The Revealed

Category: About the project, Activities of The Revealed | Date: Nov 09 2009 | By: therevealed

Brief guide for those undecided whether to engage in social networking

Miroslav Bobek

When Facebook (FB) changed its main page again some time ago, it was another change to the worse. It is getting on the verge of the tolerable to be constantly fed with information about someone’s results of quizzes, such as “Are you submissive or dominant in sex?”, especially with graphic representation of the results as the fuel indicator in the car (full tank in this particular case), coupled with a regular dose of hearts and beers people keep flooding you with.

FB is based on sharing of brief texts, links, photos, short videos, as well as aforementioned funny and “funny” applications. Unfortunately, there is an apparent drift towards superficiality fostered by Facebook owners and their redesigns of the main page. This trend may eventually drive many of us away. For the time being, though, it is worth staying on board. Let me explain using the development of the Revealed’s profile on FB at www.facebook.com/odhaleni.

► FB has revealed who our fans are. Obviously, it is a limited view but certainly more representative than information we can gather from chats and discussions on our website or from more or less accidental personal encounters.

► FB has brought us new supporters and helped increase awareness of our project in general through precisely targeted advertising we invested in. Btw, it was the very first time that I considered spending money on online advertising not just as appropriate but as a very good investment.

► FB allows us to offer bits of content that we would not post on our official website (the less broadcast on the airwaves) but that are worth sharing. For instance, our Cameroonian colleague sent us an image of himself sitting in the TV studio and talking about our joint project. FB is the place to post it. And when we post footage of Czech superstar Lucie Bila recording gorilla fairy tales in the studio, success is guaranteed. Having her on FB brings us new fans and increases awareness of our project.

► FB helps us know what our audience is interested in. Most in demand are images of cute baby gorillas or other animals, and celebrities. This is good to know and explore – but not to let it drive your efforts!

► FB facilitates direct communication with our fans – we ask them individually or en masse about things we would like to know, for instance when to end an online charitable auction. What time they will be able and willing to take part in the final bidding?

► When we started consulting our planned steps with the fans, we inevitably also started to establish closer personal relations with them, and many of them have become our FB friends. This may be inspiring but also time-consuming… In general, FB offers a fundamental opportunity to get in touch with those who work on similar projects do something we might be interested in. Despite the changes in FB and its drift towards superficiality, our fans and FB friends keep sending us a constant flow of relevant information we would otherwise have to laboriously search for – which we almost certainly wouldn’t. (Hello, Paul Kahumba :-)

► Our FB fans are happy to provide their own content for our purposes. They mainly upload photos and videos – and when we announced a photo competition, they submitted loads of amazing images. We asked for hi-res versions of the best entries and made large prints for an auction.

► Some fans have started supporting us by sharing our announcements, such as that about the so-called donor sms messages on behalf of our project. Some of the users included information about the sms donations permanently in the footer of their e-mails to disseminate it among their contacts.

► Many fans have answered our call and sent a donor sms or bought something from our shop to support our activities. However, we have had a rather negative experience with addressing people directly with an offer to buy our merchandise. Sale over FB does not work for us and rather discourages our fans.

► Yet I see the Revealed’s FB profile as more important than the official website. The website carries more extensive materials, but these could be located anywhere because we always notify of them on FB anyway. This may be a rather extreme attitude stemming from the fact that FB is relatively new and from the great amount of time I devote to it. On the other hand, it is undeniable that the world wide web is changing. I fear umbrella projects like WildlifeDirect will soon be marginalized by FB, unless they reposition themselves. because everyone can now compile their own alternative to WildlifeDirect in FB or other social networking environment.

To sum up: An FB profile is worth having, primarily because of the valuable feedback you are getting. It may well happen that the feedback will cause you to start doubting what you are doing. You may as well end up producing tabloidish content. Most likely, though, the interest your content will generate and comments and information from users will encourage and inspire you. You may even raise some funds or at least spark greater interest in your project. In the first place, though, you will be riding the wave of “new” internet and “new” media – and gearing for the future which will be marked by yet more social networking and personalised content. However, it requires you to devote a substantial amount of time to FB every day and think about the message you are sending out and messages others are sending to you. And you will have to face an ever increasing number of sex activity gauges, hearts, and beers. So, think twice before joining…

PS: Things may change soon. Google Wave is coming (wave.google.com)…

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Category: About the project, Activities of The Revealed, Book of gorilla fairy-tales, CD with gorilla stories | Date: Oct 31 2009 | By: therevealed

Hi everyone,

We have not written quite a long time, because we had a full plate of our project in the Czech republic. We organized a lot of partial activities which help us to support gorillas in wild, for example exhibition of photos called Phenomenon The Revealed. This exhibition travels around the whole Czech Republic and it reached even Moscow in Russia!

