Manara

Canadian Arts Summit, Montreal

I had the privilege of returning to the Canadian Arts Summit for the second year in a row to speak to the leaders of Canada’s major Arts Organizations about technology, young people, and appreciating the arts. I love the arts, and am firmly committed to supporting them in anyway that I can.

I am involved with Business for the Arts, which has a great young professionals group called ArtScene. If you’re in Toronto or Calgary you should check it out. More chapters will be opening across Canada soon.

The World Economic Forum: The Global Partnership Project

My project is called the Global Partnership Project and it’s really fascinating.  In association with the governments of Qatar, Singapore, and Switzerland, the Forum is creating a global multi-stakeholder dialogue on a wider global cooperation system to deal with some of the world’s most complex challenges.

The World Economic Forum, in association with Qatar, Singapore and Switzerland, is creating a global, multistakeholder dialogue on a wider global cooperation system. The aim of the project is to examine ways to improve global governance from some of the world’s leading experts and thinkers.

My favorite part is that this project will uphold the Forum’s mandate to improve the state of the world, and I can’t wait to hear your feedback and comments as the project takes shape.

I’ll be tagging all Forum posts with “The Forum” tag.

I checked the calendar today and did a double take.  Was it already March 22?  How is that possible?  Maybe time moves differently in the land of chocolate!  I can’t believe my last post was on March 3rd.  Much has happened in the last two weeks as I get settled into the routine of living in a new country.  I acquired my very first Swiss souvenir: a mild concussion. That’s right, in a brilliant display of grace, balance and poise I took the mother of all spills outside of the Foreign Visa office, knocking myself out cold. I’ll let my travel blog update those of you who want more details, since I would like to keep this a place of Foushy business!

I spend my days learning about the World Economic Forum and sifting through the large volume of research they have done over the past year. It is a veritable treasure trove of data that tickles my information addiction. At night I polish my chapters and send them to the editor and copy-editor. It is amazing to see the book start to take a definite shape, it won’t be long before I get the first galley!

Some quick updates:

• I will be creating a special page on the site for the book, where I will upload some of the videos that I recorded while down in Chicago and other interesting tidbits so keep an eye out for that!
• I’ll be returning to North America at the end of March and will post more details on when and where, hopefully we can put together a Toronto #Geeklunch?
• I am currently wading through two hundred emails that I haven’t been able to access due to spotty internet connections and hitting my head. If I owe you something please be patient or resend if it is time sensitive.

I am so glad to finally return to a normal blogging and twittering schedule!

In collaboration with GWP Brand Engineering’s CEO, Bruce Philp and his team, Rahaf led a workshop for ING Direct Canada in identifying potential areas of opportunities for using social media to increase customer engagement. We explored the competitive landscape, the importance strategic alignment, creative brainstorming and tactical best practices.

Client Feedback:

“Our session with Rahaf compressed months of trial and error learning into a single fascinating afternoon. Rahaf plainly has a superb command of the social networking space and an infectious enthusiasm for its power, but she also has a rare ability to make it accessible, useful and actionable. Our client was putting the day’s insights to work literally the next day.”

– Bruce Philp, CEO GWP brand Engineering

“Rahaf,

The ING DIRECT team and I truly enjoyed our day with you. It was useful, thought provoking and generated real action items for us to attack. We are much better prepared to drive our social media approach. The best part is we had a great time as well.

Again, thank you and good luck with your new and exciting challenge. Keep in touch.”

– Peter Aceto, CEO ING Direct Canada

It occured to me today that although I have been talking and twittering about the move to Geneva and the herculean effort it requires to relocate to a foreign country, I hadn’t actually announced why I was going or what I was going to do when I get there. (Hint: it’s not just about cheese, although that plays a big part.)

I am so excited to announce that I have accepted a position with the World Economic Forum to help co-lead some of their online community building initiatives. The project is slated to last one year, and includes some travel to places that I’ve never been before, so you can look forward to some international posts!

I will be popping up on CommandN from time to time doing some “foreign correspondence” for Amber,  and I’ll keep you all appraised of my adventures in the land of Chocolate!

