The Boy Scouts has signaled it is about to remove a ban on gays that caused a rift within the movement. This could help improve both enrollment and fundraising.
A statue of a Boy Scout stands in front of the National Scouting Museum in Irving, Texas. The Boy Scouts of America announced it is considering a dramatic retreat from its controversial policy of excluding gays as leaders and youth members.
LM Otero / AP
EnlargeThe Boy Scouts of America (BSA) is in the process of removing its national anti-gay policy. The Texas-based youth group announced Tuesday that it will vote next week on whether to allow decisions about gay members to be made at the local level.
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But, as this group that was once nearly synonymous with American youth has begun dismantling a policy that some of its own chapters have dubbed ?repugnant,? the question arises, can this century-old institution ever be as dominant as it once was in American family life?
Families simply have so many other choices, as well as demands on their time, that it?s unlikely a single group will ever have that central a role in the life of American youngsters again, says Susan Shapiro Barash, who teaches gender studies at Marymount Manhattan College.
?It certainly evokes a gentler time in our country?s history,? she says. ?The sheer fun, the boyishness of it, now is not so much front and center in our culture,? she adds, noting that parents are more deliberate in their after-school choices.??There is so much more competition to get ahead from an earlier age that being a Boy Scout now is probably not as expedient,? she says.
This is a parenting reality that April Masini, an online advice columnist based in Naples, Fla., says she regularly encounters in questions from parents about the right choices to make for their children?s activities.
?The generation of helicopter parents who usher their children through childhood like white on rice, have found myriad options of after-school activities, many of which are considered pre-college application favorites ? and yes, I'm talking about activities for kids of all ages, including pre-school,? she notes via e-mail.
Parents seek out chess and debate teams for kindergartners, as well as museum-hosted enrichment and other programs such as the Center for Talented Youth at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore that include families and elementary school kids who are gifted, she points out, adding, ?the Boy Scouts have competition, and families have options.?
This week?s announcement about its policy on gays could be critical to the Boy Scouts halting the losses to its ranks. The BSA did not return calls for comment, but a 2010 Boston Globe article about the group?s centennial celebration noted that between 1998 and 2009, national BSA enrollment shrank from roughly 3.3 million to some 2.7 million. A 2010 Gallup poll showed that while some 45 percent of men 50 and older had been Boy Scouts, that figure shrank to 27 percent of men aged 18 to 24.
Many observers say the group?s latest move to back away from banning gays may be decisive in stopping further shrinkage. ?This is huge, real progress,? says Andrew Koppelman, a law professor at Northwestern University in Chicago and co-author of ?A Right to Discriminate? How the Case of Boy Scouts of America v. James Dale Warped the Law of Free Association.?
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CES today issued a press release announcing that DISH's Hopper with Sling technology built-in is the "Best of Show" after all, an honor it will share with existing winner the Razer Edge for the 2013 show. The decision follows the revelation that CNET was ordered to remove the Hopper from consideration after CNET parent company CBS asked them to. CBS is currently involved in litigation with DISH over Hopper functionality.
PAM LOBLEY
Last week, Twitter released a new app for creating and sharing short looping videos on the social network, called Vine. Many brands have begun to get creative with the app already, using it for marketing messages and brand engagement (check some out here). But in terms of crisis communications, think of what these 6 second video loops, with sound, can do for your brand in terms of communicating your message in an engaging and catchy way in a crisis.
Whenever a new platform launches these days, brands are instantly checking them out to see how they can “become a part of the conversation.” What that really means is how they can use a site like Twitter, or its new app Vine, to get your eyeballs, interact with you and, of course, sell you more stuff. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s commerce at its purest. The story isn’t that brands try out new platforms. That’s boring. The interesting part is how they approach them and why. Now that consumers have the power to skip through commercials on programs that they record, creative advertisers have to start pushing the envelope on generating interesting and persuasive messages outside of the television set. I spoke with VaynerMedia?founder Gary Vaynerchuk, and his firm urges their clients to test new things out. When he says test it out, he means it: I tell our companies that there’s a 72 hour rule where you’re not even thinking about an ROI or how you can generate business. They should just try things out. Vaynerchuk’s companies are definitely giving Vine a swing, and the brands include GE, Ritz Cracker, Dove and Trident gum. The initial six-second vines include fun spins on their iconic brands, products and logos. What will it do for the company right now? Probably nothing, and that’s OK with the brands and VaynerMedia. Here’s a look at what Trident shared as its first Vine, just a few clips of people chewing the gum: While this clip might not make you want to run out and buy a pack, it does humanize the brand a little more, making it about people and not the stuff that people stick under your airplane seat. Still though, you can see how this new platform brings out a new form of creativity, making you pack as much as you can into a six-second video. There are “real” people in this clip, not the models that we’re used to seeing on TV. Another one of Vaynerchuk’s clients, Dove, did something pretty fun in its first vine. When he told me that Dove was giving the new platform a chance, I asked him how Dove could possibly make its product seem interesting, clever or funny with six seconds of video. Apparently, the team thought about it and here’s what they came up with: Once again, does this make you want to