connecting*the*dots

Al Gore from:
The Assault On Reason

[…] “Fortunately, the Internet has the potential to revitalize the role played by the people in our constitutional framework. It has extremely low entry barriers for individuals. It is the most interactive medium in history and the one with the greatest potential for connecting individuals to one another and to a universe of knowledge. It’s a platform for pursuing the truth, and the decentralized creation and distribution of ideas, in the same way that markets are a decentralized mechanism for the creation and distribution of goods and services.

It’s a platform, in other words, for reason.

But the Internet must be developed and protected, in the same way we develop and protect markets—through the establishment of fair rules of engagement and the exercise of the rule of law. The same ferocity that our Founders devoted to protect the freedom and independence of the press is now appropriate for our defense of the freedom of the Internet.

The stakes are the same: the survival of our Republic.

We must ensure that the Internet remains open and accessible to all citizens without any limitation on the ability of individuals to choose the content they wish regardless of the Internet service provider they use to connect to the Web. We cannot take this future for granted. We must be prepared to fight for it, because of the threat of corporate consolidation and control over the Internet marketplace of ideas.” […]

With all of the unconferences popping up on the geek landscape, one has to assume that conference formats outside the technology community will slowly but steadily begin to loosen up a bit.

Thankfully, my favorite conference (TED) is making a move in that direction with TEDTalks.

TED is now releasing their talks, one per-week, under a Creative Commons license, allowing anyone to digest the talks and republish them for non-commercial purposes. I’ve just subscribed to their RSS feed (you can choose between the post, video, audio and email newsletter).

You still have to be invited to attend TED, the price tag remains +$4,000 and the format of the conference itself hasn’t changed, but it’s a great move for them to remove the walls and let us common folk listen in on the happenings.

Thank you.

Scott Rosenburg’s post, In defense of Al Gore’s history lesson, reminded me of an online project I came across the other day called, State of the Union.

The project is the brainchild of Brad Borevitz, who created it to analyze the State of the Union addresses given by US Presidents from 1790 to 2006. I grabbed two screenshots that I found interesting:

and

What did I find interesting?

• Lincoln was probably having an honest discussion about “insurgents” and “insurrection” in 1861
• Lincoln’s address spoke to a 16.2 grade level, Bush to a 9.6 grade level (although I assume the “applause” text must bias the results)
• The State of the Union has a consistent downward SMA regarding the grade level of the text, peaking with James Madison’s address on December 5, 1815 (25.7) and bottoming out with George W. Bush’s address on February 27th, 2001 (7.6)
• Bill Clinton scored just as low of a score as (9.1) as George W. Bush

Scott sees anti-intellectualism at work in today’s political and media circles.

Boris finds it at play within the patterns of speech our leaders use to communicate with the populace…

Even zefrank receives anti-intellectualism comments on his vlog nowadays.

So is our nation getting dumber? Or are the powerful simply lowering the bar of intelligent discussion to dishonestly promote a “no citizen left behind” policy while engaging in a twisted form of propaganda?

Duh, I dunno.

+

=

(inspired by C&L)

Brought to you from that cutting-edge crew over at Current TV. You know, that little ol’ venture from Al Gore.

Big business is already squirming regarding citizen media; they’re going to have a heart attack if this experiment takes off. I don’t make predictions often, but the day it’s the norm for companies to dive into blogging as a means to communicate with their market, citizen advertizing will take off like wildfire.

The value proposition for large companies is too high to ignore hundreds, possibly thousands of passionate, creative consumers. Aside from the media buy component of a 50 million dollar campaign (in non-Current TV channels), the remainder of the creative and production costs could be replaced by a hundred $1,000 checks.

But forget huge corporations for a minute; imagine the value proposition for small businesses. The saturation of message and community will be beyond enticing; it’ll be intoxicating.

Man, the elites must really hate Web/Media 2.0 now.

A snippet:

[…] “The founders of our country faced dire threats. If they failed in their endeavors, they would have been hung as traitors. The very existence of our country was at risk.

Yet, in the teeth of those dangers, they insisted on establishing the Bill of Rights.

Is our Congress today in more danger than were their predecessors when the British army was marching on the Capitol? Is the world more dangerous than when we faced an ideological enemy with tens of thousands of missiles poised to be launched against us and annihilate our country at a moment’s notice? Is America in more danger now than when we faced worldwide fascism on the march-when our fathers fought and won two World Wars simultaneously?” […]

Check out this video segment of a former Navy Seal turned independent journalist, Kaj Larsen, out in Afghanistan, tracing the footsteps of Osama bin Laden’s last know location: the caves of Tora Bora.

If MTV hit big due to the early adoption of cable TV, Al Gore’s Current TV is on the verge of hitting big because of the aligned stars of political backing, the philosophical and tangible aspects of open source, broadband access and the passionate content contributions of everyday citizens. The result is unbundled media, monetized to empower both the individual contributor and entrepreneurial business minds, while capturing the hearts and minds of home viewers currently pacified in their modernist couch potato, veal pens.