The WELCOM Platform:

• WELCOM is a powerful new online communication and collaboration space designed specifically for the world’s top decision-makers.
• With a range of innovative tools for locating and accessing expertise, sharing knowledge, and meeting and working with peers, WELCOM empowers a multi stakeholder approach to addressing the most pressing business and global governance challenges.
• WELCOM enables the peer-to-peer engagements that are the hallmark of World Economic Forum meetings to be extended, efficiently and conveniently, throughout the whole year.

The idea is to create a community that can continue to execute on the Forum’s mandate to improve the state of the world. Cool, huh? It will allow governments, NGOs and corporations collectively work together to help solve some of the world’s biggest problems.

It not a project without challenges, but for right now, let’s bask in the unmarred potential of a new opportunity, and not dwell on the fact that I have yet to find a place to stay.

Think good thoughts!!

Hi Everyone!

My new site is up! A few quick notes:

1) Please bear with me as I update the content and tweak some of the navigation, there are still some design and technical bugs being worked out. This is my fault as I wanted something up and running ASAP, so it will be resolved shortly. Thanks for not making me feel bad about it.

2) I really want to thank  Alan Smith of The Movement, for their incredible design work. Check them out, they are by far one of the best betterment collectives I’ve ever come across. If you don’t know what a betterment collective is, check out the link and join in the fun.

3) Matt from IdiotBanter.com was the developer ninja who put this badass site together for me in record time. Hurray for new site beginnings.

Photo By Darwin Bell

It has certainly been interesting times on the Foush! Last week I wrote about  Digital Broken Telephone: I’m THE Obama Strategist, and how it was important to make sure that you are transparent and honest in dealing with misrepresentations online, especially when they big you up. This week, the pendulum swung the other way, and someone tried to tear me down.

The New Republic’s blog, The Plank, wrote a piece about me entitled “The Foush and The Furious” also titled “Meet The Most Shamelessly Self-Promoting Former Obama Volunteer”, by Amanda Silverman.

Awesome. My favorite part is when I’m called an “intern-turned-mastermind,” I am debating putting that on my business cards.

Dealing With It

Anyway, I sent the Editor of the blog an email correcting the assumption that I acquired these opportunities based solely on my conniving ability to deceive people into thinking that I was the brain trust behind the campaign. (These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.)

When my new site it up, it will include a comprehensive list of my previous projects, speaking engagements and book contributions for those interested. For newbies to my site, I have been in this space since 2006. I have contributed to three business books (Wikinomics, Grown Up Digital and Everything I Needed to Know About Business I Learned From a Canadian) and have been speaking about technology and New Media since 2007.

Broken Telephone

In the meantime, for your enjoyment, check out what happened when the story was picked up by the Economist Blog in a post titled Cashing in on Barack.  While they got my name wrong (maybe I should have been happy with THE strategist) they didn’t seem to think it was a big deal:

That makes sense—why should one staffer turn her story into profit while the rest of the young volunteers in her position are waiting to hear if they’ve scored a low-level job in the administration? Yet Ms Harfoush is far from the most calculated profiteer of the Barack Obama myth. If you pass on an exclusive speech from Ms Harfoush, look what you can get.

• Barack Obama: Son of Promise, Child of Hope, a children’s book published before the election that tells the then-senator’s life story and is consistently one of the best sellers in its reading level on Amazon.com.

• The “presidential vault”, a collection of campaign trail knicknacks and some of the new president’s speeches.

• Issue #583 of the Amazing Spider-Man, a special edition of the comic book in which the super-hero prevents an impostor from taking the oath of office. It’s in its fifth printing.

• Barack, Inc., a quickie business manual that encourgaes capitalists to apply the lessons of Mr Obama’s campaign to their companies.

So why don’t other members of Mr Obama’s campaign start cashing in? The window is closing, and it’s not like their options are expanding from month to month.

I have to admit, at first I was taken aback by the nasty tone of The New Republic article, and then I realized that there are always going to be people out there who will take pleasure in writing things like this. So, calmly respond to what you can, laugh about the rest and see the silver lining- a bunch of new twitter followers and increased blog traffic.

You have to love the internet. I know I do, but sometimes information has a way of taking little baby steps away from the truth until suddenly you’re single handedly responsible for electing the first Internet President of the United States.

How does something like this happen, you ask? Well let me tell you about my experience with the digital broken telephone and what I and others can learn from this situation.

