BUDGET HELP IS ON THE WAY

Like most states, Texas is trying to find sources of general revenue to help overcome a projected budget deficit. WCS can’t provide all of the funds Texas projects will be needed to close the deficit, but we can help.

Texas will receive five percent (5%) of the gross revenue from disposal of both Compact and Federal low-level radioactive waste (LLRW) at our facilities. With the Compact facility expected to be operational by the end of the year and the Federal facility expected to be operational by early 2012, the revenue taxes to Texas should start flowing soon.

We estimate that Texas could receive up to $20 million per biennial through the collection of this 5% gross revenue tax on LLRW disposal. That won’t solve the budget deficit, but $20 million is nothing to sneeze at in these economic times. In addition, our facilities will provide a solution for LLRW that needs a place for permanent disposal, without increasing the risks and liabilities to the State.

We are already constructing the facility and have over 100 construction contractors on site. Additionally, we will hire about 60 more permanent employees and have already started posting job openings on our web site at www.wcstexas.com. WCS is doing our share to jump start the local economy and provide additional tax revenue to Texas.

~ Rod Baltzer

Rod Baltzer is President of Waste Control Specialists LLC. This post originally appeared on the Texas Solution blog on February 17, 2011.

 

We are working on behalf of a project in Andrews County, Texas, to provide a solution to the need for disposal of low-level radioactive waste in Texas and other states. Waste Control Specialists is building a disposal site that will accommodate waste products from such activities as medical imaging and cancer treatments, as well as others that are deemed "low-level" by the federal and state governmental entities charged with regulation and oversight. 

In order to respond to a wide range of rhetorical attacks, WCS has created the Texas Solution Blog, and are utilizing a variety of social media channels to make their case in a transparent manner. During these first weeks of working on the project with them, I've been reinforced in my view that it is absolutely essential to participate on social networks, blog, and do whatever is needed to reach audiences that may have tuned out to traditional media sources.

I have also been reminded just how common it is for opponents of a project like the one in Andrews to use social media to spread rhetoric, hyperbole, ad hominem attacks, and just good old fashioned misinformation in an attempt to sway the public against a project. Attacks on the owner of WCS may feel good, but they are not necessarily relevant to the merits of the project.

The opponents of the WCS project in Andrews, Texas, are just opposed to nuclear energy in general and, therefore, opposed to the disposal facility. It would be so much more honest of them to simply state that.

Instead, they attack the disposal facility, the company working to build it and, as a consequence, the small community that has partnered with them on it. Nowhere in their attacks are there alternative plans for disposal of low-level waste that sits in containers all around us.

Mostly the anti-nuke arguments are inaccurate and mainly based on emotion. Meanwhile, the President of WCS, Rod Baltzer, and the VP for Regulatory Issues, Jeff Skov, are blogging about the facts on the project and the issues surrounding their work. 

Please watch the video below to get a good sense of the community of Andrews, Texas, and their perspective. And please visit the blog, follow them on Twitter, check out their Google Profile, and join them in spreading the facts about low-level waste disposal and its role as a part of a sustainable energy strategy. 

~ Mike Chapman

U.S. Congressman Mike Conaway (R-TX) visited the Waste Control Specialists' site in Andrews, Texas, earlier this year. WCS is working to provide a safe and environmentally sound disposal solution for low-level waste. For more information, visit their blog, follow them on Twitter, "like" them on Facebook, follow them on Google Buzz, or subscribe to their YouTube channel. 

Recently, we started working with the great people of Andrews, Texas, on The Texas Solution. 

When Congress passed the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act in 1980, each state became responsible for the disposal of their own LLRW, yet more than two-thirds of all states have no place to dispose of LLRW.

Universities, medical and research centers, and other entities responsible for disposing of LLRW are without an environmentally effective way to do so.

Andrews, Texas, and Waste Control Specialists have taken the lead in finding an environmentally sound Texas Solution and are now blogging about their progress.

Please visit and comment. I know they look forward to hearing from you.

~ Mike Chapman

By Omar Gallaga, Austin American-Statesman staff

The list of things that Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Bill White, his Democratic opponent in November, disagree upon is long. But on the subject of social media as a tool to reach voters, the candidates are in harmony. Although the campaigns differ in their online tactics, both say they began to buy into social media in a big way early in 2009 and they're each giving it unprecedented time and resources.

Perry and White both use smart phones to keep followers updated via Twitter and Facebook (White has an iPhone, Perry a BlackBerry). Their staffs tote equipment to send videos, photos, status updates, e-mails and blog posts from the road. Sometimes, the messages aren't entirely earth-shattering. On Twitter, Perry posted a photo with teen stars Joe Jonas and Demi Lovato. And a recent Facebook post from White reads: "Andre Johnson does it again for the Texans. Can the Texans go 2-0?"

But the campaigns believe that their efforts — everything from off-the-cuff updates to more substantial efforts such as reactions to news stories, responses to voter questions and online videos — are giving Texans greater access to the candidates and delivering their messages to where the eyeballs are.

"They're both very proficient," said Mike Chapman, a partner in Apogee Campaigns, a nonpartisan consulting firm that's closely following the campaigns. "Texas is getting a good representation on both sides of the aisle in terms of all the latest tools."

 

To read the full article click here. 

 

 

By Mike Chapman and Bill Leake, Apogee Campaigns

As social media practitioners, we understand how important (and distressingly infrequent) it is for a social media marketing effort to have buy-in from the top. In the case of the Perry for Governor Campaign, you can't go any higher than the incumbent Governor and candidate for re-election himself. 

