September 2006 Archive

Just surfing the blogosphere - and caught two posts: one at Simon Says discussing a new article talking about the Tories (the Conservatives) getting ready to launch a Social Networking Site to
“allow users to engage with - and help develop -Tory policies on issues such as poverty, climate change and volunteering.”. The second, by David Wilcox, talks about the
potential for another “digital divide“:

This does, of course, raise yet another form of the digital divide. If social networking is a sphere of influence those with networking skills may become disproportionately influential. Of course, it was always thus … just the nature of the clubs is changing.

David brings up the need for the connection between offline and online - which is always the challenge about any networking or organizational development. Sticking in one medium will limit the pool of involvement - better to extend across the space and find involvement tactics that involve and incorporate in multiple ways.

Back when BBSes were the vogue thing - there was the Rising Sun where I used to socialize on a very small Apple II+ whih had an Apple Cat modem. The best thing about the community was not the 300 baud speed printing of the content on the screen, but the monthly breakfasts with other members of the BBS cemented the relationships between us. It is the reinforcement of the interactions that will help politics develop the online outreach beyond the assumed myopic view of online community members.

Funny thing, 100M+ MySpace members, close to 1M SecondLifers and the explosion of social networking sites is a ripe space to grow involvement. I think that the Tories action, while interesting, is again trying to create another space that they control. Better to go where the voters are (like, say, SoFlow or A Small World) and build from within, rather than from the outside. Use the community within and develop the community - and then grow the space for the community to be involved in. Do you need features that are not already available in the sites today? And if they are not there, could you find ways of meeting the needs without software development (like a forum or a mailing list)? Give it some thought and see what can happen.

Tags: English eCampaigning, political social networking, Tories

One of my business partners, Rana Sarkar, is the founder of the Progressive North Forum in Canada and is preparing a conference in Toronto on October 20th with a question - “What’s the Party For?” It is an interesting question - in this age of “distributed democracy”.

One of the challenges that European parties (I am leveraging my experiences from England, mainly) is that they have difficulty because of the structure of their party. These parties are primarily membership driven - similar to other membership organizations, you pay membership dues to become a card-carrying member. But in today’s world, where many people revel in the freedom of choice and wish to express their independence, how does a party attract new members, and not simply churn the ever smaller group of people, over and over again?

IMHO, I do not think the party is a dead, I think that parties takes a lot longer to evolve into a mechanism that can support the fast-paced, fickle nature of the electorate today. Empowered with inexpensive technology, an ability to create content at a whim, and express themselves across a wide audience - individuals are finding their voice, without the need of the party. But, as human beings, we often require some form of organization to show our allegiance to - to share in our goals and values. This is one of the many reasons for parties.

So, let us consider that parties do today. From my experiences, parties:

• Act as institutional memory - which is both good (learning from previous mistakes) and bad (keepers of conventional wisdom). By being “king-makers” and having a formulaic process, they tend to assure that everything has the same flavour, and interesting entries are appreciated, entertaining but also eventually discarded from the main body before the final decision is made.
• Act as the gatekeeper for fundraising - in most state parties, the party seems to be the aggregator of the large donors and most networked individuals, providing learned guidance to the party faithful on whom to contribute to. It is here where the party wisdom often is seen to bestow the mantle of succession on the appropriate candidate.
• Act as an organizing body - where the steady supporters and new volunteers are often brought to become involved in campaigns, especially around the time of elections. They hold training programs, manage data, and generally considered the keeper of the wisdom on the local, county or state field organizing.
• Act as event planners - truly, where would a party be without the convention for the faithful to gather, commiserate, and make decisions on the direction of the party? Newbies are given a show and restricted access, where the faithful enjoy the benefits of connection and longevity.

But the question still beckons - what is a party for now? Are the tasks above all that is necessary, or can they evolve into something that engages the growing younger electorate and become part of the life of the community?

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On the evening of September 11th, 2003 - I boarded a flight out of Heathrow for Washington, DC and landed in Dulles, where a cabbie named Aces picked me up and drove me out of the airport.

I was nervous at the time, since I had just left my home I had known for years and had recently broken up with my girlfriend - who had just flown back to Brasil the morning before. As we drove to DC that Friday morning, I remember having a feeling of trepidation, of excitement and of wonder about getting involved in politics - finally. My business partner, Rana, had been a strong advocate for being involved and making a difference and my history of student activism in areas of minority student support and athletc affairs - supposedly prepped me for this adventure. But I was certain it did not.

