Politicoholic

I'm moving!

2008-12-01T22:20:00.000-08:00

My stint on nomadlife is coming to an end. Blogger got old and tiring. I've officially moved to Wordpress so check it out here, bookmark, subscribe, come visit me :) Oh and if you're subscribing....please resubscribe to my new feed here.

Guest Post!

2008-12-01T12:31:00.001-08:00

I have a guest post up today at Monica's blog, Life in the Middle Lane. Check it out and leave a comment. Don't be a lurker! :)

Republicans Need a Brand Makeover

2008-11-30T20:50:00.000-08:00

The Republican Party is at a crossroads. The mainstream media is speculating that this year could be a historic, realigning election. That the Republican Party might have fallen.

So, they lost. And they lost pretty badly. McCain-Palin won a mere 173 electoral votes. And between the 2006 and 2008 elections, the Democrats won at least a dozen Senate seats and at least 50 house seats, took control of both Houses of Congress, and now have 4,090 members in state legislatures, compared to the Republicans' 3,221.

But now is when, if the Republicans know what's good for them, they can seize the moment to makeover their entire brand by 2012. There are many things they can do to achieve this, but these are three that I think they should pay attention to.

Stop letting everyone else brand you and brand yourself. An Associated Press-Yahoo News survey earlier this year found that the first word that came to people's minds when they thought of McCain was "old" and the first word that came to mind for Obama was "change." These were the responses of one in five people -- the most popular responses. Obama picked the "change" message early on and stuck with it, and branded himself before anyone else did. McCain's campaign slogan, country first, didn't appear till much later. And by then, it was too late-- other people had already branded him as the "old guy."

In the age of personal branding, branding yourself before someone else does is no longer just smart, but necessary to beat out the competition. Instead of letting everyone else brand the Republican party as tired, damaged and out-of-touch, reinvent and rebrand yourselves. Now.

Get social-media savvy and reach beyond your base. To win the support of the people, you have to reach them where they are. Obama's campaign got Barack Obama on nearly every social networking website on the web. Now, his weekly radio address is also being video taped and archived on YouTube -- a first for an American President or president-elect. But when you consider the millions of hits a day that YouTube gets, it seems like a smart way to reach an audience that may not typically listen to the weekly radio address, and encourage civic engagement.

President Bush, however, has no plans to turn his weekly radio addresses into a video. When asked about it by reporters, a Bush spokeswoman said: "It's called a radio address for a reason." McCain's social media presence, too, was always lagging behind Obama's. He should have gone for a social media strategy of both deep and wide, and used it in new and innovative ways to connect with the audience whose votes he was seeking. This slowness to change with the times and reach out to voters using the technology they use is holding back Republicans.

You need the young people. Last summer I was writing a piece on both the campaigns' college outreach plans, and called each campaign's press office to find out what their college outreach strategy was. The Obama press office told me all about Students For Barack Obama and what they were doing. When I called the McCain office, I was told that they didn't have any information for me. Some quick research online told me that McCain's campaign did, in fact, have some Students For McCain chapters, but information about them was hard to track down.

College voters should have been a major part of their efforts. They should have been throwing more resources into appealing to young voters and talking directly to them about the issues that matter to them. Then they should have broadcasted to the world, and to little writers like me calling their office, that they had a strategy to reach out to the millennials. Yes, young people may lean left-- Obama won 18-29-year-olds 66 to 32 percent --but maybe all the Republicans need to do to narrow that gap is make them more of a priority.

Politicians can be funny. Sometimes...

2008-11-24T14:27:00.001-08:00

Some great quotes of the day-- I kept posting these on my Gchat status and twitter, but they were too good to forget...

Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee: McCain picked Palin for VP because "she looks better in stilettos than I do!" http://tinyurl.com/674244

Obama's senior economic advisor, Austan Goolsbee, on Face the Nation on Sunday, discussing the proposed new economic stimulus package: "It's going to be a number big enough that when they spell it out it will look like, 'ooooooooooooh.'"

538's Nate Silver discussing who Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich might appoint to take Obama's place in the Senate: "since this is Illinois, we can never be quite certain just who has which skeletons in their closet."

Does anyone read print newspapers anymore?

2008-11-23T17:52:00.000-08:00

Do you? I don't. As avid of a news reader as I am, I can confess to not reading a single thing in print. I get everything online now, like everyone else. The big media companies are definitely feeling it -- and the impending recession is making the situation even worse.

