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

Well, here’s to a wonderful New Year!

Much excitement tonight as Dean for America (you!) raised over $15
million for the three months ending at  midnight.  This sets a
Democratic record for fundraising.  And this result was achieved,
as before, in small contributions.

I talked to my Dad in Iowa tonight—he figures the state will go for
Dean.   Dad says that he and June are really really really sick of
the television ads for Gephart, Kerry, and Dean.  They’ve never been to a caucus before, but
are considering finding one to check it out.

Most exciting is the grassroots campaign in New Hampshire—well over a
thousand face-to-face meetings in people’s homes, listening to each
other’s stories of living and of political interest, reweaving the
social fabric, one group at a time.  Ten thousand New Hampshire
citizens have taken part in at least one of these meetings!

Members of a New Hampshire Dean Leaders group

A New Hampshire organizer

MeetUp continues to be our heart nationally—over a thousand organizers,
self-trained and increasingly experienced, bringing together
communities across the land.  From netroots to grassroots.

My office at the Dean national headquarters in Burlington, Vermont, is along a narrow corridor, across
from the only real conference room.  People come up and down the
hall all the time,  peek in, connect,  create intense
conversations.  “Next!”  “Aaah,” I laughed after one
rapid-fire sequence,  “I love being a middle manager!“

The conference room

Inside the conference room planning an action

I am going to take the door off the hinges of my personal office, and have an open door
policy. I do now.  My coordinators (as in American football—did I
ever think I’d be using football metaphors?) including Harish and Matt
and Zephyr and Nicco feel free to come in, and often if I’m talking to
one or two another will pop in for a few minutes.  Harish,
searching for a (semi) quiet place was camped out on my floor yesterday
with his laptop for an hour or so.  It has been a wild week. 
Lots of technology, processes and people.  Good fun with the team.
Laughs, long marathons, and the occasional magic miracle breakthrough.

……………………………………………………

I’m pretty exhausted tonight.  It’s nice to snuggle in and just be, here in this house in the dark in the woods.

Happy New Year!  Love you all!

First, here is a great new piece by Eric Alterman, in The Nation:  “Washington Goes to War (with Howard Dean).”

An excerpt:

addam Hussein may be out of his spider hole, but
Washington’s real enemy is still at large. His name: “Howard
Dean”–and nobody in America poses a bigger threat to the city’s
sense of its own importance. New Republic writer Michelle
Cottle returned from maternity leave to find Washington fit for a
“Tarantino-style blood bath,” with the Democratic front-runner cast
as a “paleoliberal…a heartless conservative…too naïve to
beat Bush…too politically cynical to trust…a Stalinist…[and] a
neofascist [who] kills babies and drinks their blood.”

————————————————————————————————————————————-

On a totally different note–in fact, from a different city and country
(Barcelona, Spain) a set of seemingly wonderful papers and blog posts (I have to read
them more carefully before I can endorse ) by Edward Hugh on
economics and demography and the need to put these together, along with
development theory, to make sense of the world’s big problems.

Responding to Dave Winer’s criticism of the Dean and Clark campaigns for not doing enough to support small businesses that provide software:

I’m the newly appointed Director of Internet and Information Services
for the Dean campaign, and oversee our software and services
policies.  Disclosure: I’m also a fellow, along with Dave Winer,
at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School.

At Dean for America, it is our policy to purchase software rather than
to make it, and to work with vendors large and small to help them be
successful while also pursuing our own success as a grassroots-powered
presidential campaign.  We strongly support small businesses for a
variety of reasons, including that they are the major contributors to
employment growth in our nation.

Dean for America enjoys a good relationship with a number of innovative
small businesses in software and services, including MeetUp.com for
meeting software,  Six Apart for blog software,  Envision for
message boards, and Convio for CMS, fundraising record keeping and FEC
compliance.  We use additional small business-provided software
for voter file management,  email, and list management.  We
also use software and services from large companies including Yahoo,
AOL, and Microsoft.  We pay market prices for all software and
services.

Obviously, some of the code we use (and that all technology-employing
organizations use) is created by independent communities of volunteers,
and has a
market price, set by the communities, of zero.  We appreciate what
these citizens are doing in the service of democracy and technology,
and regard it as
their choice whether they organize in companies or not-for-profit
communities.

Like most enterprises we  prefer to buy software and services, but
sometimes must make our own.   The make/buy decision can be
tough.  In many cases, vendors do not provide solutions that
integrate the features that campaigns need,  and companies may not
see campaigns as a particularly attractive market.  In such cases
we sometimes need to make internal changes to existing software and
services or develop our own.  This is particularly the case in a
campaign like ours that is innovating in grassroots philosophy and the
use of information and communication technology.

