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

The Boston Globe this morning, front page headline, “US facing guerrilla war, general says.” General John Abizaid described in a press conference yesterday at the Pentagon US troops facing organized opposition, including surface-to-air missiles and targeted assassinations.

At a previously reported cost to US taxpayers of $3.9 billion per month of occupation, and a death toll yesterday of 146 and rising, this situation is becoming more, not less difficult.

This is not surprising, tragically.  The best networks win.  We had the best warmaking network–much better than Iraq’s third-world, authoritarian military (and of course, without WMD).  Now, however, the network struggle switches to peacemaking and economy-making.  We don’t have much of a peacemaking or economy-making network in Iraq–and no good plans, it seems, for how to do so.  Neither does the opposition, but for them to keep us tied up, all they need to do is destabilize our construction of a peacekeeping network and economy–which is pretty easy to do. For example, yesterday’s killing of a pro-US Iraqi mayor seems likely to discourage other high profile support for the US among Iraqi politicians.

Making war is relatively easy–it just requires destroying or destabilizing an ecosystem.  Making peace and economic progress is very difficult, and requires establishing and nurturing an ecosystem.

Instant Posse

More musing on posses.  There are “posse dates” that are set up in advance.  There is “instant posse” formed within the same day, or even the same hour.  And I suppose there are “post hoc” posses where people meet in a bar or a meetup group and decide to form a posse for the future…

Hey, Dave Winer, perhaps we could implement this smart posse/instant posse idea on a blogging service platform.  Consider the following:  Each subscriber would get a blog, and the blog could be used for their evolving thoughts about whatever—which would be much more informative than even the richest responses to the Match.com questions.  We could start the blogging off by suggesting questions or creative writing exercises that folks might do to kick start their blogging.

We may need to modify the blogging software/services.  Actually, perhaps what we need is not an add-on to one blogging platform, but some systems of feeds and links that can be attached to anyone’s blog..

In any instance, people need to be able to easily deal readily with four aspects of the posse experience:

(1)Location: 

Zip code and neighborhood (for places like New York or Boston). Neighborhood should include neighborhood where I live, but also neighborhood where I am going to at a given time.  So I could signal, “I will be in Palo Alto on August 3 and would be available for a posse in the evening.”

(2) Time: 

Variables could include “I like weekend posses” or “I will be available tonight for posses between the hours of midnight and five AM.”  I could also allow for preferences as to how spontaneous or planned I like to be, such as “I am willing to consider instant posses with people I have already decided I’d like to be with—just send me a text message on my cell phone with our posse nickname, a posse time, and a meeting place, and any other information (e.g. dress to get wet).”  Or “I like to schedule my posse times—let me know a week or so in advance and I will be there.”

(3) Affinity: 

Theme descriptions and idea exchanges—which perhaps is accomplished by blogging plus some search capabilities.  Matching tools, including profile searches (“I’m looking for females and males who are up for street theater followed by dinner”), collaborative filtering (“people forming posses like yours also chose…”), and self selection (“I’m forming a posse around the following wild idea.  If you are interested, let me know.”).

(4) Posse management:

Permissions, time preferences, subject preferences.  Notification tools, for example, posses could be pre-formed—and then cell phone texting addresses exchanged, or simply cell phone numbers exchanged, so that at the appointed time a call could be made to assemble the posse.  Also, reminders could be semi-automatically generated a certain interval before the posse is to form.  Posses should probably be able to be merged, so that super-posses can be brought together.

Consider the advantages of Smart Posses!

An observation on the amazing ever expanding cyber Dean campaign:

The campaign could use a more targeted form of smart mobs, perhaps smart “sub-mobs” that can swarm around more selective opportunities.  These smaller mobs, mini-mobs, might be made up of people who are more intensely complementary.  And that, in turn, up the creativity and the fun..and help the grass grow roots.

To do this the campaign needs a technology service that sits somewhere between Match.com (for smart dates) and Meetup.com (for smart mobs).  I think “smart Posses” might do it.

