On editorials about horse protection, my interview with the horse biomechanics author and the impact of the social networking revolution vs old style advertising:
November 5, 2009 - I’m working on three editorials/articles that I believe of great interest to my readers and all of these editorials relate in some way or another!
I had an interview with horse biomechanics author of “The Tug of War” and DVD “If Horses Could Speak” - Dr. Gerd Heuschmann - at his book signing on October 29th; then I went to his lecture the next evening. I took a lot of notes and used my recorder. This is an issue close to my heart as he is a proponent in bringing back the true Classical Dressage instead of rewarding the ‘modern’ competitive dressage which can be inhumane (have you seen the ‘blue tongue’ video circulating the internet?) and actually harm the horse as it gets older. My trainer, Kathy Daly, is a Classical Dressage trainer and a judge. I’m so thankful that I followed her training practices over the 16 years that I have been with her. More on this interview soon as I compile my notes.
The week previous, I had posted many articles about the Cloud issue and the mustang roundup by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) that provoked quite a protest. Accompanying this were many You Tube videos, showing potentially inhumane capture conditions, lameness of some horses and foals, tying up and colic induced from the process of the roundup via helicopter down the Pryor mountain range 12 mile trek in 90+ degree heat. More soon on this, too.
The newest Cloud PBS documentary was on that Sunday evening (Oct. 25th) and shortly after that was a TV episode of “Mad Men” about an early 1960’s Cooper-Sterling advertising agency that had a controversial subject about a large dog food company that had horsemeat in their ingredients and was losing customers because of it. So I had this correlation or observation going on in my head about the horse slaughter issue, mustangs and mad men in general.
Leading up to the Cloud documentary, a horrific You Tube video showing the disgusting and inhumane slaughter methods used on horses was circulated via the social networks Face Book and Twitter. I have seen slaughter videos, but not one as horrible as this one.
So, I started writing an editorial I was (am) to call “Mad Men and Mustangs”. To do this I started an extended search via the internet on all that has been written recently about the mustang issues and what happens to them when they are rounded up, a correlation with the slaughter process, and the episode of “Mad Men” that showed the beginning in 1961 when a larger majority of people became aware of the horrors of horse slaughter from the movie “The Misfits” (more on this in my extended version). The ‘mad men’ of the ad agency showed how they tried to handle a re-branding of dog food (that contained slaughtered horse meat) so people would buy it again.
Well, 27 pages later on this subject, I had to back up and start a project management process to pull all of this information together. I have decided to provide this information in a series that will be in the format of an ongoing information dump and discussion – it can’t be covered in just one editorial. The implications on this issue are too vast and I always like to understand all aspects before I make statements that can be misconstrued or be too direct in passing judgment.
I have discovered a correlation of how the advertising industry worked ‘in the old days’ and how social media is changing the way we influence people, as it has become a trust in your peers and friends and ‘not so much’ for the bigger companies/industries.
Being an active participant in social media allows us to widen our circle of influence and extend our influence to others. Other than just connecting with friends or peers in your industry or interest area, social networking is slowly replacing previous methods of product marketing. From a business perspective, you get fans via Face Book along with the constant suggestion of friends that meet your profile criteria (mine is horses for the most part, plus animals, gardening, the environment, etc.) and friends that follow you on Twitter, again meeting your profile criteria or according to your postings or ‘tweets’. I get more spammers on Twitter than Face Book, but I don’t have to follow them back (and you can block them if you wish). I’ve only done this for something that looks like a porn follower, although I really don’t care who follows me. I don’t post anything that is so controversial or private that it makes a difference. The spam I get is more along the lines of advertising for teeth whitening or click here to make millions using Twitter – just ignore those and don’t ever click on these links. I do have the state of the art virus protection, Eset’s NOD 32®, that will block anything malicious, plus a myriad of other ways I manage spam on my PCs.
I love the new social networking tools we have! I make use of Face Book and Twitter to inform people of my articles using the programmed social media share button on my website, blog and, unique to HorsesintheSouth.com, now on our Premium directory listings. I (my website and blog) seems to have become a knowledge base for people to go to read about what is interesting to them in the equestrian world. HorsesintheSouth.com has become a news aggregator, so we get multitudes of articles and press releases in every day that my associate editor publishes online after I review them and tell him what article channels to put them in. Headline news is published on the blog to ensure it catches my reader’s attention in a timely fashion.
Okay… this editorial is getting too long. There is just too much to say in one editorial and I don’t want to lose your attention. I look forward to sharing full versions of my lecture overview, mustangs, mad men, slaughter and more on social networking
media and what it means to you as a consumer and as a company/service provider.
All of this really does link together
J
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Teri