Upcoming Event: January 14, 2010

Reformed in an Age of Networked Campaigns:

Fostering Participation through Small Donors and Volunteers

RSVP Here

When: Thursday, January 14, 2009, 10:30 a.m. - 12 p.m. noon

Location: The Brookings Institution, Falk Auditorium
1775 Massachusetts Ave, NW, Washington, D.C. (Map)

On January 14, a joint project of the Campaign Finance Institute, American Enterprise Institute and the Brookings Institution will unveil a new report that seeks to change the ongoing national dlialogue about money in politics. The political world has been arguing about campaign finance policy for decades. A once-rich conversation has become a stale, two-sided battleground. The time has come to leap over this gulf and, as much as possible, move the disputes from the courts.

The 2008 elections showcased the power of the Internet to generate enthusiasm, mobilize volunteers and increase small-donor contributions. The digital revolution has altered the calculus of participation. Instead of further restricting the wealthy few, therefore, this new report presents detailed recommendations to help activate the many.

At this event, the four authors of the report will detail their findings and recommendations. Relying on lessons from the record-shattering 2008 elections and the rise of the internet campaign, the scholars will present a new vision of how campaign finance and communications policy can help further democracy through broader participation.

After the program, panelists will take audience questions.

Participants:

Introductory Remarks and Moderator
Darrell M. West
Vice President and Director, Governance Studies

Panelists:
Anthony J. Corrado, Jr.
Chair of the Board, Campaign Finance Institute; Nonresident Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution; Professor of Government, Colby College

Michael J. Malbin
Co-Founder and Executive Director, Campaign Finance Institute; Professor of Political Science, University at Albany, SUNY

Thomas E. Mann
Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution

Norman J. Ornstein
Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute

__________________________________________________

For more information contact: Katy Graessle, Campaign Finance Institute
E-mail: events@cfinst.org
Phone: 202.969.8890 x21

The Campaign Finance Institute is a non-partisan, non-profit institute affiliated with the George Washington University celebrating more than ten years of research. Statements of the Campaign Finance Institute and its Task Forces do not necessarily reflect the views of CFI’s Trustees or financial supporters.

December was my last month at IPDI and GWU. I’ve been involved in IPDI since 2003, when I volunteered for my first Politics Online Conference. IPDI was the reason why I decided to go to graduate school at GWU, instead of entering a PhD program elsewhere.

(Back in 2003, IPDI’s director, Carol Darr, taught this awesome grad class on the practical political advice of Machiavelli. It was an incredible class, and Carol is the reason why I started working at IPDI as soon as I finished grad school.)

However, it’s time for me to move on and try new things.

I’m leaving IPDI in careful hands. Chris Arterton, Dean of GWU’s Graduate School of Political Management, and Chuck Cushman, Associate Dean of GWU’s College of Professional Studies, will steer IPDI’s strategic course over the next few months. Both men have been very influential on my career, and both men have a lot of passion for the work and potential of IPDI.

The Politics Online Conference 2010 will be run by Politics Magazine and a rising talent in the online politics space named Bryce Cullinane. Bryce currently is a grad student at the GSPM, and he’s the founder of PoliticsUnder30.org. My friends at Politics Magazine — Jordan Lieberman, Tracy Dietz, Molly Hock, and Kate O’Connor — are an incredible group of people. Together, they will run one heck of a conference.

IPDI has connected me with some incredible people. Tanya Tarr ran last year’s Politics Online Conference — as a volunteer (which I believe is the equivalent of running an ultra marathon barefoot and without any water). Lynn Stinson and Kyle McLellan, both grad students at the GSPM, have donated their time and their sanity to IPDI over the course of the last two years. I’m blessed by them and by hundreds of other people over the course of the last seven years.

As I leave, my only real concern is that GWU as an institution will seriously support the kind of innovation and collaboration that an entity like IPDI can and should produce. GWU attracts the most amazing students in the country, all of whom come to GWU for one thing — politics. And a seriously political university needs entities (like IPDI) that engage in real politics, real action, and research and projects that impact things inthe real world.