So—imagine that I fill out a profile and say, “I’d be interested in getting together with people within ten miles of my zip codes, 02138 and 01773, for fun and political activity.”  “I’m interested in [pick one or more] zany street theater, civil disobedience, and tedious letter writing campaigns.  I’d be willing to go to a bar and see if we could sign up cool people for Dean—if you’d go do it with me.”

Then the software would allow any registered member to propose a “Posse” of between five and nine people (Cognitive scientist George Miller’s “magic number seven plus or minus two).  So I’d get an email “From smartposse.com” that would be from some person who had scanned the profiles and thought I’d be fun to have in her or his posse. 

The Posse invitation would include links to the profiles of a bunch of other prospective Posse members that he or she had selected.  I could go check these folks out, and decide if I felt the posse had promise.

A Posse date must have more than five members. This keeps it light, makes it more creatively chaotic, and distinguishes it from a date date.  We email back and forth, and eventually either opt in for this Posse date or opt out for now.  No pressure, just opportunity.

Oh yea, I have no problem with “cool dates for Dean” but that is a different idea…

Another wonderful post from Britt Blaser on The Sound of Democracy and the Dean Campaign’s record setting 6/30/03 fundraising–this one “how to” in a way I think has pretty profound implications for all of us. The point, I think, is that certain forms of online interaction build a personal sense of power and connection, and allow a smart mob to build, and to become a “fun mob” — sort of a digital rave — that calls to others, and that touches all who dance together..

Here’s an excerpt from Britt Blaser’s writeup:

Wisely, the campaign posted the comments of the donors as they described the incredible power of making a difference. This campaign seems trained in Clues. They’ve set up the playing field so that people can talk about governance–money’s just the punch line. As the day rolled on, you could see that the campaign people were not driving the contribution process, they were hosting it. Every half hour, they posted updates that functioned as a scoreboard–symbolic, not financial.

It was performance art. At 1 am, the Burlington crew was wrapping up but their fans, the donors, were urging them to play a few more, at least until the donations came in from California:

12:30 AM Ok, we’ve seen the comments asking us to stay up until 3 AM (”can you guys in HQ please, please keep the posts going until 3 a.m. ET? I’m staying up with you, if that makes you feel any better. :)” but we’ve still got a thank you email to send out — so much to thank for — it’s just me, Nicco, and Joe left here, and there are still bags of letters to open. I really wish we could, but believe me, we’re doing everything we can! After 1 AM we’re going to have to check out for the night on the updates. We’ll get you a full report as quickly as we can in the morning.

That’s the sound of democracy.

Oh, I just love this post from Britt Blaser, writing on Steal This Campaign!! Thanks to Doc Searls, writing on Networked Democracy at Work

Excerpts don’t do Blaserco justice, but here goes:

Steal This Campaign

OK, we can’t steal it, but we can buy it. Cheap.

All the campaigns are talking about money, which is what politicians care about. We can put an end to that foolishness with a simple strategy: Buy a campaign by showering it with so many $50 contributions that they won’t have to worry about corporate contributions. Apparently the Republicans are raising $200 million from their closest friends based on a single cynical premise:

You can buy people’s votes

The back story on that cynical assumption is that they need to be bought because they never manifest themselves other than through big time TV marketing.

But someone said recently that, if a million people give $1,000, the Republican’s cynical assumptions go out the window…

..Scale

Everyone seems to agree that 6/30/03 will be written about for years since it was the first spontaneous expression of political will by self-organizing voters talking each other into caring more and donating more through the Moveable Type Comments function. That inspiring day caused the campaign to believe more strongly in its core aspiration: to somehow get nominated and then to give the Republicans a decent challenge. If 6/30 is as important as it seems, the campaign is making a mistake: It should re-calibrate its goals.

If the campaign doesn’t see the potential in the Internet, then the smart mob phenomenon just might. And a smart mob functions at an entirely different level than conventional hierarchical structures. Its force is nuclear and 20th century politics is just gunpowder.

Do the Math

Internet-equipped people caused $802,000 to be donated to Dean on 6/30/03. They did it by chatting each other up as the new totals were posted every half hour, and as the goal, depicted as a baseball bat, was increased as goal after goal was surmounted through the afternoon.

