Archive: Year: 2008

I'm taking off tomorrow morning for London, England, where I'll be speaking along with techPresident blogger Michael Turk at "Politics Web 2.0," a two-day international conference hosted by the University of London, Royal Halloway. The conference features 120 papers organised into 41 panels, with more than 180 participants drawn from over 30 countries, and is probably a bit more academic than most of the events I tend to go to these days. Nevertheless, I am really looking forward to the trip and expecting to pick up a lot of interesting insights into our internet-powered election, as well as those of other countries experiencing this transformation. Mike and I are keynoting one after the other on Friday, and we've talked in advance...

Could it be a "mega-trend"? Hillary Clinton's new lead campaign strategist, Geoff Garin, has sent out an email asking Clinton supporters not for their money (though there is a not-so-subtle reference to being outspent 3-1 by Obama and a big red contribute button at the bottom of the text) but for their input! "Tell me what you think" is the subject line. He writes: In the days and weeks (and hopefully months) ahead, I want to know what you think -- about the state of the race, our campaign strategy, or your ideas for doing things differently. You've made an investment in this campaign, and I want your input as we plan the days, weeks, and months to come. I can't promise...

"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." So said Gandhi. It looks like we're entering the "ridicule" phase on the rising movement for greater political transparency and interactivity. Not only are congressional staffers in revolt over the notion that their personal financial disclosure statements, which are required by law to be publicly available, are searchable online at Legistorm, now a former leader of the American League of Lobbyists is muttering darkly about the danger of letting the public help craft the text of legislation. Commenting on the Sunlight Foundation's innovative PublicMarkup.org site**, where the public has been invited to comment on and improve the text of a draft omnibus bill on government transparency, Paul...

Is a nationwide truckers' strike just over the horizon? As gasoline prices climb towards and past $4 a gallon, something is brewing that--with the help of the web--could very well upend the flatlining presidential primaries and force hard economic questions that none of the presidential candidates really want to wrestle with to the center of the national conversation. Lots of people are being hurt by the emerging recession--people whose homes are being foreclosed, people who are being laid off, people who can't find a job--but for the most part their pain is private, and their efforts to seek solutions or answers tend to also remain private, even in the age of what writer Clay Shirky has aptly called "ridiculously easy group...

Go read British Cabinet Officer Tom Watson's speech on the "Power of information" and imagine a Member of Congress making a similar speech on how technology can radically reinvent government. Imagine one of our presidential candidates making it (even Barack Obama, who has done the most thinking on this topic.) You can't. But maybe, if we pay more attention to our cousins across the pond, soon someone will. Five years ago, Watson was one of the first MPs to blog, and notes that even though it opened him up to daily abuse, "the blog broke down the walls between legislators and electors in a way that interested me. So I persevered." Now he says, "I believe in the power of mass...

Hugh Atkin is at it again. Here's his full-on mashup of Sarah Silverman's "I'm F---ing Matt Damon" repurposed for the Clinton-Obama battle. I'm looking forward to seeing how he tackles McCain....

I had the pleasure of sitting down with Joe Trippi a week ago, as we both were in DC for the launch of Larry Lessig's new Change-Congress project. (Joe is working with Larry on CC, and the Sunlight Foundation, which I consult for, was co-sponsoring Larry's speech). If you watch closely, you can see Larry in the background of the first video, in fact. In general, the lack of production values suggests I should stick to my day job, I know. The sound quality on the following videos could be a lot better (I was using a Flip video recorder, held by hand as you can tell, without the additional external mike). I apologize for that. Here were the highlights...

When we launched Personal Democracy Forum back in 2004, we posted a modest manifesto. It starts: Democracy in America is changing. A new force, rooted in new tools and practices built on and around the Internet, is rising alongside the old system of capital-intensive broadcast politics. Today, for almost no money, anyone can be a reporter, a community organizer, an ad-maker, a publisher, a money-raiser, or a leader. If what they have to say is compelling, it will spread. Well, one more piece of that vision has come to fruition. Now, thanks to a new nonpartisan service called VoterVoter, you can not only be an ad-maker who spreads your ideas on the net. You can get your ad on television, without...

Hugh Atkin is viderate. You and I are not (that is, unless you know how to use Final Cut Pro and have amassed an in-depth videobank of clips and allusions that you can manipulate as easily as typing this sentence). We've linked to his stuff before, but I'm writing this mash note because I think he deserves more attention here in the U.S. (his Australian countrymen already know how brilliant he can be). These are the best of times to be in the political video business. There are amusing one-offs popping up every day now, like "It's Raining McCain" and "Obama-sistible." Whole sites and business plans are being written around the genre. But there aren't many true artists of the political...

I'm at the National Press Club for the launch of Stanford Prof. Larry Lessig's new project, Change-Congress.org. He's here as part of Sunshine Week, and his speech is co-sponsored by the Sunlight Foundation (which I consult for) as well as the Omidyar Network. As you may know, last year, Lessig decided to shift his focus from the fight for free culture to the fight for a clean government. Here are my notes on his talk, paraphrasing as best as I can: I want to talk about truth, trust and Title VII, Lessig starts. Let's start with the easy policy cases that our government increasingly gets wrong. The consensus among policy-makers is that the only changes in copyright term should be prospectively,...