Recently in Politics Category

First published: 13th of October 2009 for Technorati

In part because of Barack Obama's success in leveraging the Internet during his Presidential Campaign and in part because of the general success of "Web 2.0 companies", there has been an explosion of discussions on how one can leverage the growing sophistication of our social interactions online.

Consider it: we cannot go a few hours these days without hearing about individuals, organizations and businesses experimenting with how to put some social networking site to work for them. Everyone wants to engage individuals with cool websites and apps - and make money doing it.

This growing complexity of the Web as a computing platform over the last half a dozen years or so has had to do with the ever increasing access to data repositories online, the development of social applications that access that data and the near ubiquitous Internet access many of us find ourselves with these days. In turn, we get businesses, organizations and individuals clamoring for tools and knowledge on how best to leverage this latest version of the Web.

But not all of the discussions about the Web these days revolves around making money. What about government? If the bold new social web can engage people in politicking, why can't that same tool be used in politics?

That is if Obama can leverage our social interactions to raise funds and engage like-minded individuals, why can't the government - at any level - use those same tools to engage its citizenry and help foster debate and execution of government policy? After all this version of the web is about social networks, social engagement and social collaboration, it's the perfect tool for the debate and analysis of policy both successful and failed?

Enter "Government 2.0": a growing trend that intersects politics, government and technology, bring democratic governments to their people, online. While still in its infancy, the idea has been gaining traction all over the world but most notably in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.

For example, in the United States, President Obama's Chief Information Officer for the Executive Branch of the Federal Government recently launched a new website, Data.gov, with the specific purpose of increasing "public access to high value, machine readable datasets" which is a critical step to bring about the creation and utilization of online political engagement.

Critical, but only a first step. Data from other parts of the government, such as local and state run institutions, are still in need of exposure. Those application developers who are just starting to incorporate these new repositories of open data into their social applications will be able to expose important and interesting information to the public at large.

A trend to keep an eye on, even if you're not a technologist. As Thomas Jefferson said in his First Inaugural Address, "The diffusion of information and the arraignment of all abuses at the bar of public reason, I deem the essential principles of our government."

To my non-Illinoisan friends who watched Jon Stewart last night I offer these three simple facts:

1) The people of Illinois had soured on Mr. Blagojevich's budgeting by fiat long before the formal charges of corruption. Before his indictment his approval rating was between 20% - 30%

2) Mr. Blagojevich (should) know that the rules and reasons for impeachment are different than those of a criminal (or even civil) trial. While there are many explanations and interpretations for this I offer the most simple and straightforward: We deserve a Governor who is above reproach.

3) Everyone, even the disgraced governor, wants to focus on the "(bleep)ing golden" Senate seat. However, "selling" of the Senate seat is only one of pending criminal charges. He is also charged with attempting to bride the Tribune company with state funds while selling its ownership stake in the Chicago Cubs and attempting to gain campaign funds from the Children's Memorial Hospital, among others.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c Rod Blagojevich www.thedailyshow.com Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Healthcare Protests

For every famous success story such as Amazon.com or failure like Pets.com there are hundreds of unknowns; companies that find success, or failure, anonymously. Yet each of those companies have interesting stories to tell, as do those within the company, individuals discovering what it takes to bring about a compelling idea to the world.

I hate the "Dot Com Bubble" and "Bust" labels that have become mainstream media's shorthand for "stupid business people who should have know better" because it limits the story to companies like eToys.com as "obvious" failures. Having lived in San Francisco during that period of time, having been part of an anonymous "success"¹ story with C2Net Software, having met many interesting individuals I know from firsthand experience the "reality" of that "bubble" and "bust", "stupid business people" is not the first thing that comes to my mind². I am still friends with a few individuals from "back then", follow and keep in touch with many more online and have, alas lost complete contact with many others. Each and everyone of them carries with them an interesting perspective and insight from moving in a similar network of people and ideas at a similar place and time.

