Christopher Bates Enc 3331-0001 Rhetoric and Civic Engagement Tom Wright April 15, 2013

DIGNITY FOR WHORES; A PLAN OF ACTION

Preparing to launch a book campaign that is aimed at both college students and is appealing to the wider public is quite an undertaking. As I have prepared this project, each step along the way I have become increasingly overwhelmed with the HUGE amount of learning that is necessary to accomplish even ONE of the goals on my checklist. Filming the first video? A three day task. Setting up multiple facebook accounts and associated fan pages? A solid week. Simply organizing goals and the order they need to be completed in has been a challenge! The website layout has been difficult. Merely identifying what information needs to go into the media and press packets has been a task. Overseeing the design of a rhetorical significant logo has been harder than expected. Say what you like about effective rhetoric it is NOT for the faint of heart or the easily discouraged. While we studied the textbook, I frequently remarked in class that the authors seemed to suggest that the effective rhetor must be a master of many if not ALL the different forms of communication, since all of them have an important place in the modern rhetoricians tool chest. How can anyone be good at everything? I asked. I believe this sentiment true much more now that I have attempted it. The project of promoting the book has stalled. Various aspects of the campaign have come to a dramatic and abrupt halt; no effective multimedia campaign can be launched without utilizing well-skilled craftsmen and artists from the appropriate disciplines. In the process, I have learned that I am a writer, not a publicist. I am horrible at designing websites; Id much prefer to play with words (and occasionally, images). The one aspect of rhetoric that I have thoroughly learned during the process of preparing this semester project will become readily apparent during this descriptive paper: it is better to be great at one thing that mediocre at a handful or just plain bad at all. Other, previous rhetorical approaches are not mentioned in this sample of action. This is entirely due to the fact that there are functionally NO OTHER

attempts at making the lives and livelihoods of restaurant servers better. There is little to compare my effort, with the exception of a few scholarly attempts at studying the customer/employee paradigm completed by The Cornell School of Hospitality and assorted sociologists. They, however, are not attempting to make a civic impact. They are merely studying the factors at play and the correlation between certain behaviors and related outcomes. I am trying to do something markedly different. MULTIMODAL APPROACHES
IMAGERY AND ICON CREATION

The search for a powerful symbiotic message, one that can be instantly recognizable and serve as a powerful and cohesive link between the website, the book cover, and various social media outlets has been well, it has been a difficult task. The first attempt was okay, but not clean. I have found a graphic artist who is working on a simpler graphic representation that is suitable for many such purposes, as well as merchandising and branding. The first such effort is found below.

Note how the waitress is pictured: she appears both weary and resigned. The juxtaposition of the 1940s waitress with a prostitute working the streets is intentionally jarring and provocative. The theme of loss of personal dignity is clear in the image and I think it reflects the theme of the book well. However, although I love the image, it is not suitable for branding or multiuse. I am currently working with a graphic artist to design a new image that will be intentionally iconic a nike-checkmark type of image that can be used in many more mediums. MULTIMODAL APPROACHES
WEB PRESENCE

Giving my potential audience the ability to INTERACT with the material is a powerful tool in creating connections; there is nothing that makes a learning experience quite as compelling as when the student is able to play with what they are learning. To that end, I am putting together a website with a

discussion and shift bitch forum, embedded elements and links to various media, as well as an interactive Menu of the books content. The programmer is helping me to create a page where when someone mouses over as section of the book, different items will pop out. Videos, clips of me speaking, music, written text we are trying to keep it interesting, compelling, and very, very funny. Here is an example of what the menu is going to look like:

Since EVERYBODY loves sock puppets, or at least SHOULD, one of my favorite plans in the works is to have a sock puppet that looks a little bit like me filmed explaining different sections of the book on a green screen. That way, we can have the little guy showing up super-imposed on the image of the menu, talking to the people who have moused over different sections. It is safe to say that the sock version of me will be a little bit SNARKY.

