Rahaf Harfoush
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Digital Broken Telephone Pt 2: I’m an “Intern-Turned Mastermind”
February 24th, 2009
It has certainly been interesting times on the Foush! Last week I wrote about Digital Broken Telephone: I’m THE Obama Strategist, and how it was important to make sure that you are transparent and honest in dealing with misrepresentations online, especially when they big you up. This week, the pendulum swung the other way, and someone tried to tear me down.
The New Republic’s blog, The Plank, wrote a piece about me entitled “The Foush and The Furious” also titled “Meet The Most Shamelessly Self-Promoting Former Obama Volunteer”, by Amanda Silverman.
Awesome. My favorite part is when I’m called an “intern-turned-mastermind,” I am debating putting that on my business cards. 
Dealing With It
Anyway, I sent the Editor of the blog an email correcting the assumption that I acquired these opportunities based solely on my conniving ability to deceive people into thinking that I was the brain trust behind the campaign. (These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.)
When my new site it up, it will include a comprehensive list of my previous projects, speaking engagements and book contributions for those interested. For newbies to my site, I have been in this space since 2006. I have contributed to three business books (Wikinomics, Grown Up Digital and Everything I Needed to Know About Business I Learned From a Canadian) and have been speaking about technology and New Media since 2007.
Broken Telephone
In the meantime, for your enjoyment, check out what happened when the story was picked up by the Economist Blog in a post titled Cashing in on Barack. While they got my name wrong (maybe I should have been happy with THE strategist) they didn’t seem to think it was a big deal:
That makes sense—why should one staffer turn her story into profit while the rest of the young volunteers in her position are waiting to hear if they’ve scored a low-level job in the administration? Yet Ms Harfoush is far from the most calculated profiteer of the Barack Obama myth. If you pass on an exclusive speech from Ms Harfoush, look what you can get.
• Barack Obama: Son of Promise, Child of Hope, a children’s book published before the election that tells the then-senator’s life story and is consistently one of the best sellers in its reading level on Amazon.com.
• The “presidential vault”, a collection of campaign trail knicknacks and some of the new president’s speeches.
• Issue #583 of the Amazing Spider-Man, a special edition of the comic book in which the super-hero prevents an impostor from taking the oath of office. It’s in its fifth printing.
• Barack, Inc., a quickie business manual that encourgaes capitalists to apply the lessons of Mr Obama’s campaign to their companies.
So why don’t other members of Mr Obama’s campaign start cashing in? The window is closing, and it’s not like their options are expanding from month to month.
I have to admit, at first I was taken aback by the nasty tone of The New Republic article, and then I realized that there are always going to be people out there who will take pleasure in writing things like this. So, calmly respond to what you can, laugh about the rest and see the silver lining- a bunch of new twitter followers and increased blog traffic.
Dogs bark. The caravan passes!
There will always be people who try to bring you down a peg Rahaf - don’t listen to them and remember: any press is good press (or so they say).
Cheers,
Erin
Wait.
So you DON’T eat babies to stay so clever?
I could have sworn I read that…
I think yer website ’sploded.
Oh….wait, that’s the new design
Wow, this is really amazing.
I think you are a star. I regularly encourage young people to work for free, in order to use their experience to promote themselves.
In the UK, in the creative industries, this is how everyone starts out, doing the smallest of jobs (such as making the tea) in order to get the most mileage out of it as possible.
It shows that you are a skilled promoter, and you believe in what you do, and you want to share it with others.
Sometimes its good to ruffle a few feathers, and the only thing worse than being talked about is NOT being talked about.
When you work for free, the ONLY payment you can receive is recognition, and it sounds like you just got a bonus!
keep up the hard work.
I think you have dealt with all of this “broken telephone” stuff in the utmost professional and transparent manner-and constructively too. A sad side-effect of the eruption of citizen journalism is that it has led to a decline in professional journalistic process and the rumour mill becomes reported “fact” in 30 secs. Traditional journalists too have become less inclined to check facts and jump on the bandwagon without depth of research and we have seen reputations and businesses ruined through false reporting and social media slander.
Best wishes for your exciting new role and I look forward to inviting you to Australia for our AMPLIFY Innovation Festival in Sydney when you are not so busy moving countries!