nov/dec 2013
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Social Media for business, diplomacy, fighting gender violence, environment, careers, marketing, moviesTRANSCRIPT
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013 Rs. 20
Best SmallTowns inAmerica
Checklist for Applying to
U.S. Graduate Schools
forbusiness, diplomacy,
fighting gender violence, environment, careers, Marketing, Movies
forbusiness, diplomacy,
fighting gender violence, environment, careers, Marketing, Movies
Left: President John F. Kennedystands in an open car while alarge crowd cheers as thePresident’s motorcade passesthrough Cork, Ireland in June1963. The President’s familyroots stretched back to Ireland.Below: President Kennedy at thebeach with his family.
Right: SPAN’s May 1962cover shows First LadyJacqueline Kennedy and
Prime MinisterJawaharlal Nehru in
New Delhi. Above right: PresidentJohn F. Kennedy and
Prime MinisterJawaharlal Nehru walkon the south grounds of
the White House inNovember 1961.
Far right: The First Ladyreceives a traditionalwelcome on arrival at
the Raj Mahal in Jaipurin March 1962.
Vigor was one of President John F. Kennedy’sfavorite words. It was a quality he greatlyadmired and greatly possessed. “When the going
gets tough,” his father told the Kennedy children, “thetough get going.” As children and as adults, theyswam, sailed and battled each other at tennis andtouch football as fiercely as they admired each other.When Kennedy ran for office, everybody helped in thecampaigns. At 70, his mother was still meeting andcharming voters for him.To strengthen his back, injured at football, he did fivemonths of exercises, enough to get into the Navyduring World War II. Assigned to a desk in Washington,he pleaded for active duty in the Pacific and got it.When spinal operations in 1954 and 1955 made him aninvalid, he used his months in bed to write a book.Characteristically, it was a study of examples ofcourage in American politics.As President, he stirred up more people, ideas andenthusiasm than had been stirred since the early daysof Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal.Reprinted from SPAN’s January 1964 issue incommemoration of the 50th anniversary of President John F.Kennedy’s assassination
John F. Kennedy1917-1963
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November/December 2013
VOLUME L IV NUMBER 6
Published by the Public Affairs Section, American Center, 24 Kasturba GandhiMarg, New Delhi 110001 (phone: 23472000), on behalf of the U.S. Embassy,New Delhi. Printed at Thomson Press India Limited, 18/35, Delhi Mathura Road,Faridabad, Haryana 121007. Opinions expressed in this 44-page magazine do notnecessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. Government.
« Articles with a star may be reprinted with permission. Those without a star are copyrighted and may not be reprinted.Contact SPAN at 011-23472135 or [email protected]
Publisher Walter T. Douglas
Editor Deepanjali KakatiHindi Editor Giriraj AgarwalUrdu Editor Syed Sulaiman AkhtarCopy Editor Shah Md. Tahsin Usmani Editorial Assistant Yugesh MathurWeb Manager Chetna Khera
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2 « Take Back the (Online) PowerBy Anne Walls
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For notification of new content, write to [email protected]
http://span.state.gov
Soci
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edia
6 « The Latest Alternative Fuel: Social Media By Jane Varner Malhotra
9 « Tweets and Status Updates for a CauseBy Carrie Loewenthal Massey
12 « Marketing Movies: The New Way By Michael Gallant
17 « Diplomacy in the Digital AgeBy Joe Witters
Front cover: Photograph ©Getty Images
Research ServicesBureau of International Information Programs, The American Library
Editor in Chief David Mees
Art Director Hemant Bhatnagar Deputy Art DirectorsQasim Raza, Shah Faisal Khan Production/Circulation Manager Alok Kaushik Printing Assistant Manish Gandhi
26 « Q & A With Walter Russell MeadBy Richa Varma
27 « Twelve-Month Checklist for Applying: 9 to 7 Months OutBy Don Martin and Wesley Teter
31 « Scope and Hope By Wendy Kantor
32 The 10 Best Small Towns in AmericaBy Susan Spano
18 « Social Media Marketing Catches On, But Not All Companies Do It WellBy Steve Fox
23 « Q & A With Shruti ChallaBy Giriraj Agarwal
24 « What You Share Online Can Hurt You By Howard Cincotta
hink about it: with a quick online search,people can find out what you had for dinnerlast night, where you had it, and with whom.Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Instagram,and more allow your every move to be seenby anyone who wants to look. But it’s not always as innocuous as a plate
of pasta. More and more potential employersare using the information they glean not onlyfrom a résumé, but from an online persona todecide if someone is hirable. How do youmake sure your Internet presence doesn’t neg-atively cloud your in-person presence? Bystarting your own blog and making a positivestamp on both the Internet…and your future.One 20-something who has done this very
thing is Jessie Rosen, author of the blog 20-Nothings. (www.20-nothings.com) Rosenwas just named one of Time magazine’s 25
Most Influential Bloggers of 2013 and forgood reason. Her thoughtful, often hilariousmusings about the trials and tribulations ofgetting through her 20s have not only earnedher legions of fans, but also a book deal.Rosen grew up writing and started 20-Nothings two years after college while work-ing in marketing for a film festival. Fiveyears later, she was able to leave her day jobto write full time.Her blog started organically. “I was writ-
ing blog post-style emails to all of my col-lege friends, recounting my experiences dat-ing and living in New York,” Rosen says.“Unbeknownst to me, those friends werepassing my emails around to other friends,who were passing them along to even morepeople.” And a blog was born.Another young woman who has parlayed
“”
Take Back theBy ANNE WALLS
TJessie Rosen, authorof the blog 20-Nothings.
www.20-nothings.comJE
NNY ANDERSON
We live in the realworld where onlineactions have offline
accountability.
2 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013
(Online) PowerBlogging your way to
success.
BLOG
GING
To share articles go tohttp://span.state.gov NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013 3
personal
4 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013
her personal experiences into an innovativeblog is Lindsey Indermill, a former televi-sion producer who started a career andlifestyle blog for women called Squirrelsand Curls (http://squirrelsandcurls.com),which she describes as “Fast Companymeets Real Simple on a sugar high.”Indermill’s inspiration came when shenoticed a gaping hole in female content inthe market today.“If an alien landed in front of a newsstand
and wanted to know the difference betweenmen and women from magazines alone, theywould think (like many publishers do) thatwomen only want to read about…celebritiesand homemaking,” Indermill says. “There isno major magazine that offers women achance to talk about entrepreneurship,launching a restaurant, acquiring angelinvestors, getting published, running foroffice....” Which is exactly what Squirrelsand Curls has set out to do.And it’s not just the ideas for the blogs
that get readers, and then Time magazine,hooked, it’s the volume of informationthese bloggers are able to produce. “Since
starting the blog in 2007,” Rosen says,“I’ve written at least twice a week, everyweek. I’ve maintained an audience throughthe ‘sticky’ nature of constant content. AndI’ve allowed that audience to see every partof my life through that journey of growingup.”In regards to the often slippery slope that
overexposure can have on documentingone’s every move (scandalous movesincluded), Rosen says: “Yes, you can be adifferent version of yourself online, but thatwill ultimately catch up with you becausewe don’t live online, even though it oftenfeels that way. We live in the real worldwhere online actions have offline accounta-bility. I think enough mortifying storieshave surfaced to teach today’s 20-some-things that lesson a thousand times over.”Indermill has advice for anyone consid-
ering firing up their computer and begin-ning a blog of their own: “Just start thedarn thing. Even if you don’t have a goodname, even if you can only afford a freeTumblr, even if you don’t know what tosay, just start publishing. Make a habit ofdoing it every day, twice a week, once aweek—whatever you have time for—andcommit to that schedule. The voice of yourblog will find itself as you go, but not untilyou give it a chance to begin.”Rosen echoes this sentiment: “You’ll
never keep it up unless it’s a subject you’reincredibly passionate about, and the onlyway to figure that out is to write whatcomes to you as often as you can. It doesn’tmatter if those are all different subjects orall the same. It matters if it’s consistent andgood. Stop worrying about anything but thewords. And then whatever you do, don’tstop!”
Anne Walls is a writer and filmmaker based inLos Angeles, California.
The 25 Best Bloggers, 2013 Editionhttp://goo.gl/R579UN
Jessie Rosenhttp://thoughtcatalog.com/author/jessie-rosen/
http://squirrelsandcurls.com
“Lindsey Indermill, author of the career andlifestyle blog, Squirrels and Curls.
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The voice ofyour blog will
find itself as yougo, but not until
you give it achance to
begin.
