Shaping Youth BETA BLOG

September 1, 2010 It’s the first of September, as the first day of school angst bubbles up throughout the nation on either side of this ‘premiere’ week. (many have started school already, some are about to)

A welcoming ‘first day?’ Hardly. This is classic online product placement meets mean girl drek in “First Day: The Series,” an abysmal branding collaboration between  K-Mart and Alloy Media. “A new series from the executive producers of Pretty Little Liars” made me wince,  knowing full well that Alloy isn’t exactly on my BFF list (per my piece about their Gossip Girl show) And that they’d be bringing their behavioral blights on the trashy media landscape to relentlessly push their vapid values via digital engagement to kids.

I suppose I should be relieved this horrid absurdity is limited to a ‘merchantainment’ digital ditty rather than a full blown TV series, but they’ve hit a new low by giving us a snapshot of “what’s wrong with our culture” in a handy compressed 8-series, 8+minutes each episodic, which enables them to skirt the FTC rules of product integration by taking it online to target kids with snark, sneers and oh, yes, LOTS of sales pitches. Careful retailing industry, branding backlash could cost you even more in this recession.

Lest you think I’m exaggerating the teencentric crud and cues, here’s a transcript of some of the opening dialog, as the bonafide mean girl upends her older sibling in her own “pathetic” home: “First day of school determines who you’re gonna be friends with, which determines if a guy is gonna like you which determines if you’ll ever be kissed, because after awhile you build it up and you get all nervous, until you’re 25 and totally unkissable…and…” Yadayada. Trust me it gets even worse. (more…)

August 28, 2010 A funny thing happened to me on the way to the ER…

Nope, no sidejokes or ‘this is your brain on media’ digital detox or social media exodus warning, just a true story and a few thoughts on what happens when one ‘goes dark’ without trying…

I had some profound life lessons imparted to me this past week in my mandatory ‘AFK’ mode (away from keyboard) ‘going dark’ literally and figuratively, fighting a wicked migraine induced amidst wacky Bay area weather. (riding the fog rollercoaster from lap blanket chills to 98 degree S.F. heatwave)

Like most of my upendings, I try to find useful tidbits to learn from, and in this case, hand down the experience to my teen, in real life media management meets medical advocacy mode, applicable to personal health AND media moments (the loss of control/regain of stability, and the lather rinse repeat cycle). It got me thinking about the whole ‘unplug yourself’ media exodus that seems to be bubbling up from people’s overuse of media sans personal boundaries. (more…)

August 19, 2010 Today is World Humanitarian Day and I definitely needed this inspiring humanitarian video to gain some perspective on humanity. (fab 4 mins after the jump, and a how-to disable vid on Facebook Places too!)

I don’t know why anyone would give a flying fig about my whereabouts, but I DO know I’ve had my own personal safety blogger moments and am frankly unwilling to be bait for someone’s pranks, so color me incredulous when Facebook once again set my default geolocation settings far beyond “Only Me.” Not quite a Beacon privacy breach, but still danged arrogant if you ask me. Yep, I started out my morning of media moments wanting to ‘chuck it all’ and “go off the grid” on a digital hiatus from humanity itself.

From this morning’s Twitter tabula rasa/wiped slate data access vanishing act in Casper the ghost style to fiddling with how to disable Facebook’s “Places” location feature on their newly premiered check-in vehicle, I definitely needed a dose of “grouch be gone”  lest I take this great NYTimes article literally and “go outdoors and out of reach” pronto!

Everyone already knows I’m a fan of pulling the plug and dialing down the drama intermittently to get mindshare back and to put peer reality shows on summer hiatus but escaping from digital humanity on Humanitarian Day? Well, kinda ironic… (more…)

Aug 5, 2010 Meet Sabore Ole Oyie. My teen’s about to, as is her BFF and BF.

Yep, this afternoon I’m bringing a few teens for a “reality show” not to be missed at the Global Leaders for Justice Innovation dialogues. (video of Sabore’s water access project after the jump)

Sounds heady, oui? I see it as an open, public opportunity to expose kids to what’s going on in the rest of the world without the media filter of American myopia or vapid celebrity gossip.

As I wrote yesterday, when 21 representatives from 13 different countries don their colorful native garb and speak their visions as change agents and cycle-breakers, the global interconnected influence has the capacity to give a much needed jolt and a bracer of exposure to the harsh realities taking place on the rest of the planet, with teens THEIR age.