The Story:

Last August while doing the research for Grown Up Digital, I met Chris Hughes the Director of Online Organizing for the Obama Campaign. Not only had I been researching the campaign for months, but I had also been inspired by the Will.i.am “Yes We Can” video and wanted desperately to be a part of this movement. With Chris’ help, I  packed my bags and joined the Obama New Media team as a full-time volunteer for three months.

As a New Media Strategist by trade, being at Chicago HQ was like Disney Land, your birthday and the release of the iPhone all rolled up into one. I was in geek heaven and took everything in. Being a volunteer is something I am incredibly proud of and getting a chance to work with incredible people like Chris Hughes and Scott Thomas gave me the added bonus of new friendships.

Upon my return I was asked by my friend Alex Manu to give a presentation synthesizing my thoughts on the strategic learning from the campaign that corporations could apply to their brands, which I did. I also presented my insights about community building at OCAD.

So when I got an email from a journalist who was interested in doing a story on me and the Obama campaign, I thought to myself “Wait, a minute. Me? Hmm. Maybe I should do a Google Audit.” I had gotten a lot of press from Canadian media, but an American outlet wanting to talk to me?  And so I started Egosurfing.

At first glance, all seemed well:

• It started off completely accurate, the CBC saying I was a full time volunteer for three months.
• Sacha Chua who live blogged my story and PR in Canada both got it right.

Then came the little semantic changes:

• Malle Valik described me as a “New Media Strategist on Barack Obama’s Campaign.” While I’m a New Media Strategist AND I worked on the Obama campaign, I did so as a full time volunteer.  Did I need to correct this?
• IT Insider.ca and a few others called me a “key” member of the Obama team. Another said I was a “staffer.”

Umm…What?

• Chatterbox PR listed Blue State Digital, Rahaf Harfoush & Chris Hughes as the Social Media Strategy team. They were the only names on the list. They may want to include Joe Rospars (Director of New Media).
• Brand Eye called me THE strategist for the Obama Campaign.

The Issue Now:

I love New Media. I love talking about New Media and how technology can help people. Deconstructing this campaign is something that I enjoy doing, and judging by the slew of other people (both on the campaign and not) who are talking about it, I’m clearly not alone!

As an active member of the tech community I have been speaking a lot about this topic, partly because I’m doing a lot of research for my upcoming book and partly because I still get chills when I remember being in Grant Park on election night celebrating the historic win.

What I don’t want is inaccurate information to get passed around about my involvement in the campaign or to take credit for work that I didn’t do. One of the main reasons I went down to Chicago was for the chance to learn from the best in the field.

What I Did:

I’m usually on top of this stuff but a hectic travel schedule delayed my routine Google Audit. Audits are a really thorough way to keep track of your brand online and to spot potential issues before they become a PR nightmare. It’s also important to note that you need to manage ALL the information that is being written about your brand, whether it is good, bad or just inaccurate. A flattering post with a few semantic twists can cause as much trouble as someone slamming your product.

1) Google Audit: Seek and Destroy all inaccuracies. I googled for any topics relating to my experience with Obama. It’s better to know what’s out there!

2) Make Contact: Once I had my search results I started systematically going through them, contacting the appropriate person and letting them know about the inaccuracies. I followed up an email with a comment on the actual blog post so that if others came across the post before it was corrected they would see my comment.

3) Be Open and Transparent: These things happen, and hiding them or hoping it will go away on it’s own is a guarantee that things will blow up in your face. Letting people know what’s going on, and how you’re handling it is a pretty good idea.

4) Laugh: At the end of the day, it’s just the internet. The errors were made by well-meaning people without any type of malicious intent.  So it’s ok to not take it too seriously and to understand that these things happen.

5) Follow Up: It’s important to do regular audits to make sure that changes have been made and that no new issues need to be dealt with.

As a blogger, I know this experience has also highlighted the importance of being as accurate as possible when I blog an event. I always try to contact the person who I’ve blogged about in case they have any changes or corrections.

So the lesson here is Google yourself. Frequently.

I’ll let you all know if I’ve suddenly become the go-to person for all of these stimulus packages, because after electing a President all by my lonesome, fixing the economy should be a piece of cake.

Hi all!

I am so excited to announce that my new website will be up and running in the next few days! I love this site, but it wasn’t built in a way that made it easy for me to update and so it’s been horribly behind on the projects and initatives that I’ve been a part of over the last year (other then the blog).

I’m working on some great posts, so check back soon!