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July, 2010
Dear ISIS Supporter,
Summer is here and things are heating up at ISIS. Here’s a little taste of what we’ve been up to:
ISIS in the News: Thomson-Reuters published an article on ISIS’ Executive Director and Founder, Deb Levine, and her mission to use technology for sexual health. Read “Sex ed entrepreneur trades bananas for broadband.” The story was picked up by MSNBC and the NY Daily News. San Francisco BayCitizen published “In Juvenile Hall, a Struggle over STD Testing,” which discusses the health disparities of STDs among SF youth, and the role ISIS has played in reducing those disparities.
Welcome New Staff: Cara Silva is ISIS’ new Program Manager – New Media, and Jenna Gaarde is the new Program Assistant. They each bring significant expertise and an upbeat tone to our work with youth and young adults.
Sex::Tech 2011 – Coming Soon: Sex::Tech 2011 is on! Look out for a Save the Date note heading your way soon for Spring ‘11 in San Francisco.
NIH Study Launches: Our NIH research study about Sexual Health and Reproductive Justice, in partnership with the University of Colorado, is in full swing. If you’re between the ages of 16-25, you are eligible to participate! If not, but you have access to people within this age range, feel free to have them send a message to Lindsey Breslin at lindsey.breslin@ucdenver.edu or call 720-690-4723, and she will get in touch with the next steps involved to join the study. [NOTE: Adults over 25 are welcome to take a peek at the intervention at www.facebook.com/justus411, BUT youth who look at the Facebook page beforehand will be ineligible to participate.]
New Partnerships: Check out some of our new and upcoming ISIS partners!
State of California Maternal Child and Adolescent Health Division – New preconception health project for young women of color using social media and text messaging
Alameda County Office of AIDS – New website for County residents who are HIV+ and their supporters
The National Campaign – Fall contest about long-acting reversible contraception for women under 30
Alameda County Maternal, Paternal, Child and Adolescent Health - New teen pregnancy prevention project for Latina/os countywide using social media, radio and text messaging
Follow us: the best way to always know what’s going on at ISIS!
Twitter: www.twitter.com/DebISIS
Facebook: www.facebook.com/isisinc
Website: www.isis-inc.org
Sex::Tech Conference: www.sxtech.org
Best,
Deb Levine, MA
Executive Director & Founder
In Juvenile Hall, a Struggle over STD Testing
High rates of sexually transmitted diseases among incarcerated youth reflect a broader problem
By Trey Bundy
Incarcerated youth in San Francisco usually come from high-crime, economically depressed neighborhoods, and bring with them the health issues associated with poverty and poor access to medical care.
Case in point: during the past two months, teenage boys at Youth Guidance Center (YGC), San Francisco’s juvenile hall, have tested positive for Chlamydia at about five times the rate of California’s general population. The numbers aren’t surprising to San Francisco health outreach workers – but getting support for testing and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases among such teens has been anything but easy.
Deb Levine, executive director and founder of Internet Sexuality Information Services, Inc. (ISIS), has been instrumental in bringing health services to some of the city’s most elusive youth populations. ISIS received a two-year outreach grant in 2008 to engage underserved youth in sexual health services and education using web and mobile technology. The focus was on getting young, hard-to-reach African American and Latino men, in neighborhoods such as Hunter’s Point and Visitacion Valley, screened for Chlamydia and gonorrhea.
“They have so many conflicting problems in their lives,” she says. “If you talk to them about Chlamydia, it’s not a priority. Their priorities are jobs, food, safety. It’s the poverty and economic cycle they’re stuck in.”
Levine’s work was coming along, but a year into the project, SFDPH, which had partnered with ISIS, had to make a tough call. Facing two years worth of budget cuts, totaling $1.2 million, the department’s STD section stopped screening the vast majority of men (even teenage boys) for common STDs in public clinics citywide. The move was expected to save SFDPH almost $60,000 over the last year, but public school health educators and community outreach workers were outraged to learn that they could no longer send asymptomatic kids to get screened.