Apparently, the revolution will be televised…

Before I jump in, let me be clear about one thing in particular. I love Technorati for the service they are now, I love Technorati for the service they might become. They have helped shape the way we see and understand each other in ways that were never possible before.

They had me at hello.

Seriously though, where is Technorati going with their working relationship with PR firms such as Edelman? (not to mention corporate communications teams)

Do you consider it standard business practice for a company, which makes their money from the “free-speech” blogging community, to climb into bed with the one industry more creepy and propaganda driven than this current administration? I’m not inside Dave Sifry’s head, so I’m only left to wonder.

Thankfully, wondering while wandering is one of my favorite hobbies, so here’s what I’m thinking:

Rupert Murdock has drooled over the potential of blogs. That interest alone should be enough to represent the corporate perspective from within the mainstream media (they all golf together) and it has grown considerably since April (see the AOL purchase of Weblogs, Inc.).

Anyone else think that this particular relationship is symbolic of the calm before the storm of the battle to squash free speech through blogging?

Let me take that idea one step further.

If you don’t think that a “Director of Corporate Blogosphere” middle-man, with responsibilities for managing all network blogging relationships isn’t destined for an appearance in the dramatic arc of this two act play, you might as well try to catch a cab right now.

Within their realms, conglomerates and Fortune 500 companies get the final say over any one (wo)man — even a blogger.

That being said, I believe that if the Silicon Alley gang cared more about developing blogging as a self-supported, sustainable form of media rather than handing off a cash cow, they would’ve pursued developing a sustainable advertising model, one that both supports free speech and pays the bills.

Take the Blogads model as an example.

Blogads’ approach to advertising is communal by nature, establishing a model for a decentralized set of advertising communities, specifically catered to the needs of niche-driven content, products, services and companies.

• Are you a liberal blogger who has built your own reach? Join this network.
• A respected blog covering the interests of technology early adopters? Join that network.

A Blogads model can be extended across n number of categories of interest, expanding each time a new niche blows up with the power to reach a vested audience. There’s no reason to sell out.

Why do I have so much faith in this bottom-up form of advertising?

Think about how tagging data objects has taken off as we move into the world of Web 2.0. How has this drastically differed from the formal, structured, top-down categorization of a subjective taxonomy?

Doesn’t this shift serve as a potentially successful metaphor to the current advertising model?

Think about it.

What would happen if a Blogads model — or a barter system — became systemic? The top-down approach of traditional advertising and PR firms becomes less symbiotic with the perspective and needs of the people, because the people are now able to advertise their knowledge for themselves.

That type of evolution isn’t good for advertising… which isn’t good for big business… which isn’t good for the players in the biggest corporation out there: government.

The bottom line isn’t the client or the common man, the bottom line is the bottom line.

Enter the intelligent design of managing the explosion of blogging. Al Gore understands the importance of the upcoming battle, just as much as Rupert Murdock understands the potential cost of losing it.

But I digress; let’s get back to PR firms scrambling to find their place in the new choice of media “reach.” Here’s what Richard Edelman himself has to say about the situation:

“About a month ago, I was at a meeting with Peter Hirshberg, Executive Vice President and Board Member at Technorati. I was musing about my debate over lunch with David Weinberger about whether companies could or should interact regularly with bloggers and whether there was a proper role for public relations in the blogosphere. There was such a mythology that had grown up around corporations and their use of PR, to craft and control the message, to blast out information to a wide array of recipients without permission or adequate knowledge (spam), to tell one side of the story through limited release of facts (spin), and to withhold the true source of the funding or purpose of the initiative. The natural reaction of bloggers was assumed to be a rejection of information from the corporate sector and a ’shoot the messenger’ reaction to public relations people.”

Wait a second.

Richard Edleman, a PR leader, is claiming that society cries wolf about the intent of PR… on his own blog?

Remember Tom Delay’s recent media blitz after his indictment was announced? He used a tactic of trying to prove that he was innocent via conspiracy by explicitly listing the “false” charges from years past. Now, try to imagine the career choice of the person who coached Delay into approaching a handful of shows on the same day in similar fashion.

Exactly.

After disclosing the approach to the recent joint study with Technorati, Edleman continues:

“The survey shows a disconnect between the ways companies have traditionally communicated with the blogosphere and how these bloggers want and expect to be communicated with now. The top-down, one-way, press release culture has to be supplanted by an approach based on dialogue and co-creation of brands and corporate reputation. In fact, in many of our client programs we’re already seeing a fundamental re-ordering of the relationship between markets and marketers, with the blogosphere providing a channel for real input and dynamic discussion. Smart companies have also recognized the potential for inside-out communications, with empowered employees and informed consumers as the best sources of credible commentary.”

That emphasized quote is the most telling aspect of this post from Edleman. His recognition that employees armed with the go ahead by corporate executives (and PR firms) to blog and “represent” is taking off, is the first step in the dilution of a voice — inside and out of the corporate cubes.

How could this corporate backing of employee blogging affect the boundaries of open discourse?