The Dean campaign is participating in the social software movement
because we are committed to grassroots and netroots campaigning—and
because members of the social software movement  constitute a
crucial part of our most active base of supporters.  Members of
the social software movement are us.  We are in the innovation
cycle, as well as a beneficiary of it.  Thus we have deployed some
community communication services including services now called
DeanSpace and Dean Commons.  Let me be clear:  We are establishing our
services to empower citizens, not to compete in the
social software industry.  Our aim is to compete in the
presidential election and encourage the transformation of American
politics.  This is more than enough for us.  Our aim is to
elect Howard Dean, improve the presidency, and empower people.

Apologies for not blogging for a few days, but I’ve been busier than
you might imagine.  I’m now back in my home west of Boston, on Christmas Eve day.  Thank G*D for the holiday!

It has been a wild few days.  This past Saturday a dozen of us from Dean
headquarters in Burlington, Vermont journeyed over-mountain to
Manchester, New Hampshire, to deepen our understanding of the
grassroots campaign.

We joined informational house meetings and
local organizing groups’ leadership meetings, in citizens’ homes. 
The meeting pictured above is a leadership meeting, with volunteers who
are organizing their small rural town.

And Karen Hicks
(our New Hampshire campaign director) and her team of community
organizers took us through a crash course in grassroots values.
organization and leadership.  Remarkable process, born of years of
experience with face-to-face community organizing. 

As one organizer said, “I worked on a senatorial campaign here in New
Hampshire in 2002. We spent $10 million on TV ads, and left nothing
behind in terms of community capability.”  Karen said, 
“Television air wars leave voters more cynical, with less information,
and more alienated from the political process at the end of a campaign
than at the beginning.” 

The point of the Dean campaign in New Hampshire is to help voters work
together to establish personal relationships and networks that will
persist and expand over time–long after this primary is over.  In
one sense, the Dean campaign in New Hampshire is an opportunity to
build political capability in the electorate, rather than an end in
itself. 

Note to Joi Ito and others who are learning with the Dean
campaign and hope to transfer lessons to other venues, including
Japan: 

To win we must find more and more ways to deepen the
support that online organizing provides for face-to-face
community.  Face-to-face meetings generate and feed the intimate
daily personal communication networks
that help people stand up to the media-driven information assaults that
currently define politics as usual.  Face-to-face community
involves identifying local people who share your values, obtaining
social permission to get together and talk politics, sharing
information and developing understanding, and taking meaningful
personal
action to play a part in a larger political whole.

On Sunday back in Vermont, a five hour planning session on how to use
our data resources to more effectively empower grassroots organizers
and groups.

As some of you know, I’m a few days into my new job as Director of
Internet and Information Services for the Dean campaign.  
I love the team–who I have been working with for the past 11 weeks as
a volunteer (actually, I’m still volunteering, except that now I have
an official job to do).  We are challenged to deal with the
fast-rising scale and complexity and speed of the movement. The trick
is how to both embrace emergence and allow it to shape us, while also
leading emergence and helping shape it. 

We
are committed to anticipating and benefiting from the challenges
ahead.  For a general intro to our perspective, check out this
article in Wired.

Our allies and we are pioneering new forms of network
organizations, and learning how to work with them. For example, we have
a
full-spectrum new media and technology operation within the
campaign, and we must find better ways to relate to the dozens (or
perhaps hundreds) of similar organizations in our extended universe.

Our
environment changes daily, and we face tough
competitors–both our fellow Democratic candidates and the organization
of George Bush/Karl
Rove.  The Bush folks have extensive grassroots networks, are
dominant in broadcast radio, and strong in broadcast television. 
Bush allies are already on the air with negative televion ads in Iowa. 

Our Dean strength is grassroots
community organizing–as described above and by thousands of freelance
organizations across the country–combined with swarming, richly
diverse alternative media
including blogging and email, plus conventional media including
television.  We also think it helps to be telling the truth, and
to have values that include asking for the best in people, rather than
stiring up fear and strife.  And last but not least, we have the
best candidate–a person with courage, intelligence, wisdom and the
ability to trust people and connect with people in this deeply
troubling time.

Warm holiday wishes to all! 

Peace and Joy

PS:  If you are in the sciences, you can help form Scientists for Dean, being organized with the stewardship of  Bob Kopp and David Isenberg.