While I know organizations and companies like those exists in many places I have yet to find a loose confederation of those individuals, organizations and companies similar to what I experienced in the Bay Area here in Chicago where I currently reside. I have however found such a network in Washington, DC and it is known as Social Matchbox.

As I experienced back in San Francisco with Webzine, I'm sure to many in the DC Metropolitan Area, Social Matchbox means different things to different people. To some it is a guiding principle of similar ideas, to others an event and still to others a social network of people and organizations. I can't speak to the network of people as a whole, since being in Chicago leaves me with a tenuous connection at best. I can however speak to the idea and, at least to one, event.

According to their website "Social Matchbox is where East Coast entrepreneurs and startup professionals congregate, launch, stay informed, announce job openings, and connect."

Quite an ambitious idea.

In practice, at least as I saw it put to practice last Thursday night, the group focuses on technology startups in the DC area. Now, one might think that DC startups, even technology focused ones, are geared toward one idea; winning big, fat Federal government contracts. While that might be the case for some, the startups selected to give their 5 minute sales pitch for Social Matchbox were anything but. In fact, it seemed quite the opposite, of the dozen or so presenters, about half of them had a social consciousness element to their concept. Take for example the winner of the evening's "group funding", Earth Aid.

Earth Aid is an online tool designed to assist in managing the household utilities by providing one place for viewing electric, natural gas, and water usage information. But that's hardly the only aspect. Earth Aid also highlights rebates, tax incentives and discounts to help reduced household expenses. The social consciousness element comes into play with the users ability to earn rewards for reducing utility usage, reducing in turn one's impact on the local environment.

Other groups focused on the social engagement front included:

• Apps for Democracy: An online competition designed to foster innovative and useful usage of local government data online

• Sunlight Foundation: Similar to Apps for Democracy, only focusing on federal information via Data.gov

• Grasshopr: Designed to be a single online source for civic engagement on issues at the federal, state and local level

As for those "traditional" tech startups, two of my favorites:

• TapMetrics: An analytics tool for iPhone Developers for tracking information about their Apps

• Unblab: An API to a machine intelligence that can be used to label important messages (email, blog posts, tweets) for the user, automatically filtering out "important" information from other "non-important" messages

Will all these ideas take? Maybe. Will any strike it rich? Doubtful. But if these individuals are anything similar to the West Coast counterparts I know, the "rich and famous" part isn't what drives them. What does drive them? Well as Steve Jobs famously put it to John Sculley, "do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water to children, or do you want a chance to change the world?"

---

On July 9, 1970 Republican President Richard M. Nixon authorized the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a single, independent federal agency tasked with establishing new criteria to guide American into a cleaner future.

Only three months prior the first Earth Day was called for by Gaylord Nelson, a United States Senator from Wisconsin as a way to educate people about the earth's complex environment.

What brought about the renewed focus on our environment and the modern environmental movement some 40 years after the end of the Great Depression's Dust Bowl as well as pioneer environmentalists Theodore Roosevelt, John Muir and Ansel Adams?

The movement has many roots, such as the 1969 Cuyahoga River fire which saw the surface of the river catch fire due to pollutants within the river.

But it should also come as no surprise that the modern environmental movement came on the heels of the "Space Race". That concerns about our environment crystallized in our national consciousness just months after man's first foot steps on another heavenly body, less than two years after Apollo 8's Jim Lovell commented from lunar orbit that "the loneliness up here is awe inspiring. It makes you realize just what you have back on Earth.¹"

In fact, on the occasion of NASA's 50th anniversary last October, Air & Space/Smithsonian magazine ranked the top two of fifty most memorable images from NASA's history not of an astronaut, a flag, star, rocket, spacecraft, satellite or aircraft, but of the Earth. The Earth from space, as photographed by the Apollo 17 crew in 1972 and by Apollo 8 in 1968.