Levine says her initial thoughts when she heard about the new guidelines are unprintable.
“Truly, I was horrified, she says. “I’m the mother of two girls. As a parent I was worried about the health of young people.”
At the time, the new regulations, based on national Centers for Disease Control (CDC) guidelines, seemed medically sound. Young women test positive for STDs at higher rates than young men and face more STD-related health problems down the line, such as pelvic inflammatory disease and infertility, so why not allocate the bulk of available resources for them? But the guidelines failed to address the fact that most young women are infected by young men, who are less likely to practice monogamy than their female sex partners.
“The idea that you only treat young women is erroneous,” Levine says, adding that young men aren’t always the most dependable stewards of sexual responsibility. “If a girl says, ‘Hey honey, I have Chlamydia, you’d better go to the clinic,’ the boyfriend might say, ‘I’m just going to get a new girlfriend.’”
Shortly after SFDPH stopped screening young men, ISIS held a public event in the Bayview to teach youth about the risks of Chlamydia and gonorrhea. A mobile testing van was onsite, but because it was meant to serve San Francisco residents, the new guidelines applied and young men were not tested. Levine’s outreach workers were in the bizarre position of speaking to youth about the importance of getting screened while denying that service to their target demographic.
“We had to change our message from, ‘Get tested, get screened,’ to, ‘Take care of your sexual health,’” she says. “But without a cultural change, that doesn’t mean anything. Young people say, ‘What is sexual health?’”
Levine went back to her funders and requested a second grant, this one to support the screening of males age 12-24 for Chlamydia and gonorrhea for one year. ISIS received the grant and several public clinics started testing young men again this past April.
Since May 1, 170 teenage boys have been screened at YGC. Five tested positive (2.9%). That might sound like a small number, but Michael Baxter, Director of Community Health Programs for Youth, says it’s significant. The Chlamydia rate across the board in California is 407 positive tests per 100,000 people (less than .5%). For now, all youth coming into juvenile hall are tested for STDs and Baxter says the high rate at YGC justifies the reinstated screening mandate.
“When I see two or three percent, I say, ‘okay, we’re doing the right thing,’” he says.
Baxter, whose program provides health services to youth at YGC, believes the decision to stop screening young males last year may have contributed to the recent numbers.
“Yes, it had an impact,” he says. “They (young men) were spreading it and we weren’t screening them.”
Now, outreach workers have less than a year to engage as much of that population as they can. The city’s cultural geography tells a story. Skyrocketing STD rates among young, low-income minorities aren’t merely a measure of sexual behavior; they’re a telling gauge of our determination to address the wellness of kids in all San Francisco communities, and our willingness to allocate resources on a triage basis. Distribution of wealth isn’t really about money—it’s about access and education.
By Deborah L. Cohen
CHICAGO | Wed Jul 7, 2010 3:16pm EDT
CHICAGO (Reuters) – Deb Levine started her online sex education company because she was bored putting condoms on bananas as a way to teach students about safe sex.
What began as a simple Internet sexual Q&A column nearly 20 years ago – Go Ask Alice! – has grown into a nonprofit corporation that disseminates sexual health information via electronic tools such as text messaging and social media.
“It seems like nothing now but it was quite groundbreaking,” said Levine, who created ISIS – an acronym for Internet Sexuality Information Services and homage to the Egyptian fertility goddess of the same name – in 2001 amid a syphilis outbreak in San Francisco. Back then, Levine’s goal was to reach men congregating online in sexual chat rooms.
“What it showed me was this incredible power of the Internet to reach large numbers of people with sensitive information,” said Levine, who was included among PopTech’s 2009 Social Innovation Fellows (www.poptech.org/), a class of roughly 20 cutting-edge thought leaders.
“I became an evangelist,” she said of her passion for using information technology to deliver public health messages.
