Hello world!
Posted by markbey on July 7, 2007
Hello fellow activists and thinkers this space is being created so that progressive and creative people can brainstorm ideas and ways to bring about change amongst the African Diaspora.
THE SOLUTIONS BLOG
A public thinking space for people trying to bring about change–An initiative of the Afrosphere Bloggers Association
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bronzetrinity said
Hey Mark, I managed to get on. I’ll really be sprucing the place up over the weekend
markbey said
You are too much.
markbey said
Test comment.
field negro said
Hey Mark and co., great job!
markbey said
Test of comment moderation hopefully its not on.
markbey said
Yo thank you field
Eddie Griffin said
Great job… great concept… a solution-oriented action blog. We have 9 days before the BET roll-out of “S.O.B.” and “Hot Ghetto Mess”. QUESTION: How can we make BET so unprofitable that Viacom sells it off? Would Cosby buy BET and clean it up? Maybe we can force Viacom’s hand. Also, there is the question: Should we throw out the baby (BET) with the dirty bathwater?
markbey said
Thanks eddie we are still developing the forum and can use all the help we can get.
I think we should work with What about our Daughters to go after Bet and Make the Rap industry clean up its act.If you have any suggestions on how we can improve this site please let us know.
Eddie Griffin said
Thanks for asking Mark.
A media empire prides itself on its operations. Television programming is only the end product. There is much, much more going on behind the scenes. A telephone rings, someone answers, a fax comes in and the fax machine is overloaded or out of ink or out of paper and must be restocked, people are rushing to and fro with deadlines to meet, with meetings here and meetings there, discussions here and discussions there… etc.
We are now part of the discussion at BET. What to do about this black blog internet revolution? This is the question that has lead to this full-fledge damage control strategy on their part.
If we visualize a wrench jammed in a cog, we can imagine the machine grinding to a halt.
The strategy should be (1)overkill BET by going after the most vulnerable spot at VIACOM, i.e. Operations… telephone lines and fax machines. Emails will help, but they can easily enarmor themselves against protest emails. But fax machines are essential to their operations at BET and VIACOM… keep the faxes coming… graphics and bold print and dark images use more ink… keep the telephones ringing off the wall.
The objective is an Operations overload… where a secretary or an administrative assistant may become frustrated enough to sometimes quit on the spot.
(2) Product targeting is another good strategy, especially at Christmas time. Remember BET and VIACOM have shelf products and toys.
When a company has such wide range of distribution, you can’t miss. Every dollar boycotted is a dollar lost to the company. And, just the rumor of boycott drives down the price of stock.
We cannot go to BET and expect BET to solve its own problem. We must go over BET’s head to the parent company VIACOM, which owned and primarily controlled by a billionaire media mogul named Sumner Redstone, who also owns the majority stockholding in CBS.
There are several theories at work here: (A) The Trickle Down Theory where your communications start at the top, with the boss, who passes it down to a subordinate… it has the force and effect of a direct communications from the boss. (B) The Rock & The Dog Pack Theory where you throw a rock into a pack of dogs and the one that yelps is the one that got hit… let this action serve as a warning to all mass media conglomerates. (C) The Scatter Gun Theory where you throw a handful of pebbles into a field of quail… when the birds scatter, your chances of multiple hits is better when you use a scatter gun.
Multiple strategies with multiple fronts of attack… you must remember people are “flat (two-dimensional) thinkers”… and it gets flatter when group-think must be compressed into one idea. Whereas we are many.
markbey said
“(2) Product targeting is another good strategy, especially at Christmas time. Remember BET and VIACOM have shelf products and toys.
When a company has such wide range of distribution, you can’t miss. Every dollar boycotted is a dollar lost to the company. And, just the rumor of boycott drives down the price of stock.”
mark bey: Eddie I like these Ideas I really would like to for us to start drawing up exact plans on how we intend to make the media and music industries stop selling images of failure and disgrace about black people to the world.
” We cannot go to BET and expect BET to solve its own problem. We must go over BET’s head to the parent company VIACOM”
mark bey: I agree that is why what Gina did is so powerful because her simple but powerful model of citizenry activism can be practiced by the average black citizen.