First rate campaigns, third world elections – Why the US is failing as a democracy

The story of the 2008 Presidential campaign and its use of technology is compelling – a billion dollars raised by the candidates, hundreds of millions of emails, hundreds of thousands of volunteers. It should be the triumph of American democracy but it isn’t.

I come from a country where voting is compulsory (about 98%) of the adult population vote – we can vote in person, before the election, via post and overseas at embassies. By and large the process takes anywhere from 2 to 10 minutes. That’s how the system should work – easy access to polling places, rules to protect voters from harassment, and truly independent and respected umpires to manage the process and disputes.

Yet, the US election, where voting is voluntary, people across the US waited anything in November 2008 from minutes to hours. People took chairs with them to wait in queues. Some were waiting in blazing heat and others in pouring rain.  And the worst thing was people saw these waits as proof of a system that was working. It was seen as the sign of a healthy democracy, in fact it was declared the triumph of democracy. CNN breathlessly revealed that in some states people were waiting 2-3 hours to vote and that was fantastic! What hogwash!

The US electoral system is broken, unlike other democracies where the electoral process is managed by central independent agencies, the US state based system is rorted to ensure the process itself provides an advantage to one side or another.

The 2000 presidential election was proof to the world that a 21st century democracy has a 19th century voting system. Hanging chads, broken machines, inconsistence application of rules and the eventual intervention of state politicians and judges at every level, all highlighted the lack of investment in electoral infrastructure and in an electoral culture that is free and fairless.

It has been argued this has gotten worse over these past eight years – and this hollowing out of the election process is a slow moving cancer that will destroy confidence in government, and in time destroy international confidence in the US.

You can’t claim to be the democratic light of the world when the system is failing and where the only voters politicians are truly interested in are those that are tagged as swing voters or who the hard core base who refuse to withhold their vote.
Sure, the 2008 election showed some incredible uses of technology for political parties, but the real brilliance will be fixing a voting system that is broken.

Social Media and the end of Control

In that all time great TV series Get Smart, the forces of good are tied to Maxwell Smart’s spy organization called “Control”, who naturally battle the enemies of all things good “Kaos”.

The great institutions of our age have become great through their ability to create order and control amongst their diverse members. Of course, one person’s attempt to exert control is another’s loss of freedom.

The rise of social networking sites has brought into question the preordained view of control, order and debate. As significantly, the same sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter offer new opportunities for those same organisations and people to build deeper and richer relationships with those who follow.

But there’s a catch, you can’t build the deeper relationship without the institution having to give up its long ordered sense of control, particularly over debate. A good example of this would be the recent Presidential election where around 5 million people “friended” either a presidential or vice presidential candidate. And in becoming a “friend” either on Facebook or through MySpace or even directly on the candidate’s own site, they have the right to contact me and communicate with me, and likewise I have the same right to communicate with them. So if I disapproved of Barack Obama’s choice of Joe Biden as VP, or disapproved of John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin I have every right to express it on their site – and for all to see.

The same applies to community leaders, churches and businesses, where I can express either my support or concern about their actions provided I have a demonstrated relationship with them.

For most institutional leaders this represents a threatening proposition. Church leaders, politicians and other public figures then have to provide either a greater account of their actions, or at least be willing to allow differing views. The strange thing is that this is the essence of leadership, being able to build coalitions and create a space for the diversity and differences amongst followers.

In a strange way, a leader’s capacity to allow others to “speak truth to power” also provides a reflection on the leaders capacity to self question and willingness to benefit for the richness of different perspectives.

Of course some political parties, employers and community groups think they can control debate by banning their members from talking to the media – but the fact is the media is everyone now- and whilst most people might not talk to their local newspaper or TV station, the use of social media provides an avenue to talk to their friends and community. The groundswell can’t be stopped.

Whilst this can be threatening for leaders, it also has a rich upside. It builds deeper and richer links between leaders and followers and throughout and across organizations. For example, the employee who “friends” the CEO on a site like Facebook might see the CEO’s personal interest in a charity or community group, his or her favourite sporting team and their devotion to their family and, at another level get a richer perspective of what makes them tick. Conversely, the CEO who is thinking of cutting back his labour force might really see the families and faces that depend on the weekly pay check and think twice.