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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013 5
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/
It started with baseball, as manyAmerican dreams do. But not out onthe field. For Nate Silver, hearing the
crack of the bat connecting with the balland sending it out of the park wasn’t asthrilling as predicting it. When he was25 years old, Silver, a statistician andwriter, developed a way of forecastingthe performance of Major LeagueBaseball players that revolutionized thesport. He quickly moved on to politicalforecasting, and gained national recogni-tion for accurately predicting the 2008Presidential Election. With his blog,FiveThirtyEight—named for the 538votes in the electoral college—Silvercorrectly called the winner in 49 of the50 states, and predicted all 35 winnersof the U.S. Senate Race. Silver’s reputa-tion for accuracy was minted that year.Silver isn’t the only one who has
accurately predicted these wins and loss-es. He has just done it on a larger stage,under a much brighter spotlight, thanmost. And this is mainly due to his over-whelmingly positive online presence.Through his blog, Silver has been able tobrand himself and his ability to prognos-ticate major events. Is he always right?No. But is he always respected? Yes.Because he is able to maintain his onlinecredibility. According to Silver, FiveThirtyEight
is “devoted to rigorous, data-drivenanalysis of politics, polling, publicaffairs, sports, economics, science andculture.” That’s certainly a wide buffetof subjects, but the constant is Silver’sstatistical accuracy. If the formulaworks, it doesn’t matter what it’s
applied to.In 2010, The New York Times
acquired FiveThirtyEight. Next, Silverpublished “The Signal and the Noise,”a best-selling nonfiction book aboutapplying probability and statistics toreal world circumstances. In 2012,Silver once again accurately predictedthe outcome of the Presidential election. These days, Silver’s career has come
full circle—in June 2013 he announcedthat he and FiveThirtyEight are headingto sports giant ESPN, where he will continue with his political, sports andother statistical predictions. All becausehe started a blog that proved itself innovative and accurate.
—A.W.
BecomingNate Silver
(CC) R
ANDY STE
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.stewtopia.co
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The Latest Alternative Fuel:Harnessing the Social Media
Go OnlineLitteratihttp://www.litterati.org/http://instagram.com/litterati?ref=badge
Food & Water Watchhttp://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/
The Smart Citizen Kithttp://goo.gl/nZs5mQ
to help
By JANE VARNER MALHOTRA
ENVIRO
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power of the people
Citizen scientists log backyard butterfly migra-tion data online. Commuters reduce carbonfootprints with car-sharing apps. Teens organize online petitions to protect endangeredspecies. Today, anyone with a soft spot forplanet Earth can hop online and make a difference for the environment using socialmedia. Whether you are a leader or a joiner,opportunities abound to go green with socialplatforms.
Dreams of a litter-free planetOut for a hike with his two young daugh-
ters, Oakland resident Jeff Kirschner walkedpast a bright red box of kitty litter lying in astream. “Daddy,” said 4-year-old Tali, pointingto the trash with confusion, “that doesn’t gothere!”“You’re right,” agreed Kirschner, so they
stopped and picked up the box and took it to agarbage receptacle. The view from a child’seyes reawakened Kirschner’s own sensitivityto the litter problem. He began taking photosof discarded items he found on the ground,tagging them on the photo-sharing appInstagram, and then putting the objects in trashor recycling containers. The images were allassigned the hashtag #litterati, and soon familyand friends joined in, picking up trash andphotographing it, contributing to the growingcollection Kirschner calls a “digital landfill.”Then one day, a photo appeared on
Litterati’s Instagram account showing a plasticwrapper lying in front of the Great Wall ofChina. That’s when Kirschner realized the
collection of images represented the potentialfor something bigger, documenting a worldwide effort by individuals to clean up litter, one piece at a time. Using the geotagfrom each photo, he developed a map to showwhere people pick up garbage. He is hoping a combination bottom-up and top-downapproach might help Litterati reach its visionfor a litter-free planet. On one end, individualsare compelled to make a difference with smallsteps, documented to inspire others. On theother end, data can inform municipalitiesabout where waste disposal options should beexpanded, and companies will see how theirproduct packaging impacts the planet.“As more Litterati users begin tagging the
type of trash they pick up, we have a growingbody of data that gives us a better understanding of...product types,” explainsKirschner. In just one year, Litterati’s digital landfill
has collected over 18,000 pieces of trash onInstagram. Kirschner appreciates the impact ofsocial media for the movement. “Someonepicks up a piece of trash, puts the photo onInstagram, then other people comment, theimage becomes part of the photo gallery, it’son the map, and now the person is part of abigger community, which encourages individuals to do it again,” he says. “We havea real opportunity to build a platform that notonly measures our own personal impact butunifies the movement under one umbrella.These actions are not isolated incidents—weare in it together.”
Jeff Kirschner.
the environment.
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Twitter, memes and safe waterEnvironmental activist Emily Wurth uses social
media both to keep herself informed and toinform others about safe drinking water policyaround the United States. During her seven yearswith Food & Water Watch, she has seen exponen-tial growth in the use of social media for organi-zations like hers. “We now have 79,360 likes onFacebook, and I remember we were excited whenwe hit 10,000,” says Wurth. “We use our blogplus social media like Facebook, Twitter,Instagram and Pinterest to engage people and tohelp get our message into the mainstream media.”Wurth goes on Facebook to list events like
rallies and meetings and to invite supporters toattend. In jurisdictions around the United Stateswhere people are working on safe water issues,she follows live Twitter feeds from local reportersattending the hearings. “Twitter is really popularamong reporters,” says Wurth. “It’s a way to getaccess to information, but it also provides us witha forum to reach busy reporters.” Creating memes—photos with simple slogans
written across the bottom—has become anotherpowerful method of harnessing social media forenvironmental action. Wurth cites a change onFacebook, where people share images more oftenthan text, as a driver of this trend. The bumpersticker of the tech generation, a well-constructed
meme goes viral fast, providing a key opportunityfor organizations working to raise awarenessabout issues like safe water. Social apps like Food& Water Watch’s Tap Buddy rely on crowdsourc-ing to expand usability. Users input locations ofwater fountains to help encourage people to refilltheir own bottles with tap water rather than buybottled water. When someone adds a location tothe database, the app invites the user to share iton Facebook and Twitter, of course!
Climate change and citizen scientistsThe Smart Citizen project, a crowdfunded idea
expanded through Kickstarter, aims to employ thepower of the people to help monitor the environ-ment. Inexpensive sensor devices mounted inurban and suburban communities around theworld are tracking air quality, temperature, light,noise, humidity and levels of pollutants nitrogendioxide and carbon monoxide. A multilingualonline social network allows hosts to visualizetheir own data and compare to others. Creators ofthe program hope that widespread collection ofcrowdsourced environmental information, partic-ularly in urban areas, will help scientists track climate change indicators in the future.
Jane Varner Malhotra is a freelance writer based inWashington, D.C.
8 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013
Environmental activistEmily Wurth.
We use our blog plus social media likeFacebook, Twitter, Instagram andPinterest to engage people and to help get our message into the mainstream media.“”
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For a CauseTweets and Status Updates
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ure, you go on Facebook to see what your friends are upto. And you may tweet your thoughts on a great articleyou just read. But social media offers so much more,including a platform to speak out on some of the mostimportant issues of the day, like the fight against genderviolence. In recent years, Facebook and Twitter have become
launching pads for anti-violence campaigns and centersof conversation on how to make the world a safer placefor women. “A [Twitter] hashtag that takes off and gets people talk-
ing, people who wouldn’t necessarily talk about this stuff,
Activists fightinggender violenceuse social media to further
their cause.
GEND
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Top: Sidewalk chalking in Washington,D.C. for International Anti-StreetHarassment Week in April 2013. Above: A photo shared by a user duringa tweet chat as she rode in a mixed-gender Metro train compartment inNew Delhi.
By CARRIE LOEWENTHAL MASSEY
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is really powerful. I find people stumble upon issues byseeing hashtags in their feeds, so it’s effortless. Thenthey can jump in and learn quickly,” says NancySchwartzman, a New York City-based filmmaker andactivist against gender violence.Schwartzman runs The Line Campaign, a movement
led by young people that uses film, social media, a blogand more to help end gender violence. The projectstems from Schwartzman’s first film, “The Line,” whichwas released in 2009 and chronicles her personal expe-rience with sexual assault. To draw people to The Line Campaign, she uses
Twitter along with blogging and in-person events.“I’ve worked on other campaigns where Facebook
pages have been good, but in general I think Twitter ismore fluid and people are used to talking to people theydon’t know on it. Facebook is a little more closed. OnTwitter, if you have a good moderator for a discussion,it’ll be a good conversation and people will jump in,”she says. The Line Campaign’s presence on social media—the
Twitter handle @thelinecampaign has more than 5,700followers—caught the attention of someone whoencouraged Schwartzman to enter a White House-spon-sored competition to create a mobile app that helps pre-vent sexual violence. Schwartzman, along with others,created the Circle of 6 app, which enables people, whenthey find themselves in threatening situations, to con-nect instantly and seamlessly to six chosen friends. Pre-written text messages let users request rides home, askfriends to call them to create interruptions, or alert theircircles that they are in trouble and need help. The appwas one of the two winners at the competition and is
10 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013
Top: Activists from Stop Street Harassment andCollective Action for Safe Spaces handed out flyers,shirts and bracelets with information on how to reportharassment on the Metro system during an outreachday in Washington, D.C.Above: People who came by the Stop StreetHarassment table at SlutWalk D.C. wrote messageson a whiteboard. Their photos were posted onFacebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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Nancy Schwartzman http://www.nancyschwartzman.com/
Circle of 6http://goo.gl/H9rCRFhttp://goo.gl/aZ6dO3
The Line Campaignhttps://twitter.com/thelinecampaign
Holly Kearl http://hollykearl.com/
Stop Street Harassmenthttp://www.stopstreetharassment.org/
Go OnlineSchwartzman runs The Line Campaign, amovement led by youngpeople that uses film,social media, a blog and more tohelp end gender violence.
