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.

At WeMedia

I am at the WeMedia conference in Miami (www.wemediamiami.org) today and tomorrow.

Its a terrific event - a gathering of media, technology, innovation, and thought leaders talking about some of the most challenging and interesting topics imaginable.  This year, we are exploring the potential for technology and media to converge around a wide array of issues and opportunities and bring about real change.
This year, I am leading two conversations — one about innovation in the use of technology around politics (or, more to the point, the lack of true innovation on that front) and the opportunities for using technology to bring about meaningful, measurable change in our society.  The politics discussion will take the form of a panel.  The other discussion will morph into a ‘Manifesto’ and a series of conversations that come together over several months.  I am very excited.

I will post a few times over the next few days to share some thoughts, keep you posted on how things are going.  Stay tuned.

WeMedia: Final Session Notes

(I am down in Miami at the WeMedia conference.  My role is to synthesize the ‘Aha! Moments’ from the main conference sessions.  Below are my notes for the final session — trying to tie this whole discussion together and predict what is needed next. This is cross-posted on the WeMedia Miami Blog).

Rarely do you attend a conference where the accumulated intellectual star power on one stage is as great as was the case in our final group panel discussion at the We Media conference Friday morning.  We had presidents and pollsters, intellectuals and editors, donors and corporate folks all gathered for one chat.  What we did get out of it?  Quite a bit it seems.

First each of the panelists offered up some predictions on the future of news, media, technology, society, and everything else in between.  They said:

Michael Rogers:

• There is an incredible flood of mobile devices coming.  Not just cell phones – the evolution of devices will be substantial.  Origins will be laptops and pc’s, smartphones – extremely powerful multi-media portable computers will become the ‘laptop replacement.’
• What will connect those devices?  Explosion of wireless broadband connectivity… 3G, WiMax.  It will happen and it will be good for us all. “I believe in technology.  I also believe in the invisible hand of capitalism.”  Our society will be constantly on the move and connected all the time.
• Largest generation in US history – the Millennials (10-30 year olds), who grew up with social media, will take the same basic use of social media they are currently experiencing and apply it in their adult life – family pages on MySpace for example.
• Big Media is catching on really fast.  TV, major newspapers, local newspapers, anyone in the news business will adopt the tools of social media.  “Top reporters did not get to be top reporters by ignoring reality.”
• The rest of this decade will be about identity. We will see the creation of true, meaningful identities on the internet (and elsewhere) to prove who we are.  Layered on top of that will be information about who we are as people (clustered in our ID that we can take from site to site, etc.).  This will be a major game player in community.

Jason Pontin:

• Augmented Reality
• Death of Print.  The experience of a discrete editorial package will not go away.  But the ‘form factor’ of a magazine or newspaper has been lost.
• User generated real video in a useful way (eg SplashCast)
• The ability for new technologies to exist in the developing world. (Eduvision)

Sheryl Tucker:

• “Democracy needs diverse voices to give their diverse people the information they need…”
• As a journalistic property, we will be held to a higher standard.  We need to figure out how to make sure – without the censorship that could kill a community only – how to make that still reflect who we are.”
• “We bring real people together too – at conferences, for discussions… its not, and can’t be, all about the virtual.

Cristi Hegranes:

• The future of community and journalism is based on a question of access.  Building up of the 4th estate in developing countries is a big part of the challenge for our future.
• Primary roadblock to access is literacy.  The concept of the internet is useless in a large part of the world where people can’t read, or consume written content of any kind.

John Zogby:

• The results of our recent study suggest that “We (in this room) are more satisfied with the quality of journalism than the non media-elite” and “We (in this room) trust journalists far more than the non media-elite.”  No surprise there.
• More and more and more blogs will appear and be influential… but on a worldwide scale.  One man = one blog.
• Anna Nicole Smith will haunt us all (and by that I mean that celebrity news, gossip, things that we don’t consider to be ‘serious’ news will always drive a big segment of the news population.
• There will be constant measurement… what the public is believing, what they are trusting, what they are seeing (on a daily basis).  The internet invites that kind of measurement.  Media must pay attention (but not be overly dictated by it).

Craig Newmark:

• The Wisdom of Crowds sometimes leads to mob rule, panic, or bad decisions.  We need ‘representative democracy’ on top of that.  We need editors.
• Our flagging for removal system make craigslist even more of a democracy, with all its flaws.  It reminds me of a Churchill quote, to the effect that democracy sucks… except compared to all other systems.
• How do I prove that I am me?
• The internet is a means to an end.  Paper has been a very good medium (for about 600 years), but its time may be up.
• Watch out for disinformation gangs… it comes when you decentralize power.
• I am wearing pants.

