Okay – I promised network specifics.

What do we need to do differently?

First visit Blogs4Life.

This interesting conference has a dual purpose – speakers covering the pro-life blogging topics in the morning – then covering the Annual March for Life in the afternoon.

That’s not instantly apparent. (I understand the site is still being developed.)

You’ll also find a long list of pro-life bloggers, yet how many are currently active, what’s their posting frequency? How many unique visitors do they have? To what extent do they cover certain aspects of the issues? Do we know who is covering what?

(Standardized life icons/badges indicating 7-8 categories would help) Visit a pro-life site, look for the badge-bar and you know what’s usually discussed, and by how much.

Any efficient graphic designer available for a worthy cause?

Which bloggers are best in conveying which aspect of the pro-life message?

For instance – I go to Dawn Eden for chastity issues, Jill Stanek for news coverage opinion, Secondhand Smoke for broad perspective,

How about tech savvy – do some understand scripting and code better than others? How many tool makers visit pro-life blogs, but don’t volunteer in this area?

Back to the long list of blogs: do they link to each other? If each blog is a node, what’s the relationship between the nodes? Are there a cluster of blogs that focus on one particular aspect of the message, as I just mentioned?

What’s the total number of active participants – both bloggers and subscribers out there?

Knowing the answer to that and drawing them together into a network would provide advertisers (and content creators) a potential market with a serious commitment to put their money where their heart is – into the pro-life cause.

Backgrounder – see this discussion about Creating the ThruFire Network.

Productivity strategy, tactics, thrufire network

Every “message” organization desiring to reach a broad audience has to use a medium – some technology. Usually the more sophisticated the technology, the larger the audience reached at a greater distance – ie. a satellite cable network reaches much further and faster than a published pamphlet.

Yet any message organization leveraging off an existing network is subject to editing and skewing of their message by the existing network. The guest is at the mercy of the host.

For instance, with Live Action Film’s Lila Rose appearance on Fox’s O’Reilly Factor, it appears Bill O’Reilly isn’t so interested in conveying the message, as much as he finds the event an audience attention grabber, another “feather in his cap” so to speak. I could be wrong, but that’s the way it comes across – a newsman riding the wave of the latest controversy.

So the benefit of borrowing/using existing networks is very low cost distribution to a pre-existing audience at the risk of message alteration or dilution.

In the absence of genuinely neutral news networks, there is a great need for a comprehensive pro-life network that will not compromise the message of life.

There are two major key factors that need serious consideration:

Editorial control – clarity of message
Audience feedback – determination of audience impact.

The only reason O’Reilly delivers what he does, the way he does, is because someone is gauging audience reaction via commercial sponsorship and continued viewing of the show.

Both Martha Stewart and Oprah Winfrey manage these key factors to devastating effect.

With the internet we have the capability to both deliver an edited message that can be rich and deep, over long distances at almost no cost. We can with the use of certain tools determine audience not only viewing but also participation. All of this can be done at a fraction of the cost of other systems, and mostly with off-the-shelf tools that are properly utilized.

What matters then is tactics, training, and technology.

I’ll try to give some specific examples next, using very specific tools.

Productivity strategy, thrufire network

One of the biggest complaints of the pro-life cause is inadequate coverage by the mainstream media. Remember:

The 1st step of a revolution is to grab the communications facilities!

Consequently – since 1916 we’ve been dealing with media that’s been increasingly infiltrated, and recently we’ve seen how effective they have altered and diminished the pro-life message.

The tools for media coverage are more accessible than ever, but the pro-life cause is not fully leveraging them.

We need to.

I’m envisioning a three layer pro-life media network with one layer (message) made up of independent journalists/bloggers, existing media organizations, (EWTN, TBN etc) and distributed editorial assistance, supported by a technologically adept layer of artists, audio & video editors, programmers, on-line trainers (medium) and media strategists

The journalist/storyteller layer’s objective is to deliver highly relevant content related to realizing the sanctity of life worldwide.
The technical layer’s objective is to make the journalists as efficient & effective as possible while expanding the scope of the media distribution.

The key to effectively delivering an integrated message is to rapidly & dynamically cluster event related content materials for the widest possible audience. Coverage can be both broad and deep, connecting multiple point of interest/entry points into the story with existing organizations and efforts.

Ideally, passive event viewers could trace from an initial point of interest through a stream of educationally expanding content towards active participation for the cause. This can be achieved with mostly off-the-shelf tools used in new ways. (New, as in how the tools are applied and used by multiple people, but not in novelty of concept).

Perhaps an illustration would help.

The March for Life event is coming up in January. Prior events had poor MSM coverage – it’s not in their political interest to promote the pro-life cause. However, suppose this event is covered by a multitude of independents, who are working in conjunction with on-line teams. Live blogging reports could be enhanced by links and other articles that may be happening at another location, but be completely relevant. The independent blogger wouldn’t be able to provide event coverage, while simultaneously doing on-line research but multiple assistants could do the research, make connections and provide solid links, as they happen.

For instance, the Downs Kids rally might trigger some members of Silent No More or Operation Outcry to indicate that was the reason they chose abortion. A great personal story emerges that really captures the essence of the effort. Both the Downs KIDS site and the Abortion Witness sites should have complementary links that feed from that news story to their respective educational materials.

A woman spotting any reference to the Downs kids rally could be moved from that article to the Operation Outcry to solid information about the scope of this, and begin to quickly and easily connect to others, perhaps even in blog forums about this issue. In the meantime the journalist is tracking down another aspect of that story to build it up and round it out.

Okay – here’s the geeky part:

Any “event” is not really a single event, but a network of inter-related events and people within a certain timespan. The real-time function of the internet invites external event participants, but participation doesn’t need to be passive or confined to simple blog commentary.

Key is dynamically organizing teams based on a media plan, then having real-time tools and feeds to convey a solid, consistent pro-life message. The focus is in finding hope in the face of adversity.

Advertising connections and sponsorship can be worked in as part of the delivery – that’s where the 3rd layer comes in. Almost every organization has fundraising needs. Being able to effectively connect sponsors with the cause is incredibly advantageous – witness the ubiquitous pink ribbons that adorn multiple consumer products.

I still don’t have a financial model worked out, but I am seeing multiple possibilities.

We need to begin to think as a coalesced unified body and not as isolated groups.

Vision strategy, thrufire network