Why I Took on Scott Stratten (@Unmarketing) Regarding the Communication Shutdown Campaign for Autism Awareness

Thank you very much Jennifer, for the thoughtfulness of your comment and the objectivity and compassion with which you wrote it.

http://planetjosh.squarespace.com

http://sarahndipity.onsugar.com

"Not surprised. Disappointed, but not surprised."

It's this type of attitude and tone is why people don't support causes in the first place.

Do you think I participated in the Communication Shutdown because it was good for my ego? Some kind of hobby for me?

I participated because I wanted to show my support. Where, as someone who tweets up to 100's of times a day totally takes that away and gives his entire platform to the cause, the only tweets (4) that were sent out were message by the organization to go and support it. I've never done that before for anything. I live on Twitter, it's my support system, it's my friends, it's a lot of my life. And everything that day went to support Autism. The conversations on Twitter before and after also created interest.

So instead of picking on people who don't do anything, you come at me because you don't agree with the way I went to support this great cause.

And then you "update" your post on here with the flippant remark of "not surprised"?

How dare you insult my integrity, not because I have a bunch of followers, but because I am a human being that wanted to unconditionally support a cause that affects my family and friends and I didn't write a blog post quick enough to your liking???

It's actually written in draft form, awaiting posting, but I wanted to get input from others as well.

Like I said earlier on Twitter, you are judging me. And all it does is make me and others not want to support the cause in fear of judgment.

I may not even put the post up. Not because I don't believe in supporting the cause, but I don't want to have to deal with reactions like yours, I rather spend the time helping others who accept the support, in whatever way people want to give it.

Hi there,

I just discovered your post accidentally and am so glad that I did. I was so moved by your story here, but wanted to offer a different perspective to the discussion, if I may.

I've been in publishing and marketing for the past 17 years and have had the opportunity to work on some huge national and international campaigns. I also have a handful of very close friends who have children with autism and aspergers so I have a world of appreciation for the challenges you all live with and your perspective on how important it is to get the word out in every possible way, every day.

Here's the thing about getting important messages to be heard by millions - you need to do big bold things to rise abovt the noise and get people to pay attention.

That's what this big one day social media silence initiative was about. You're entirely right about how critical keeping the conversation going is to raising awareness, compassion and support. In this campaign it's not the actual silence that's powerful but it's the collective act of thousands being silent. But even that's not enough - it's what actually happened, what was the grand gesture - 100k doing anything in support - that made it significant for the media to pick up on and for it to get blasted out to millions - WITH messaging and information on the condition - which is exactly what you are looking for.

Social media silence is really profound. Especially when the biggest people like Scott do get behind it. They generate attention with their influence and platforms. When they encourage silence on behalf of this cause, it's like they're rallying the entire social media space. That's profound. Getting everyone to talk about it instead as you suggested, would simply make it a trending topic for a few hours...then some celebrity story would take over and the conversation would shift. My take is that you guys were trading the silence for much more significant exposure. That was the tradeoff. And it was probably a smart one.

Often times, people who don't have huge influence don't understand how people who do work, or why they make the choices they do, but I assure you, most often, to get that kind of following and influence, they are very strategic and thoughtful with how they use their platform. My suggestion is instead of looking at the act, try to understand the reasoning behind it - the logic, and look at the character of the person who's behind it.

In full disclosure, Scott is a friend. And he is SUCH a good guy.

He would never have joined this cause and initiative if he didn't truly believe he could do a lot of good from it. And I'm sure his involvement did. If he responded more aggressively to you, all I can say is he does take a lot of heat from people who "flame" him - attack him sometimes for no good reason at all. Maybe this was mistaken as such. Just a miscommunication.

What's important at the end of the day is that we're all more compassionate to each other and work together as closely as we can to do good things for the world and causes that matter so much - like this one. I'm sure it has all blown over by now, but I know your fight goes on.

Please accept this perspective of mine with the love that it was intended to convey. It's helpful for us all to see things from a different perspective sometimes, and hopefully this is a new one about how to rally the masses will offer some good food for thought both now and in future causes and outreach, for everyone reading.

Here's to all of your success.

Jennifer Kushell

Founder & Chief Evangelist, YSN.com - your success network

& Author of the NY Times Bestseller Secrets of the Young & Successful

As of today, Mr Stratten has yet to write a post about his participation in the Communication Shutdown campaign, or Autism Awareness, or anything related.