UNCONVENTIONAL METHODS
Her small but broad-reaching organization, which employs a full-time staff of six, has built a reputation around bringing sexual health and prevention information to teens and young adults using non-preachy methods. Often, that calls for following audiences to the spots where they congregate in cyberspace.
“We spend a lot of time integrating our messages into sites where people already are,” Levine said.
Consider the “SayWhat?” contest ISIS ran earlier this year that challenged youth to present best- and worst-case sexual advice received from adults. The winner’s voice message was transformed into a comic video featuring a cartoon (here) and they were flown to California to attend ISIS’s annual Sex:Tech contest with their parents and visit FunnyorDie producers in Los Angeles.
To help spread the word, ISIS turned to MTV.com, comedian Will Ferrell’s satirical website FunnyorDie.com and SayNow.com, an online service that sends individual voice messages to groups.
“We find partners, usually unconventional partners who want to offer something extra to their audience,” said Levine, who currently works with more than 25 for-profit entities.
The “Say What?” response confirms what many in the world of public health are discovering.
“We know that the IT world is how students are interacting with one another on health information on a variety of topics,” said Paula Staight, director of health promotion at the University of Oregon’s health center in Eugene. “We need to be moving in that direction.”
TRIAL AND ERROR
Among ISIS’s current efforts is the website inSPOT, the first online notification system to inform the sexual partners of those who have contracted sexually transmitted diseases, and Hookup, a weekly information service about sex and related topics delivered via text messaging.
“We basically move from public service messaging on social media platforms to deeper information on the Web and then try to increase access to services to have the one-one-one,” Levine said.
Levine, who is currently trying to raise funds to take ISIS’s free anonymous online sexually transmitted disease testing platform (STDtest.org) national by the end of the year, hopes to double her operating budget of $1.3 million within the next three years. Levine said her revenue comes from diverse sources, including corporate sponsorship, grants, and fees from clients. The latter includes local health departments around the country, for whom ISIS is replicating projects such as the text messaging initiative and public health websites.
“We’re not nimble and laser-focused enough to do some of this stuff,” said Miles Orkin, national director of Web and mobile for the American Cancer Society and an ISIS board member. “ISIS can deliver a kind of refined product that would take a larger NPO or health system a while to get to.”
Through trial and error that included stringent public health evaluation methods, ISIS learned which means of communication were most effective for specific goals. Early on, the group abandoned attempts to foster in-depth one-on-one interaction between at-risk individuals and public health professionals online.
“Because the Internet is an open medium, the best way to use it is to reach large numbers of people,” said Levine, who has also worked extensively with advisors from the private sector on project strategies, including Silicon Valley tech engineers.
“There’s a lot to learn,” she said.
JOB DESCRIPTION — PROGRAM AssiSTANT
Internet Sexuality Information Services, Inc. (ISIS) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to developing and using Internet and mobile technologies for sexual health promotion and disease prevention. Our mission is to provide leadership, innovation, educational resources and research in the field. Our media-acclaimed collaborations include inSPOT, SexINFO, and the annual Sex::Tech conference focusing on youth and technology.
ISIS is a pioneer in using the Internet to provide accurate, easily accessible sexual health information to the public. Our innovative approach extends to our staff as well as our audience: We don’t reinvent the wheel; we use our knowledge and experience to design new programs that are destined for success. Our office is small and working relationships are informal. All team members are expected to be self-directed and collaborative. Communication and quality work are highly prized.
POSITION SUMMARY:
ISIS is seeking a new Program Assistant. This position will provide administrative support for our core programs and services, and for the organization overall. This is an entry-level position with opportunities for growth within the organization as they arise. The Program Assistant is responsible for researching and organizing culturally appropriate content for multiple ISIS projects and diverse communities, and providing operations/logistics support to the programs. The Program Assistant is also the main office support and administrator. The Program Assistant reports to the Deputy Director.
