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Jim Cowen

Photo of Jim Cowen

Senior Vice President
Washington DC
Posts: 5

Jim brings more than 16 years of experience in outreach and marketing, media relations, and strategic communications, coupled with knowledge of the Homeland Security, government exercises, and U.S. defense landscape. He currently co-manages Ogilvy’s Emergency Risk Communication team where clients include FEMA’s FloodSmart campaign, FEMA’s National Exercise Division, and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Jim was Senior Vice President at Sightline Marketing where he led the client services team in creating awareness through media promotion, online outreach, and partnership development. For four years Jim was Director of Communications at DeticaDFI where he oversaw internal and external measures to promote and advance the company and its products, including Lessons Learned Information Sharing (LLIS.gov) – a network of best practices and lessons learned for first responders, emergency management, and security professionals. He also led the outreach campaign for TRIPwire, DHS’s online technical resource for Improvised Explosive Device (IED) prevention, through a series of training sessions, media events, and other outreach activities that collectively formed a National Bombing Prevention and Awareness Campaign.

Jim served 10 years of active duty as an officer in the United States Navy where his assignments included Deputy Public Affairs Officer for the Chief of Naval Operations and Congressional Director for the Secretary of the Navy. Prior to these assignments, he was Fire Control Officer onboard the guided missile destroyer USS STOUT (DDG 55).

Jim is a graduate of Marquette University and holds a Masters in Public Policy from Georgetown University. He also completed Oxford University’s International Management Graduate Business Program.

Social Media in Disaster Preparedness and Response

Jul 05

Category: Best Practices, Emergency + Risk Communication, Ogilvy Washington, Public Safety

If you’ve ever doubted how wired and connected we’ve become, take a look at the faces of people around you as a flight attendant announces that all portable devices must be turned off prior to takeoff.  It’s a scurry to check e-mail or Facebook just one last time.   And as that plane touches down, it’s a similar response—a mass reach for the mobile device to see what may have transpired while we were unplugged for the last 90 minutes.

We communicate online.  For many people, the first they will learn or hear of an important news event or incident is through their computer or mobile device.

Those in the emergency preparedness and response community—from elected officials and non-profits to the media and the military—are realizing that social media has the power to transform the way emergency communications and operations are managed before, during and after the event.

On June 26th, I had the pleasure of moderating a discussion at Ogilvy Washington—along with partners Defense Daily and Northrop Grumman—on the Expanding Use of Social Media in Disaster Preparedness and Response.  Our panel included Delaware Governor Jack Markell, Suzy DeFrancis (Chief Public Affairs Officer at the American Red Cross), Jason Samenow (Chief Meteorologist and Founder of the Washington Post’s “Capital Weather Gang”), and Lt. Cmdr. Chris Servello (Director, Navy Newsdesk, U.S. Navy).

Each of these individuals brought a very unique perspective of what it means to communicate online in the face of an unfolding emergency or disaster response scenario.  They were extremely frank in sharing what worked well, where they need to improve, and how they are learning to weave social media into their organizations’ operations.

I invite you to watch the highlights video from the event below.

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Ride or be ridden.

May 31

Category: Ogilvy Washington

Control diabetes or let it control you.  That’s a rallying cry for the “Red Riders” who cope with Type I and Type II diabetes and will be participating in the American Diabetes Association’s “Tour de Cure” this weekend on June 3rd.

The group knows all too well the importance of exercise and staying in shape when dealing with this potentially deadly condition. They’re taking to the roads in Virginia with 1,500 other riders –including an Ogilvy Team!—to generate funding for diabetes research, advocacy, and information programs.

Last week, the news on diabetes could not have been more stunning.  A report published in the journal Pediatrics indicated that, in less than a decade, the numbers testing positive for diabetes or pre-diabetes jumped from nine percent to 23 percent of American teens. That’s nearly one in four.

The risks from diabetes are huge—kidney failure, vision loss, amputation, stroke, heart attack, and nerve damage.  It’s a heavy prospect for a person at any age.  But it’s particularly frightening to consider what such a large number of youth are facing so early in their lives.

The situation is one more resounding alarm for embracing a healthy lifestyle.  As a parent, it’s a reminder for me to be a good example to my kids; to get them to eat a vegetable by doing so myself; to lead from the front by dropping the bag of chips and jumping on the bike. Just like those Red Riders.

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Proceed Until Apprehended

Oct 13

Category: Ogilvy Washington, Social Media

“Proceed until apprehended,”  the rallying principle for social media experimentation & execution shared by Brandon Friedman, Director of Online Communications for the Department of Veterans Affairs captured the pioneering spirit of all of the panelists from the  October 6th Ogilvy Exchange: Can the Department of Defense realize the full power of  social media? The experienced panel of practitioners – rounded out by Jack Holt, former Senior Strategist for emerging Media at the Department of Defense, and Lieutenant Commander Chris Servello, Director of Emerging Media for the US Navy’s Chief of Information – shared very practical tales from the trenches for applying social media to some of the government and DoD’s most difficult communications challenges.