One of the larger errors of an academic environment is the focus on producing research and writing solely for other academics. Over the last ten years IPDI produced work for the world of politics and advocacy. I would like to see GWU take this work seriously and provide IPDI with the kinds of institutional support and resources that have been lacking for the entirety of its existence. This neglect hasn’t been meant to be hurtful or malicious. It’s a neglect of best intentions, which unfortunately can be the most detrimental kind.

If universities want to evolve — if they want to survive today’s cultural and economic changes — then they must learn to apply all the capacities of the well-trained mind to the challenges and problems of the real world, rather than, oh, say, for example, encouraging faculty to argue semantics with each other in academic journals and honoring those who do so the most prolifically with tenure.

This poses the most exciting challenge for universities like GWU and programs like its Graduate School of Political Management. I am excited to see what happens next. Who will rise to the challenge? Innovate? Change the world? If anyone can do it, then I think an institution like GWU that attracts the most driven, the most civically and politically minded young people in the country can.

Edo Segal looks at augmented reality in this TechCrunch piece:

“The four main building blocks are:

1. Realtime Web (Twitter, news flows, world events, and other information which relates to changes in the world)
2. Published Information (sites, blogs, Wikipedia, etc.)
3. Geolocation Data (your location and information layers related to it, including your past locations and that of your friends, as well as geo-tagged media)
4. Social Communications (social graph updates, IMs, emails, text messages, and other forms of signal from your friends).

Before these building blocks can create an ambient stream which is not overwhelming, all of this data needs to pass through a filter. The Holy Grail is a filter which only serves up information which is relevant based on who you are, your social graph, what you or your friends are doing now, what you or friends have done before, and in context of other information you are consuming.”

Tools

If you’ve ever posted a link on of social media tool like Twitter, then you’ve probably used a URL shortener, like bit.ly. Now, both Google and Facebook announce that they are launching their own URL shorteners:

“Google’s new URL shortener, goo.gl, will be available through Google’s Toolbar and its Feedburner RSS feed, but is not yet available as a stand-alone service for “broader consumer use”. Facebook’s shortener, fb. me, is predominantly designed for use on mobile devices.”

Happenings

The Supreme Court will decide whether employees can expect a level of privacy with the text messages they send on mobile devices purchased by their employers. In the case, an Ontario, California Police Department lieutenant ordered transcripts of text messages sent on one of the department’s SWAT team pagers. Only 57 of the 450 messages sent by Sgt. JeffQuon were work-related, and many had sexually explicit content.

Remember the 1997 film The Saint? Val Kilmer and Elizabeth Shue ran around with a secret formula for hydrogen power. Business Week reports that Russian company C.En has designed a way to safely store hydrogen for use as an energy source in the commercial sector.

The Hill looks at the increase in political Facebook ads surrounding the healthcare debate.

Reason.tv explores the rise of the American wine industry. Watch for a lesson about how free enterprise and innovation helped shaped American wineries into world leaders.

Lucy Bernholz looks at how data-based technologies (and the behaviors they unleash) changes the world of philanthropy in Disrupting Philanthropy 2.0.

“Digital technologies increase access to information, thus shifting the possible ways people organize to use it. These new ways — networks, flash causes, nonmarket volunteer entities — will require norms and governing structures that are different from those that currently exist. . . . For now we live in a tense period between old ways and new ways of creating social benefit. . . . the future will be written by the myriad ways we deploy, innovate, reorganize, and reregulate our choices for funding public goods with private dollars.”

Also read Steve Katz’s response to the Philanthropy 2.0 paper:

“Shouldn’t we also view philanthropy as an ensemble of asymmetrical power relations – most obviously, between those that got, and those that don’t got (access to capital, that is)? . . . it helps reproduce a system of inequality, in part by maintaining private control over a vast pool of wealth, in part by creating a nonprofit opt-out to an authentically democratic exercise in self-determination, and in part by creating a culture of “charity” that helps those with power identify themselves as good folks.”

