Monthly Archives: November 2014

MLK words for what’s happening in Ferguson, Missouri, USA

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“I’m absolutely convinced that a riot merely intensifies the fears of the white community while relieving the guilt. And I feel that we must always work with an effective, powerful weapon and method that brings about tangible results. But it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard.”

Speech by Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Grosse Pointe High School, March 14, 1968

Haters gonna hate

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angryjayneI’ve been online since the early 1990s, and I have a bit of Internet fame because I’ve been researching and promoting virtual volunteering / e-volunteering / digital volunteering since the 90s as well. So, of course, I get hate mail.

You’re going to get negative comments online if you dare to post an opinion of any kind online. And my hate mail comes mostly because of blog posts I’ve made regarding companies that are selling community service hours for online activities that are NOT online volunteering. The companies are called Community Service Help, Inc., Community Service 101, Community Service Help, Logan Social Services, Court Ordered Community Service and the Terra Research Foundation. I’m sure there are more.

The latest hate mail is from “Kyle”, who listed his email as Jajalacrosse@yahoo.com. It’s representative of the kind I get regularly. On 2014/11/19 at 19:48, “Kyle” submitted this comment to this blog about these community service scammers:

You’re an idiot lady. Sorry you can’t relate to being given an unrealistic number of community service for a petty “crime” but someday you’ll understand. Keep your nose out of programs that you don’t find “suiting” for you.

Most of the negative comments I get are like this – they imply, or outright say, that I’m opposed to online volunteering. I’m not, of course – I’ve been promoting virtual volunteering since the 1990s. My latest gig to promote it was a trip to Warsaw, Poland this month. I wrote a book about virtual volunteering! I’m guessing that Community Service, Inc. tells people to write me, as a representative called me at home, outraged, when I published my first blog about his company, and the comments are always on the same blog – the company must also encourage writers to not read my blogs because, if they did, these folks would understand that I have been promoting online volunteering since the 1990s, and that most online volunteering is FREE and there is NO NEED to pay a company like Community Service, Inc. for it.

I’m sure these companies also really don’t want their prospective customers to read these comments by a person who paid for online community service from one of these companies and had it rejected by the court. Or to see all of the TV stations that have investigated these schemes (links to these stories in the blogs at the end of this blog).

Here’s free information on Finding Online Volunteering / Virtual Volunteering & Home-Based Volunteering with legitimate organizations.

Back in 2011, and again at least once since then, I wrote the Florida State Attorney General’s cyberfraud division, the Consumer Services Department of Miami-Dade County, numerous parole and probation associations, the Corporation for National Service and AL!VE to PLEASE investigate or, at least, take a stand regarding these scam companies – to date, they still have done nothing.

Also see:

Community Service Help Cons Another Person – a first-person account by someone who paid for online community service and had it rejected by the court.

Update on a virtual volunteering scam.

What online community service is – and is not – the very first blog I wrote exposing this company, back in January 2011, that resulted in the founder of the company calling me at home to beg me to take the blog down

Courts being fooled by online community service scams

Online community service company tries to seem legit.

Online volunteer scam goes global

Could your organization be deceived by GOTCHA media?

Social media: cutting both ways since the 1990s

Communication for Development (C4D): Addressing Ebola

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The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Communication for Development (C4D) web site section shares information and materials any initiative can use to help educate individuals and communities about how to prevent the spread of the Ebola virus and how to care for those already affected.

Materials include:

  • Fact Sheets – For example, key messages, brochures with facts, and slide presentations.
  • Visual materials like a poster of signs and symptoms and a flip chart for health communicators.
  • Audio materials like songs and public service announcement (PSA) spots.
  • Training materials.
  • Guidelines for community volunteers.
  • Planning Documents – For example, a West and Central Africa (WCARO) strategy framework model.
  • Other Tools – the Behaviour Change Communication In Emergencies:  A Toolkit; Essentials for Excellence – Research, Monitoring and Evaluating Strategic Communication; and the UNICEF Cholera Toolkit.

The Communications Initiative also is compiling information from a range of organizations regarding how to address communications challenges regarding Ebola. It’s updated frequently, and it’s a must-read for any development communications or public health communications specialist.

Also see my own resource, Folklore, Rumors (or Rumours) & Urban Myths Interfering with Development & Aid/Relief Efforts, & Government Initiatives (& how these are overcome).

Jayne Works an Election in the USA

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Can you find me in this video at the Washington County elections office of people yesterday checking ballots to ensure they are ready for the counting machines? If you know me, you can. If you don’t know me: I’m in the front, wearing flannel. I got along beautifully with my Republican and Independent table mates – the Republican kept giggling at my jokes, especially as the night wore on. Can’t we all get along?

Here’s a video about how the whole process of ballot counting works in Washington County, Oregon (start about 1:15 for the specific details). Pretty much all of the same people in this video were there working this year’s election – the same people come back year after year. The people at the tables are not volunteers – we ARE paid for our work. In Oregon, registered voters receive their ballots by mail, and they can return them by mail so long as they will be received at a county elections office by election day, or, until 8 a.m. election night, voters can put ballots in an official ballot drop box (if they are in line to drop their ballot at 8, they are allowed to drop the ballot in the box later). If someone loses their ballot before filling it out, or never receives it, they can vote at the county elections office on election day before 8 p.m. People vote right up to the deadline – the rush at the deadline is frightening! 

I have been trying to work an Oregon election since moving back to the USA in 2009. My wish finally came true this year: I got the call while I was working for the United Nations in Ukraine, actually, and I had to stay up late one night in Kyiv to call the office back and say, yes, I was ready! I wanted to work the election both because I wanted to see how the experience compared to doing the same in Austin, Texas back in 1996, and because I need the experience in order to eventually work overseas as an OSCE election observer.

And here is the machine that sorted the ballots after their signature check, so that we could review them and prepare them for counting. I saw this video being taken, actually – in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, Nov. 5. We were always happy when we heard this machine – it meant we would have ballots to count. It’s really boring when there are no ballots to count.

But by 6 a.m., when most everyone had been up for 24 hours, and working for 17 hours, all of the processes were stopped, and we were told we could go home and come back at 2 p.m. Wednesday to finish – we had more than three hours of work still to do, and the quality of our work was suffering. Unfortunately, after working Thursday, Friday, Monday, and then 17 hours straight Tuesday and Wednesday, I had to end my work when I left this morning – I’ll be going to Poland soon, and have MUCH to do to prepare.

Yes, I did tweet a few times during breaks, sometimes from my personal account, sometimes from my professional account. Never anything in appropriate. Kudos to Washington County for sometimes responding to those tweets!