Politics was never meant to become a profession for me - rather, I felt a duty to fight for what was right for the Democratic Party and give up my business and relationship for the important task of electing someone that was “other than Bush”. After years of apologizing for our government in foreign countries, and watching an anemic online campaign form versus what seemed to be a powerhouse of Republican forces, I finally decided to step up and make a difference.

align=”right”>But, this was just for this action. I thought of this as a simple consulting gig - where the task was to solve the problem, and get out. I help start companies, I love to build products, I love teaching people. Politics has always been a world of well-dressed…..sharks. And on my ride with Aces, we chatted about what it was like to stay in DC and what kind of person would it take to stay.

Aces said, “You don’t have the right disposition; you seem to care too much. People here are about the game, not about the results.” And I said, “That’s where I am different. I get results.” And, for the most part, that is what I have done.

And for three years, while the game I have not completely mastered, I have begun to understand it better. And I still do not feel like I am part of the system - which I think is a good thing. I am called upon to help in numerous ways, and I continue my fight to make a difference - whether from within or out. But it is my feverant hope that we, as citizens, continue to try to make a difference in this country and continue this democracy going.

Someone asked, why do I have a stamp of Mount Rushmore on the site. The practical reason is because my designer found it - and I liked it. The real heart reason is that the one place where I felt the spirit of what those great men felt and stood for was on the viewing platform staring up at those faces. Below the platform are four of their most famous quotes - which continue to inspire me. That is why I am proud to be an American.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Thomas Jefferson
Declaration of Independence
July 4, 1776

“The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.”

George Washington
First Inaugural Address
April 30, 1789

“It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Abraham Lincoln
Gettysburg Address
November 19, 1863

“We, here in America, hold in our hands the hopes of the worlds, the fate of the coming years; and shame and disgrace will be ours if in our eyes the light of high resolve is dimmed, if we trail in the dust the golden hopes of men.”

Theodore Roosevelt
Address at Carnegie Hall
March 30, 1912

Tags: Sanford Dickert, civic duty

Wow - after a hotly contested race, Davis wins. That is amazing. With the low turnout in Broward and Dade Counties, I guess the perceived advantage Smith had in the northern part of Florida did not offset the advantage Davis had in the I-4 Corridor. It is funny, we had a very similar situation happen to us (on the Deutsch Campaign) where we spent most of our time in the South Florida area and little up in Tampa or along the I-4. I understand that the Smith campaign did better, but my assumption is that Davis was more effective. And, in addition, the low turnout in Broward did not help Smith. I look forward to the breakdown of the votes in the major media markets and see how effective the campaign truly was.

Rod - a good fight was fought, and now we have a Governors mansion to win in Tallahassee. Go Davis!

Tags: Rod Smith, Jim Davis, Florida Governor

Funny thing - eight days ago, after taking a couple of days to edit my social networks post, one of my thought exercises turned out to be (somewhat) prophetic. In the post, I suggested:

Now think about Senator Clinton, building a virtual campaign office in SecondLife, the 200K member community that allows for intellectual property ownership and currency exchanges. In this case, the campaign has a virtual store within the office where you can purchase “Hillary ‘08″ paraphenalia with your Linden dollars (L$). To pay the “rent” in SecondLife, the campaign converts those Linden dollars used to buy the campaign gear into US currency through various online exchange sites. (Ooch - those pesky-little rules from McCain-Feingold could potentially problem for compliance issues - but it does help in those data collection needs).

Okay - so I did not have the candidate correctly, but on Thursday, former Governor Mark Warner made an “campaign stop” in secondLife and had a terrific Q&A session with about 30 visitors in the session. The following is a list of blogs discussing the event:

• Wagner James Au, the moderator, reports on his blog (New World Notes) with full transcript and photos. Additionally, he posts a post-interview wrapup of the impact of the event in the main-stream media.
• YesButNoButYes comments on the potential gimmickery of the event (not sure if this is a real blog or just one trying to generate clicks for their ads…)
• My friend, Dave Weinberger jots a note about the visit in JoHo
• Rik in secondLife provides video of the event at his blog, Click Heard Round the World with some his own reporting on what Warner said on Iraq and other topics on this post.
• And reported in Somewhat Frank, Warner might be doing more TownHall meetings over the course of the campaign.

I wonder - the event was sparsely attended (30 residents) and it was the first in the virtual world (as reported by MicroPersuasion). Will others follow? I would assume some might, since it only made a ripple in the main stream media.

Tags: Mark Warner, secondLife,
Virtual Town Hall Meeting,
Virtual Campaigning