Li and Bernhoff in their book Groundswell argue that resisting this change in power dynamics is useless, indeed in reflects an old paradigm that has already been washed away. Like Barbra Streisend’s attempt to get her beachfront home pixilated out of Google Earth, those who attempt to defy the groundswell will discover that it is like trying to bail out the Titanic.

Of course social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter do change boundaries in relation to privacy and being able to negotiate those boundaries will be a challenge for all… and indeed a topic for a future blog

Stay well.

PDR

The arrival of the Millennial Generation

In 1159, the diplomat and theologian, John of Salisbury wrote …“we are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, so that we can see more than they, and things at a greater distance, not by virtue of any sharpness of sight on our part, or any physical distinction, but because we are carried high and raised up by their giant size.“.

John’s assertion that the achievements of human history are not necessarily those of men or women who are of uncommon brilliance, but rather human advancement comes from those who take the learning of others and build on it.

The story of the emergence of the new information economy is in the last years of the 20^th century the latest advancement in the advancement of human history. The information economy achieved what the Greeks sought to do with their first libraries in assembling all human knowledge in one place.

What this means has profound implications for our world – for we are seeing young people enter college who know no other life than a life where knowledge is sought on-line – where connectedness occurs first and foremost digitally – be it through the internet, ipods, Youtube, email and SMS. The Millennial Generation has arrived.

And with them comes a change in the leadership model that has been common for the 20^th century. The old model was the Neil Armstrong model, this is we make heroes out of the great men that walk on the moon – and not the hundreds if not thousands of engineers, mathematicians and IT people who made it happen. Wikipedia had demonstrated that collaboration can produce greater and more powerful results than waiting for the a few to release a new encyclodedia every five years.

The old model says Al Gore invented the internet – but we know from Battelle’s book “The Search” that the net and the modern search engines were the result of intense competition, collaboration and innovation between institutions, corporations and individuals.

It was created through a culture of learning (often at major universities such as MIT and Stanford) and enterprises, where there was a willingness to change, to take new unexplored (and inherently risky) paths and to watch and learn from both the mistakes and successes of others. In so doing, we did what the Ancient Greeks failed to do and never before has humanity had access to so much accumulated knowledge.

Today, the first generation who grew up with this revolution are entering our universities, workplaces and the polling booths.

Already the influence of the Millennials is being felt – through our social media we share our news, our music and our lives. Intuitively they have rejected the “Neil Armstrong” approach and take their satisfaction not from position, not from stereotypes, but from their experiences and from “being”. They were the first group that were in fact ready for an African- American president (and their parents followed) and they were also the same group that saw the grainy black and white images of John McCain in a POW hospital and simply thought “he must be old if he was filmed in black and white”.

The great lesson we can take, is that a society that is underpinned by collaboration as the key defining value (as distinct from competition), could see the process of change and innovation speed up again.

Who knows what that might mean, where it will take us and what lands our eyes will behold…but one suspects we will be seeing further than any generation before us and my instinct is that should be a good thing.

Is the US President a chain smoking Muslim, or is Google more easily manipulated than we think?

Each day 213 million searches are undertaken on the internet and about half of those are conducted on Google.  How do I know that?, well I typed in the words “how many google searches a day? And the first item on my search results was from searchenginewatch.com.  With a name so authentic, I instantly believed the figure.

Of course we search for everything – we google ourselves, our friends, movies we are interested in, directions to restaurants, quotes on airfares, reviews of schools and search our random thoughts or favourite topics.  Search has become the new way we explore the world.  Or do we…

One of the great challenges of innovation is to overcome our pre-existing frames and our ways of thinking.  Innovation and learning is grounded in the ability to ask questions that have not been asked before – and to concede a point, learning is also based on the foundation that others have laid.