A freely associating mob is forming around the Dean campaign. Its communication tools will soon transcend the Campaign comment archives, by organizing its own tools. The campaign can’t stop them nor should it want to, though there are surely consultants who would just as soon all this went away. Too late.

Metcalfe’s Law says that this mob’s value and power will grow with the square of its population, attracting more people and volksmoney as an accretion disk in space sucks in matter from the systems around it. I believe this phenomenon is a social force too powerful to be stopped, and that historians will be more interested in 6/30/03 than 9/11/01.

Well bloggers, here is one:  A new campaign is heating up to press for an independent investigation of the Bush administration’s possible falsification of data and intelligence about Iraq, in justification of the war.

Moveon.org is running a cyber campaign to press for investigations.  Here is part of the mailing.

Three weeks ago, MoveOn launched a petition asking Congress to create an independent commission to investigate whether the Bush Administration manipulated and distorted evidence to take the country to war in Iraq. Over 190,000 of us joined the effort. Now Congress is literally taking up our call: Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) has written a bill that would create just such a commission, and it’s already co-sponsored by a wide array of moderate Democrats — including many who voted for the war.

This commission can really happen — and the truth about the Bush Administration’s manipulation of evidence can really come out — but we’ll need your help. We’re launching a drive to get every member of Congress to personally pledge to support and vote for the independent commission. Please take a moment to ask Congressman Capuano to pledge today at:

http://moveon.org/wmdpledge
http://moveon.org/wmdpledge/?id=1502-3093951-o49SVXirAixDRh1tzoQLYQ>

If you sign right now, your comment may be among those read on the House floor by some of the Representatives pushing this resolution. Reps. Henry Waxman (D-CA), Barbara Lee (D-CA), George Miller (D-CA), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), and a number of others are looking forward to hearing what you have to say and reading some of the messages into the Congressional Record on the House floor.

Maybe what we want is a “politics of tenderness.”  Tenderness is healing, tenderness provides a sense of safety, tenderness allows the “other” to become open enough to touch and express their highest creativity and love.

This seems to me to be one of the most radical ideas in politics.  It’s so radical it freaks a lot of people out–”Too soft.” “Won’t work.” “What about security?”

Well, what about security?  In a very small world shared by 6.3 billion people, most of whom now can see what the others are doing, isn’t it possible that much of the toxic resentment and anger that swirls around is a response to a lack of tenderness?  Not just lack of personal tenderness, but lack of “institutional” tenderness.  How tender is it for us to intervene in Iraq, where there is lots of oil, but not become involved in Liberia or the Congo–where people are experiencing near genocides?

Abe Burmeister has a post on political giving and overcoming the intangibility of it all, in response to the Dean piece. An excerpt:

“What politicians and non profits need to do is provide a more concrete method for abstract supporters of the cause to transfer their money. Here’s one potential way it could work.

“Suppose you are thirsty and walking down the street. You walk into the nearest store and head to the bottled water section. The usual corporate brands are there, Crystal Geyser, Poland Spring, Arrowhead, etc. But there is also bottles of Howard Dean and George Bush water on the shelf. They are well branded and taste great. (And whoever says water has no taste is just wrong). You can give your money to some corporation or you can give your money to a political cause. What are you going to do? I’d say most people would support a cause they care for.

“So someone buys a Howard Dean water, and the campaign makes 20¢. 5 million supporters buying one bottle a day equals a million dollars a day in campaign funds. $350 million a year. More then the whole presidential election is expected to cost, for all the candidates combined… And that wouldn’t even put a dent in the multi-billion dollar US market for bottled water.

“Now this raises a lot of issues I don’t have time to get into at the moment, but the bottom line is that opening up new paths for people to express their political views could transform politics dramatically. For the better and for the worse, but more for the better. More soon.”

Moveon.org has about two million registered members.  If half of them—one million members—gave just $1000 each, this would add up to a billion dollars.

I predict that today we are witnessing the emergence of the first billion dollar American presidential campaign. It may not come this year, but it will certainly come soon.  The outlines are all too clear.  Now the question is, what do we do about it?

About fifteen minutes ago (at Midnight, June 30, 2003), the Howard Dean campaign closed its books on this quarter’s fundraising. His supporters have set a new record for Internet political giving. But we ain’t seen nothing yet.