Great story: Zack Rosen up at the Dean campaign, working with Zephyr
Teachout’s inspiration and support, enlists and leads over a hundred open source
folks to create DeanSpace blogging
and organizing tools.  This work has been ongoing, and getting
traction, but by the same token has been relatively undiscovered by the
broader blog universe.  (Perhaps G*D wanted this ecosystem to
develop a bit before exposing it to the world).  Among many other
things, Zack and puts
in an RSS feed capability that ping a site that Dave Winer had
constructed in the
distant past, as a kind of mate to weblogs.com.  Dave this week was
moving weblogs.com from one server to another, and noted feeds with
“Dean” in them.  Digging in, Dave discovers a whole world of
bloggers, at the net roots, using DeanSpace and conversing with each
other.  Dave takes the RSS feeds and creates a dedicated
aggregator–turning these blogs into a Dean site–with all the richness
and complexity and humanity of the people involved.

Dave calls Zack and they discuss further ideas.  The story goes
public at last night’s Berkman Thursday Night Meeting, where Dave demos, with Dean folks and others on video feeds, as well.

An fun story of simultaneous, distributed creativity, enabled
by standards (RSS–and soon, Zack tells me, FOAF), and resulting in new
experiences, new meetings among people, and new services.

And you and I
can now enjoy this site, Dean Community News, as well as meet the bloggers..

PS: A couple of corrections to the above, from Zack,

From: Zack Rosen

Date: Fri Dec 19, 2003  4:08:18  PM US/Eastern

To: Jim Moore

Subject: Jim, a couple corrections on your blog post

Hey Jim, read your blog entry - a couple things.

> Great story: Zack Rosen up at the Dean campaign, working with
Zephyr Teachout’s inspiration and support, enlists and leads over a
hundred open

> source folks to create DeanSpace

DeanSpace came entirely out of the grassroots.  It was a feew
months into development / design that the campaign (zephyr) got
involved.  I am not “the leader”, nor am I DeanSpace’s MVP. 
We are pretty informal, and fluous and I have no real authority over
the project.

> Among many other things, Zack and puts in an RSS feed capability
that ping a site that Dave Winer

This is not true.  I didn’t put the pinging capabilities into DeanSpace, the Drupal dev’s did a while back.

-Zack

The following is from Dave Winer’s http://scripting.com this afternoon.
Dave has made an interesting discovery out in the blogosphere…

I’ve got a total kickass demo for tonight’s Berkman meeting, which is on, and Murphy-willing will be webcast.  

More about tonight’s demo. I’ll explain how the
Dean campaign is using the Internet in ways you didn’t know about, and
that I didn’t know about until last night. My eyes popped when I saw
what they were doing. Jay Rosen, whose nephew Zack is the Dean
developer, got a sneak preview. “Very exciting Dave. Mega cool. Did
Zack help with this?” To which I said: “Yes he did, but due to the
power of standards, he didn’t know he did. ;->” That’s the way it’s
supposed to work. Open level playing field. Anyone who wants to can
innovate. Small pieces, loosely joined. Tune in to tonight’s webcast.
The app I’m demoing is a Web app so you’ll be able to follow along from
home. 7PM Eastern.  height=”9″ border=”0″ alt=”Permanent link to this item in the archive.”>

PS: Please don’t construe this as an
endorsement by Berkman Center, Harvard Law School, or myself for any
particular candidate. Sorry if this is a bummer, but that’s very very
important.  height=”9″ border=”0″ alt=”Permanent link to this item in the archive.”>

Hey Dave, what is the address for the webcast?

Submitted by David Isenberg on Thu, 12/18/2003 - 12:46.
Community

Zephyr Teachout, Joe Rospar, Joe Costello (front to back) writing for Dean for America..

Obviously those of us doing grassroots work for Dean and others need to
be aware that the Right  is way ahead of us on grassroots
organizing.  In fact, our only advantages are that Americans are
on the whole pretty open and progressive, and that we lie less than the
Right.  That said, check out this site,
which is a Right-wing grassroots site, courtesy of Zephyr Teachout at
the Dean campaign.  Zephyr says this site is very effective at
using petitions and fundraisers online for the Right.  Here is a
quote from today’s Grassfire.org:

Grassfire TV Ad Turns Tables on Radical Left

Radical
left groups – led by MoveOn.org — are stepping up their attacks
on the President, calling for independent investigations and
running attack ads designed to create doubt and mistrust of
President Bush. Grassfire has just released a new 30-second
commercial that turns the tables on the radical left.