Two years ago, the Obama campaign dominated the political buzz for its extremely skillful use of social media; especially its prowess in fundraising and event turnout. In actuality, the campaign was running a state-of-the-art traditional political operation that added a social media layer over all of its very well conceived online efforts.

It worked and since neither of Mr. Obama's major opponents - Hillary Clinton and John McCain - did much of anything that is noteworthy in the social media department, the Obama campaign established a well deserved status as a benchmark for how social media should be conducted in future political campaigns.

Politics is not for the faint of heart. In business, the #2 company in a market may be very profitable, with great market share.  In politics, the #2 candidate is unemployed.  Candidates and their teams play to win, as the stakes of losing are cliff-high.

Therefore, two years after the Obama team demonstrated the usefulness of social media, the vast majority of candidates in significant races have heavily adopted social media so as not to miss any opportunities to connect. Among these candidates across the nation, Governor Rick Perry stands out this year in many positive ways for how he is deploying social media

Perry’s campaign is skillfully utilizing all of the major tools of the social media trade and combining them with the latest in campaign GOTV (get out the vote) and media strategies. This in itself is noteworthy, as far too many social media efforts remain silo-ed and are not integrated with other persuasion and activation activities and investments. 

Rick Perry is personally active on Twitter and is available to his friends and followers on multiple online channels. He is creating his own personal connection through new media with his constituents.

For those of us who are passionate about social media's potential to give all consumers (and voters) a voice, this is huge.  If the Governor is updating and reading his own Twitter account, there’s a pretty good chance he’s listening to Texans in a way not ever utilized by a sitting Governor.

Bill White of Houston, Perry’s opponent, is also working to deploy all of the latest and greatest tools of the social media marketing trade, but we haven’t seen evidence that he has fully bought in to the potential of connecting at the very digital grassroots level the way the Governor has.

While it may or may not make a difference in the outcome of the election, we want to recognize Governor Rick Perry for making it possible for average citizens to connect with him through social media and to know what he's thinking outside of the filter of his campaign and the Office of the Governor. 

 

 

 

It's fascinating to me that so many of the social media enthusiasts I follow are such big fans of Mad Men. The show is extremely well done, but the premise is based on the very thing social media is rebelling against; how very clever ad men manipulated the rest of us into buying what they were selling with the use of advertising even if we didn't really need or want it.

Very generally speaking, the reason social media is now the "new reality" centers largely around our societal need to push back against big media and the hired guns and to have our own voices heard. We're tired of being talked down to and now demand a conversation that includes being listened to. First we stopped believing advertisers and now we doubt journalists. So now, more and more, we look to our peers online to decide what we think, what we'll buy, and who we should vote for.

I think it's safe to project that we will never see the day again where the "Mad Men" model can occur without someone twittering, commenting, texting, or updating their approval, disapproval or unrelated content in conjunction.

The following video, while a few years old now, says better than most blog posts what has happened in the relationship between advertisers and the audience that used to love their work. 

 

 

I really like the work that Steve Lunceford has done to create a great online information resource called GovTwit. I like it so much that I "liked" it on Facebook too.

GovTwit is an extensive listing of public service professionals on Twitter. It's Government 2.0 in reality. Federal, state, and local elected and appointed government officials are joined by academics, contractors, non-profit leaders, and others are all assembled in an online network for everyone to see and communicate with via Twitter. 

In a nice use of crowd sourcing, Lunceford and his team allow visitors to use the "Recommend Someone" button on GovTwit to request an addition to the directory. If your favorite elected official isn't on the list, add her or him. 

The first amendment right to petition the government is something I care deeply about, so it's really nice to see this new site that enables anyone on the popular social network to gain added access to the people they've entrusted to run their government. 

~ Mike Chapman

 

When preparing to write this post, I did what I usually do and "Googled" the keywords I already had in mind for the title tag, or headline. My first choice was "Integrated Communications." The results started with the Wikipedia definition for "Integrated Marketing Communications."

So, like most of the bloggers and social media enthusiasts I know, I stopped and read what the community had to say and how it related to my original concept around integrated communications for public affairs purposes.

It has become generally accepted that traditional advertising models, by themselves, are not as effective as they once were. Unlimited access to the internet combined with multiple forms of communication, an increased emphasis on specialized media, and a shift to a consumer-controlled and retailer-dominated markets for many products and services, among other factors, have forced advertisers to adapt.

What has happened already in the commercial marketing world is beginning to be evident in the public affairs area as well. The Obama for President campaign used every available social network and social media channel available to supplement its traditional campaign, taking a "nothing to lose" approach to their come from behind campaign against Hillary Clinton.

U.S. Senator Scott Brown, the Republican who replaced liberal lion Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, also benefited greatly from online communications conducted on his behalf and initiated by the campaign to win an unlikely victory; making the successful use of integrated communications for political purposes a bipartisan phenomenon. 

According to the creators and editors of this Wikipedia page, "(o)nline marketing channels" associated with integrated marketing communications "include any e-marketing campaigns or programs, from search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click, affiliate, email, banner to latest web related channels for webinar, blog, micro-blogging, RSS, podcast, Internet Radio and Internet TV. Offline marketing channels are traditional print (newspaper, magazine), mail order, public relations, industry relations, billboard, radio, and television." Sounds like a modern day political campaign in 2010, or a well conceived, full-scale public affairs effort in to me. 

Given tighter budgets and the need to find the most effective means of communicating a message available, it's a sure bet that candidates and the interest groups that lobby them will continue to adopt an integrated approach to their communications efforts, utilizing online channels where possible to supplement or replace traditional advertising. Those that do it first and who do it most effectively will certainly reap the rewards. 

~ Mike Chapman