used all over the world, with people in India download-ing it the fastest of any population outside of the UnitedStates.Schwartzman continues to use Twitter to keep the
dialogue going about violence against women. Sheorganizes Tweet Ups, conversations that take place onthe social media site, which she publicizes by reachingout to a high-profile partner, such as the UnitedNations, and then telling 50 people she knows. As those50 people share on their Twitter feeds, the participantlist grows.“I have done a bunch of Tweet Ups about the safety
of women in India, mobile technology and women’ssafety and sexism,” Schwartzman says. Like Schwartzman, Holly Kearl, a Washington, D.C.-
based activist, uses social media to fight gender vio-lence. Kearl founded Stop Street Harassment, an organ-ization devoted to ending the kinds of public behaviorthat humiliate and victimize women—catcalls, indecentexposure and other actions that intimidate and limitpeople’s safe access to public spaces. Kearl uses Facebook to create pages for events she is
hosting and share content from her blog, and Twitter tobroadcast upcoming gatherings, host tweet chats and
connect with people worldwide who are sharing streetharassment stories. She says there are positives andnegatives to social media use, but that in general shefinds the advantages are greater.“ I think street harassment is such a complex issue
that it can be hard to discuss it through Twitter whereyou have to be so short. A lot of nuances are lost. …But [through story-sharing on social media] you seethat gender violence and street harassment are problemsin every country and we can speak out and amplifyeach other’s voices. That’s very, very powerful,” shesays.Schwartzman agrees, saying social media is an
important component of fighting gender violence andfurthering other social causes.“We need boots on the ground, people signing and
creating petitions and all the in-person work. If socialmedia can benefit social causes too, then great. Somepeople call [social media activism] ‘slacktivism,’ like it’snot the same as being on the ground, but I don’t thinkthat’s useful. We need all hands on deck,” she says.
Carrie Loewenthal Massey is a New York City-based freelance writer.
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Mar Mar
Despicable Me 2http://despicable-me.tumblr.com
From top: JONATHAN PHILLIPS © AP-WWP/ Atlanta Journal-Constitution; JOHN BADMAN © AP-WWP/The Telegraph; CHRISPIZZELLO © AP-WWP/Invision; CHRIS PIZZELLO © AP-WWP/Invision;screen shot of http://despicable-me.tumblr.com/; SUZANNE HANOVER© AP-WWP/ PRNewsFoto/Universal Pictures; © Getty Images
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Hollywood studios
engage audiencesthrough Twitter,
Facebook and
beyond.
Marketing MoviesMarketing MoviesThe New Way
By MICHAEL GALLANT
Earlier this year, visitors to certain shoppingmalls in Europe were treated to a technologicalsurprise—large digital screens displayingadorable, yellow, computer-animated creaturesthat could be controlled via shoppers’ mobilephones. Once a mall-goer texted an instruction for
the playful, on-screen Minions to play ordance, wrestle or build, the virtual creatureswould execute the command with slapstickcharm. Afterwards, the people who texted thecommands would be thanked by name onscreen—and receive a text message containinga web link, allowing them to share the result-ing personalized Minion movie via theirFacebook or Twitter accounts.A creative public art installation? Not com-
pletely—rather, this feat of interactive mediawas a strategic marketing campaign, designedto fan the hype for the Hollywood movie“Despicable Me 2.” And when it comes tousing technology and social media to spreadthe word about films, such endeavors are justthe beginning.In fact, the degree to which social media has
reinvented the way that movies are marketedto the public can’t be overstated, says NewYork filmmaker and film teacher CheyennePicardo. “At this point, Hollywood studios and inde-
pendent filmmakers are starting to use net-working sites almost as if the movie was a per-son, as opposed to a thing, a creative work,”
she says. “A movie is likely to have accountson Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere,and to interact with fans and followers almostfrom a first-person perspective.” Manymovies, especially those created by independ-ent filmmakers, are even foregoing traditionalwebsites entirely, Picardo says, adding thatthey are opting rather to interact with fansdirectly via social media. Diving into the world of social media has
brought huge results for film companies look-ing to make an impact. The worldwide block-buster “Twilight” trilogy set a record as oneof the first movies to hit over 1 million fol-lowers on its Twitter account. Similarly, thelatest installment in the equally massive“Hunger Games” series had over 10 million“likes” on its Facebook page—a full twomonths before the movie even arrived in the-aters. When it comes to social marketing, the“Hunger Games” series has pushed the enve-lope even further, recreating elements of thestory online via its own virtual world, wherefans can participate and interact with eachother as if they, themselves, were charactersin the story.Though the technological experimentation
involved in selling movies like “The HungerGames: Catching Fire” (the latest in the series)and “Despicable Me 2” may be cutting edge,adventurous marketing strategies for filmshave been around for a while. Picardo cites the1998 psychological thriller “Pi” as an example.
The “Twilight” trilogy set a record as one of the firstmovies to hit over 1 million followerson its Twitter account.
The Twilight Sagahttps://twitter.com/Twilight
Courtesy Lionsgate
Courtesy Sum
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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013 15
“Their marketing campaign was basicallyspray-painting the Greek letter ‘Pi’around New York City,” she says laugh-ing. “That was in pre-social networkingdays, and that movie would have beeneven bigger if it had come out afterTwitter existed. I see tweeting as the cur-rent equivalent of that same strategy—you’re just spray-painting online, insteadof on a sidewalk.”Thanks to social media, films can gar-
ner worldwide attention, sometimes evenbefore the actors are cast and the first
scene is filmed. Take the upcomingmovie adaptation of the best-selling“Fifty Shades of Grey” book series. “That movie doesn’t have an official
website, or social media accounts, inplace yet, but every fan of the books isalready using his or her personal Twitteraccounts to do marketing for them,” saysPicardo. “They’re rebroadcasting everysingle debate over who will play who.Because the name of the movie is men-tioned in all of the Twitter hashtags, themovie might not even need its own
The latest installment in the “Hunger Games” series had over
10 million “likes” on its Facebook page—a full twomonths before the movie evenarrived in theaters.
The Hunger Games https://www.facebook.com/TheHungerGamesMovie
Hollywood studiosand independentfilmmakers arestarting to usenetworking sitesalmost as if the moviewas a person, asopposed to a thing, a creative work.
“
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official account.” A similar phenome-non occurred earlier in 2013 with aforthcoming Batman movie, whenactor Ben Affleck was announced asthe director’s choice for the role.“That news gets put into one blog ormagazine, and when tons of peoplerebroadcast it via social media, it getsall the visibility a movie studio couldever want,” says Picardo.The change created by social media
has happened so quickly and dramati-cally, Picardo continues, that she hasdifficulty conceiving of how the busi-ness will continue to be affected fiveyears down the road. “Five years ago,nobody expected social media to havethe impact that it’s been having,” shesays. “There’s the potential, in thefuture, to market an entire movie forfree, just taking advantage of enthusi-astic social media users around theworld—as long as it’s done right!”
Michael Gallant is the founder and chiefexecutive officer of Gallant Music. Helives in New York City.
MATT NAZA
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ILLER/Foter.com
/CC BY-ND
There’s the potential,in the future, tomarket an entiremovie for free, justtaking advantage ofenthusiastic socialmedia users aroundthe world—as longas it’s done right!