Lessons & Links
Social greatness comes from the inside out – Jack Holt shared a number of helpful lessons, but thematically returned multiple times to something often overlooked – it is critical to embrace the principles of better interaction and connection internally before the promise of social media engagement with external constituents can be fully realized.

Even small engagements are important.  If you visit the Department of Veterans Affairs remarkable Facebook page, you will see 1×1 questions and customer service being addressed in a very “public” forum.   Take a read through the discussions and see if that changes your impressions of the Department.

There is power in speaking directly to your audiences – Last week, LCDR Servello’s group at Navy released a YouTube video of the new F-35 fighter landing on the USS Wasp. This brief video clip has racked up a remarkable 200k+ view on YouTube in a week of release with no traditional media aircover – overwhelming evidence that there is an audience for the stories the Navy has to tell. Social media empowers them to speak directly to their audience in the same venue where they can carry the story forward to their networks. Read the rest of this entry »

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Can the Department of Defense realize the full power of social media?

Oct 05

Category: Ogilvy Washington, Social Media

Nielsen reported recently that social networks and blogsites now account for more than 22 percent of Americans’ time spent online, more than twice than that of online gaming.  To put that in perspective, Nielsen lists 75 categories as “other,” which combined accounts for only 35 percent of Americans’ time online. Read the full report here: http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/social.

The enormous communications power of this medium is indisputable.  So what does this mean for an organization like Department of Defense (DoD) and the individual military services?

Clearly social networking provides enormous potential for increasing awareness of the military’s core activities, for recruiting, for informing Servicemembers, Veterans, and the general public quickly and efficiently on benefits, programs, and services.  But there are obvious downsides as well.  How transparent can or should DoD be?  Where do you draw the line between security requirements and the desire for Servicemembers to be active online ambassadors?  Is this a matter of education, technology, or some combination?

Ogilvy is excited to host a panel of social media experts from the Department of Defense and Department of Veterans Affairs to discuss this topic.  You can watch it live via our Facebook page starting at 9:00 am on Thursday, October 6.

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Psychology of the Countdown

Jun 22

Category: Best Practices, Emergency + Risk Communication, Social Marketing

My four year old is as busy, distracted, and rambunctious as any.  So I’m not totally surprised that calling her with, “Sam, time for dinner” doesn’t always spur immediate action.

But I mixed it up a bit recently. “You’ve got ten seconds to get to the table…10, 9, 8, 7…”

That actually worked.  I’m not sure she understood why, but those numbers ticking down to some unknown—and likely unfavorable—consequence made her move.

Suddenly I noticed the countdowns all around me.

- The television trailer promising “only four more episodes until the incredible season finale!”

- The blinking red hand in the crosswalk warning that cars will barrel through those white lines in a matter of seconds.

- The advertisement cautioning “the sale is over on Thursday and I just can’t afford to miss it.”

They’re everywhere, competing for attention, flashing and using words like “only” and “miss out” to warn about the penalties of inaction.

German movie director Fritz Lang is credited with the first use of a countdown when, in his 1929 science fiction thriller, Woman in the Moon (Die Frau im Mond),  he uses a ten-second sequence to increase the drama surrounding the story’s lunar rocket launch.  Even by today’s high-tech Hollywood standards, his depiction is pretty impressive.

Could Fritz have imagined that countdowns would become so prolific and so commercial?  Bored.com offers visitors the ability to create a web-based countdown clock for anything; a party, the removal of a cast, a vacation trip.  My personal favorite?  Someone’s countdown to kissing the most beautiful girl in the world. Nice.

At the core of social marketing is the imperative to provide solutions that improve and even save lives; to inform, raise awareness, educate, and act.  In this space, we have found that countdowns make excellent tools for moving people from unawareness and disinterest to preparedness and safer, more responsible behavior.

Consider hurricane preparedness, a perfect countdown issue.  Although the Atlantic Hurricane Season recently started on June 1st, many of the best preparedness steps should have started well before then; purchasing supplies, researching evacuation routes, making a family plan, obtaining or renewing flood insurance.   Some of those steps have very specific time requirements.  A flood insurance policy, for instance, requires a mandatory thirty-day waiting period so you can’t just purchase one when a storm is imminent. If you start looking into it June 1st, you’re already behind the curve.

As we encourage communities and individuals to prepare, we can step back from the start of hurricane season and use the psychology of the countdown to move people to action.  In support of the National Flood Insurance Program we put that very principal to work in 2009 by building a shareable online clock that counted down to the start of the hurricane season, offered important rotating flood safety messages, and drove people to a dedicated hurricane season landing page for more information on how to protect themselves with a policy.  It aligned the historical dangers of hurricanes with the reality of the approaching season and the urgency of appropriate actions.

How can you apply the benefits of a countdown—that sense of urgency and consequence—to other important social and emergency risk issues?  Smoking cessation?  Cancer awareness?  Safe driving?  Think about your own programs and determine where valid countdowns exist naturally and can be used to motivate audiences.

Hurry, I’m counting.

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