Roles and Responsibilities
- Assist with formative research (focus groups, surveys, etc.) for new projects
· Plan annual conference, including registration, arranging logistics, organizing program content, communicating with speakers and attendees, and managing participant inquiries.
· Act as “Super Site Manager” for the inSPOT portal; collect and input data from clients nationwide to create replications of the Get Checked section of the site; communicate with engineering team about bugs or changes necessary for content management tool.
· Provide support for organizational and project-related social media sites (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc.)
· Conduct background research online and in books, journals, etc. for new projects
· Support staff in assigned project based work as needed.
· Participate in all staff meetings, brainstorming meetings, and continuing education.
· General office duties support: front-line office reception/phones, fax, archive data, proofreading, order office supplies, answer general programmatic inquiries via phone & email, process outgoing & incoming mail, handle delivery/messenger services
· Meet and greet clients and visitors.
· Perform general duties to include but not limited to: photocopying, faxing, mailing, and filing.
· Provide meeting support as needed (e.g., scheduling conference rooms, coordinating food, logistics)
Qualifications:
· Bachelor’s degree in Education, Health, or other Social Science.
· Strong working knowledge of the Internet and mobile technology.
· Comfort with computers, including Word, Excel and Power point, email, and basic html.
· Knowledge and regular use of online social media (Facebook, Twitter, MySpace)
· Ability to handle detailed work accurately and quickly.
· Ability to work independently within established guidelines.
· Organized and flexible individual, able to manage multiple tasks and changing priorities.
· Comfort with sexual health subject matter.
Preferred:
- 1-3 years experience doing program/administrative work.
- Past experience working in the health sector.
Please submit your resume and cover letter with compensation requirements to: jobs@isis-inc.org
No phone calls, faxes, or in-person applications please.
Local candidates only.
ISIS-Inc. is an equal opportunity employer.
Website: www.isis-inc.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 27, 2010
Contact: Deb Levine, MA
Tel: 510-835-9400
Fax: 510-835-9402
Email: deb@isis-inc.org
Send an E-card, Save a Life
ISIS Takes inSPOT E-cards National in Honor of STD Awareness Month
San Francisco, CA, April 27, 2010 - – ISIS, a technology, Internet and mobile leader in the nonprofit sector, is re-launching inSPOT.org as a national service in honor of STD Awareness Month. inSPOT is a media-acclaimed website to help people who are infected with sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) inform their sex partners about testing and treatment options using playful, serious, and humorous e-cards that link to free and low-cost testing services throughout the US.
inSPOT was the first peer-to-peer online STD partner notification tool ever developed. First launched by ISIS in 2004 in response to a local need — a significant rise in syphilis in San Francisco — inSPOT continues to be an innovative way to empower people who are diagnosed with a STD take charge of their own sex lives. inSPOT currently reaches an annual average of 15,000 users in 13 states and 11 cities. With this national expansion, ISIS projects an increase to 150,000 users in 40 states and 25 cities by 2013.
The estimated total number of people living in the US today with a viral STD is 65 million. Every year, there are at least 19 million new cases of STDs, some of which are completely curable. Partner notification plays a significant role in reducing STD rates by finding and treating people who have had contact with an infected person before they can pass the disease onto others. Partner notification is traditionally done by STD clinic staff and public health providers. As more and more health departments face budget cuts and layoffs, it is critical to support the traditional system by using low-cost and high-reach, peer-to-peer technology services like inSPOT.
“We are very excited to expand inSPOT beyond the 24 locations where it formerly existed,” stated Deb Levine, Executive Director and Founder of ISIS, Inc. “inSPOT puts the partner notification tools directly into the hands of the users, increasing access to free and low-cost STD testing and treatment services for those most at-risk for STDs without increasing stress on local, city and state health departments.”