For my dad's generation, print newspapers were an important part of everyday life. My dad still reads the Wall Street Journal every morning on the train to work and treasures it, but I think he's of a dying breed. Yesterday he was showing me some stock quotes in the WSJ and I was struck by how long it had been since I had read a print copy of anything to get the news. Especially for something as rapidly changing as stock quotes, it seemed futile to me to look at a print newspaper published only once a day, when those stocks would fluctuate constantly throughout the day and the most up-to-the-minute updates could only be found online.

Last week the New York Times, still my favorite for news, announced that it sharply reduced its dividend -- which will save the New York Times Co. about $97.8 million a year. This is after years of increasing its dividend. Some think that page by page, section by section, the NYT's influence is fading away.

PC Magazine is shutting down its print edition and going completely digital.

And did you know over half the Washington Post company's revenue comes not from WaPo or Newsweek...but from its Kaplan test prep division?

On the other hand, in July, Gawker Media got twice as many pageviews as the LA Times website. And Huffington Post has supposedly raised $15 million in capital.

AdAge questions whether print can even survive another five years -- a little pessimistic if you ask me. But then there's been so many media layoffs lately, that the blogging giants are trying to seize an opportunity by offering free blog accounts to laid-off journalists. So who knows.

One thing I do know is that mass media is changing. No one wants a one-way message from the media anymore; they want a two-way conversation that they can participate in. They want to be able to comment on news stories, they want to be able to discuss the news as it happens, they want rapid updates every minute, and they want to be environmentally friendly and save paper. I'm taking a mass media course right now, and I'm surprised by how little we have even touched upon the topic of the internet -- we've studied nearly every kind of old media, but barely even touched upon the effects of the internet on the media establishment.

What I'm interested to see next is: which big media company will actually keep up? Or will they die out and be completely replaced by internet media?

Wow

2008-11-23T17:30:00.000-08:00

I just found this on a blog somewhere, and I love it:

What The F**K is Social Media?

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: socialmediamarketing marketing)

Reality Check:

2008-11-20T14:24:00.000-08:00

Here's some numbers for perspective.

"The United Nations World Food Program appealed more than two months ago for $140 million in donations so it would have enough money to feed the third of Zimbabweans in need -- 4 million people -- at the peak of the hunger season in the first three months of next year. But so far, the program has not yet gotten any firm commitments, said its spokesman, Richard Lee." [NYT]

The US can spend $700 billion bailing out our financial system, $25 billion bailing out automakers, $12 billion a month fighting a needless war in Iraq; we can send $30 billion in aid to a country with a population smaller than that of New York City.

But a mere $140 million could feed FOUR MILLION people in Zimbabwe -- and the UN can't even get the $140 million it would need to feed those 4 million people.

What is wrong with that picture?

Why I'm not going to law school

2008-11-19T01:00:00.000-08:00

I've officially hit the point in life where when I meet someone new, or even for that matter, someone I know fairly well, the conversation heads into "future plans" territory. I'm a political science student. And I'm graduating in six months. Most people's automatic response to those two pieces of information is: "Oh, law school?" I got told by some random stranger in Berkeley last weekend that I even look like a future lawyer (to which I say: what does that even look like?) When I say no, I get persistence. "Grad school? MBA?"

Nope. I was pre-law once, when I started my freshman year of college. I thought law school was definitely the track for someone like me. Then I promptly dropped the pre-law within a few months of arriving here. Why?

Law school is expensive. The average law student is graduating with student loan debt in the six-figure range. And law students almost immediately need to find a job that pays enough to start paying back those loans right away.

Lawyers have some of the longest work hours and lowest job satisfaction rates. No joke. They're the most depressed of all professionals.

Law schools get so many political science applicants they don't even WANT us anymore, they'd rather have the unique chemistry major instead of the sea of PS majors!

And it's always assumed that once you have a law degree, people will respect you more, and it will open all kinds of doors and make it easier for you to find a job. That's not really true anymore...law school grads are having even more trouble finding decent jobs, and many of them are caught up in mundane procedural bullshit instead of courtroom trials or constitutional law.

What I have learned from the questioning I've been getting from people is that people inherently want to understand you, but that means they first have to make you easier to understand. That means they will put you in a box, and political science and law school sound like they fit nicely together in a box. People can't imagine what political science majors do in the real world; so the first image that pops into their head is lawyer. Why would someone study political science unless they're doing it as their ticket into law school, they say.