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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013 17
It was still dark outside early one morning when I carefullymaneuvered my way out of bed without waking my wifeand two of my children who somehow managed to sneakinto bed, AGAIN. I quickly got dressed and headed downto a quiet room to Skype with 200 of Afghanistan’s mosttalented and passionate social media users from 24 differ-ent provinces to explain how diplomacy has changed in thedigital age. In Afghanistan, where only 10 percent of thepopulation has access to the Internet, social media servicesare limited primarily to urban youth and yet this group ofyoung Afghans is finding ways to use social media toexpress themselves and start social movements aimed atimproving their country. They are poised to be influencersin an emerging market where Internet penetration is pre-dicted to surpass 50 percent of the population by 2015 andthe use of mobile phones is growing (currently 18 millionmobile phone users or 60 percent of the population).So, why was I discussing these issues with Afghans via
Skype before dawn? I work for the U.S. Department ofState as the Social Media Advisor for South and CentralAsia. The fact that I have a job is a testament to the strongbelief the State Department has in the power to engage andcommunicate through social media.Today, the main State Department Facebook page has
410,000 fans, and on Twitter, the@StateDept feed has over 688,000followers. The Department alsoproduces its own blog, DipNote,and maintains a presence on Flickr,Google+, Instagram, Tumblr andYouTube. But those accounts justrepresent our digital engagementinitiated from Washington. In near-ly every country where we have aU.S. presence, you will also findus on social media. To date, wehave over 400 Facebook pagesworldwide, 300 Twitter handles,139 YouTube channels, and manyother local social media platforms.So, why does the State
Department put so much effort in
using social media? First: Times have changed. How peoplemeet, how people get news and information, and even obtaineducation has changed. In India, for example, the number ofFacebook users will reach an estimated 175 million by 2015.India will then have more Facebook users than any othercountry, surpassing the United States and Brazil. We want—and need—to be where our audiences are. And so we use oursocial media platforms to help you learn more about America,get information on studying abroad, apply for a visa, andattend Embassy-sponsored events. Our social media plat-forms are also dynamic spaces where you can learn moreabout U.S. foreign policy and share your opinions—andwhether you agree or disagree, we want to hear from you.Second: Human beings today have the ability like never
before to connect with common causes and people. In theright hands, social media has the ability to organize andbring people together to identify shared challenges andgenerate solutions, hold governments accountable, supportwomen, civil society, and minorities, and give a creativeoutlet to youths worldwide. In a May 2013 DipNote blogpost Secretary of State John Kerry said, “…With so manypeople with powerful technology in the palm of their hand,social media has become an enabler and facilitator of socialmovements—it’s empowered people all over the world tohave a more direct and immediate voice with their govern-ments and with their global cohorts everywhere.”This is certainly the case in Afghanistan, where the group
of Afghans I spoke to via Skype were some of the most cre-ative and passionate people I have met who see social mediaand new technology as tools to express themselves and theirviewpoints. I heard from them about an Afghan artist who istrying to use social media to introduce Afghan street art tothe world. Another idea I learned about is the Virtual DinnerGuest Project, which brings Afghans and people from othercountries with similar backgrounds together to share a virtualmeal and a discussion of global issues over Skype. But these must be just a handful of examples of what’s
happening around the world, as every day U.S. Embassiesare using social media to engage with new audiences, sup-port you the best we can and hopefully share American cul-ture. I hope you will look up your nearest U.S. Embassy orConsulate and send us a message today.If you are interested in South and Central Asia, consider
following us on Twitter @State_SCA and on Facebook atwww.facebook.com/state.sca
Joe Witters is the U.S. Department of State’s Social MediaAdvisor for South and Central Asia.
By JOE WITTERS
DIPL
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Diplomacy in theDigital Age
Photographs © Getty Im
ages
18 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013
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TBut Not AllCompanies Do It Well
Social Media MarketingCatches On,
he Internet was a gold mine for enterprisingcompanies such as Amazon and eBay thatquickly understood the opportunities of thenew medium and capitalized on them.Established firms soon followed the pioneers,and today almost every serious U.S. businesshas a web presence of some kind. More recently, social media has captured
marketers’ imaginations—and wallets—withcompanies scrambling to take advantage of itfor commercial purposes. A defining feature of social media is that,
unlike websites built and controlled by theirowners, almost anyone can post content. Thisopenness has sometimes proved troublesomefor corporations accustomed to controlling themessages they deliver to customers. For exam-ple, a global fast-food chain sponsored aTwitter campaign in 2012, inviting customersto share positive stories about their experiencesat the company’s restaurants. Unfortunately forthe company, a number of users instead postednegative and sometimes nasty comments aboutthe chain’s food, prompting the firm to cancelthe campaign shortly after it began.At the same time, many firms have scored
impressive successes with social media, amongthem American Airlines, which was named thenumber one travel and number two overallbrand in the 2013 Social Brands 100 surveydone by Headstream, a U.K.-based socialmedia agency. Jonathan Pierce, director ofsocial media communications for the airline,said the firm realizes that customer interactionsover social media are not just transactional butpart of ongoing relationships. “We could see that customers were using
[social media] worldwide,” Pierce toldHeadstream. “Then Internet-enabled phones
became so prolific, we were seeing social pro-liferating throughout the customer experience.We could see real-time sharing of experiencesthroughout a journey. Social is not just the roleof a team of people in communications. It’schanging the way decisions have to be madeand changing the way we act on customerfeedback.”Another food chain, Dunkin’ Donuts, suc-
cessfully mixed social and traditional media byinviting customers to submit photos of them-selves to the company’s Fan of the Week photogallery on Facebook, then posting some of thepictures on a huge digital billboard in NewYork City’s Times Square. Visitors to the com-pany’s Facebook page also could “like” thephotos and tell friends about them.Positive messaging is a key element in suc-
cessful social media, research has found. A2012 study by Jonah Berger, author of“Contagious: Why Things Catch On” and asso-ciate professor of marketing at the WhartonSchool of the University of Pennsylvania,monitored the most emailed stories generatedby The New York Times for six months andfound that positive stories were more likely tomake the list than negative ones.Marketing experts say that social media
should be viewed primarily as a way of build-ing and sustaining positive consumer attitudestoward a company’s brand. In an age whereconsumers are deluged with information, con-sistency and persistence are critical, they pointout, along with restraint—if a company’s socialmedia efforts are perceived not as useful orentertaining but as hard sell, potential cus-tomers will simply click on to something else.It’s also crucial to remember that social mediais a two-way street—the audience is not
To share articles go tohttp://span.state.gov NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013 19
By STEVE FOX
BUSI
NESS
TIt’s changing the waydecisions have to bemade and changing
the way we act on customer feedback.
“”
SoulSoup/Foter/CC BY-NC-ND
20 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013
QU
ICKS
TART
GU
IDE
TO S
OCI
AL
MED
IA F
OR
BUSI
NES
S
1. ESTABLISH YOUR GOALS
•Ask why you need to be in
social media.
•Formulate your social media
goals and objectives.
•Align with the business
goals of your com
pany.
www.b2bento.com
2. WHERE ARE YOUR BUYERS?
•Map your buyers’ persona.
•Find channels where your team’s
and buyers’ interactions intersect.
•Determine which social media
channels will work best in reaching
out to them.
3. MAP INFLUENCES
•Use monitoring tools to find out
more about your prospects.
•Discover the influencers of
buyers’ purchase decisions
—bloggers, partners, and even
competitors.
4. MAP RESPONSIBILITIES
•Distribute key roles among
stakeholders.
•Set up a social media task force
around key responsibilities.
5. SET UP YOUR CHANNELS
•Use the internal survey results and
buyers’ personae to determine
which channels you will engage in,
e.g., Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn.
6. ESTABLISH YOUR CONTENT STRATEGY
•Source for existing content and repurpose
it, e.g., whitepapers, case studies, opinion
pieces, videos, etc.
•Identify topics that align with key
marketing focus areas.
•Research to determine relevancy by
searching for brand name, com
petitors,
and target keywords.
1a. GET INPUT FROM STAKEHOLDERS
•Conduct interviews and internal
surveys to find out what social media
channels would best serve your
company and your goals.
7. ESTABLISH YOUR METRICS
•Create and align metrics and
monitoring framework with
strategic objectives.
•Some key measurement goals
include Reach, Buzz, Sentiment,
Influence.
•Measure only what m
atters to
the business.
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013 21
11. PUBLISH YOUR INITIAL CONTENT
•Develop an editorial schedule.
•Populate your channels with
appropriate content.
•Establish content syndication
mechanisms across social m
edia
channels.
12. M
ONITOR & MEASURE
•Set up monitoring and
measurement tools based on
the metrics established earlier.
13. HARNESS THE POWER OF
YOUR INTERNAL NETWORKS
•Time to get your team
to
provide the initial ballast.
•Propagate, publicize, promote.
14. YOU ARE OFF!
•Analyze, Adapt and Improve: Adapt
any new findings into current
processes, and im
prove efforts as you
navigate through this social media journey.
•Remem
ber—
this is an iterative process.
10. DEVELOP A SOCIAL MEDIA POLICY
•Based on best practices, what’s
acceptable, out-of-bounds markers,
confidential information, business vs.
personal capacity, etc.
•Docum
ent everything to avoid grey
areas that may hinder engagement.
9. SET UP ENGAGEM
ENT
FRAM
EWORK
•Work out who responds,
how, where (what
channel), and how often.
•Constancy and immediacy
are keys to well-m
anaged
social media engagem
ent.
8. CUSTOMIZE YOUR CHANNELS
•Set up, customize and optimize
your channels, e.g., multi-
author blogging platform,
custom
ized FB page, YouTube
channel, etc.
