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Panel: (Lack of) Innovation in Politics
I moderated a terrific discussion today at the WeMedia conference in Miami about innovation in politics — or more to the point, about what I believe is a lack of true innovation in the use of technology for politics (both electoral and more generally organizationally, including nonprofits and government).
The discussion was as good as it was because I was joined by an excellent group of experts, including:
- Ellen Miller from the Sunlight Foundation
- Catherine Geanuracos from Live Earth
- Michael Silberman from EchoDitto (where I am a Principal)
- Amy Schatz from the Wall Street Journal
- Carolyn Washburn from the Des Moines Register
- John Della Volpe from SocialSphere; and
- Anthony Wojtkowiak, on of the street team reporters for MTV
I won’t give you a recap of the discussion, you can get that here and here.
What I do want to do, quickly, is outline some of my thinking on this subject.
First, from where I sit, it is clear that the web is playing a big role in the presidential campaign and generating a lot of attention for some candidates. But, there is very little evidence of technology playing a meaningful role in driving greater participation in the political process or resulting in significant change in how campaigns are waged. Certainly, the advancements this year are nothing compared to what we saw in 2004 and 2006, with the rise of the blogosphere, the Dean revolution, and similar. And the same is true for many non-profit organizations and social change groups, where success is measured in the size of an email list or the number of names on a petition and not in real, meaningful, measurable change in our society.
Second, beyond a couple of one-off examples — Ron Paul and his open source fundraising or Senator Obama’s mobile messaging efforts for example — I can’t find many examples of campaigns and organizations using technology in new and different ways Shouldn’t groups be doing more to serve the large and interested audience and encourage true, impactful engagement (i.e. not just continually tap the audience to raise money or elevate turnout)?
The discussion made clear to me that the 2008 campaigns have perfected some existing tactics and ideas… and technology is at a place now where some campaigns are able to operate more professionally and efficiently than ever before (the distribution of voter files to allow for de-centralized phone banking by campaign supporters for example). But what has worked mostly this year have been the same old things. Literally hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on so-called traditional campaign activities, while barely a fraction of that has gone towards new media campaigning.
I have high hopes for where this discussion can lead — into an exploration of the democratizing effects of technology, towards a conversation about accountability and how to increase participation in the daily operations of our government, and even into a look at the global implications of these issues. And I am committed to pursuing this further, with the panelists and others who show an interest in really moving the ball forward.
More on this later.
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