Archive: Author: The Management

This morning, the Commission on Presidential Debates and MySpace are announcing "MyDebates.org,," a "landmark partnership" that they claim "will do for the debates what TV did in 1960 for the Nixon Kennedy election." Their joint press release says this new site "will offer a host of interactive tools for viewers to virally engage in the political process." The release notes that "marks the first time that the CPD has paired with an Internet property to include online functionality into the event series and traditional debate format." Unfortunately, the CPD's landmark is little more than a shack. At best.This morning, the Commission on Presidential Debates and MySpace are announcing "MyDebates.org,," a "landmark partnership" that they claim "will do for the debates...

I'm in Austin, Texas for the Netroots Nation conference today and tomorrow, and will try to do some live video interviews as I bump into people and post them here. I'm speaking tomorrow on a panel on "Transparency, Participation and Reinvention in Government in the Next Administration Through Web 2.0 Tools and Culture," which I think could have had the shorter title of "Rebooting Government in 2009" but you get the drift. I'm looking forward to meeting and talking with my fellow panelists, Justin Hamilton, Silona Bonewald, Andrew Hoppin, W. David Stephenson, and Jeanne Holm. Andrew and Jeanne are both with NASA, so hopefully they've brought some good schwag, like a miniature Saturn rocket or something. Ping me via Twitter...

We've posted another chunk of video of plenary sessions from "Personal Democracy Forum 2008: Rebooting the System" on our Blip.tv channel at pdf.blip.tv. You can watch: * Clay Shirky on Politics As If Everybody Can Participate. * Zephyr Teachout on The Internet's Still Unfinished Potential. * Douglas Rushkoff on The New Renaissance. * Van Jones on How Social Technology Can Help Solve Global Problems. * Steven Clift on The Power of Information to Transform Government. * Redefining Leadership in a Networked Age, with Brian Behlendorf, Scott Heiferman, Gina Cooper and Craig Newmark. Collect them, trade them with your friends, get the whole set!...

The online mini-rising to protest Barack Obama's support for the Congressional compromise to renew the FISA legislation has been getting a lot of attention, with much being made (by us and plenty of others, including Ari Melber in the Nation, The New York Times, et al) that activists are using Obama's own social networking platform, my.BarackObama.com, to organize and channel their efforts to get him to alter his stand. Indeed, as of today the Senator Obama - Please Vote NO on Telecom Immunity - Get FISA Right group has swelled to more than 14,000 members, which makes it the single largest self-organized group on the whole platform, which reportedly has close to a million registered members. This is certainly a good...

Our cousins across the pond continue to show that "government 2.0" isn't just something that we have to do "to" government, but it's something government can do "with" us. The Power of Information Task Force has just launched a contest called "Show Us a Better Way" that is calling for "ideas for new products that could improve the way public information is communicated." They've put up 20,000 pounds for the winning idea, which is something like a gazillion dollars (these days). This is really kewl. To make the contest really productive, the taskforce has brought together a wealth of government data-sets and useful APIs, including several previously unavailable treasure-troves, including neighborhood statistics (covering such things as access to services, community wellbeing/social...

The first videos of plenary sessions from "Personal Democracy Forum 2008: Rebooting the System" are now available on our Blip.tv channel at pdf.blip.tv. * A Conversation with Elizabeth (and John) Edwards, led by Andrew Rasiej. * Lawrence Lessig on The Declaration for Independence. * Jonathan Zittrain on The Future of the Internet: Towards Civic Technologies. * Mark Pesce on What Happens When We're All Connected: Hyperpolitics (American Style). Relive your favorite moments; catch a session you may have missed; share them with your friends! We'll have more for you soon...

Every few years, network theorist Valdis Krebs creates a fascinating map of the relationships among the top political books currently selling on Amazon. In past years, he notes, "we saw a divided nation in our book buying data. We saw then a distinct red cluster and a distinct blue cluster with very little holding them together in terms of cross-links or books in common." But now, he's found something different going on. First, there are a lot more books in the middle, "purple" zone--meaning that they were of interest to book-buyers on the left and right. And second, a number of "old conservative" writers like George Will and Patrick Buchanan were positioned closer to the progressive audience than they were to...

Here's the clip of Andrew Rasiej interviewing Elizabeth Edwards at home via Skype video Monday at PdF2008, when John Edwards happens to drop in. They discuss the impact of the Internet on politics 2008. Edwards says "It's the only reason Barack Obama isn't taking public financing," noting that it's given him a huge fundraising advantage "over Bush"--a slip quickly corrected by Elizabeth, who you can hear chortling in the background. Andrew tells John that the "internet community really loves your wife," to which he responds, "I know, so do I!" And then Elizabeth comes back on to say goodbye, noting, "PdF is enormously important in building this community--thinking about how we can use it [the net] is enormously important." A little...

Mark Pesce, who closed out the second morning of plenary talks at PdF2008, has posted the text of his talk on "Hyperpolitics (American Sytle)." Dig in!...

Yesterday, things got a bit heated on the plenary session with the presidential campaign internet staffers. Mark Soohoo, the deputy internet director of the John McCain, was defending his boss for not personally understanding how to use a computer. Tracy Russo, Soohoo's counterpart on the John Edwards campaign (where she was deputy director of online communication), took issue with Soohoo, and then the fireworks started. Here's the video: If you want more background on Russo's thoughts about why it's so important our next president personally understand the new technology, you can read her post for us here. I'm issuing an open invitation to Mark Soohoo or anyone else from the McCain campaign who would like to respond....