Sha
red
unde
r a C
reat
ive
Com
mon
s A
ttrib
utio
n-N
onC
omm
erci
al-S
hare
Alik
e Li
cens
e
passive, they can and do talk back to companiesin ways that others can easily see.Here are some marketing tips from social
media experts:
• Define your audience. Understand what theyare reading, seeing and commenting on.• Keep your brand consistent. Be sure yourwebsite and your social media campaignshave the same look and feel.• Don’t try to do too much at once. It’s better tohave an effective campaign on a few sites thanan ineffective one on many.• Don’t forget the “social” part of social media.People do business with people, not compa-nies, so don’t be afraid to let some of yourpersonality come through.
Steve Fox is a freelance writer, former newspaperpublisher and reporter based in Ventura, California.
22 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013
16 Social Media MarketingTips From the Proshttp://goo.gl/Iu97tC
Social Brands 100http://goo.gl/D4zahU
Dunkin’ Donuts contesthttp://goo.gl/rCbjoz
Social Media Marketinghttp://goo.gl/1U8ee9
Go O
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To share articles go tohttp://span.state.gov NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013 23
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Shruti ChallaShruti Challa
HE
MA
NT
BH
ATN
AG
AR
Simportance of relationships, whether they bewith your mentor, whether they be with yourteam. It is important to make sure that as anearly entrepreneur, as an early founder, yourealize that your team is extremely important. How can social media help new entrepre-
neurs and startups?What’s important is that you use marketing
channels and engagement channels where yourcustomers are at. If your customers are not onTwitter and Facebook and Pinterest, then thereis no real point in trying to get on those chan-nels. But if they are, it is extremely important.Marketing has fundamentally changed and it’smore about listening to your customer’s needs,listening to their problems and engaging themas actual human beings. What is amazing about tools like Twitter and
Facebook and Pinterest is you actually gain anunderstanding of who your customers are andyou are able to communicate with them on avery targeted level. It’s actually extremelyimportant to build what we call viral tools—tools that allow your customers to share howwonderful your products or services are. What kind of entrepreneurship spirit have
you seen among Indian youth during yourinteractions? What did they want to know?Two areas that people have been asking me
the most are around how do I market my prod-uct, how do I get the first 50 to 1,000 cus-tomers. And the second thing I have been hear-ing is how do I get access to capital to buildmy business. My message to both of thesethings is, get creative. Financing is all aboutfostering relationships early because there isnot as much capital in this ecosystem yet. When do entrepreneurs succeed more—
as a team of people with different kinds ofexpertise or as an individual ready to put 18hours a day on their “great” idea?It’s definitely the former. I am a big propo-
nent of entrepreneurs working in a diverseteam. Innovation these days requires interdis-ciplinary knowledge. It is no longer an inde-pendent physics Ph.D. thinking of ideas. It isthe physics major working with the computer scientist, working with the designer.
hruti Challa, a young Indian American entrepre-neur, has been part of several social consumerInternet companies. She has studied economicsand international policy at Stanford Universityand has worked for Silicon Valley venture firmFounders Fund, which is known for its invest-ments in Facebook and Space X. While atStanford, Challa founded and raised capital forher first consumer Internet startup, TribalAtmosphere. In 2010, she joined the core teamof a small startup called Campfire Labs whichwas sold in 2011 to Groupon pre-IPO in a tal-ent acquisition. She has since left and startedher latest venture, Mentorzen. “I love to mentoraspiring entrepreneurs. Mentorship was such akey part of my journey that I think it’s impor-tant to give back,” she says.Challa was recently in India to interact with
upcoming entrepreneurs, business students,entrepreneurship organizations and businessassociations in New Delhi, Jaipur, Mumbai,Kozhikode and Kochi. Excerpts of an inter-view with Giriraj Agarwal: What is your advice to young Indians who
would like to try their hand at entrepre-neurship?Entrepreneurship is not a race. What I am
encouraging is not that every Indian studentgoes and starts a company. In fact, the averageage of starting a company in the United Statesis 47. So it’s important to understand that...youstart your business when you are ready. Indians are inherently entrepreneurial. So,
there are all the fundamentals and foundationshere. However, one thing I would encourageIndian entrepreneurs to do is think a little bit big-ger and think a little bit more local. Don’t justmimic what’s going on in Silicon Valley. Createsolutions that are unique for the community.A third piece of advice would be just the
24 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013
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Remember, you maybe among friends,but you are also inpublic. People youdon’t necessarilyknow are watching.
By HOWARD CINCOTTA
Facebook Safetyhttps://www.facebook.com/fbsafety
Twitter: Keeping your account securehttp://goo.gl/8R3LGB
Google’s “Me on the Web”https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/1181793
International Travel Grandparent Scamshttp://goo.gl/VFG6gw
magine that someone you may noteven know is eager to find out moreabout you. Now take a long, hardlook at your online presence, fromblog entries to Facebook and mobilephone apps.How much personal information is
available that could be used againstyou? Are there materials, includingpictures, that could be embarrassingto you or hurtful to others? Are finan-cial data accessible? Do you have toomany unknown or sketchy “friends?”The commonsense bottom line for
living and thriving in a social mediaworld is this: always assume thatanything you post online is 1) prettymuch permanent, and 2) largelyaccessible to anyone with a comput-er or mobile device and the willing-ness to invest the time in trackingdown your data.
Pause before postingThe issue of social media safety
isn’t so much the basics—strongpasswords, firewalls and avoidingscams—but more taking a broaderand more active role in managingyour online identity. Why? Becausewho you are online and in socialmedia is increasingly as important toyour career advancement as are thefacts of your education and experi-ence.The dark side of social media is
more than theoretical. Ten percent of
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What You Share Online
To share articles go tohttp://span.state.gov NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013 25
Indians, 8 percent of Americans, and 16percent of Chinese between ages 16 and24 reported being rejected for a jobbecause of comments or images postedon their online or social media profiles,according to the Young People’sConsumer Confidence Index compiledby On Device Research. Those numbersdrop slightly for those in the 25 to 34 agecategory.But there is a disconnect here between
perceptions and reality. The survey alsoindicated that two-thirds of young peopleare not worried about the impact ofsocial media on their future careerprospects—and are much more likely touse social media to impress their friendsthan potential employers.Life online moves at the speed of a fin-
ger tap, and one of the most useful stepsyou can take is to pause before posting.Sharon Gaudin of Computerworld quotedthis advice from analyst Dan Olds: “Oneapproach is to ask yourself if you’d weara T-shirt with the details you’ve postedabout yourself. If you would, then you’reprobably okay. But if that thought makesyou cringe, then you’d better reevaluatewhat you’re putting on the web.”
Managing online identityThe answer to these dangers is not, of
course, to avoid social media, but to besmart about them. One reason is howpeople use search engines. Studies showthat 73 percent click on the first link in aGoogle search, and only 4.4 percent on
the sixth link, according to Leslie Hobbsof Reputation.com, which manages theonline status and reputation of firms andindividuals alike. “You have a very smallwindow to be recognized,” says Hobbs. If that silly party picture is the first
thing that pops up in a search of yourname, you have a problem. Time to cre-ate a more positive professional pres-ence, and push the negative stuff deeperdown in the search results.The Internet offers ample resources to
shape and manage your digital presence.Reputation.com notes several usefulones, starting with Google’s “Me on theWeb,” which will notify you when youappear or your personal information ispublished online. Technorati provides acomprehensive index of the blogospherewhere you can see your site’s scope andimpact. Tools such as SocialMention andHootsuite let you manage multiple socialmedia and blogging sites, whileTweetBeep will track you on Twitter bythe hour. For anyone with a business,product or other online endeavor, don’tforget to check reviews on sites likeYelp, eBay and Amazon.
Cops and criminalsTwo important groups with very differ-
ent interests are active in social media:scam artists and law enforcement. Thebiggest online threat isn’t necessarily thatsomeone will crack your password, butthat you will inadvertently give out criticalinformation—like announcing your vaca-
tion dates on Facebook, or posting toomuch specific information about yourself. And don’t forget your smartphone. Its
geo-location capability is a nifty tool thatcuts both ways: If your friends knowexactly where you are, so do strangers.Just as you need to be alert on an unfa-
miliar street, you can’t afford to be lulledonline by falling for phishing attempts togain personal or financial data, or clickingautomatically on an unknown link.Among the myriad of scams out there atthe moment, for example, the U.S. StateDepartment has highlighted one involvingcalls to grandparents or relatives falselyclaiming that a young family membertraveling abroad has had an accident orfaces arrest and needs money wiredimmediately. For the police, social media are both a
concern and an opportunity. A remark-able number of criminals have beenarrested because they posted onlineimages and accounts of their activities.According to research commissioned byLexisNexis in 2012, the top use of socialmedia among law enforcement users isfor crime investigations, followed dis-tantly by crime anticipation. The lesson is clear: Stay engaged, pos-
itive, creative, even funny with yourfavorite social media sites as networkingis invaluable. But it’s a big online worldout there, so stay safe too.
Howard Cincotta is a U.S. StateDepartment writer and editor.