Steve Raddick looks at the benefits and challenges of the White House’s Open Government Directive the benefits of the White House’s Open Government Directive (read the directive here):

Benefits

• Investment in Our Democratic Infrastructure
• Emphasis on Collaboration
• No More Excuses

Challenges

• Lack of Public Understanding
• Inadequate Mission Alignment
• Poor Construction
  

Speaking of open governance, South Korea will launch e-gov services (including tax payments, tender notices, and medical counseling) through IPTV next year.

Seth Godin (and a great group of other bloggers) launches a new eBook, What Matters Now, in which each author wriates around a one-word concept, like Dignity, Fear, Excellence, and Atoms (GW alum Chris Anderson took on this topic - check out his book Free for the details). My favorite is Ripple by John Wood, founder of Room to Read:

“Education has a ripple effect. One drop can initiate a cascade of possibility, each concentric circle gaining in size and traveling further. If you get education right, you get many things right: escape from poverty, better family health, and improved status of women.”

If you’re trying to build a culture of innovation in your office, it might help to start small, according to a post on Conditions that Can Create an Innovation Culture in Innovate on Purpose. “Micro-climates,” like a designated room in the office, might be used as safe spaces to help people think outside the day-to-day box.

“Perhaps the best way to change the culture is to start small, with several micro-climates that establish conditions for innovation and allow the process to prove its worth.”

Times Online interviews journalist, Iranian activist, and video-maker Mohsen Sazegara, who held several high-profile positions in Iranian government after the revolution and ran for president in 2001. Sazegara produces daily videos, which he posts on his YouTube channel, railing against the government in Iran. (And if you haven’t read it yet, check out this Daily Beast piece by Dana Goldstein about the Iranian government’s actions against women who work/volunteer as activists for women in Iran.)

All 2.4 billion DNA base pairs of a panda’s genome have been mapped.

In the contest of dueling Republican websites, Tucker Carlson will launch The Daily Caller, Andrew Breitbart will roll out Big Journalism, and everybody gets to read about it in the Politico. The best part of the article comes from Conn Carroll at Heritage Foundation:

“Everyone sees an opening, and they’re all trying to fill it. In a year, I doubt all these same entities will exist. I’m sure some of them will. And the ones that win out will serve the movement better.”

What can you learn about Mexican drug cartels from looking at their custom-designed vehicles? Secret compartments to hide drugs! Bulletproofing! Weaponry! Thanks, New York Times!

Afrigadget posts this video of bicycle repairman Mohammed Makokha using homemade tools to repair bikes.

FastCompany looks at social media user guides — if they had been created in the 1970s — by Retrofuturs. You can order them in poster form, too!

Teens will probably text while driving anyway — even if it is outlawed. Daily Tech looks at several reports on the subject:

• A Highway Traffic Safety Administration finds that 1 in 4 teens already send text messages while driving.
• Reuters reports that teens say they probably won’t stop texting while driving even if a ban is introduced.

The UN Foundation looks at information tools and social networks in conflict areas in a study called New Technologies in Emergencies and Conflict. According to the report, three main risks exists when the internet is used in crisis and conflict situations, like last summer’s protests in Iran:

Information flows must be two-way to be effective—

from the external world to the affected community, but

also from those affected to the agencies seeking to help

them in useful ways.

Information will not be used unless it is trusted. The

utility of any technologies will depend on the social

context. People are a vital part of the communication

system.

Information will be helpful only if it is accurate. There

are risks in unregulated information flows, especially

when these are spread rapidly online, and these risks

need to be managed. Authentication is a key challenge.

Mary Joyce looks at how Facebook’s new privacy policies will affect citizen activism at DigiActive.org. Joyce recommends that citizen activists

Un-friend fellow activists

Leave any political groups you are a member or fan of

Delete political status messages, notes, and links and do not add new ones

Un-tag yourself from photos of you taking part in political activities or in the presence of known activists

Remove any linkages connecting you to politically dangerous people, ideas, or organizations

Half of all food manufacturers don’t know that they should send their updated contact information to the FDA, which means the FDA can’t contact about half of our food-producing industry in the event of contamination (like salmonella), according to FastCompany.

Gizmodo posts this video clip posts this video clip of a Chinese rocket swooshing past a commerical airplane. Makes me feel so safe flying! (Gizmodo also has this video clip of a robot performing scenes from Star Wars.)