John Battelle in his book “The Search” argues that a search is a means to an end – in other words we Google to navigate to the answer to a question or problem

The question I have, and one I do not have an answer for, is the question posed by the Atlantic “is Google making us stupid?” (of course I had to check Google to make sure I remembered it correctly and I did).  Are we running the danger of losing the capacity to think differently and creatively because with search all the answers are at our fingertips?  In fact, more than that, have we developed a critical capability to challenge Google and what it says is the most reliable information on a topic? Or do we mindlessly accept the first answer that comes our way?

The power of search engines is that they guide us to the answers it thinks we want. 

Let me give you an example, after staying up too late last night, I have typed in the words today “Causes of sleepiness” and one of the most popular medical diagnosis site (wrongdiagnosis.com) pops up and on investigation it says my sleepiness could be caused by any one of 925 conditions – fortunately the first three reasons are “sleep debt”, “not enough sleep” and “boredom” (ahh now I know why some people fall asleep in class)…but the list goes on to include coma, malaria, narcolepsy, AIDS, shock and scurvy. 

Now that’s a good laugh, as we know I really have scurvy due to the lack of fresh fruits during a New England winter.  However my concern is to paraphrase an old preacher “If google says it, I believe it, and that settles it” and that the searches guide our thinking or determine the truths we hold.  Of course Google says nothing, but its points us to what it thinks we want to read or hear.  To give an example, according to Google, if I searched Barack Obama I might also be interested in related searches like “Barack Obama smoking” or “Barack Obama muslim” and on undertaking these searches I discover that the President is a chain smoking, muslim lawyer from Chicago and I struggle at wondering how a chain smoking muslim can become President.  In fact, the first images I see on the searches are of the President chain smoking.

Now there’s nothing wrong with having elected a President who is a muslim or indeed a chain smoker – what’s wrong is when we allow the web to define what we consider to be truth about people and we allow it to define who we believe people to be. 

Now if you think no one would rightly undertake a search without questioning the outcome of the search, then ponder this – how many times have you typed in “Chinese restaurant Cambridge” or “movie review Slumdog Millionaire” and let Google think for you?  How many times have you used Wikipedia as a source for facts even though its reliability is as good as its weakest contributor.

Google is a great tool.  Search has made so many decisions so much faster and easier – but the question is, are we becoming stupid by letting google think for us – and if we are, should we be then surprised when people end up thinking that the US President is a chain smoking muslim?

How modern media companies can create safe places for communities

In the last few days we have two separate events that highlight the challenge facing modern media institutions around the world.

The first was the share price of Fairfax, one of Australia’s premier media institutions falling below $1.  Whilst no-one is forecasting the end of a media institution that has contributed to Australian life for nearly 180 years, it is clear the business model is under serious pressure.  It is a pressure felt by newspapers around the world.  Fairfax’s arch rival News Corporation itself just posted a quarterly loss of $6.4 billion US (or $9.6 billion AUD). 

The rise of the citizen journalist and the fall of the financial markets have made the path for traditional media companies quite rocky.

The second event was the on-line reaction of Australians to the Victorian bushfires.  We saw the web and social media at its best and worst.  At its best, close to 700,000 people join groups expressing support, concern and sympathy for the victims of the tragic fires.  The group started by a member of Facebook, saw major government institutions and charities use the group to communicate information about how to help.

At its worst, Facebook saw the creation of vigilante groups seeking to exact their own justice on the man accused of lighting a fire that killed 11 people.  The main groups comprising about 2,500 people, sought to take justice in to their own hands.  Despite court orders, some group members posted the man’s name, address, phone numbers, photos, and worse still, the contact details of his family members and others who simply had the misfortune of sharing his surname.  Many group members detailed how they wanted the accused to be tortured and killed.  Coupled with the ugliness of the vigilantism was the concern of lawyers that the behavior of the groups could create grounds for a mistrial against the accused.  Facebook it has to be acknowledged, closed down the vigilante groups when requested by the authorities.

Whilst the traditional media for too long have to exclude the voices of ordinary people, no one wants to see the day where the voice of the community is no more than the voice of the mob crying out for blood. 

As blogs around the world have shown, you don’t need to be charged with murder to incite the anger of the blogosphere, where people using the anonymity of the web, say things they would dare not put their name to.  Having said that, many of the Facebook vigilantes were more than happy to put their name and face alongside of their posts.