"The Earth from here is an oasis in the vastness of space.¹"

I mention this because of course today marks the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11's landmark landing on the surface of the Moon, the finishing line of John F. Kennedy's race pitting the United States' engineering ingenuity and political influence against that of the Soviet Union's.

While many will consider the glories of the past today, I suggest instead a look to the glories of the future. In fact, right now the Obama Administration is reviewing NASA's priorities, should we return to the Moon and set a course for Mars, as outlined by his predecessor? Or focus our interests elsewhere?

The question brings a host of other questions. What are our national priorities today? Tomorrow? Are we best served with an investment in returning to the Moon?

Consider that from 1957 to 1975, the United States spent approximately $100 billion to develop, test and land 12 men on the moon.² For that investment the world not only directly gained knowledge about the Moon and manned-space travel, but laid the foundation for; weather, communication and global positioning satellites and spurred research in computing and land-based telecommunication initiatives, among other technological spinoffs.

In addition the "Space Race" advanced development and application in existing technologies such as fuel-cells, solar power and batteries bringing about great potential in energy conservation, adding practical scientific knowledge alongside the social concern within the environmental movement.

That's a significant return on investment for something many people consider political theater.

But can a renewed investment in NASA achieve the same results? I think it can, so long as the Obama Administration uses the following guidelines in refocusing NASA's priorities:

• That the government's most effective roles are in funding new exploration which develops new technologies and basic research.
• That the private sector needs to be engaged on a broad scale; commercial markets work effectively in refining and re-purposing basic technologies into cost effective services.

It would be fool-hearty, even for a popular liberal President, to suggest that the Federal government can do everything. In fact, the space program works best when the government takes the initial step forward and the commercial interests move in to rebuild and re-purpose. On a basic level this can mean corporations refining new technologies, providing services in support of additional exploration and research to NASA.

However, NASA's engagement with our economy needs to extend beyond Boeing and Lockheed Martin. The benefits and advancements made and (still to be gained) suggests that while the opening of space to commerce might first directly benefit only a handful of wealthy space tourists, private individuals joy-riding into the outer reaches of our atmosphere is only the tip of a very large proverbial iceberg.

For example, continuing on a theme with the national priority of energy, climate and resource management as it stands the International Space Station is anything but self-sustaining over the long term. Crews are routinely rotated in and out. In addition, fresh supplies are shuttled to the station with waste materials sent back on the return journey on a regular schedule. Long duration flights that lead to permanent settlements, in Earth orbit, on the Moon or even Mars by necessity will push the limits of known science in regards to energy and climate conservation.

While it might require great creativity in applying these learned tidbits of science and technology into marketable products and services, it requires little imagination to see a correlation between self-sustainable manned space stations and a self-sustainable household.

Of course alternative energy would hardly be the sole beneficiary. Computing and telecommunications could see additional benefits. Others such as health-care and the economy as a whole could see significant growth as well. To be sure a manned mission to Mars is hardly "shovel-ready", but our national issues are not limited to short-term solutions.

While NASA and space exploration many never again capture the hearts and minds of several hundred million, as it did 40 years ago today, that hardly denotes failure. Yet failure to consider the grand impact in productivity and enhancement of life here on Earth in pursuit of manned (and unmanned) space travel will fail, without doubt, in again engaging the creativity of our nation. As the saying goes, "make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men's blood and probably will not themselves be realized."

---

1 Lovell, Jim, and Jeffrey Kluger. Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13 . Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994. Print. Pg. 52

2 While the last moon landing was in 1972, Skylab used Apollo developed technologies and the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in 1975 closed out the "Space Race" between the two nations.

I get it, trust me, I get it.

I waited in line this morning to mail in my taxes. I owe money to the Federal government, to the State of Illinois and to the State of Minnesota. I "caught a break" in not owing more money to the District of Columbia, but I still had to shell out an additional $30 to find that out. So I get it.

