is based on an account by a single anonymous source. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported (subscription required) several impediments to the Arkansas Republican Party's effort to have state Attorney General Dustin McDaniel investigate Clinton's purported eavesdropping. According to the Democrat-Gazette, “There were at least two problems with the complaint, however. The law that [Arkansas] GOP Chairman Dennis Milligan said that now-U.S. Sen. Clinton of New York may have violated [during her husband's 1992 presidential campaign] wasn't on the books until 1993. And the complaint was filed 14 years too late.” From the October 17 report: The leader of the Arkansas Republican Party asked Attorney General Dustin McDaniel on Tuesday to investigate whether then-first lady Hillary Clinton violated state law during her husband's 1992 presidential campaign by listening to a recording of a phone conversation. There were at least two problems with the complaint, however. The law that GOP Chairman Dennis Milligan said that now-U.S. Sen. Clinton of New York may have violated wasn't on the books until 1993. And the complaint was filed 14 years too late. In a press release Tuesday, Milligan cited one paragraph in the book Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton, by TheNew York Times reporters Don Van Natta Jr. and Jeff Gerth. “Hillary's defense activities ranged from the inspirational to the microscopic to the down and dirty. She received memos about the status of various press inquiries; she vetted senior campaign aides; and she listened to a secretly recorded audiotape of a phone conversation of Clinton critics plotting their next attack,” the book stated. The complaint offered no further details about the purported conversation or the circumstances of the purported taping or the purported listening. A call to Clinton's presidential campaign press office was not returned Tuesday afternoon. Gabe Holmstrom, a spokesman for McDaniel, said the Republican Party also complained to the wrong office. The attorney general's office lacks the authority to investigate or bring legal proceedings based on allegations of this nature “even if they were true,” Holmstrom said. He said any further inquiries on such matters should be directed to the Pulaski County prosecuting attorney. Larry Jegley, the Pulaski County prosecutor, said his office hasn't received any complaint. “If somebody brings us a complaint, we'll handle it in due course just like everything else,” Jegley said. “If it's worthy of us spending precious tax dollars, we'll do it.” The Republican press release referred to Arkansas Code Annotated 5-60-120, which states, in part: “It is unlawful for a person to intercept a wire, landline, oral, telephonic communication, or wireless communication, and to record or possess a recording of the communication unless the person is a party to the communication or one (1) of the parties to the communication has given prior consent to the interception and recording.” The statute was enacted in 1993. John DiPippa, dean of the William H. Bowen School of Law at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, said he could find no reference to a prior law replaced by the one cited in the Republican Party press release. “Every statute has a history section that tells where it originates, and this one starts in 1993,” DiPippa said. The law is a Class A misdemeanor, punishable by up to one year in jail or a fine of up to $1,000. Jegley, a Democrat, said the statute of limitations on a Class A misdemeanor is one year. “We're talking about something 15 years ago,” he said. “I'm not saying that I won't give it a fair look. I am saying that having been around as long as I've been around - and whether it's a Democrat or Republican doesn't matter to me - this kind of smells.” October 18 In an October 18 column for The American Spectator, Spectator founder and editor in chief R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. referred to the eavesdropping allegation, writing: “This week it was reported in the authoritative Capitol Hill newspaper, The Hill, that Don Van Natta Jr. and Jeff Gerth included some unsavory news about Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in Her Way, their recent book on her. Hillary, during the 1992 presidential campaign, 'listened to a secretly recorded audiotape of a phone conversation of Clinton critics ….' Washington observers appeared shocked. Mein Gott, where have they been all these years? The Clintons have engaged in brute behavior for decades, much of it a matter of record.” Tyrrell did not address the sourcing of the allegation or note the Clinton campaign's response that “[t]he story is categorically untrue.”
Source: mediamatters.org

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