SECU
RITY
Can Hurt You
Walter Russell Mead is the JamesClark Chase Professor of ForeignAffairs and Humanities at BardCollege in New York and Editor-at-Large of “The AmericanInterest.” Mead is also the authorof the “Via Meadia” blog atTheAmericanInterest.com, wherehe writes on international affairs,politics, culture, education, religion, economics, technology,literature and the media.He visited India for almost threeweeks in August, traveling aroundto universities and meeting academics, think tank people andstudents to talk about U.S.-Indiarelations. “This is my third trip toIndia and each time I come, Ilearn a lot more about howIndians see the world and howthey see the United States,” he says. Excerpts from an interview with Richa Varma.
On the U.S.-India strategic partner-ship: Opportunities and challenges
I have to say that each time I havebeen here, I have sensed more interestand excitement about the U.S.-Indiastrategic partnership, in all kinds ofways. Business people, academics, mili-tary people, civilian policy makers aredeepening their understanding of thispartnership and the importance of it.
For example, I spent the last week atJNU meeting with a group of studentsand professors at lectures every day, andwhat I found there was that sort of inter-est in how the U.S. and India can worktogether to create a peaceful Asian futurein the 21st century. How we can try tomake sure that the continent is able togrow in peace, that no one country triesto dominate the others, that we deepenthe economic, political and securitycooperation with India, Vietnam, Japan,Korea and even China in some kind ofnew Asian space. It was a real sense ofexcitement about just what the U.S. andIndia might be able to do workingtogether.
On India’s regional role with reference to Afghanistan
One of the things I think that ischanging for Indian foreign policy is thatin the Cold War India sort of thought ofSouth Asia as a very self-containedgeopolitical unit but increasingly Indianow sees itself as part of the Indo-Pakregion more than simply South Asia, thatis South Asia and East Asia are blendingtogether into a new Asian theater. Withthat, in some ways, Pakistan andAfghanistan, while these remain very
real and current issues, somewhere sortof issues of the past, and that whenIndians think about the big foreign policy challenges in the future and thebig economic opportunities of the futurethere is much more interest in China andIndo-China these days.
As the U.S. continues to draw itsforces down in Afghanistan my under-standing is that the zero option is not onthe table and I would expect that oneway or another the many great powerswho don’t want the re-Talibanization ofAfghanistan will find ways to worktogether. Russia, China, Iran, the UnitedStates and India all don’t want to seeAfghanistan become a kind of a statesponsor of terrorism or a safe haven forthe world’s terrorists. Pakistan may havea somewhat different view but I don’tthink Pakistan has the ability to imposeits vision of Afghanistan over such agroup of powers.
So my guess is that there will be a lotof very interesting diplomacy as some ofthese countries work to find commonground for how we can preserve a gov-ernment in Kabul, ensure that the Afghanpeople have some freedom and alsomake sure that the terrorists are not incharge of that country.
Walter RussellMead
26 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013
Via Meadiahttp://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/
Follow on Twitterhttps://twitter.com/wrmead
To share articles go tohttp://span.state.gov NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013 27
9 months before applying1. Start preparing for any standard-
ized tests required as part of the appli-cation process. Depending on the pro-gram, most graduate school admissionscommittees will require the GRE,GMAT, or in some cases the MCAT,which is for medical school applicants.In addition, as an international appli-cant you will most likely be required totake a test to demonstrate your level ofproficiency in the English language. The Educational Testing Service, the
Graduate Management AdmissionCouncil, and the Association ofAmerican Medical Colleges havepreparation materials on their websites.Other organizations, such as Barrons,Kaplan, Peterson’s and the PrincetonReview offer test preparation classes.In addition, you can go to your localbookstore or EducationUSA Advising
Center and find a host of printed mate-rials and study guides. Standardized tests bring varying
degrees of stress for prospective stu-dents. While test scores measure a cer-tain level of academic ability, they byno means cover the entire academicarena. Most admissions committees donot have a cut-off requirement for testscores, but some do. It is a good idea tofind out what each of your optionslooks for.2. If you can afford to visit an insti-
tution more than once, make your firstvisit unannounced. How you are treat-ed as a complete stranger can berevealing. In addition, you may nothave the financial resources to make acampus visit at all. If so, be sure totake the virtual campus tour that isoffered on most admissions office websites.
As we suggested in ourfirst article, graduateschool involves a majorinvestment personally,intellectually, sociallyand financially. Be sureto allow yourselfenough time to get allof the information you want and need.
Twelve-Month Checklist forApplying to Graduate School 9 to 7 Months Out By DON MARTIN and WESLEY TETER
This article is the second of a series
on what to do in the 12 months leading
up to submitting your application at a
U.S. college.
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8 months before applying1. Now is the time to do some addi-
tional research on your options. One areathat may be of interest is the type of pressthey receive. There are at least two waysto find this out: One is to go to the web-site and look for a link that might read:“(institution name) in the news,” or“press coverage of (institution name).” Asecond way is to search online for presscoverage. This type of search will yieldmore news clips because institutionalwebsites tend to accentuate only positivepress coverage. 2. Another way to learn about your
options is to read their institutional andstudent-run newspapers. In some casesyou may have to ask for access to these,and in others you can view them freelyon the website. This allows you to reviewboth external (press) and internal (institu-tional/student) perspectives on faculty,research, etc. that you will not find inadmissions or other promotional informa-tion.
3. Find out if there are rankings ofinstitutions offering the graduate pro-gram you are seeking. Various organiza-tions provide annual or biannual rank-ings that can be useful to you. However,remember that rankings and reputationare two different things. Organizationsthat do rankings may try to provide reli-able information, but those actuallydoing the data gathering, analysis anddissemination of the rankings have bias-es of their own. Often times they havenever stepped foot on campus. Also,
rankings provide a source of revenue forthe organizations doing them. One rank-ing differs from the next. You may bebetter off looking for trends, such as:Has a particular institution or program ofinterest been consistently ranked in thetop 20?Remember that rankings and your suc-
cess in and after graduate school are alsotwo different things. Your ultimate suc-cess will depend on two qualities youneed to succeed, which come from with-in: persistence and determination.
7 months before applying1. Contact current students at the institu-
tions on your list. If you know someone whois attending, contact them and ask questions.If not, ask the admissions staff if they can putyou in touch with a current student or two.Many admissions offices have student volun-teers who are willing to talk with prospectivestudents. If you can ask the same questionsfor each of your options, you will have moreinformation for your spreadsheet. 2. At this point, do a second evaluation of
your options, considering what you have dis-covered from external and internal press,rankings, and conversations with students.Remember, you are not ready to make yourshortlist yet. You can, however, change yourspreadsheet evaluations at any time. Also,something you learn from the press or rankings about an option that was eliminatedearlier from your list may cause you to placethat option back on.
Don Martin is a former admissions dean atColumbia, University of Chicago andNorthwestern; and author of “Road Map forGraduate Study.” Wesley Teter is a formerregional director for EducationUSA in New Delhi.He is also the editor of the multimedia outreachcampaign, 10 Steps to Study in the United States.
Here are a few questions that willelicit good information from currentstudents:• What are the top reasons you
chose this institution? • What are two of the most
exciting or rewarding parts ofyour student experience?
• Is there anything about the program that has not met yourexpectations?
• What other schools and programs did you apply to?
• How do you like your fellow students? How do you like thecourses and faculty?
• Have you found the staff such asfinancial aid and career servicesto be helpful?In addition, alumni have a
unique perspective and possibilityto reflect on their student experience—and have the addedbenefit of time since graduation.Look for individuals who have been out of grad school for five to 10 years.
Here are key questions to ask alumni:• Has the value of your educational
experience increased ordecreased since you graduated?
• How has your graduate schoolexperience most helped withyour career?
• Have the career services andalumni offices been helpful?
• How much contact have you hadwith your former classmates? Doyou believe the alumni network isstrong?
• If you had to do it over again,would you accept the admissionsoffer and enroll?Once you have concluded your
conversations with students andalumni, go back to your spread-sheet (see the September/October2013 issue of SPAN), and in thecolumns marked “interaction withcurrent students” and “interactionwith alumni,” provide letter grades.You might also add some com-ments regarding what stood outmost in your conversations.
Contacting current students and recent graduatesabout their experiences can provide some of the bestinsights into what to expect at a given school or department.While university websites and brochures focus on aninstitution’s strengths, students and alumni have little to loseby sharing their real experiences.
Applying to GraduateSchool in the U.S.
What do AlumniHave to Say?
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013 29
30 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013
When Jigar Mehta was in the fifth grade, hisgrandmother was diagnosed with breastcancer. He remembers her talking andlaughing—now, after chemotherapy and adouble mastectomy, she is bedridden anddoesn’t always remember him.
“She isn’t the same,” says Mehta, 19.“If there were more, better treatments,then she wouldn’t have undergone all thepain.”