Donna Shalala:

• The developing world has had communications mechanisms for a long time (and they have used them for political purposes).
• People have to be nimble enough to filter unfiltered information (and deal with the technology).
• Young people ‘don’t know much about history’ and one of the benefits of new media will be the opportunity to advance their understand and help them to learn from the mistakes that have been made before them, as many generations have already.

Albert Ibarguen:

• “I’m a guy who wears a suit to a conference on WeMedia, but I have a blackberry.”  Proof that the world continues to change and must adapt.  Reason enough that we should not compartmentalize all audiences, but instead recognize our differences and our unique community features.
• Buffett, Gates, Omidyar, Skoll… the impact on how Foundations look at the world, approach social problems, will change.  There will be a move away from charity towards a concept of investment. Funding opportunity to leverage instead of funding need only (ie businesslike thinking).
• The definition of community and media has to change… all the time, constantly.

As the conversation went on, there were lots of other Aha! Moments:

• How can we keep the good values of Old Media (not the bad ones) in the digital world, which welcomes bad values and good alike?  In reality, old media has both just like new media – it will have to be figured out on a case by case basis.  Not all of the bad values are bad.  Not all of the good values are good.  It is all being redefined.
• Sometimes you don’t know what you want.  That leaves [the editor] a role in guiding and shaping what people read, think, etc.
• It is important to recognize the difference between reporting and opinion.  That line has been crossed/blurred. People don’t want to just be smarter, they want insights that allow them to make smarter decisions.
• Its not a single blog (or source) that is going to influence you – its an enhancement of the overall understanding and analysis that you bring to a situation.
• We have to be sophisticated enough to understand multiple sources and capable of using multiple media sources (and technologies).
• Media is the device that we use to go about delivering information.  It is not the information itself all the time (despite what many think it is).
• There is skepticism about philanthropy that presumes some return on the investment.
• “The crowd is out of touch.  Its important that the media figure out what is going on and how to come down to the level where ‘it’ is happening, and become a part of it – not figure out how to make money from this phenomena.”  (Mark Glaser from PBS Media Shift said that, and got huge applause…)
• Is journalism a business or is business the means of support for journalism?
• News already exists as a social network: The Today Show brings a common audience together to talk about issues (notably mothers and such).  The O’Reilly Factor (what about Colbert Report?) gives a voice to people with a particular viewpoint.  And American Idol gives 32 million people a week a voice on what is popular and who is talented.
• We are not a national community, but a community of communities.  How will we speak as one voice from many?
• The good news out of this discussion seemed to be that some things are working.  As Michael Rogers pointed out, young people are getting more globalized – more aware of what is happening and taking a larger interest in having an impact.  Extreme hyperlocalized journalism is taking place, whether the old giants of media are participating, endorsing it, supporting it or not.

We have been having this conversation for three years, and it will continue – long into the future most likely.  To me that seems like a good thing, because at least we are talking about it.

WeMedia Miami: Session 4 Notes

(I am down in Miami at the WeMedia conference.  My role is to synthesize the ‘Aha! Moments’ from the main conference sessions.  Below are my notes for the fourth session — featuring a group of young people that organizers coined “the content creators.” This is cross-posted on the WeMedia Miami Blog). 

The average age of the We Media audience dropped significantly when “The Content Creatives’ took the stage for the first panel discussion on Friday.  The discussion was supposed to pick up where Thursday night’s video presentation (outside under the stars) left off, helping the collective media brain trust in the audience understand what kinds of information ‘Generation Next’ wants to consume, and why.  It quickly became a census of sorts on the types of devices and habits that today’s information consumers employ.  I can personally relate to the panelists – multiple screens, numerous opportunities to share and consume information, the ever-present fear that information overload will fry my brain… and yet like them, I find energy and strength, and countless opportunities to learn and become engaged and empowered. 

Here are some of the other Aha! Moments from the discussion:

• Do only old people use email? Cell phones are a more common way that ‘young people’ communicate with each other (email, IM, txt-ing).  They are constantly on the move and whatever technology will facilitate their communications… and give them access to ‘the crowd’ will be the one they want to use.
• There are different forms of closeness within these communities.  The mode of communication is dictated, in part, by the emotional proximity of those involved.
• What is your ‘digital aura’?
• “It’s a little daunting to sort through all the user generated information that exists in our society.  I go to look for the hub, where there is some validation of what is more interesting (to me) than something else.”
• There is a difference between work time and collaboration time.  We want both, but don’t always have time or energy to get both.
• How much one is wired can be socio-economic… and NOT generational?
• How do you define news?  One panelist said “information put into a format where people understand it,” while another noted that “I was taught to differentiate between news and editorial content” and now the time to produce editorial content has been compressed… “you can go from information/editorial almost instantly.” 
• Where do you go for news?  The answers ranged from “I create it!” to “Local, cable networks (TV) (which they watch with their parents, or because their parents watch), “Maybe CNN.com or similar,” and “YouTube has a wealth of political information; other information on the internet. Most importantly “I wouldn’t think of picking up a newspaper.”
• How often?  “I used to have to watch the news – forced.  Eventually I realized that it was useful to find out interesting things.  I could help pass information along, help educate others (at my school, etc.).  That is my charge.”
• When I look to become informed, I am looking to documentaries, to reports from the field that have bias.  It is impossible to separate content and context anymore.
• Email = account = profile = network = function/purpose
• “We do our own PR all the time”

