As we close out another year, and as more of our troops prepare to march off to foreign lands, let us not forget those who served our country.  According to Volunteers of America, on any given night , 154,000 veterans are homeless and twice as many experience homelessness during a year. Right now, the number of homeless Vietnam era veterans is greater than the number who died during that war. Already, veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are appearing in the homeless population.  VOA operates a variety of service centers nationwide to help locate and connect with homeless veterans, including a mobile service center, providing medical and dental care, transitional housing and employment training. For more information, go to http://www.voa.org/Get-Help/National-Network-of-Services/Veterans.aspx.

To try and reverse this terrible trend, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline have joined forces to try and reduce suicides among veterans.  They have begun by posting bus top shelter ads in places where veterans live or congregate and also have a a 24 hour hotline 1-800-273-TALK which is also for military families as well as anyone who needs help.  To view a clip of this story go to http://www.kvbc.com/Global/story.asp?S=11549019.

An intensive hands-on introduction to the fundamentals of using social marketing to bring about health and social change, is coming to Washington, DC. Using social marketing, participants will learn how to persuade individuals to take action for change by addressing the values, needs and desires that motivate them and remove the barriers that impede change. Meeting details: January 11-13, 2010, George Washington University.
More info at http://www.social-marketing.com/smu.html.

Social networks and blogs are now the fourth most popular online activity—ahead of personal email— accounting for nearly ten percent of all time spent on the Internet, according to the A.C. .Nielsen Co.

A recent study conducted by Wetpaint and the Altimeter Group confirmed the benefits of social media for businesses. The study, dubbed “Engagement”,” reviewed social media activity for the 100 most valuable global brands and found a clear correlation between brands’ social media engagement and financial results. Those brands with the greatest depth and breadth of social media—including Starbucks, Dell, eBay and Google—on average grew company revenues by 18 percent, while the least engaged companies saw revenues sink 6 percent on average over the same time period .To download a copy of the white paper, go to: http://www.kwitco.com/pdfs/KCOWhitePaper.pdf.  For an extensive list of white papers on various marketing subjects, go to: http://whitepapers.prweekus.com./

Perhaps the organization that has been most successful with public service advertising – they are not an Ad Council client, they don’t (to our knowledge) use a professional distribution service, and yet their messages are ubiquitous.    Perhaps the reason for their success is that their message is so pure – no one can argue with an organization that calls itself the Foundation for Better Life and an organization that operates a companion site called: Random Acts of Kindness.  If you are tired of stories about Tiger Woods’ sex life and other meaningless “news” events, then maybe you want to download their widget which they have created to put on your website to spread the word about good deeds.  We did it and it is something inspirational to provide to people each day instead of the bad news stuff we are seeingevery day.  Go to: http://www.values.com/.