I wasn't procrastinating. I knew I was going to owe money. I sat down in February and did a quick double check, confirmed I was going to owe money and decided to wait. Why pay just now? See in February I had just lost my full-time job. See, I get it.

This isn't about making you feel sorry for me. I knew it was coming. I left my full-time job back in July to work on the Presidential Campaign in Minnesota. Once November came I was out of a job. Then I caught a break, ended up in DC working on the Inauguration. Of course that just delayed the inevitable. I should have done my taxes right then a there, paid them while I still had a little wiggle room. Now I'm worrying about pulling in as many consulting hours I can, working on my own, knowing that the money I'm making is already spoken for. See, I get it.

I get the worry, I get the stress. I get the frustration. I get that we feel over burdened. That at times it seems, as individuals and as a nation, we have too many obligations. Trust me, I get it.

But I also get that it is not just about me. That I had have my say. That I voted and that a $13 Trillion economy doesn't turn on a dime. That change is not immediate.

What I don't get is this:

There has been quite a to-do about AIG's payment of employee bonuses over the past week. Much of the to-do I would characterize as "angry mob" which has galvanized the U.S. House of Representatives into passing a bill requiring "repayment."

Nate Silver, over at FiveThirtyEight, has taken a more pragmatic avenue to the discussion, noting the legal and business questions that have arisen since the news gained "mainstream" traction.

Alas, so much of politics is gut and emotions, as this instance clearly demonstrate. So here's my "emotional" reaction to why forcing AIG employees to pay back their bonuses is wrong-headed:

Imagine you're an employee at a large corporation. Ok, maybe you already are an employee for a large organization, so let's say you're a software engineer for a large video game company.  You've worked hard to get to this point, a respected game programmer for an industry leader. You and a few compatriots are working on a genre defining, first-person shooter and as part of the project your department head has presented everyone with an incentives program. It's a mix packaged based on meeting your deadlines and sales performance. Your product launches and in its first year does well. In fact it does quite well; it's well received by "casual" and "professional" gamers alike, becoming one of the top selling games for the year. You and your co-workers within the department are congratulated by the company with not only your promised bonuses but with a new task: develop the killer sequel.

Energized by your success you all put extra effort into the sequel, late nights programming and long days of meetings. Even so you meet all of your deadlines and release a genre-bending sequel. The company goes all out in marketing the game, but the gaming market is flooded with knocks-off of your original game, saturating the market. Your company, feeling good about the overall video game market in an effort to retain everyone, "do right" and keep everyone focused, offers everyone bonuses at full value, despite the sequel missing its sales goals.

But then the video game market as a whole crashes, it gets so bad the company needs to sell part of itself, a majority stake in fact to get a needed cash infusion. The new owner, wishing not to scare anyone off, tells everyone not to worry. The company as a whole is fine, the market will pickup, everyone just needs to weather the down turn. Some changes, really just some very few changes are needed. Just some touch ups, a little reorganizing here and little cost-cutting there. All the promises a new management makes to keep people from bailing.

Rumor has it that the company considers asking for your bonuses back, cost cutting after all. But after a qucik review of all outstaniing obligations, the new owners make good on the previously agreed full bonus payout.

Then a new story breaks, your first-person shooter is blamed for a teenager getting shot. Then more reports of violence being linked to your game. Obviously you and your department are to blame for the increase of violence. An increase in teenage violence and you got a bonus?!

Soon you hear the company really is planning on rolling back your bonuses, a shareholder drive has been enacted to force the Board of Director to cut team members pay, to make up for the "lost funds". After all you really didn't deserve all of it. It fact if the company hadn't paid your bonuses they might not have gotten in trouble financially - never mind that the company was in red-ink by millions and team's bonus was only a few thousand dollars. You are to blame for failure of company. You are called out as scum, the worst of the worst the reason why the whole industry is in free fall.

How do you think you'd feel? What did you do wrong exactly?