Jim Moore’s blog: Innovation, Strategy, Public Policy

There is a highly visible story in the Sunday New York Times rewriting the last month of web-based Second Superpower and Google discussions..and missing a lot..

If you want to read the other side of the debate–and particularly if you are new to it–i.e., if you are on my blog because you became intrigued by the NYT article..here are some leading bloggers in creative rebuttal to the Times:

DaveNet: If you want to be in Google… 

Microdoc News: What Google Leaves Out. 

Doc: “The ‘googlewashing’ Orlowski talks about was done by the Times, not by Google, and not by bloggers.” Exactly. 

Unfortunately what is missed in all of this is a discussion of the Second Superpower concepts. Tyler wrote of the second superpower as global public opinion against the war in Iraq.  Greenpeace implicitly equated it with a broader movement, including environmental activism, etc.. My own argument was that a powerful movement is emerging, broader and more inclusive than what is currently thought of as the peace or civil society movements, based on personal transformation and identification with the world rather than the nation, web-enabled by tools and community practices like blogging, and creating a new and interesting relationship to international law and institutions. Joi Ito writes elequently about emergent democracy, and maintains a community to explore related ideas. This fall at Harvard Law School, Charlie Nesson, John Palfrey, Andrew McLaughlin and I are going to offer a course on Digital Democracy.  None of the ideas mentioned above are complete, but I believe they are worth considering as we attempt to establish new forms of activism and empowerment in a globalizing world.

The Google dispute is a kind of play-within-the-play.  It is an argument about one mechanism and its role in the community.  Unfortunately, the little play is distracting from the larger, more inclusive one.

I am joyfully preparing to travel tomorrow to join Mark Anderson’s Future in Review Conference–which I expect to be one of the best gatherings in a long time! Mark writes a respected newsletter called Strategic News Service, which has a terrific combination of business grit–like taking apart Microsoft’s quarterly earnings report-with visionary innovation economy themes.  I expect the conference to have a similar mix.  The last time I was with Mark we spoke with a group of US Senators about telecom, Internet, and innovation.  The night before–over too many shots of Lagavulin and Oban–we somewhat precariously christened ourselves “Men O’ Truth”. In any case, the next day Mark in particular took many shots of a different sort at the Senators–and, in my view, pretty much earned his title.

Now, of course we don’t really know the truth..but perhaps we can grope toward it in creative collectivity…Or, as the Quaker’s say, we can explore questions, share leadings, and discover the sense of the meeting.