Presidential campaigns are won on chump change, compared to other more scaleable economic endeavors in our society, such as Hollywood movies. With the web, scale has now come to political contributing.

To explain:  This morning I was excited to see that Dean had raised on the order of $7 million this quarter, much of it from small donations given over the Internet.  And then I was depressed to read in the New York Times that George W. Bush expects to raise more than $170 million for his unopposed primary campaign—and spend it all before his nomination.  Most of the money is expected to be used on television ads to attack the Democrats.  This amount is twice what Bush spent in 2000, and several times what any other presidential candidate in history has spent.  Bush can do this legally because he is not accepting federal matching funds, and thus is not under a spending cap until officially nominated.

But here is the punch line: Consider the following scenario.  Moveon.org has about two million registered members.  If half of them—one million members—gave just $1000 each, this would add up to a BILLION DOLLARS.  If we did this for Dean or for another progressive candidate it would certainly change the political landscape. OK, so dial me back a bit—let’s say that a million people gave just $200 each—that adds up to $200 million. More than George W. is expected to raise.

This scenario is not preposterous.  Let’s cut it another way.  Surveys suggest that there are at least 30 million “progressive” Americans—at just about 11% of the population.  If just 3 million of those gave $100, we get $300 million dollars.

This is in line with other scaleable activities in our economy.  Harry Potter did $100 million in book sales just last weekend alone.  A successful Hollywood movie does $100 million in a few weeks.

The reason that political giving does not reach these sorts of totals—in a nation of over 280 million people—is not that people don’t value the presidency—but that the conventional mechanisms for political donating don’t scale.  George Bush’s money is raised through small networks of wealthy individuals who tap their friends, family, and business associates.  While this network is effective up to a point, it cannot compare to the scalability of a nationwide system of theaters, retail stores, or the Internet.

But now the web has changed what is possible in campaign contributing.  Using the web millions of people can participate, and do so efficiently.  The Dean campaign is starting to prove this, as is Moveon.org.  Moreover, new forms of giving can now be explored. For example, people might pledge $5 a week to a candidate—rather than all at once. This would make contributing affordable for more people, and increase their involvement with the campaign.

A billion dollars.  Gaining the presidency of the first superpower is probably worth it!

More extraordinary news just arrived in an email this morning from Howard Dean:  “On Friday we raised $500,000 online in one day, $200,000 on Saturday, and another $300,000 yesterday.”

This puts the campaign at $6.3 million for the quarter so far, which ends at midnight tonight.

This total is truly remarkable for grassroots campaign fundraising, and when widely reported I predict this result will change perceptions of the Dean campaign, which in turn will result in more acceleration.

This is the power of grassroots campaigning plus the web.

Of course, all Democrats have much more to do.  The New York Times reported yesterday that George Bush is planning to raise and spend $170 million BEFORE he is officially nominated next year.  No, you didn’t read that wrong–”one hundred seventy million.” 

From the story titled “Bush Plays if Fast, with Hard Money”

“By early next March, Democrats will probably have settled on a nominee for president.

“At that point, with no opposition in the primaries, President Bush’s reelection campaign is expected to begin spending teh massive amount of money it is raising to paint an unfavorable picture of the Democratic candidate in the voter’s minds and to establish the terms of the fall contest in a way that benefits the president.

“It is almost certain that the Democrats will not have the money to respond.  ‘They will be flat on their backs,” said Scott Reed, an experienced Republican consultant…”tired from an exhausting primary campaign, still at each other’s throats, and completely broke.’

“..Mr. Bush is foregoing matching money, so there will be no limit to what he can spend. His campaign says it plans to raise $170 million, almost twice what Mr. Bush had in 2000 when he also refused matching money and faced stiff primary opposition, and many times more than any other candidate has every spent.”

The point here is that in the Bush campaign, the Democrats face a true first superpower of fundraising and media air stikes and smart bombs.  Only a second superpower strategy can possibly work.  Grassroots, combined with the web, will be where our creativity goes. To win, we will find a way to seed and nurture a self-organizing, self-expanding on-the-ground network of informed, empowered people who will change the game in electoral politics.