When stories unfold from young girls staving off lion’s roars to reach water after grueling miles of dangerous terrain, teens sit up and listen. Fifteen year olds empowered to break free of the sex slave chains of human trafficking in India to survive and THRIVE anew? Jaw-dropping work akin to GEMS-Girls right here in the US…How can we best use media to make it matter?!  (more…)

August 4, 2010 My teen dialog yesterday: “Did you have fun waterskiing with your dad?”

“Yah, we did, how was your Global Leaders for Justice thingie? What’d you DO all day, mom?”

“Um…well…let’s see…I got to work with Sabore Ole Oyie, a Masai Chief trying to build a local well so girls wouldn’t walk all day for water vying for turf with wildlife that could gobble them up en route…(GWLN video of Sabore and his Olsonyo-Rasha Water Project here partnering with BluePlanetNetwork) I met Smarita Sengupta a young woman empowering teens in Calcutta to escape the sex trafficking slave trade…”

“I got jazzed about using cell phones for health with Blanche Angeline Pitt from Tanzania who wants to deliver medical info to midwives in rural villages to prevent childbirth deaths and debunk taboos…And I made a local friend with Yolande Poirier, an Oracle pro who’s big on raising women’s visibility in tech, STEM, and media imprints.”

“Did you get to see GWLN alum? Anyone I know from ‘07?” (Yours truly, Amy Jussel, was honored to be a USA delegate for Women Leaders for the World, and my teen grew close to several of the attendees) “Well…no one YOU knew was there this time, but you CAN meet some of the 2010 leaders if you wanna come with me Thursday to the Global Innovation Dialogues when they all state their visions for change…“Cool. So there are GUYS in the program this year too?”

“Well, no, GLJ is different than WLW but it’s all GWLN.org —the event is free, open to the public (Aug 5) if you wanna bring a friend or two, but I CANNOT have you squirming or edgy or rushing me before I’m ready to go, you got it?” (rolls eyes/stomps off with a hrumpf) “Gawd mom…I’m 15, not 5, REALLY.” (more…)

Aug 2, 2010 As I opened my Facebook to check messages from GWLN’s Global Leaders for Justice organizers who I’ll be working with tomorrow and Thursday at SCU mentoring inspiring projects from all over the world, I scanned the ‘birthdays’ sidebar.

Keeping with the global theme, I was alerted to change agent Dylan Mahalingam’s 15th birthday today…I KNEW I had to give a huge shout out to the universe to pay heed to this extraordinary New Hampshire native, CEO of Lil’ MDG’s and TEDxTeen.

Dylan, your voice has dropped an octave or two and you no longer look like the doe-eyed nine year old founder of ‘Lil’ MDGs energizing humanity to meet the Millenium Development Goals of 2015 for proof positive that Kids Are Heroes…

As a handsome young gent of 15, he’s already accomplished more in the name of justice, diversity, human rights, gender equality, championing access to education and medical care ad a role model for the ‘very best in youth’ and it  makes my heart sing to know that he’s just gettin’ this party started. Yep, Dylan, you represent a generation of ‘Lil’ MDGs eager to rock the planet to uplift rather than tear down, and use media messaging in the ultimate positive way. (more…)

July 27, 2010 “Why aren’t you posting on Shaping Youth every day like you used to, Amy? Are you on summer hiatus like the networks?” Um, I guess that’s what you’d call it.

Frankly, it never occurred to me that I needed to ‘inform’ people that I was trying to eke out some ‘white space’ and life balance in the name of healthy media consumption, because it seemed like an obvious extension of our Shaping Youth nonprofit philosophy: “Don’t let media define you.”

True, there’s plenty of exciting media action that will impact youth, educators and ALL consumers of media, from mixes, music, mashups and mobile with the new Fair Use and DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) rulings.

Today’s  online privacy hearings in D.C. with Q&A of industry media pros from Facebook, Google, Apple and all the media giants are watchworthy for anyone and everyone. (especially those of us with high school teens quoting 1984 and freshly minted mind games after seeing Christopher Nolan’s Inception last week planting the seed for me pondering where privacy starts and stops in the ol’ noggin!)

Truth be told, if I kept on top of every single way that media and marketing is impacting kids 24/7, my office white board would like a subway map and my to-do list would be circular ‘To infinity and beyond!’ (more…)