In addition to extensive media acclaim (San Francisco Chronicle, New York Times, Reuters, AP News, International Herald Tribune and others), inSPOT has also won the Drucker Innovation of the Week award. For more information on how inSPOT works, visit www.inspot.org.
Internet Sexuality Information Services, Inc. (ISIS) is a 501(c)3 organization founded in 2001 whose mission is to reduce sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) within high-risk populations in the United States. ISIS uses its unique combination of expertise in web and mobile technologies, knowledge of disease prevention and deep understanding of its target market to develop and deliver accurate, reliable sexual health information and convenient, affordable tools for STD prevention and health promotion. www.isis-inc.org
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April 30, 2010 – 10:37 am
Texting for sexual health advice
April 4, 2010 00:04:00
Megan Ogilvie Health Reporter
You are a teen in Toronto and worried about whether you have a sexually transmitted infection.
You could go online to Google ‘chlamydia,’ but don’t want to risk your parents finding your search history. You are too afraid to call your family doctor. And you don’t think your classmates have got the facts correct.
Toronto Public Health has helped to make the search for reliable sexual health information easier by providing a unique cellphone service that links teens to existing clinics, programs and information phone lines in the city.
The service uses text messaging to quickly connect teens and young adults to resources that can help answer questions about sexual health including, what to do if a condom breaks during sex, how to find out whether a missed period means pregnancy and where to go in Toronto to get free testing for sexually transmitted infections.
“We wanted to ensure the right information was getting out there,” said Michelle Hamilton-Page, a sexual health promoter at Toronto Public Health. “Teens are always texting, and we know from previous research that teens want to get information from their friends. This service puts reliable information into their hands that they can pass on to a friend.”
The text message service — you start by texting 365247 to TOHealth — is another tool in Toronto Public Health’s armament for sexual health education and promotion, said Hamilton-Page. Toronto Public Health has phone lines and web pages dedicated to sexual health, and Planned Parenthood of Toronto has an online chat service for teens. But this is the first service that uses text messaging.
“This is the one gap in our service that we wanted to close up,” said Hamilton-Page, noting teens rarely leave home without a cell phone and consider text messaging private and personal, which means they might be less fearful to use it to find out about sexual health.
Launched in September, the text message service (standard text message rates apply) is targeted to youth between the ages of 12 and 24, and was adopted from San Francisco’s non-profit Internet Sexuality Information Services Inc., which invented the concept. Toronto Public Health is currently the only health unit in Canada to use the service, although Ottawa Public Health is looking into it, said Hamilton-Page.
Bruce Clark, manager of sexual health promotion at Toronto Public Health, said the health unit is hoping the text message service will help reduce rates of chlamydia in Toronto, especially among young people. Chlamydia rates have been on the rise in Toronto, and other large Western cities since 1997. It is currently the most frequently reported sexually transmitted infection in Toronto accounting for 55 per cent of all reported sexually transmitted infections. There were 7,952 reported cases of chlamydia in Toronto in 2009, up from 7,361 reported cases in 2008 and 6,995 reported cases in 2007.
“We want to make youth aware of all STIs, but we certainly are trying to have an impact on chlamydia,” Clarke said. “We want them to be aware of symptoms, how to protect themselves, know when to get counseling.”
Young people, he said, might not know chlamydia can have long-term complications. In women, for example, the infection can cause infertility because of scarring on the fallopian tubes.
Toronto Public Health can tailor the text messaging service to sexual health trends in the city. If, for example, next year sees a rise in gonorrhea among Toronto youth, sexual health promoters can add lines about that particular sexually transmitted infection, Hamilton-Page said.
Toronto Public Health primarily advertises the text message service on Facebook. Between September and December 2009, the only months that data are available, there were 7,100 click-throughs on Facebook — a sign that teens are reading ads — and 176 people used the service.
While those numbers are encouraging, Clarke said he expects more teens to use the service as the word gets out that sexual health information can be found on cell phones. According to their research, even teens from lower socioeconomic background in Toronto have cellphones.