Nike Jung at Global Voices looks at the leading candidates for president in Chile. The election will be held on January 17, 2010.

Colin Delany releases How Candidates Can Use the Internet to Win in 2010 on e.politics. The ebook looks at tools, online outreach, and fundraising.

How huge is the Internet in One day? Gizmodo pulls together this fancy graphic this fancy graphic to explain it to us — in pictures and words:

• We send 210 billion emails a day. This is greater than a year’s worth of snail mail in the United States.
• We upload 3 million images to flickr each day. This would fill a 375,000 page photo album.
• We send 43,339,547 gigabytes of information across mobile phones each day. This would fill 1.7 million Blu-Ray disks, 9.2 million DVDs, and 63.9 trillion 3.5″ diskettes.
• We spend $145 million on mobile services each day. Over $13 million of that is spent on mobile games.
• 700,000 new members join Facebook everyday. This is around the same population as the country of Guyana.
• We post 45 million status updates a day and 5 million tweets a day.
• Bloggers post 900,000 articles a day. This is enough to fill the NY Times for 19 years.

President Obama accepts his Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway:

“War, in one form or another, appeared with the first man. At the dawn of history, its morality was not questioned; it was simply a fact, like drought or disease - the manner in which tribes and then civilizations sought power and settled their differences. . . .

Where force is necessary, we have a moral and strategic interest in binding ourselves to certain rules of conduct. And even as we confront a vicious adversary that abides by no rules, I believe that the United States of America must remain a standard bearer in the conduct of war. That is what makes us different from those whom we fight. That is a source of our strength. . . .

For peace is not merely the absence of visible conflict. Only a just peace based upon the inherent rights and dignity of every individual can truly be lasting.”

Marvin Ammori looks at some of the conflict between cable news companies and open television providers and the emergence of Internet television.

Tools

Batteries made from paper? Why not!

I think we would all be happier campers if the DC metro looked like these awesome subways around the world.

CNet reports that Google will soon offer real-time search. Users will now be able to find all the things that people put on the Internet within seconds — including lots of Twitter data. This could be a great thing, or it could be quite possibly the most annoying invention in the entire world.

California Gubernatorial candidate Steve Poizner’s campaign launches launches the Stand with Steve widget.

The University of Wisconisn launches the Open Data Kit launches the Open Data Kit, mobile software designed to help field workers in the developing world. The software could be used to track things like deforestation and HIV in Africa.

Happenings

After more than 200 arrested student protestors were arrested in Tehran Monday, Payvand posted images of Iranian banknotes being repurposed by the opposition to spread anti-government messages (via Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish).

Fast Company asks you to vote on the top viral campaign of 2009.

Virgin Galactic unveils its first commercial spaceship.

Is a March 1929 issue of Parents’ magazine the source of our infatuation with Lolcats? BoingBoing unearths the details.

A team of researchers from MIT wins the DARPA Internet Challenge - after just one hour. The challenge was to submit the locations of 10 moored, red balloons at 10 different fixed locations throughout the U.S. using social networks and the Internet. Over 4,000 groups competed to win a $4,000 prize, according to the Guardian.

The Policy Studies Organization (PSO), the Oxford Internet Institute (OII), and Berkeley Electronic Press just announced a new peer-reviewed journal called Policy & Internet just announced a new peer-reviewed journal called Policy & Internet.

The White House Open Government Initiativeopens voting to the public for the SAVE award, which will go to a government employee with the best idea to save taxpayer money.

Last week we posted about the coterie of business leaders that met at the White House to discuss unemployment. Today, @JonHenke brought our attention to this CNBC interview with Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who attended the session. According to the interview, Schmidt doesn’t think a second stimulus will help the economy:

“What they really need to do is change the tax incentives so that the private sector does the hiring.”

The government in the UK releases its Smarter Government report, which looks at citizen involvement to make government more innovative and efficient. The ideas include:

• Investing £30 million over the next ten years to bring one million more people online.
• Opening up data and public information.
• Reducing red tape on some government services.