MULTIMODAL APPROACHES
VIDEO

I have started the process by making a number of videos. One is an explanation of who I am and what the project is about. Its primary audience is the social contribution community of Kickstarter.com, the group of people from whom I will be seeking secondary funding. The video itself is in postproduction, but as a means of encouraging rhetorical velocity, I have made the outtake roll available to any enterprising videographers and as a teaser on various social media sites. Capturing the attention of people online is an enormous challenge, and I am seeking to become more effective at the process by utilizing intentionally outrageous and provocative themes associated with the content of the book. We are in pre-production for our first purposely comic video, a Mystery Science Theater 3000 parody in which two puppets thats right! Ive got a thing for sock puppets - talk about a restaurant experience. It should be fun. There is a place reserved on the website, dignityforwhores.com, strictly for videoblogs and a second for parodies, infomercials, and assorted attention grabbers. As soon as the semester is finally completed, I can turn my attention exclusively to creating new material, fine-tuning and editing the material that is currently made, and pushing this particular multi-modal rock up this specific rhetorical mountain.

MULTIMODAL APPROACHES
SOCIAL MEDIA AND NETWORKING

There is an immense learning curve ahead of me. I am struggling to master or at least become conversant within the various social media outlets that are most popular with my target audience. I am doing this in an effort to reach both potential supporters and potential readers. Facebook is a behemoth and I have never been interested in twittering. I dont come to this part of the rhetorical process with a significant degree of preparation or knowledge. In many ways, I am learning as I go. That being said, I have developed a Facebook profile page that focuses on the rhetorical challenge I have taken on, a book and author fan page, and am regularly seeking new ways of making my posts relevant to the rhetorical task at hand and hopefully interesting enough to start the process of rhetorical velocity. However, it has become clear that I am going to need outside assistance or more time (and maybe one of those Social Media for Freakin Dummies books). This is not an area that I have ever had any interest in prior to this rhetorical campaign, and I am a babe in the woods in comparison to my contemporaries. MULTIMODAL APPROACHES
WEB

The process of creating a website, linking all the content available on all the social networking sources, providing a method for supporting the endeavor, creating a functional online community for supporters in a forum-style discussion area whew! The list continues and grows. I have purchased the site registration, begun uploading content, and played around with graphics and assorted imagery but this is not a project an amateur like myself can pull off professionally. I found a friend who was willing to help, but the reality is rather simple: the modern audience requires a high level of polish to take an endeavor seriously. There was a time, not too long ago, when being able to pull off a fine-tuned, impressive site, utilizing a do-it-yourself methodology, was a challenge. But not an impossible one. Those days are long past. CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
T H E W A Y F O R WA R D

There is still much to do. I have determined to my own satisfaction that I need to engage the help of someone much more experienced to assist with the development of a social

media campaign. I am in dialogue with a small number of UCF public relations students on how they can work with me to achieve our goals. I am also in dialogue with a web professional and am seeking someone who is passionate about film and video composition to assist with the creation of entertaining and viral-ready videos. As I find new members of the community to assist with getting it all these associate things ready, I can turn my attention to what I am good at (and STOP trying to learn entirely new systems of media). Regardless of what rhetorical researchers may write, I have found that such a thinly-spread application of effort results in is subpar. There are many things left for me to focus on. I need to create a series of press kits, media releases, and pre-packaged, rhetorical-velocity-oriented materials. I need to identify reporters, radio DJs and other media personalities who might be interested in talking with me about the book. And I need to write. The editing is almost done. But there is a ways left to walk before the path widens upon a new vista. Since there is no way to practically prepare for what I will encounter at some unknown and future point, I am casting many stones upon the waters, hoping that the ripples will eventually do as I hope. This is the aspect of rhetoric that was not discussed in class: the rhetoric of hope and optimism. We rhetors can never know for sure how our efforts will be received. We can only master the skills we can, learn as much as possible. Then cast our stones upon the water. And hope for the best.