“They may not have money for other things,” Clarke said, “but they prioritize having a cellphone. We needed to get into that realm.”
LaRon Nelson, a registered nurse with an expertise in adolescent health and an assistant professor at the University of Toronto’s Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing, said text messaging is exactly where public health and other agencies need to go to better reach youth, especially since teens are largely negotiating sex with peers online or via cell phone, and not face-to-face.
“It’s increasingly becoming an online world for youth,” he said. “If agencies are not willing to go to the online world, they miss opportunities to intervene in young people’s sexual health.
“There is room for more agencies to use these types of technologies.”
Teen Sex Education Conference To Focus On Tech
Teen health educators, techies and disease prevention advocates from across the country will be in San Francisco Friday and Saturday for a conference on using social media and other technology to educate teens about safe sex and disease prevention.
This is the third annual Sex::Tech Conference put on by Internet Sexuality Information Services Inc., an Oakland-based non-profit that helps use text messages, smart phone applications and even Flickr to promote sexual health and prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.
Youth and teens are renowned early adopters of technology and social networking programs, according to Margaret Lucas, a youth marketing manager at ISIS, Inc. And research makes it quite clear that these channels are a highly effective way to reach this demographic.
“We found that it’s easier to adapt to the technology that they’re already using rather than try to drag them to a new platform,” she said.
Organizers expect about 500 people to attend this year. In addition to health-oriented attendees, Lucas said people who develop applications or manage social networks like Facebook or Twitter also benefit from the panels, discussions and other events.
“Sex::Tech was kind of inspired by the knowledge that the Internet is a great place to talk about sexual health without feeling shameful,” Lucas said.
For government agencies, clinics and other groups that work to improve public health on a limited budget, technology is “an efficient and inexpensive way to reach people,” Lucas said.
The conference includes panels on topics like reaching urban youth, driving traffic to blogs and using text messages to increase testing for STDs.
The conference also sponsors a contest each year, harnessing interactive technology for this year’s program. The Say What?!?!?! Contest invited youth 15 to 21 years old to call a digital phone line and share the craziest sex advice they ever received from an adult.
The winner is in Los Angeles creating a video version with viral video virtuosos Funny or Die, Lucas said. It will debut at the conference.
In keeping with the conference’s highly technical leanings, audio files of the winner and runner up are on the conference’s Web site, www.sextech.org.
ISIS’ Sex::Tech Conference will be held at the JW Marriott hotel, 500 Post St.
(© CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Bay City News contributed to this report.)
March 17, 2010 – 10:31 am
 Geoff Livingston co-founded Zoetica to focus on cause-related work, and released an award-winning book on new media Now is Gone in 2007.
Addressing the very private nature of intimacy remains the most difficult aspect of sex-ed on the social web. While “Public Health 2.0″ is a top priority for related causes and organizations, it can be difficult to approach from a social media standpoint. Because it’s the most private and sensitive of issues, many people are embarrassed or offended by conversations about sex.
However, many organizations, from mass media outlets to cause-specific efforts, are still attempting to use social tools to address reproductive health issues. The difficulty in running a successful effort lies in navigating the troubled waters between an individual’s right to privacy and the public need for sex education online.
Finding the Balance Between Public Education and Privacy
A very provocative effort may raise some eyebrows, but at the same time fail to generate conversation. The issue may be too sensitive for most — except for a minority of outgoing, extroverted online citizens.
For example, Sex Really discusses violence towards women in dating situations. Sex Really takes the initiative on pointing out tough topics and assumes conversation will occur offline, though some folks do choose to interact with the Sex Really team online. The effort uses a variety of media from its own site, as well as a Twitter account.
The site takes a rightful strong stances against violence towards women, yet the public conversational results vary. That doesn’t mean the effort isn’t successful in educating readers.
