May 16, 2005

Live from New York, it's Personal Democracy Forum
by Liza Sabater

I am live blogging from CUNY Graduate Center. Scott Hefferman is giving the keynote speech. Scott is talking about the 5 cultural trends that are fueling the personal democracy movement that we're here to talk about. He's still on #4, so let me get to them :

1. Culture of isolation
People can go on all day without having to make real life connections with other people on a daily basis; even in hyper-populated places like NYC. We've lost out to the technology culture of me and meetups and blogs are a backlash to this trend.

2.More personal control
Technology is all about personal control : cell phones, blogs, TIVO, desktop/digital publishing; we have the power to do a lot of things that we needed "professionals" to do.

3. More partisanship
The internet has unleashed not only political partisanship but interest, affinity and marketing partisanship.

4. Sense of entitlement
Blogs are definitely the one biggest expressions of this.

5. Feeling powerlessness
The bigger corporations and government and even religions get, the more people are gravitating to getting together and "be more democratic in form and function".

Which brings us to the real power of the internet as expressed with meetup : The internet gives power to get collective power.

Amen brother! I'll testify on that.

Next up: Mindy Finn, ecampaign director for the GOP. Just one note : It's weird to hear a GOP operative talking about "the grassroots". The word has been so co-opted by the left that we still are reckoning with the reality that the right has an extremely well organized and technologically savy grassroots. The e-campaign directors for the GOP and RNC are considered senior staff members for the Republican party. e-Campaigning brought in almost a a half a million voter registrations though the party's site alone.

No small potatoes.

Facts :

75 millions people got online to get involved in the politica process
37% adult population
61% online Americans

You can't ignore the internet anymore.

Martin Kearns
Social networks have already existed but the internet has amplified not only their reach but their connected.

Campaigns and advocacy groups have to be ready to take the power of "advocacy swards", like the one around the "Do not call list". Networking theory is not just ideas anymore; they are now organization points necessary for outlining strategy.

In other words, can you design and develop for networks?

Posted by Liza Sabater in Events
Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (1) | Technorati Cosmos

Trackbacks

Trackback for this post:
http://www.culturekitchen.com/cgi-bin/movabletype/mt-tb.cgi/2955

The following blogs make reference to this post :

» Personal Democracy Forum 2005 from Patrick Ruffini
Yesterday, some of the all-stars from the Bush-Cheney and RNC eCampaigns were up in New York City for the Personal Democracy Forum Conference. I couldn't be there, so check out the live-blogs from Hugh Hewitt, Alarming News, Culture Kitchen, and... [More...]

Found inMay 17, 2005 07:57 AM

Say it loud, say it proud!