So why, you ask, are these two events related?  Because there is a real need and place in our communities for media companies that provide reliable journalism and also the creation of safe places where communities can interact.  The etymological meaning of the word media, is in fact the concept of being the medium, or to be in the middle.  In the anything goes virtual world, communities will be seeking, trusted parties to be the middle, and to mediate difficult paths.  Modern communities will be seeking institutions like Fairfax to help navigate not only news, but also the challenges of countless community members being heard.  The blogosphere is too angry and the vigilantes are there for every issue, and sit on all sides of the political and social divides, and the broader community is looking for institutions to create inviting places for communities, to speak and be heard in a manner than is both respectful and authentic.

The challenge for Fairfax, and its contemporaries, to expand their view of journalism to include many more voices, and faces.  Some of these voices might be willing to speak often and some only occasionally.   Their topics are not just entertainment, politics and sport, though entertainment, politics and sport will always be the staples of media.  They will seek to participate, speak and argue – and not just silently bite their tongue as they have done for a hundred years.  And of course, the challenge will be to do this, with a business model that is sustainable.

Modern communities still need media companies to help them manage worlds of complexity, but what communities are requiring is that the current media models change. 

 

The end of Big Brother and the rise of Little Brothers.

George Orwell’s novel 1984 told the story of a totalitarian regime called Oceania where the state gained total control over the people through its technological ability to provide total surveillance.

Orwell’s glimpse into the future of government monitoring everything through the use of recording equipment. Written in 1949, the book reflected its times with the excesses of Nazism and Communism firmly in everyone’s minds.

Yet history has turned out differently than what Orwell predicted and in the 21st century we have seen not the emergence of Big Brother but of “Little Brothers”. The “Little Brother” reports on himself and on others. He twitters, provides status updates, uploads, photographs, reports, blogs and wikis.

Under Little Brother, the private domain no longer exists. Surprisingly, the grip of Little Brother tightens as people move closer to power, fame, fortune and influence. When the President of the United States speaks before an audience, he is met not by waving arms, but of hundreds of phones with cameras lifted above people’s heads. In any day, he might face thousands of cameras, all broadcasting his movements to small audiences around the world.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the most photographed woman in the world was Diana, Princess of Wales. Day in and day out dozens of photographers followed her and she died in 1997 in a car crash that occurred as she sought to avoid a chasing pack of photographers. Yet that world is so different than today – if she was alive today and walked down the street, or ate in a restaurant or went to a movie, or worked out in a gym inevitably she could expect to face people holding phones in front of their faces. Surveillance that is total and complete.

Dan Gillmor in his e-book “We The Media” highlights the rise of the citizen – and the end of the dominant centralized media culture. Correctly he argues that it means the rise of a multitude of voices, that are uncensored, authentic and fresh. We report on everything from the mundane to metaphysics.

No longer do we rely on one movie critic, but hundreds, ordered and structured on movie review websites. We report on bad driving, photograph bad parkers, review bad teachers, comment on boring lectures and provide status updates on everything we see and hear. We even seek out love through the development of “profiles” and seek out the perfect partner through searching the images and profiles of others.

And what will be next – nurses uploading photos of famous patients? morticians blogging on the grief of their clients? Ex-lovers reviewing the performance of former partners? Children reporting on the disciplinary codes enforced by their parents? Or will we see parishioners providing weekly ratings of sermons provided by their church ministers? The stark reality is – its all up for grabs, there is no limit – the grip of the Little Brothers tightens each day.

So the question is, are the Little Brothers as dangerous as Big Brother? Are they a counterbalance to the possible power of the State, or are they easily co-opted conspirators? Or worse, are the Little Brothers, creating the end of privacy in any and every form – are we both volunteering up our own individual anonymity and seeking every opportunity to steal the private moments of all others?

The rise of the citizen journalist, the citizen communicator is a new phenomena with social norms still forming, but it is clear we need a community debate, that allows us to consider and ponder the world we have and are creating – and the world we have created without any reflection or thinking.