Watch the Ad

Donate
to help air the Ad

More on MoveOn’s radical agenda

Feedback
- send us your comments

From John Palfrey this morning:

Are citizens really re-engaged in the political process?  And if so,
what would a president elected by a citizen-powered groundswell do once
elected to govern in a manner consistent with how s/he was elected? 
Participate in a discussion ongoing here;
it’s free and experimental and it’s only going to work if lots of
us dig in.  You’ll just have to sign up with a simple form, join the project
called “Internet and Society” and reply to the question posted by Jim
Moore and Kelly Nuxoll.  (We at the Berkman Center don’t support any
candidate, but we do support citizen engagement in the political
process using Internet technologies.)

This is an opportunity for YOU personally right now this day–yes you Steve, Ingrid, Ralph, Sherry, Dave, Yossi–to participate in a very significant experiment in
online presidential policy making.  The Berkman Center for
Internet & Society and the Howard Dean campaign invite you to an
online policy discussion in the Harvard Law School/Berkman Center
developed “H2O” format. This is not your father’s Oldsmobile online
discussion.  The way this one works, you are invited to respond at
some length, and your piece is then circulated to another participant
for her or his comment.  You are assured at least one thoughtful
reader before your piece is posted.  Reciprocally, you will be
send, by email, a different reader’s essay, and asked to comment on
it.  The result is a building dialogue that emphasizes
peer-to-peer connections and community-building, as well as public
posting of ideas.

The actual question being considered is posed in Socratic form, and
puts you in the hypothetical position of a newly elected president.

The question speaks for itself (I hope–Kelly Nuxoll and I wrote it),
but here is something to mull over: 

Perhaps Howard Dean is not
running for the same presidency as George Bush.  That is, perhaps
in an era of online communication, combined with grassroots community
organizing, we need a new form of presidency that itself encourages
more peer-to-peer problem solving across our society.  Perhaps we
need a movement to reverse the consolidation of presidential and
legislative and judicial power at the center, because this
consolidation of power makes it harder for the society to solve its
most critical problems.

Here is a simple but breathtaking timeline site that lists initiatives
that made trade in slaves illegal, many years before our own Civil War
and Emancipation of slaves in the United States.  
Fascinating re: the development of international and
national law–and of course the struggle for and against
slavery.  Very modern in presaging today’s struggles among nations to address global wrongs.

Sample:

1794
The French National Convention emancipates all slaves in the French colonies.

March 22: U.S. Congress passes legislation prohibiting the manufacture,
fitting, equipping, loading or dispatching of any vessel to be employed
in the slave trade.

1795
Pinckney’s Treaty establishes commercial relations between U.S. and Spain.

1800
May 10: U.S. enacts stiff penalties for American citizens serving voluntarily on slavers trading between two foreign countries.

1804
January 1: The Republic of Haiti is proclaimed. The hemispere’s second
Republic is declared on January 1, 1804 by General Jean-Jacques
Dessalines. Haiti, or Ayiti in Creole, is the name given to the land by
the former Taino-Arawak peoples, meaning “mountainous country.”

1807
British Parliament bans the Atlantic slave trade.

Great Britain converts Sierra Leone into a crown colony.

1807
U.S. passes legislation banning slave trade, to take effect 1808.

1810
British negotiate an agreement with Portugal calling for gradual abolition of slave trade in the South Atlantic.

1815
At the Congress of Vienna, the British pressure Spain, Portugal, France
and the Netherlands to agree to abolish the slave trade (though Spain
and Portugal are permitted a few years of continued slaving to
replenish labor supplies).

1817
September 23: Great Britain and Spain sign a treaty prohibiting the
slave trade: Spain agrees to end the slave trade north of the equator
immediately, and south of the equator in 1820. British naval vessels
are given right to search suspected slavers. Still, loopholes in the
treaty undercut its goals. Slave trade flows strongly, 1815-1830. Slave
economies of Cuba and Brazil expand rapidly.

In the Le Louis case, British courts establish the principal that
British naval vessels cannot search foreign vessels suspected of
slaving unless permitted by their respective countries — a ruling that
hampers British efforts to suppress the slave trade.

1819
U.S. and Spain renew commercial agreements in the Adams-Onis Treaty.

U.S. Congress passes legislation stiffening provisions against American participation in the slave trade.

Britain stations a naval squadron on the West African coast to patrol against illegal slavers.

1820
May 15: U.S. law makes slave trading piracy, punishable by the death penalty.

The U.S. Navy dispatches four vessels to patrol the coast of West
Africa for slavers. This initial campaign lasts only four years before
the Americans recall the cruisers and break off cooperation with the
British.

1824
Great Britain and the U.S. negotiate a treaty recognizing the slave
trade as piracy and establishing procedures for joint suppression. But
the Senate undercuts the treaty’s force in a series of amendments, and
the British refuse to sign.