A Watershed Election
Yesterday's Public Advocate election in NYC should be remembered. It's important because of what didn't happen. Andrew Raseij ran on a platform of “wireless for all.” Tom Friedman raved, the blogosphere went into paroxysms of joy. One of us! Someone with a clue was running for office! Someone who knew all about tagging and Technorati and Flickr was going for mainstream appeal!
In the end, Raseij got only 5% of the vote.
How do we react to this unbelievable event? If we have an ounce of humility left, we realize that the clueful are out of touch. People don't care (enough) about progressive wireless-based platforms. People riding on the subway just want to get home and aren't thinking about the collective conversation. The most transformative of transformations, the electronic excitement of our age, has not touched the hearts and minds of the voting public.
This is bad news for our collective online future. If no one cares about openness, about connectedness, about interaction, it can all be quietly taken away.
We have some choices to make. We could keep going to conferences (boy, are there a lot of conferences). We could keep recognizing the coolest of the cool A-list blogcasters, and we could really get into the people's video. We could moan about how Skype doesn't have open APIs.
Or — we could start working on true grassroots appreciation of the open internet and all it makes possible. That's what I want to do. I supported Raseij and his campaign, and I bet his team has learned a lot about electioneering.
This election should be remembered. The blogosphere couldn't sweep a new Public Advocate into office (trust me, it's a pretty obscure position), and we're not making progress on the Hill or at the FCC. It's time to make a big public deal out of access to the open internet.
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2 Responses to “A Watershed Election”
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Two things first you can try setting up something through public libraries. library science majors are pretty plugged in and know about tags and all that. Secondly, while everyone tries for the “youth” movement (and trust me it's fairly useless most people I know don't blog unless you count livejournal) reaching the elderly is a good cause. After all they have plenty of time on their hands, are willing to reach out to yahoo for games, and are willing to embrace things that allow them to connect. Last, design is so essential these days really writing a text book, or getting someone too, would be a good idea. Teach kids early about the advantages and concepts behind information sharing. make design part of a schools curriculum. and of course, sometype of firefox like taking an add out in the ny times (although frankly I think the problem with political campaigs is they too often focus only the ny times and not say the times-picyaune in new orleans etc.) I had an idea for creating a wiki like wikpedia only for textbooks. open source history books etc. would make it easier for people to learn basic things and to study the currents in thought as they happen. modify tht physics text book as it happens etc.
I have a cheap, low-end PC (easy to find someone to donate), loaded with software freely available from Stanford University's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics. No cost to download, or keep updated with state-of-the-art audio and video technology. It sits on my kitchen table.
I can do the same stuff major recording labels do, the same stuff major network broadcasters like ABC, NBC can do, the same stuff major film studios like Disney do.
Imagine an inner-city neighborhood with one. The musicians in the neighborhood create their own CDs, DVDs, world-class marketing programs, web sites. The neighborhood can create world-class multimedia fund-raising campaigns, public service announcements, tv shows that can be distributed around the world, radio shows that can instantly reach a worldwide audience. The kids can play tunes on their kazoo, click the mouse, and play it back with the sound of a piano. A few more clicks, and the tune is “played” by an entire orchestra. Another click, and they can edit their musical score.
The point is, these cheap computers are the tools of today, not tomorrow. It's time to think about how best to make them available to the public.
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