Tonight, I spent the evening listening to a number of people discussing the future of the Obama Administration and how technology may enable it. I live-blogged the event and provide my transcript below:
NYSIA January Monthly Meeting: Government By the People 2.0
Is technology changing democracy? With our panel, we’ll explore that issue, look back at the presidential campaign, and ahead to the new administration and look at the many ways that the Internet and technology is reconfiguring the way citizens connect with politics and policy.
Panelists:
- Josh Levy, Managing Editor, Change.org
- Micah Sifry, Co-founder and Editor, Personal Democracy Forum
- Rachel Sterne, CEO, GroundReport.com
- Tom Watson, Managing Partner, CauseWired
Moderator: Howard Greenstein, President, The Harbrooke Group
Bruce Bernstein (founder of NYSIA) makes intros and explains to the audience how NYSIA helps grow small tech businesses in NY. Bruce thanks Chase for sponsoring, and then intros Howard Greenstein, who has been running the panels and special events.
Howard opens the event with a discussion on participatory democracy: there is a potential for significant changes – how much is real, how much is perception.
The question is: what can we (the entrepreneurs) do to make it “work” for us. How can we use the tools the Obama Campaign has used and use it to our advantage (small and medium companies)?
Introductions
- Tom Watson: new book “CauseWired” (third printing) – came out in November – online social activism. Politics to non-for-profit causes. New firm – CauseWired Communications – turn them into Causes.
- Josh Levy: 19 different online social movements at Change.org
- Rachel Sterne: GroundReport.com citizen journalism platform and make money off the platform. 3500 reporters on the ground. Rachel was a Business Developer at LimeWire and a reporter on the Security Council at the U.N.
- Micah Sifry: Personal Democracy Forum curator, techpresident.com blog, consulting with Advocacy Organizations on the Web. Primary client is the Sunlight Foundation – grabbing ahold of the massive amounts of the government data and shine the light on what goes on with Congress.
Q: Did social media tech affect the election?
MS: Should the question be about “new media” vs “old media”? If we focus on YouTube, where candidates were sharing own content, initiating own events – yes. I believe that Obama would not have won the Democratic primary without the astute use of Internet technologies. The Obama team believed they needed to ride the new wave. Normally, the tactic for winning the Democratic Primary is about tapping big donor networks, then big media cheerleading for you, then elected officials / union officials.
Hillary had all of those things, and Obama won. Obama was able to continue to tap this unknown area. Hillary was supposed to win the Super Tuesday race. But it was about the caucus states was about having the most delegates. Obama organized technology to organize the massive base of potential support into pyramids across the states. 2 out of 5 in the major swing states. Obama Campaign used their own tools to mobilize and activate.
JL: that is the most specific you are going to get. At techpresident, they were charting YouTube usage by the campaigns. What it did was showed was the fact that the campaign could rout around the mainstream media. Continue the platforms LONG after the media cycle.
TW: “bottom-up stuff” – Obama benefited from the bottom up. The core of supporters did their own thing – and ignored the centralized control. The social network “influenced” the MSM. Self-perpetuating cycle.
RS: parallels are occurring in the larger, MSM media – everyone can participate, everyone can contribute. NowPublic, NewsVine, GroundReport – MSM orgs are recognizing the benefit of access to the community (e.g. iReport for CNN).
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….and needed a recommendation, can I suggest a friend of mine from New York City.