Now a pharmacy major atNortheastern University in Boston, Mehtawants to develop new, better medications.“I want treatments to be less harmful,more beneficial,” he says.
Born in Mumbai, Mehta moved toAhmedabad when he was 13. His inter-est in medicine started from an early ageas his parents own a pharmaceuticalmanufacturing company. “I could hearmy Dad talking about medicines everyday,” he says.
Mehta’s interest in this field came tothe fore in his ninth grade, when he metfive other students at a science seminar,and with them, designed a glove thatallows medical students to learn anatomyand do virtual surgery.
“It lets you learn better,” he says.“Many medical students just observe surgery. This will let them get hands-onexperience much sooner.”
A year later, the team took their fullyfunctioning glove, along with a paperabout making the technology moreaffordable, to a conference inThailand and won first place.“It’s something we canexplore further,” he says.“There’s a lot of workthat needs to bedone.”
Over the nexttwo years, Mehtaworked on epigenetictherapies for cancer at UniversalPharma’s research laboratory. “There is alot of scope and hope in this gene thera-
py,” he says. “It reduces the amount ofpain and focuses on the target area with-out damaging healthy tissue.”
After his high school graduation,instead of going straight to college,Mehta continued his research. “Heshowed promise from the very begin-ning,” Mehta’s mentor and head of thedepartment of research, SiddheshGopinathan, said in an email interview.
“He is an intelligent and ambitiousyoung man. He required virtually nosupervision. There was never an occa-sion or excuse to come in late, leaveearly or miss a day; he amazed us all.This is the reason why he is differentfrom the other...people out there—because he knows what he is doing andhe also knows how to do it.”
While Mehta loves medicine, he hasn’t decided if he is going to changehis major to pre-med or stick with phar-maceutical studies. He does know that hewants to somehow combine his love ofmedicine and technology with his passion for public service.
As a child, Mehta visited orphanagesand nursing homes with his grandfatherto take food to people in need. Carryingon that tradition, Mehta founded a non-profit organization, Give A Week, as ahigh school student. Its members haveorganized blood drives, planted saplings,and visited juvenile detention centers togive math, science and computer lessons.Mehta now hopes to open a chapter inBoston.
When he’s not studying, Mehta playsbasketball, writes poetry—or just goesout and explores a new neighborhoodand meets new people. Someday, heplans to return to India and marry hislove of medicine and community service.
“I really want to help people backhome,” he says. “I can help people get abetter life.” Hopefully, he says, he willfind a way to connect disabled peoplewith advanced technology—whether thatis helping improve prosthetics or work-ing with virtual reality devices.
“I want to help disabled people communicate better and get the life theyhad—or the life they want,” he says.“Every person has the right to live agood life.”
Wendy Kantor is a freelance journalist basedin Washington, D.C.
Scope&Hope By WENDY KANTOR
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College student Jigar Mehtawants to combinehis passion for medicine,technologyand publicservice.
To share articles go tohttp://span.state.gov SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2013 31
Big-city smart meetsNew England naturalin an art-richmountain setting.
32 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013 Copyright © 2012. From Smithsonian Magazine, May, 2012.
The10Best Small TownsWith its focus on towns withpopulations less than 25,000,
this two-part series takesyou on a leisurely stroll
across small-town Americaand its unique culture.
With its focus on towns with
populations less than 25,000,this two-part series takes
you on a leisurely strollacross small-town America
and its unique culture.
You’ve got to slow down when Route 7 leavesbehind the wide-open valley of theHousatonic River to enter Great Barrington.
The road becomes Railroad Street there, right ofway to pedestrians stalled in the crosswalk tryingto decide whether to have sushi or chimichangasfor dinner. Others carry yoga mats, bags of farm-ers market produce, books, CDs, double espres-sos and all the other stuff it’s hard to find in sur-rounding Berkshire Mountain villages likeStockbridge and Lenox. Compared with them, Great Barrington (popu-
lation 7,500) is like a big city where you can get
GreatBarringtonMassachusetts1
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The10Best Small Towns in America
TRAV
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anything you want, to borrow the chorus from“Alice’s Restaurant Massacree,” by hometownboy Arlo Guthrie. He was 18 when he wrote thesatirical ballad about true events onThanksgiving Day 1965, when he got arrestedfor illegally dumping some of Alice’s trash, ulti-mately making him ineligible for the VietnamWar draft. Trinity Church, former abode of thecelebrated Alice, is now the Guthrie Center, astage for folk music, starting point of the annual“Historic Garbage Trail Walk” and a place forinterfaith spiritual exchange in a town wherethere could be something contrarian in the water.
Or in the food. At the forefront of the big-chain-grocery-store-defying, eat-local movement,Great Barrington is devoted to its family farms,farmers markets and co-op. Berkshire Grown, anorganization that promotes the production andmarketing of locally grown food, spreads theword with lectures by writers like Michael Pollan(“The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and most recently“Food Rules”). Great Barrington’s latest unconventional
endeavor is to mint its own currency, an experi-ment launched in 2006 aimed at getting people tobuy everything—not just food—local. Almost
By SUSAN SPANO
34 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013
400 businesses in the area trade BerkShares bills;the 5-BerkShares note features W.E.B. Du Bois,the great African American author and educatorwhose boyhood home just west of town is aNational Historic Landmark. Incorporated in 1761, around the same time as
Stockbridge and Lenox, Great Barrington, too,attracted rich summer people who built GildedAge mansions like Searles Castle, now a board-ing school. But Great Barrington grew up as amill and railroad center, its blue-collar ring neverexcised. About [200 kilometers] from New YorkCity, it attracts a hip crowd from the Big Apple,along with New Englanders and recent immi-grants from Asia and Mexico. “Great Barrington is a small, manageable, eco-
nomically and ethnically mixed town. That’s
what I love about it,” says locally renownedNortheast Public Radio director and commenta-tor Alan Chartock, who proudly lives in a houseonce owned by one of the judges at the LizzieBorden trial. When passenger trains still stopped in town,
they brought performers from New York, bookedto appear at the Mahaiwe, a vintage 1905 vaude-ville theater. Now lovingly restored, it offers ayear-round schedule of jazz, rock, dance, lecturesand HD broadcasts from London’s NationalTheatre and New York’s Metropolitan Opera.Executive Director Beryl Jolly, who came toGreat Barrington from New York’s PublicTheater, calls it the Mahaiwe Mix, no categoriesexcluded, for the whole “big mix of people yousee walking down Railroad Street.” Early summer brings the Berkshire
International Film Festival to the TriplexCinema, and classical music performed on his-toric instruments to the Aston Magna Festival atthe Bard College Simon’s Rock campus. Not tomention such famous cultural institutions asTanglewood, Shakespeare & Company, theNorman Rockwell Museum and Jacob’s PillowDance Festival just a country drive away. Then there’s the frame that nature put around
the picture, with [500-meter] Monument Mountainto the east and the rest of the Berkshires to thewest—such cozy mountains! Orchards are sheerwalls of pink in the spring, farm fields thick withcorn in the summer. Fall leaf-peepers train cam-eras on golden oaks and crimson maples. Honkinggeese pass over ice-coated bogs and ponds in thewatershed of the Housatonic River. All this, andbagels, too. Arlo got it right.
Town of GreatBarrington
http://www.townofgb.org
Left: MahaiwePerforming Arts Centeroffers a year-roundschedule of music, danceand lectures.Below left: Farmersmarket at GreatBarrington.
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Modern art, ancienthistory and counterculture in the luminoushigh desert.
TaosNew Mexico2Beyond Santa Fe, the high road
(Highway 76) and the low road(Highway 68) are both beautiful
routes to little Taos in the enchantedupper valley of the Rio Grande.Before the counterculture found it inthe 1960s, before Spanish missionar-ies and mountain men like KitCarson arrived, even before thebuilding of the Taos pueblo in the15th century, the Anasazi were here,leaving their ghosts to walk in theshadow of the Sangre de CristoMountains. These days tourists,seekers, skiers and other outdoorenthusiasts pack the plaza of the oldadobe town, dabble in its many gal-leries and museums, delve into histo-ry at the 1804 Spanish ColonialMartinez Hacienda and attend con-certs (the Music from Angel Fire is aworld-class chamber music festival).But Taos (population 5,700) stillspeaks most compellingly to writers,photographers and artists who, likeGeorgia O’Keeffe and D.H.Lawrence before them, come for theflash of a passing spirit and the qual-ity of the light.
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013 35
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Earthshipcommunity in
Taos. Earthshipsare houses made
of natural andrecycled materials.
Above far right:An installation
outside ElevationCoffee.
Above right: Anart gallery.
Right: Musiciansat the John DunnShops walkway in
Taos.