“This campaign has made effective use of social content, messaging related to social behavior change, and content aggregation,” said Beth Kanter, author of the popular Beth’s Blog. “It’s hard to tell why there isn’t more conversation on the site from the target group (e.g. comments on the podcast posts) — they do have an active Twitter ( ) stream. They also have a link to [Planned Parenthood] where [users] can get private information or connect with a health counselor for advice.”
 Another example of an open site that gets some decent participation (but still less than similar non sex-ed campaigns) is MTV’s GYT (Get Yourself Tested). Because the effort is tied into the popular TV show 16 and Pregnant, there are a lot of eyeballs landing there.
Integrating traditional media into a social web campaign is one way to incite conversations about getting tested for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). While educating themselves, participants not only sound off, but in some cases could win an opportunity to appear on the cable network — a great motivator to get people talking. There’s a GYT Facebook Group with 2,500 fans (which is comparatively low, considering other teen-oriented Pages get tens of thousands), and some decent online conversation.
Clearly, though, openness can actually act as a barrier to communication for such a sensitive issue.
Full disclosure: Beth is a business partner of mine.
Privacy Protections Can Drive More Participation
One organization committed to the sex ed space is ISIS, Inc., a non-profit organization based in Oakland, CA. They have had two very successful efforts: The Say What Contest and the inSpot notification service. ISIS efforts use technology to provide privacy guarantees first, then encourage the social conversation. By putting privacy at the forefront of what they do, ISIS is able to boost participation.
The Say What Contest uses incentives to get youth and young adults to talk. Specifically, the contest asked teens and twenty-somethings what the worst advice they got from their parents was. The goal was to highlight misnomers passed on from generation to generation. User stories are posted in podcast format.
“Youth used their own cell phones or landlines to call a private digital phone number and tell their stories,” said Deb Levine, Executive Director and Founder of ISIS. “Entrants’ phone numbers were stored in a data file that was password-protected and only available to contest sponsors in order to contact contest winners. We used a moderation feature for the widget such that we only included entrants who did not state their full name or location. No phone numbers were associated publicly with entries selected to be included in the widget.”
“The Say What campaign was a compelling contest that focused on the gold mine of good and bad sex advice teens have heard,” said Scotty Hendo, principal at CauseShift. “I liked how they used the telephone to capture stories directly from the teens. Plus, creating a widget helped spread the word and offer more people the chance to listen and rank contestants … [T]he campaign was a creative way to get teens to critically question what they’ve been told by their peers and adults.”
ISIS’s other project deals with an even greater social taboo. Many people experience great shame in finding out they have contracted an STD, and don’t want to admit it to their past and present partners. In an effort to stop the spread of STDs, the inSPOT network allows users to sign on to a private local community and send an anonymous e-Card to partners from a “concerned friend.”
“80% of senders choose to send their e-mails anonymously, and 80% of senders also choose to include a personal message,” said Levine. “The site has no backend database to collect information on sender e-mail addresses, recipient e-mail addresses, or personal messages. Currently, most users of inSPOT are using dynamic IP addresses which cannot be traced back to their computers or computer networks. We also use CAPTCHA to discourage spammers and bots from sending out multiple cards.”
The “Share it if You Like it” Approach
 Making traditional media sharable on the web is another approach. While this strategy doesn’t break much ground in terms of social media, it hinges on creating content compelling enough that people will want to share it on their own networks using a service like AddThis ( ) or ShareThis.
Consider the original and critically acclaimed PBS TV program The Education of Shelby Knox, which discusses abstinence versus sex education in the deep South. The website assumes you will want to sound off about the show positively or negatively (and thus sex education) on your own social networks using the ShareThis service, or even go so far as to plan an event in your neighborhood.
