Blake's Think Tank

As many of you are aware I’m attending and speaking at Personal Democracy Forum 2009, the largest conference on technology and politics in the U.S. We just wrapped up day one which included a lot of compelling information from Joe Rospars (Obama ‘08), Mark McKinnon (McCain ‘08), Jeff Jarvis, author of “What Would Google Do?” and David Weinberger of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard. I also sat in on two panels: one on social media and Iran (I urge you to take a look at this discussion from me and @reeves501 on the topic) and the future of community journalism. You can get a play-by-play by reading my Twitter feed.

Naturally, I was really looking forward to listening to Mr. Rospars talk about new media and the Obama campaign. I pulled several of his points into my Twitter feed, and what struck me the most was the clarity with which the Obama campaign understood and embraced the value of new media. From the very beginning they all realized (and by “all” Mr. Rospars indicated Mr. Obama and campaign manager David Plouffe) that new media wasn’t a replacement for anything and that it had to be tied to traditional camapign efforts. Essentially, Mr. Rospars advocated ways that new media could help bolster the work of the traditional side of politics. This was clearly a lesson learned from Howard Dean’s ill-fated 2004 presidential bid. As I like to say many times regarding online communications: the idea is to take good ideas and make them better.

New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg couldn’t attend at the last minute so he participated live via Skype and talked about a new initiative in New York called 311 which is intended to encourage civic participation. The program has a Web site, Twitter account, Skype account, phone hotline and e-mail address. Citizens are encouraged to report everything from trash that needs to be picked up to the state of city parks and schools to crime and more. What a great endeavor for a city of 8 million. I’d certainly like to see something like this in Little Rock.

Mayor Bloomberg also noted an initiative they are undertaking with Google called data.nyc in which they are trying to put as much data about the city and city government online so that people can have access to it. This dovetails with President Obama’s plan for data.gov. Tomorrow, White House Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra will be at the conference to talk about it.

Mr. Jarvis, author of “What Would Google Do?” spoke about the role that platforms and networks can play in business and government. His view is that companies that understand these things can bring value to other companies by helping them do what they’re already doing, only better. Tailor strategies and tools to meet current needs, was his point. Good partners don’t try and re-create.

Mr. Weinberger of The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard provided a philosophical analysis of what’s happening online. His view is that we’ve become a world of hyperlinks, encouraging people to continue to dig for more information and facts thereby spawning greater and deeper conversations about events and issues. For advocates of more information exchange this is a great thing.

The panel on Iran and social media featured Katrin Verclas, Davar Iran Ardalan, John Kelly, Olivia Ma, and Nancy Scola. Conversation centered primarily on the infrastructure of Iran, the number of bloggers on the ground, and the media’s reliance on what was being said on Twitter. The entire situation raises lots of questions about the role of community journalism and the balance between what we read and what we know to be truth. It also creates enormous challanges for journalists, both traditional and non-traditional. How can we verify this information?

It was a good segue to the second panel on community journalism featuring Andy Carvin of National Public Radio, Amanda Michel of propublica.com, Dave Troy of the Twitter Voter Project, Andrew Turner of geoCommons, and Ari Melber of The Nation. Whew. An exceptional panel of people that recognize that community journalism is here to stay. That’s not to suggest that it’s always a good thing. Community journalism raises lots of questions about reliability, quality, motivation and more. But in an age of declining newspapers what role will community journalism have to play in news gathering, information gathering and reporting?

I’ve advocated on many occasions that the newspaper business is declining so rapidly that it’s far outpacing the growth of community journalist properties. I still believe that to be true. Mr. Carvin said he thought the gap was “so huge” and that we’d soon be seeing partnerships with traditional and non-traditional outlets to cover and report news. We’re already seeing some of that in Arkansas, which I’ve also argued is a very good thing. Across the country there’s going to be more and more of it.

Tomorrow, I’m joining a community journalist, Jason Barnett of TheUptake.org, so I’m hoping that we’ll be able to talk more about this during our discussion of “State/Local Online Politicking: How Community Hubs Can Change the Scene.”

PDF 2009 is fully accessible online. You can read the blog on the Web site or follow along on Twitter (#pdf09). I hope ypu’ll do so.