36 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013
William Count Basie grew up and got hismusical chops on Mechanic Street inRed Bank. In the early 1920s he moved
to Harlem and the rest is jazz history, to thetune of the “One O’Clock Jump.” His home-town on the south bank of the Navesink Riverabout [40 kilometers] south of Manhattan wentthrough some lean, mean times after that, buthas since made an astonishing cultural and eco-nomic comeback, linchpinned by the refurbish-ment of the 1926 Carlton Theater, now theCount Basie performing arts center, a venue forballet to rock to Willie Nelson. Cafés, galleries,clubs and shops followed, along with farmersmarkets and street fairs, attracting people fromwell-heeled Monmouth County and the Jersey
Shore. Town folk (population 12,200) went towork on neglected old homes with good bones,the landmark Victorian train depot was restoredand the silver was polished at the Molly PitcherInn, named for a Revolutionary War heroinewho is said to have brought water to thirstysoldiers serving under George Washington dur-ing the Battle of Monmouth County. TheNavesink got a spiffy waterfront park, the set-ting for jazz concerts in the summer and ice-boating when the river freezes; string quartetsand youth choruses perform at the MonmouthConservatory of Music, while the Two RiverTheater Company stages new plays and musi-cals. It all adds up to a model for small-townrenewal.
Willie Nelsonsings andBasie swingsin a riverfronttown gracedby Victoriana.
Red BankNew Jersey3
Red Bankhttp://visit.redbank.com/
Right: Ice boats onthe Navesink River
in Red Bank. Below right: Thewindow display ofFunk & Standard
Variety Store.Below: An aerial
view of Red Bank.
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Mill Valley is one of the jewelsin a necklace of beautifultowns—along with Sausalito,
Marin City and Tiburon—across theGolden Gate Bridge from SanFrancisco. It’s tucked into a canyon onthe flank of [784-meter] MountTamalpais, near the giant redwoods ofMuir Woods National Monument andmarshland surrounding RichardsonBay. The setting and proximity to SanFrancisco attracted sawmills, dairyfarms and resort operators, then Beatpoets and hippies.... A more recent
A Bay Areaenclave thatput mellow onthe map keepsits funky vibe.
Mill ValleyCalifornia4
City of Mill Valleyhttp://www.cityofmillvalley.org/
Above far right:The Depot
Bookstore & Cafein downtown
Mill Valley. Above right:
Early morning fogover the town.
Right: A house inthe Cascade
Canyon area ofMill Valley.
Below right: Arehearsal inprogress at
ThrockmortonTheatre.
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influx of wealthy commuters has made Mill Valley (pop-ulation 14,200) one of the nation’s wealthiest ZIP codes.Shops, galleries, organic food restaurants and art festivalscater to the newcomers, threatening to crowd out rattyold landmarks like the beloved Sweetwater Saloon whereBonnie Raitt, Ry Cooder, Jerry Garcia and Elvis Costelloplayed. The good news is that, as of this past January, theSweetwater’s back, occupying new quarters in the town’sold Masonic Hall. The Art Commission sponsors con-certs and comedy in the town plaza, and theThrockmorton Theatre welcomes music groups like theKingston Trio and Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, alongwith a June festival dedicated to gypsy jazz guitaristDjango Reinhardt.
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Takenumerous artgalleries. Addsailboats andlocal wines.Stir. Enjoy.
5If you come by boat, as so many people do—beginning with a team of surveyors from theCongressionally mandated Wilkes Expedition
in 1841—it’s easy to miss the narrow openingon the ragged west edge of Puget Sound thatmarks the entrance to Gig Harbor. That wouldbe a pity because it leads to one of the snuggestharbors in the Pacific Northwest, a thicket ofsailboat masts rimmed by tall pines on the farside of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. When thesun shines you can see Mount Rainier and thesnow-crusted Cascades on the eastern horizon;in squally weather the sky closes in so seascapeartists paint from memory. Never mind. As localgallery owner Bill Fogarty would say, “Don’tlet the drizzle get you down. Think of what itdoes for the rhododendrons.”The unprepossessing little town (population
7,500) has lately been discovered by outlandersfrom Tacoma and Seattle in search of still rela-tively affordable waterfront property. Chainstores have sprung up out on the highway andold fishing docks have yielded to fancy power-boats and yachts. Day-trippers come for gour-met restaurants with Washington State wines,for nautical tchotchkes and for gallery walksheld on the first Saturday of the month, duringwhich one might meet, say, renowned localjeweler Kit Kuhn. Yet Gig Harbor remains a working fishing
village with a fleet of about two dozen boatsthat head up to Alaska for salmon every sum-mer. The fishing way of life is still passed downfrom one generation to another. “It sure spoilsyou for the 9 to 5,” says Guy Hoppen, who hasdone plenty of salmon seasons in Alaska. He’s
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the director of the Gig Harbor BoatShop, aformer commercial facility in a tight covebounded by working docks that is now aninterpretive center promulgating the art ofshipbuilding, partly to make sure salmonboats never get crowded out of the increas-ingly high-rent harbor. Trained eyes can pickout venerable old fishing vessels like the1922 Commencement and 1925 Beryl E.among the pleasure boats. Settled in the 19th century by immigrants
from the Adriatic Coast of what is nowCroatia, Gig Harbor is a little like Mainewithout Yankees. The Jerisiches, Dorotichesand other founding families were net fisherfolk and ship builders. They stayed closetogether, founding Gig Harbor’s RomanCatholic St. Nicholas Church, still the startingplace for the annual Maritime Gig Festival,highlighted by a blessing of the fleet. Meanwhile, the peninsula’s forested hin-
terlands became home to manyScandinavians, who built dairy farms andplanted strawberry patches that send theirriches to Puget Sound markets. Gig Harbor was isolated until the building
of a bridge across the strait that separates theOlympic Peninsula from Tacoma.Engineered by the same company that gave
San Francisco its Golden Gate Bridge, the[1640-meter] span was a wonder when com-pleted in 1940. Thankfully, no one died whenit collapsed a scant four months later, leavingGig Harbor all but water-bound until thecompletion of a sturdier bridge in 1950, par-alleled by another in 2007. You can still seedredged-up chunks of the first bridge’s foun-dations at the spacious new Harbor HistoryMuseum, added to the waterfront in 2010,along with a restored 19th-century one-roomschoolhouse, a vintage Thunderbird sailboathull and exhibitions about languages spokenby Native American Puyallup and Nisquallytribes, the bay’s first residents.On any given summer weekend there’s
likely to be a chowder cook-off, a quilt showor a festival celebrating boats, gardens orwine; vendors at the farmers market offermandolin lessons along with strawberriesand grass-fed beef. The town center isSkansie Brothers Park, where the city isrestoring one of 17 historic net sheds thatline the waterfront. On open-air film nightsfolks pile on blankets spread across the lawnto watch “Free Willy,” “Jaws” or another maritime classic. Susan Spano is a New York City-based travelwriter.
(To be concluded in the January/February 2014 issue.)
Harbor History Museumhttp://www.harborhistorymuseum.org/
Left: Net shedsat Gig Harbor. Above: Apermanentgallery of theHarbor HistoryMuseum.
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Nina Davuluri became the first Indian American to win the MissAmerica beauty pageant in September, in Atlantic City, NewJersey. Davuluri, 24, grew up in Michigan and traces her familyroots to Andhra Pradesh. “To be able to stand up there, and be anexample for other little girls that America is now a very differentplace, that’s everything to me,” she said in an interview with TheWall Street Journal. Davuluri, who plans to become a cardiologist,also had the opportunity to meet with President Barack Obama inOctober and tweeted, “Had the pleasure of having a conversationwith President Obama in the Oval Office today!”https://twitter.com/NinaDavuluri
TFive Indian American students were part of the 2013 DavidsonFellowships awarded by the Davidson Institute for Talent
Development in September. Davidson fellows, who are studentsaged 18 years or younger, receive $50,000, $25,000 and $10,000in college scholarships for having created “significant projectsthat have the potential to benefit society in the fields of science,technology, engineering, mathematics, literature, music andphilosophy.” The program has provided more than $5.3 million inscholarship funds to 226 Fellows since its inception in 2001 bythe Nevada-based nonprofit organization.http://www.davidsongifted.orghe U.S. Congress held its first-ever Diwali celebration on October
29. Sri Siva Vishnu Temple, one of the oldest and largest templesin the Washington, D.C. area, organized the event in cooperationwith the U.S. House of Representatives Congressional Caucus onIndia and Indian-Americans. “It was an honor to celebrate thisholiday and the diversity that makes our country great earlier thisweek at the first-ever Congressional Diwali reception,”Representative Ami Bera (below, second from left), the only IndianAmerican currently serving in the U.S. Congress, said in astatement. Attendees included Nisha Desai Biswal, AssistantSecretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs (bottom). http://goo.gl/vt9ubl
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teven Cook, senior fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at theCouncil on Foreign Relations, met students, community leadersand journalists on his visits to Lucknow, Mumbai, Hyderabad,Chennai and Pune in September. He engaged in discussionswith American Studies and Political Science students atFergusson College in Pune (above) and spoke about India’sinternational role and the United States and the Middle East.http://goo.gl/GZpbgn
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