Not surprised. Disappointed, but not surprised.

http://planetjosh.squarespace.com

http://sarahndipity.onsugar.com

Thank you so much for the perspective of someone who knows him better than I - I loved him at Blogworld but have no other experience than listening to his keynote. And you're right, text is tough to put in to context and I was a bit frustrated myself as I was clearly completely miscommunicating my intent!

Was just a bit David and Goliath-esque for me, as you noted, I have less than 400 followers and he has well, a lot more than that.

And I should note, I would not want to convey that his choosing to support autism awareness with the Shutdown group was a bad thing, or wrong, on the contrary. I was excited to see him acknowledging it. I had just hoped to catch his attention to the other side of this and maybe have his voice to promote both, at least link the article I linked him with his posts so people could see it both ways. Instead I just made him feel defensive and that had not been anywhere close to my intent.

Thank you for reading, and very nice to meet you too!

http://planetjosh.squarespace.com

http://sarahndipity.onsugar.com

You know, I was looking at Scott's stream to see what he was doing with this #shutdown hashtag - that's how I came across your twitter and this post.

Honestly? I don't think he was angry. Scott is a passionate person - but it would take a lot more than someone disagreeing with him on Twitter to make him angry.

When I read the conversation? I heard his half in his voice. Unfortunately, I don't know your 'in person voice' so I couldn't hear it. But I didn't hear anger in Scott's tweets so much as a touch of frustration and a lot of passion for what he was choosing to do.

I read your voice here and it's clear you have a lot of passion for speaking out as loudly and as clearly as you can to promote awareness.

Two very different paths. One great goal.

But don't think that you committed "social media suicide" here. Disagreements on Twitter are not the end of the world. There weren't any threats or personal name-calling tweets. That's the mark of a good disagreement on the internet. Trust me when I say this - I've had people call me things I wouldn't say in front of my child because I disagreed on Twitter with them *one* time. I've had someone email me death threats because I unfollowed them. The Internet is full of psychotic behavior.

I expect that his post will probably address it - but don't worry. He's passionate about the cause of autism awareness. He's also a heckuva nice guy. After all, there are folks out there who would've seen your first tweet and ignored it because they didn't think you "mattered" due to your follower number or some other silly statistic.

Glad you wrote this (and your tweets) or I might not have read it. Nice to meet you - thanks for sharing your experiences - it's the best part of the Internet: seeing the world through someone else's eyes. :)

Lucretia (aka GeekMommy) Raising a child in a digital world, still a digital girl

Thanks Katy!

Yes, I figured that at least there weren't too many people following both of us so only a handful would have seen the whole thing. But I'm glad I wrote the post about it, I really think those of us that have been active today instead of silent have generated a great deal of "awareness" :)

Very interested to see what he writes in his blog post about this.

Again, it's not so much that it's wrong, just a bit misguided, imo.

http://planetjosh.squarespace.com

http://sarahndipity.onsugar.com

I saw you two going back and forth last night and I was glad to hear the perspective of someone who's "in the trenches" with regards to Autism.

I, personally, am growing weary of grandiose campaigns that encourage everyone to be silent or post a particular Facebook message. As Sunday said in her post: we need less talk and more action.

As the mother of a child with disabilities (not autism) I think the power of speech is one of the greatest things we have--the ability to share our lives, our stories, our struggles with those who don't understand is incredibly powerful.

The day of silence is a nice gesture and I appreciate the people who are participating, but I'm with you one this one.

I saw you two going back and forth last night and I was glad to hear the perspective of someone who's "in the trenches" with regards to Autism.

I, personally, am growing weary of grandiose campaigns that encourage everyone to be silent or post a particular Facebook message. As Sunday said in her post: we need less talk and more action.

As the mother of a child with disabilities (not autism) I think the power of speech is one of the greatest things we have--the ability to share our lives, our stories, our struggles with those who don't understand is incredibly powerful.

The day of silence is a nice gesture and I appreciate the people who are participating, but I'm with you one this one.

Thank you Denise. It really is just so counter-intuitive for silence to be their hook... glad I wrote about the exchange too, one of the organizers of the Communication Shutdown group read my post and wants to share it with their supporters :)

http://planetjosh.squarespace.com

http://sarahndipity.onsugar.com

I saw the campaign this morning and I wondered the same thing - primarily because I have similar concerns regarding the yearly "Day of Silence" campaign done within the GLBT community.

It's hard for me to wrap my head around the idea that silence is powerful. I've never quite come to terms with that campaign and here's another one that just doesn't work for me.

~Denise
BlogHer Community Manager
Life. Flow. Fluctuate.