“In terms of using a video with someone like Shelby, I do think it makes it much easier for people to discuss the issues because it’s not about ‘their kid’ — because no parent wants to believe their kid would be the one having sex in the school bathroom or whatever,” said Kivi Leroux Miller, president of Nonprofit Marketing Guide.com. “Making the conversation about Shelby and her friends allows people to share their opinions, fears, etc., while giving them some cover, since it’s not about them personally.”
Whether or not that cover translates into real social media discussion of sex education is another story. However, the site is still getting comments years after the show’s original air date.
 Ashoka Sex::Tech … You heard it right…
Submitted by Dave Foster on January 7, 2010 – 5:55pm.
Sex::Tech is an upcoming conference dedicated to technology and sexual health, this February 26-27 in San Francisco, CA.
That’s what you thought it was going to be about, right? So the title earns it a little extra buzz—that’s a great thing for something as important as sexual health.
From the Sex::Tech website:
“The Internet and mobile technologies have strengthened youth networks, provided new avenues for expression, and increased youth access to tools and information designed to improve their sexual health. Sex::Tech explores available tools and methods for reaching youth with culturally appropriate STD/HIV prevention and sex education interventions. Technology developers, accidental techies, educators, researchers, youth, public health professionals, activists are all welcome. It’s time to show what you know and learn something new. Join us!”
Sounds like an excellent opportunity to learn about and share the latest developments and uses of technology in promoting sexual health, reaching audiences, educating youth and others, and making resources accessible. Even if sexual health’s not your focus, you might be able to learn about how to apply the same successful technologies and methods to your work too.
Early Bird registration is still available for a limited time. The conference is hosted by ISIS Inc. and looks like it’s got a pretty exciting lineup of events, presenters, panelists and sponsors.
If you’re in the San Francisco area or can get there at the end of Februrary, check it out
January 8, 2010 – 10:53 am
From the Laptop of the Executive Director
As the first week of 2010 draws to a close, it’s bittersweet to reflect on the year behind us and the future ahead.
The entire ISIS team is currently immersed in getting ready for Sex::Tech 2010 in San Francisco on February 26th-27th. If you haven’t seen the program yet, it’s up at www.sextech.org. We are proud to have sponsors such as the National Institutes of Mental Health and the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancies.
As a lead-up to the conference, we are partnering with MTV, Funny or Die! and SayNow to host another awesome contest – that includes a premiere video created by Funny or Die! on the first day of Sex::Tech. Keep your eyes on www.SayWhatContest.org, launching January 18th.
ISIS staff were rockstars in 2009, speaking at national conferences such as CDC HIV Prevention, CDC Health Communications, and the National Coalition of STD Directors. I personally had opportunity to go to the White House, visit with President Obama’s new CIO Vivek Kundra in San Francisco, and spend two weeks in Maine as a Pop!Tech Social Innovations Fellow. I also went to China for two weeks as a guest of the Chinese Government and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to train NGOs and government workers in effective use of the Internet and mobile technology in HIV prevention efforts.
We are finishing up our Taproot Foundation grant, with two environmental scans and a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) under our belt. The awesome Taproot team has helped to provide direction for ISIS’ continued growth and expansion in 2010.
As an outgrowth of our work with Taproot, Sheoran and I submitted a draft business plan to the Social Impact Exchange for their competition to take successful innovation to scale. [The Social Impact Exchange is part of the Growth Philanthropy Network.] Wish us luck! We will find out on February 15th whether we’re invited to the next stage.
This letter wouldn’t be complete without an acknowledgement that we are losing one of our long-time staff members, Andrew Woodruff, who has given notice in order to take his career in a new direction. Andy started at ISIS three and a half years ago as a Public Health Associate and has grown to be a Program Manager with purpose. Andy has been responsible for developing many of our successful relationships with health departments across the nation, and we will miss his mellow manor and love of Lemon Drops, and his many contributions to the ISIS team. Please join me in wishing Andy the best in his new endeavors.
That’s all for now. See you in February at Sex::Tech.
Best, Deb
January 8, 2010 – 10:41 am
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