The 2010 Personal Democracy Forum conference was held June 3 – 4 at the Cuny Graduate Center in NYC. Lindsay Hanson and Rosy Kalfus from grassroots solutions joined an impressive array of speakers and other attendees from a wide variety of sectors to wrestle with the question that was the theme of the conference: “Can the Internet fix politics?” Of course, we at grassroots solutions think that people are the critical force for fixing politics, but the Internet is clearly a tool that opens up an unbelievable array of new strategies for interaction and engagement. Strengthening grassroots participation – whether online or offline – is one key to “fixing” politics.
What excites us most, from an organizing perspective, is the potential that technology has to increase scale and reach, to support the meaningful interaction that is key to building and sustaining relationships, and to spark the kind of agency needed to make our democracy more effective, accountable, and transparent. One of the emerging themes that struck us at this year’s conference was the importance of utilizing technology in a way that encourages action and participation, not just talk and entertainment. As grassroots organizers, we couldn’t agree more.
Here are some additional highlights from the sessions Lindsay and Rosy attended*:
The filter bubble
Co-founder and former Executive Director of Moveon.org, Eli Pariser, discussed the negative effects that personalization online is having on citizens. Google’s 57 different personalization filters that customize what we see on the web, and the personalized algorithm Facebook uses to feed us highly personalized information based on searches and clicks, are feeding us more of the same and filtering out differing points of view. “The filter bubble may be good for consumers,” said Pariser, “but it’s bad for citizens.”
A networked society
Beth Kanter and Allison Fine (who have a new book out) discussed the state of non-profits and their ability to grow and change to meet the evolving demands of a networked society that is using the Internet, and social media more specifically, to enhance transparency, openness, and collaboration. Fine and Kanter called for a new “networked nonprofit” model that maximizes innovation and creativity by harnessing the power of collaboration and the talent of free agents. Blogger and activist Deanna Zandt declared “the true power of the Internet lies in the dismantling of power structures through social media,” noting that the transparency and openness that social media can engender can lead to increased access, diversity and empathy – all needed to solve the big problems that we face.
Datavisualization
One of the more prominent wow-factor themes of the conference surrounded the mapping and visualization of data, which allows for even greater transparency and accessibility in this increasingly networked age. Flowing Media illustrated racial segregation via a provocative hashtag analysis. They also can claim one of the pithiest lines in the conference: “Hashtags are the bumper stickers of the 21st Century.” Target Point’s Alex Lundry reminded us that we retain 65% of visual messages in comparison to 1% of audio, and produced a compelling argument for the use of data visualization as political persuasion. You can check out his chart wars deck here: http://www.targetpointconsulting.com/ToThePoint/2010/06/04/personal-democracy-forum-chart-wars. And, although Mark Smith of NODE LX Social Media Research Foundation frequently used words like ‘lines’ and ‘nodes’ to describe his work producing open source tools to graph social media data, the depiction of the data spoke for itself.
How is the GOP innovating online campaigning?
This talk was particularly interesting (especially to the Democrats in the room!). Panelists shared some of the lessons from recent successes in online campaigning and also looked ahead to what’s coming next. For instance, the Brown for Senate campaign was criticized for not putting the campaign’s URL on everything. Their response? “This is not the 90s.” They used SMS instead. Ryan Gravatt, Online Campaign Director for Rick Perry’s paper-less campaign, described how their candidate didn’t do ANY direct mail or yard signs, freeing up resources and manpower for other campaign activities. Mindy Finn predicted nearly complete integration with social media, and that a campaign’s regular website will be dwarfed by social media in the future. People are consuming media in different ways, feeling the power of their voice because they have a platform for expressing it. The consensus is that campaigns should pay attention and change their game plans accordingly.
Finally, Lindsay is pleased to report that the Mac lovers did not beat up on her as a PC-carrying, Blackberry-using gal. And, yes, both Rosy and Lindsay learned to love the Minglestick.
*There is no shortage of posts online about the different PdF talks, so we won’t attempt to duplicate their efforts. Here is a small sample of what’s out there:
http://www.personaldemocracy.com/twitter/
http://techpresident.com/blog-entry/can-internet-fix-politics-look-back