In cooperation with Czech Radio we recorded and produced a CD with Gorilla Fairy Tales. The main protagonist of fairy tales is one of the most famoust czech celebrities – singer Lucie Bílá. Since you have read the last comment we have also prepared the book of Gorilla Fairy Tales for commercial sell. We get also the offer to make russian edition of these fairy tales. We will write details about all these activities soon, do not worry! :-)

Furthermore we have worked on our own Facebook page (you can look here), we have joined the donation sms called DMS. People from the Czech Republic could send sms in a value of 30 Kc (=approximately little bit more than 1 Euro). 27 Kc from each DMS is intended for gorilla conservation. And at last we have prepared an auction of our photos and one oil painting of gorillas (btw. this painting is gonna be the cover page of the forementioned CD). People in the Czech Republic could join the auction till this Friday and suggest as much money as they want to pay for the production. You can have a look on the process of the auction here.

Everything what we gain from these activities is intended to western lowland gorilla´s conservation in central Africa. Our immediate purpose is to publish Gorilla Stories Book and other educational material focused on conservation for children and distribute it in Congo-Brazzaville. Other aim is to support Ecogaurds protecting the Reservation Dja in Cameroon agains poachers. They need the basic equipment – shoes, tents and so on.

So as you see, we have had “full hands of work”… But now, we are back and we will continue to keep you posted! :-)

Your Jana and Miroslav - The Revealed Team!

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Category: About the project, Activities of The Revealed, Book of gorilla fairy-tales, CD with gorilla stories, Cameroon | Date: Jun 04 2009 | By: therevealed

Miroslav Bobek, 4 June 2009

“She’s playing the young quite well! And the peacock, too…” producer Honza Jiran noted when choosing an actor for the French rendition of the gorilla fairy tales among 10 short-listed native speakers with more or less extensive acting experience. He eventually selected the one who interpreted the young and the peacock so nicely - Mélanie Ruppe.

After the success of the gorilla story book among schoolchildren in Cameroon (see Related Links in the category Book of gorilla fairy-tales) we decided to record a French rendition of the same as another way of helping children in Africa realise that gorillas deserve protection and that they, too, can help. (We should note that many people in Central Africa continue to perceive wild animals, including gorillas, as nothing more but a source of meat… I remember how surprise children in a forest village were to find out when browsing our book that a gorilla can have a name just like a human.)

We prepare a publication of the book of Gorilla Stories for Congo. Without public subvention we can not develope this idea further. We would be glad if you contribute to achieve these efforts.

• The Revealed charitable account finances protection of western lowland gorillas and educational activities in al countries where this subspecies of gorilla lives in the wild. To support the cause, you can send your donation to 555 555 552/0800, IBAN: CZ35 0800 0000 0005 5555 5552 or donate through wildlifedirect.

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Category: About the project, Activities of The Revealed, Central African Republic, Gorillas in wild | Date: May 21 2009 | By: therevealed

M. Bobek, J. Jirátová, P. Hanzelková, 21 May 2009

Three years we observed gorillas in Prague Zoo. We wanted to present their stories so that people identify with them and understand how important is to help conservation of gorillas in wild. Like this we get to Africa. Within the project The Revealed we try to bring informations about african wildlife and its conservation but also raise funds for that purposes (as I wrote below, we published the Gorilla stories book, we supported educational project in villages north of Dja and now we would like to equip the ecoquards in Djoum).

During our trip to Africa we made a lot of  interviews with people who work in field and here is one of them… An interview with primatologist Daniela Hedwig.

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Category: About the project, Activities of The Revealed, Book of gorilla fairy-tales, CD with gorilla stories, Cameroon | Date: Apr 08 2009 | By: therevealed

Miroslav Bobek, 27 March 2009

When visiting Cameroon in the spring of 2006 we realised that the best way to protect gorillas is to show the locals their beauty and intelligence. And when we published the first book of “gorilla” fairy tales, a little later in the Czech Republic, in which Moja naturally is the heroine, we weren’t far off from the idea to modify this book for African conditions and to distribute it at local schools.

Our goal was fulfilled last year in cooperation with the Limbe Wildlife Centre and eventually with a number of other organisations and individuals. Two thousand copies of the book were printed in French and two thousand copies in English reached Cameroon in November and were distributed free of charge during the first few weeks of this year (more in the article by Jana Jirátové here). The books were distributed by nature conservationists not only by vehicles, but also on motorcycles in rainforest regions…

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Category: About the project | Date: Apr 01 2009 | By: therevealed

At the end of 2005, beginning of 2006 we prepared an unusual reality show on Czech Radio. We called it Odhaleni “The Revealed”www.rozhlas.cz/therevealed and created it as a reaction to the boom container type reality shows like Big Brother or VyVoleni (The Chosen). There were also “competitors” locked up in a “villa” n our “somewhat different reality show”. However, it concerned a family of western lowland gorillas in the Prague Zoo.

Richard, Shinda, Kijivu, Moja and later on Kamba as well were monitored by several cameras non-stop. Apart from live internet transmission and other internet releases and broadcast transmission, a television cut was prepared daily of the happenings in the “villa” and public voting was conducted, based on which the reality show winner was later announced (the winner won 12 melons).

However, the goal of the project was far from just being about taking a peek inside using a popular television format. The main intent was to confront the behaviour of gorillas with the behaviour of human beings. Another goal was to bring relevant information on apes and to contribute to their protection. We also managed to unexpectedly gain highly valuable material for scientific research.

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