It was hard to tell if the (older, adult) audience left this session informed, or terrified.  There is this underlying sense that media companies, news organizations, and similar have to find ways to push the Generation Next audience to their content.  I can imagine why that would be scary.  The message I got from this session: It would be easier… and more inviting to “young people” if you integrate information/media into the lifestyle choices that these folks are already making, instead of trying to create new devices (and costly ones at that) and forcing the audience to go in that direction.  The media should try to follow the lead of their audience and then jump in to make things better, not set the agenda and try to move the mountain to them.

WeMedia Miami: Session 3 Notes

(I am down in Miami at the WeMedia conference.  My role is to synthesize the ‘Aha! Moments’ from the main conference sessions.  Below are my notes for the third session, about soft power and the influence of pop culture on news.  This is cross-posted on the WeMedia Miami Blog).

I’m not sure that the third major discussion of the We Media conference was appropriately titled, but it sure was interesting.  Yes, the concept of ‘soft power’ implies that there are sources of influence that are not tied explicitly to military or financial might… and that influence is quite regularly demonstrated by the media, and increasingly now the citizen media.  But soft power is a political science concept, a theory about how influence carries.  Yes, if you were to rank the most influential people in the country, perhaps the world, based on their ability to drive changes in the world, many of the panelists for this session, and the people participating from the audience, would be near the top of the list.  Still, the concept of soft power seems to require that the people who have influence are actively seeking to gain authority, drive their own agenda, or similar.  I think the collective brain trust in the room feels like it is part of a greater movement, and while they all have their own individual financial, academic, creative, or other goals that they are seeking to meet, few would ever say they are out for a power grab.

Some of the Aha! Moments from the third session on Thursday included:

• - What does it say about soft power when the reported death of Anna Nicole Smith (that came across as ‘Breaking News’ on CNN just as the panel was starting) gets more attention than OneWater.org or Global Voices?  The life of the former Playboy centerfold, billionaire heiress (sort of), and larger-than-life reality TV star certainly makes for great content, and ratings/circulation but is it the most important cultural export that the news media can or should offer to the world?
• What will be the role of traditional news with all these blogs and wikis?    Currently the major news organizations and dominant media channels serve as the primary distributor for information.  As grassroots tools become more prevalent, does that change (and if so, is that good)?
• There is a snobbery about the types of content that should be important to the world… and yet much of the world’s news content is firmly pop-culture based. How do you define what is important for news organizations (of any size, shape or form) to cover?  Important to who?
• Will the news industry always be chasing the audience (and the technology)?  How could the model change so that the news industry added value to what the audience had identified as being of interest to them?
• The internet is not (and cannot) be just about informing people.  It also has to be about mobilizing the community to change the minds of people in power. 
• “We have more outlets now, more in sheer numbers, engaged in news presentation than we’ve ever had,” said Tom Rosenstiel, a former political reporter for the Los Angeles Times and now director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism. “The problem is most of them are not engaged in a lot of serious news gathering. They are largely engaged in repackaging material that other people have produced.“ (Via the Associated Press)

There was clearly a lot of energy in the room around this discussion, and a focus by all (driven by the participants on stage) in seeking a definition of the role of news organizations in driving certain influence around the world.  Still, there was also quite a bit of discomfort with the concept of power.  Power is shifting and distributing in new ways (which of course is going to make people uncomfortable) and the media is going to have to figure out what that means, and what role they want to play.

WeMedia Miami: Session 2 Notes

(I am down in Miami at the WeMedia conference.  My role is to synthesize the ‘Aha! Moments’ from the main conference sessions.  Below are my notes for the second session, about how to finance the next generation of media projects.  This is cross-posted on the WeMedia Miami Blog).

There were numerous references to the ‘elephant in the room’ at the second session of We Media’s on Thursday.  What is the elephant?  Money. Of course. No matter what role you play in the media space – head of a newspaper conglomerate trying to figure out how to integrate citizen media into your operation, individual filmmaker looking to find an outlet for your content, crafty entrepreneur trying to push your ‘big idea’ for syndication to the world, and on and on… everything comes down to money.  If you are starting up, you want to get funded.  If you are independent, you want to get paid for your time.  If you are a public corporation, you have an obligation to your stakeholders to drive profit.  And if you are an investor, you want to make your money back, plus some.

