Personal Democracy Forum 2008
Note by Robin Barrett:
How the think tank model has moved from traditional to information age.
Tap into people outside of politics via Web 2.0 tools and bring them into politics, acting as a conduit to translate the issues.
Politics have gone through a paradigm shift from wealthy to many small donors.
What issues work better with new media vs. traditional think take?
Some issues motivate people a lot more than others. Immigration debate, heritage saw a huge increase in membership.
Some of the issues that we want to get people interested can be hard; example social security, where the hurdles are difficult and long term.
There is a conflict between the need for expertise, and crowd sourcing. Crowd sourcing does help. Crowd sourcing caveat that you would lean more things that are popular vs. things that are good for the public at large.
Peter thinks we need to meld the best of both. Obama's organizing genius was that he used the technology to meld old school organizing, which makes it more effective than one or the other.
Think tank can work out the big details. web can refine ideas. The broad based support around ideas give one political backing of an idea and makes it move and makes it get taken seriously. Then you move it to Washington.
There are a few young people at Heritage. Take advantage of young people to reach out to young people because they get the medium better than the 50 something set.
It takes longer to adapt and make changes because people get comfortable doing things a certain way.
If you only do academic research, no one would ever know what you do. When you work with a think tank, as one is doing policy research, one should do something activism oriented. Reach out to the social networks, and the other influentials, take think tanks to the next level.
Technology allows one to parallel scale in ways one never was able to do it before.
We don't know what to do about global warming, but we have to build a consensus to try to do something.
It's much easier to get involved in political campaigns than it used to be. The web makes it so much easier to connect and get involved. And cheaper as well.
How does going from big donors to small donors change the nature of the topics being researched?
THat is the prioritization of the issues.
Goverment politicking is a long term engagement in an age with attention deficit.
What do you want to do with people who want to play a role after the election is over?
Young people have no education on civic engagement, and no place to ask, so they can explore issues, and come to their own conclusion. Those spaces don't exist.
Ideology and empirical research driving forces behind think tanks? Does it determine the outcome?
Tap into people outside of politics via Web 2.0 tools and bring them into politics, acting as a conduit to translate the issues.
Politics have gone through a paradigm shift from wealthy to many small donors.
What issues work better with new media vs. traditional think take?
Some issues motivate people a lot more than others. Immigration debate, heritage saw a huge increase in membership.
Some of the issues that we want to get people interested can be hard; example social security, where the hurdles are difficult and long term.
There is a conflict between the need for expertise, and crowd sourcing. Crowd sourcing does help. Crowd sourcing caveat that you would lean more things that are popular vs. things that are good for the public at large.
Peter thinks we need to meld the best of both. Obama's organizing genius was that he used the technology to meld old school organizing, which makes it more effective than one or the other.
Think tank can work out the big details. web can refine ideas. The broad based support around ideas give one political backing of an idea and makes it move and makes it get taken seriously. Then you move it to Washington.
There are a few young people at Heritage. Take advantage of young people to reach out to young people because they get the medium better than the 50 something set.
It takes longer to adapt and make changes because people get comfortable doing things a certain way.
If you only do academic research, no one would ever know what you do. When you work with a think tank, as one is doing policy research, one should do something activism oriented. Reach out to the social networks, and the other influentials, take think tanks to the next level.
Technology allows one to parallel scale in ways one never was able to do it before.
We don't know what to do about global warming, but we have to build a consensus to try to do something.
It's much easier to get involved in political campaigns than it used to be. The web makes it so much easier to connect and get involved. And cheaper as well.
How does going from big donors to small donors change the nature of the topics being researched?
THat is the prioritization of the issues.
Goverment politicking is a long term engagement in an age with attention deficit.
What do you want to do with people who want to play a role after the election is over?
Young people have no education on civic engagement, and no place to ask, so they can explore issues, and come to their own conclusion. Those spaces don't exist.
Ideology and empirical research driving forces behind think tanks? Does it determine the outcome?