What happens when the corporations Edleman speaks of aren’t just neat-o web firms in the Valley, but say, an automotive company with employee knowledge of safety violations?

Do you think said employees will be able to blog their knowledge?

No, of course not.

The general degree of PR propaganda goes up at the firm — now through the fingers of bloggers — while the potential disclosure of important information and facts slide down a few degrees of visibility with the corporation pointing to the transparency of their blog.

Now extend Edleman’s edict across all of corporate US over the next 5 to 10 years; what does that do to a society chock full of corporate, PR messaging already?

It creates more noise, minus the signals.

But at least Technorati is looking out for the voice of the common man and not big business. They close out their last post by stating:

“Technorati continues to work with public relations firms and corporate communications team to better understand the best practices of blog interaction. We believe that markets are conversations and will continue to seek out new ways to add information and context to conversations online“

So fellow bloggers, here’s the question I leave with you:

How sure are you that we’re not entering the test lab for enabling greed, the type of which Gordon Gecko so intelligently designed?

Al Gore is not fucking around.

Gore’s latest venture has him stepping up to the plate with an innovative approach to changing the stagnant nature of civil discourse in America… and he’s doing it by swinging for the fences and at the establishment. Here are a few quotes from his keynote address at The Media Center’s We Media Conference:

"I came here today because I believe that American democracy is in grave danger. It is no longer possible to ignore the strangeness of our public discourse. I know that I am not the only one who feels that something has gone basically and badly wrong in the way America’s fabled ‘marketplace of ideas’ now functions."
…

"The final point I want to make is this: We must ensure that the Internet remains open and accessible to all citizens without any limitation on the ability of individuals to choose the content they wish regardless of the Internet service provider they use to connect to the World Wide Web. We cannot take this future for granted. We must be prepared to fight for it because some of the same forces of corporate consolidation and control that have distorted the television marketplace have an interest in controlling the Internet marketplace as well. Far too much is at stake to ever allow that to happen.

We must ensure by all means possible that this medium of democracy’s future develops in the mold of the open and free marketplace of ideas that our Founders knew was essential to the health and survival of freedom."

Did Al "My Wife Wants To Censor Hip-Hop" Gore just come within a few words of quoting Malcolm X, not to mention one of the most revered hip-hop albums of all-time? Take a few moments and dig through his speech. It’s completely laced with philosophical principles espoused by Noam Chomsky (Manufacturing Consent, the propaganda model, etc.). Good old Noam can’t get even get on public access in America. With his political power behind him, Al Gore is coming correct.

What’s going on? Well, Current TV (Gore’s new venture) is going to try to change the way people watch TV; they’re going to make them get off the couch. Take this quote from the Newsweek article, "Do-It-Yourself News" as a glimpse at their approach:

"The network’s broadcasting approach takes heavy cues from the emerging world of Internet news, eschewing traditional half-hour broadcasts in favor of two- to seven-minute "pods"—short-subject features submitted, in many cases, by Current’s own viewers through a screening process on the network’s Web site. Programmers maintain that the jarring subject jumps—from street violence in California one moment to street performers in Colombia the next—allow the network to cover the broad scope of world news. Interspersed amid these features are brief headline roundups from Google News."

Web 2.0 begins to describe the concept, but you have to throw in some Convergence 2.0 for good measure. This goes way beyond my call for Google and Yahoo! News to index blogs alongside traditional news publishers (even though I still think that is an imperative next version).

While the majority of Americans will probably surf this channel like any other, a concentrated group of early adopters will dive into this interaction model and extend the concept even further. Of course, only 20M people have access to the channel and I’m not one of them.

Did I say something about looking at a skyline from afar?

(Gore speech via Hip Hop Blogs)

I’m a registered Independent, so everyone is fair game for me to criticize. And that’s my only beef with Michael Moore’s approach to his work. While I agree with his stance on about everything he’s dropped, he practically disappeared from the theatre-going public eye for eight years while Clinton was in office. Okay, he made “Big One,” but that doesn’t quite count.

If you’re a documentary filmmaker, attempting to represent the best interests of the people in this country, specifically the under-privilaged, don’t be partisan. There’s more than enough bullshit on Capitol Hill to sift through during any administration in the White House.

Greed, shadyness and stupidity don’t hold political cards.

I realize that Moore didn’t vote for Clinton or Gore in the last two elections, but his films projects a perception of a hardcore anti-Republican stance, instead of one that just supports doing the right thing, first and foremost. The government of this country—including the media—operates with the smoke and mirrors of a two-party system, meaning that Moore’s output can then be manipulated to work against the Democratic party, as he is presented as a strong supporter of “the other side.”

There’s nothing wrong with choosing a party to support per se, but when his agenda is to open the eyes of the fringe to sway votes (with Fahrenheit 9/11), middle-ground needs to be served in the midst of the sniper fire as a peace offering.

No matter! I’m counting the days for the release of “Fahrenheit 9/11.” I’m hoping he can put to celluloid at least a chunk of emotions that I’ve been struggling with for the past 3+ years. Call him what you may, but Moore does have a knack for capturing the poignancy of a particular issue.