We Media pulled together a pretty accomplished group of innovators and investors – those who have sought funding and those who have provided it – to help the assembled group sort it all out.  I didn’t leave the room with a clear sense of how to get my big idea funded, and I don’t think I am along in that, but there were a bunch of Aha! Moments, including:

• Consider hybrid models that can drive interest among both audience and advertisers… for example, marrying editorial (‘expert’) leadership with user generated content to produce a higher quality content experience.
• Different types of user interaction and different cuts of the demographic audience can be much more valuable than others.  Going niche may be your best option.  But does that mean that less valuable audiences should be ignored because they can’t make you money?
• Can you ask audience/participants to fund their own start-up… create an information co-op if you will?  Who would lead?  A social capitalist instead of a financial one?  Is there a model out there already?  Where?
• What would an eBay for content look like? News organizations could bid on what content they consider most valuable and the content providers/producers who have the most talent, or who are most effective at selling their content, would rise to the top.
• Ultimately, we need a system where news organization compete to be the best online, rather than a system that equalizes everyone.  That’s what the original newspaper barons would have wanted.
• The ad model is broken.  But for smaller organizations and those who are not connected, other funding models are (currently) hard to find or hard to pitch.  There has to be an opportunity to get funding for ideas that haven’t been proven yet or this whole conversation will remain exactly where it is today.
• If you get the value proposition right, you can bring along corporate sponsors as well as VCs (to share the burden/risk)
• You have to believe that the audience is going to be able to tell the difference between content that is free and content that is not. There will be real economic cottage industries in content.

And then the panelists offered some closing thoughts and predictions:

• There is a wide pool of people contributing investment – smaller firms, social pools, angels, hedge funds.  Look at how the investors measure themselves and target your ask to meet that interest.
• Think about what you are passionate about and what the benefit is – be very sincere about that, be able to communicate that. 
• The next big thing is going to be mobile (so stop thinking about just the internet world)
• Old media is going to have to partner with new media.  But, it is tough to partner a horse with an automobile.  Don’t think it will be easy, but find a way.
• Investors look for things that will forward their business – new networks in newsgathering (that helps augment what people around the world do every day), new platforms for syndication networks, things that add to the collective experience of their individual reporters and editors.  If you are offering something that is not going to meet one of those core strategic objectives, investors are not interested (at least not as an early investor). 
• Big companies historically muck up small businesses because they think they know, but they don’t.  Keep your focus on growing, driving success, etc. That is not very expensive to do, and there will be many more options for you if you meet those goals.

There is much work still to be done before the major news organizations understand better what needs to be funded, and the smaller, independent producers and providers understand how to find backing.  But new ground was definitely broken in this discussion and if you were listening closely, you might have found the key to finding your next big break.

WeMedia Miami: Session 1 Notes

(I am down in Miami at the WeMedia conference.  My role is to synthesize the ‘Aha! Moments’ from the main conference sessions.  Below are my notes for the first session, about the role of media in building communities - online and offline.  This is cross-posted on the WeMedia Miami Blog).

The first session degenerated (is that the right word?) into a discussion about who should control the conversation in our society: ”little m” media (bloggers and community contributors) or “Big M” media (i.e. media companies and professional journalists).  We have had that conversation - several times (at We Media alone) - and very little new ground was broken.  Why is that?  The prevailing theory on the WeMedia chat is that the audience isn’t the right one… one person noted that until events like WeMedia invote more people who focus on consuming information, or producing it out of love/passion, instead of those who have a need/desire to monetize it, we won’t make any progress.  My personal theory is that we have to better define the various categories of media before we can start ranking them, analyzing them, and similar.  Right now everything is one bucket - m/Media.  Lets separate out all the different kinds of media, by audience, by format, by qualification, by value, by timing, by personality, and by whatever other criteria is needed.  Once we have all the players in this giant game of media Risk identified, then we can start to see who will achieve world dominance.

Other Aha! moments from the first session included:

• Proliferation of journalists vs. proliferation of sources.  Our real challenge is to bring sources toether so journalists can add value.
• People and connections — bringing an audience together to communicate with each other is critical.  Lets talk about how the audience talks to each other, not how we should talk to the audience.
• How are we going to create a vast social network where people can consume news?  We currently lack the technological and other infrastructure (and possibly the know-how) to do that.
• One thing that big organizations still provide is an element of trust in the information that is delivered.  Can’t say that about all sources.
• Important thing is not who is reading information/articles/blog posts, whatever… but who is producing new output as a result?  We should measure media as a platform for promotion not consumption.
• This conversation is not just about journalism, but rather about information more broadly.
• We is a really hard idea to figure out.

And that was just the first session.  Lots of good things to come.  Stay tuned.