Why? Because I love it. I really do. I knew I was going to major in political science when I was 15, and I've never wanted to change my major. Sure, that means I have to go through the uncertainty of a big, long, jobhunt over the next few months, while some of my friends are sitting comfortably on their law school and b-school acceptances. But I'm ok with a little uncertainty; I feel like the uncertainty makes other people more uncomfortable than me. I'd rather take that time to figure out what I really want to do, than rush into grad school unsure of how much I want it, just out of fear that I have no other options. I wouldn't say I have ruled out all forms of graduate school completely for the future, but I definitely don't want more schooling right now.

It's surprising to me how many people still think that the only option for liberal arts majors is heading straight to graduate school. We can get jobs you know...

Guess who's not getting a job in the Obama administration?

2008-11-13T14:05:00.000-08:00

(Just FYI, this got cross-posted at Brazen Careerist, if any of you want to read it here)

Let's talk for a second. The application for jobs in the Obama administration is, without a doubt, the most complex piece of work I have ever seen. I wanted to use other words to more accurately describe it, but I can't. Because, if I ever intend to work in politics, I could kill my career before it has even started. Witness:

"If you have ever sent an electronic communication, including but not limited to an email, text message or instant message, that could suggest a conflict of interest or be a possible source of embarrassment to you, your family, or the President-elect if it were made public, please describe."

"Please provide the URL address of any websites that feature you in either a personal or professional capacity (e.g. Facebook, My Space, etc.)"

"If you keep or have ever kept a diary that contains anything that could suggest a conflict of interest or be a possible source of embarrassment to you, your family, or the President-Elect if it were made public, please describe."

And my favorite:

"Please list, and, if readily available, provide a copy of each book, article, column, or publication (including but not limited to any posts or comments on blogs or other websites) you have authored, individually or with others. Please list all aliases or 'handles' you have used to communicate on the internet."

As Web 2.0-savvy as Obama's campaign was, his new transition team is not. Maybe the balding middle-aged executives they're hiring into senior positions in the administration have never "used an electronic communication," but for anyone under the age of 35 this application is going to be a virtual minefield. What packrat can track down every blog post and blog comment they've ever written? People our age have had blogs since they were old enough to say "internet," for Chrissake. What happens when our generation enters the realm of career public servants and becomes serious candidates for these jobs in two decades?

In 30 years are we going to dredge up Facebook photos, blog comments, text messages, and old emails of the Secretary of State? We will have an electronic paper trail following us everywhere we go, something today's politicians haven't had to contend with. Who has even thought about how to deal with this? Seriously, imagine: the 50th President of the United States is probably some random, backward-baseball-cap-wearing, class-ditching, hard-partying frat guy right now, posting drunk pictures of himself on Facebook and writing on his friends' walls about tomorrow's barcrawl, oblivious to the fact that modern technology means that this will all resurface when he runs for office. What are you going to do about that, White House?

This vetting process might work for 2008, but it's not going to work in 2020 when everyone will have an internet footprint that stretches back into cyberspace for years and years. That is, unless the federal government's HR wants to drive themselves insane. Are you worried about employers googling you while applying for XYZ corporate job?....this is that job application on steroids! There's no way to win this. Good luck to anyone crazy enough to apply!

Congratulations, President Obama: you're going to have America's most boring people in your administration!

Equal Opportunity?

2008-11-05T19:24:00.000-08:00

After Obama's landslide presidential win and epic victory speech, the message to America seems to be clear: anyone can be president. We're the land of equal opportunity. Any kid, no matter the color of their skin, can dream of actually being president of the United States one day. Anything really is possible.

Except if you're a woman.

I am thrilled about Obama's victory, no doubt, and I completely recognize how momentous and wonderful an occasion this is for America. I get it. And I appreciate it. But I am somewhat troubled by this new misguided belief that now, truly, anyone in America can grow up to be anything they want, when everyone seems to be ignoring the one white elephant still in the room after the 2008 campaign: sexism.

I am, by no means, attempting to lay all the blame for Hillary Clinton's eventual fall on sexism. It was by no means the only factor, but certainly a contributing one. She made plenty of campaign gaffes. Obama's campaign was unusually skilled at engaging people online and turning that into votes and volunteers. They ran a great campaign and that is why Barack Obama won. But you would be blind to say that there was no sexism at play in this race. The "Stop running for president and make me a sandwich" facebook groups? The constant commentary about Hillary's makeup artist, her voice, her tears? The comments about her being too "cold"? (Because, we all know, women are supposed to be more caring and nurturing...)

I am not saying Hillary was the only candidate affected by sexism; Sarah Palin faced it too. The world loves to scream about her $150,000 wardrobe, but the reality is that for a woman candidate, it's necessary. Women running for office are judged on their appearance, their dress, and their hair far more than men running for public office-- and that's unfair. But pointing out this injustice doesn't do anything to fix it; it only gets the Rush Limbaughs and Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermanns of the world complaining that we tried to play the sexism card. So instead, they have to roll with the punches, accept that women candidates will get judged on their appearance more, and spend exorbitant amounts of money on wardrobes.

The worst part of the problem is that young women seem okay with it. I know very few women in my generation who seem troubled by the sexism that is still prevalent in our supposedly postfeminist society. It may not always be conscious, intentional sexism -- but it is still sexism, nonetheless, and still inflicts damage. Even women do it; I've heard plenty of my girlfriends say they won't vote for Hillary because she's too cold, and I can't do much but be disappointed. Not enough women are speaking up about this; it's considered too radical, the stuff that belongs only to women's studies types. But how will we ever get past the underlying misogyny here if women won't speak up in their own defense?

Call me a raging feminist, I'm sure you will. Hillary supporters tend to get that a lot. You'll tell me sexism doesn't really exist anymore or that this is not such a big deal. Racism is a big deal, you say, but sexism is just overblown whining; it's just women hating on men all the time. You're not really a sexist. You have no problem with a woman being president, you say. Just not Hillary, she's too ......cold? calculating? Ambitious? Impersonal? or my favorite: Bitchy?

But if you say it, you're part of the problem, which is that sexism has now become an acceptable part of mainstream society. Objection to the norm gets us branded as raging feminists or man-haters. Sexist putdowns are still more acceptable than racist ones. Women still earn seventy-three cents to the man's dollar. They still face more sexual harassment at work. They still get judged on their appearance and dress more than men. And they still can't be president of the United States.

The end of youth voter apathy.

2008-11-04T23:48:00.000-08:00

Tonight, I was lucky enough to witness something big. Something historic.

I'm not talking about the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States, although that was certainly big and historic. What I'm talking about is something else. Something I didn't think I would ever see: riots in the streets all over my giant college campus, celebrating the election of Barack Obama and the fact that they helped to elect him. People (albeit, very drunk people) were running through campus, cheering in the streets, yelling every Obama campaign slogan you could think of. Everything from "Yes we can" to "No More Bush" to "Yes we did." They sang the Star-Spangled Banner at least four times. They carried a sea of American flags of all sizes. Hundreds, hundreds of college kids -- the kids society typically brushes off as self-involved slackers who don't give a damn about the world -- were cheering in the streets for over two hours, full of pride that THEY made a change for their country. Never once have I seen so many people my age care about politics; I'm usually the lone nerd watching election returns and reminding everyone to vote year after year.

At one point, I heard one African-American guy (with arms full of bottles of champagne) tell his friends: "Our boy Obama won, and I voted! My vote mattered!"

At another point, a bunch of students lifted up an African-American kid with a handicap, who has been in a wheelchair for sixteen years. The entire crowd went silent as the kid slowly started to speak. For 16 years, he told us, he had been in physical therapy, pushing himself to learn about the world around him, waiting for this moment (crowd erupted in cheers at this point). This moment, he said, was "proof that anyone can come from nothing...and become somebody." Imagine a handicapped, wheelchair-bound college student being held up in the air (wheelchair and all) by 10 of his fellow college students, and 300 other students silently listen while he tells onlookers that their votes mattered today, that the election of a longshot black candidate for President of the United States meant there was hope for every single one of them, that this was really America and they could really be anything they wanted to be. That anything is now possible. It was pretty powerful.

Ever since the voting age was lowered from 21 to 18, young people always voted in abysmally low numbers. We've always been the apathetic demographic. No one takes college kids seriously. But seeing the way my entire campus erupted this evening, I realized something is different this year, and something will be different from now on. An era is over: that era in which young people didn't care about politics. From now on, this generation is going to be more engaged and more civically active than any group of young people have been since the antiwar protests of the '60s. Something has shifted in the American electorate as a result of this election; even the cynical college kids who thought politics didn't matter suddenly have hope for the political system. This election is definitely the end of youth voter apathy as we know it.

2008-11-04T19:34:00.000-08:00

Bits and pieces on election eve

2008-11-03T16:53:00.000-08:00

--All 159 polls in the US are showing Obama with a decent lead. 538 shows Obama up 6.8 points. RCP shows Obama up 7.3.

--There is no single path to 270 for McCain without Pennsylvania. He can't win the election without winning PA. Currently: Obama is up in PA, by 8 points.

--1,994,990 people voted early in Georgia so far this year. 3,301,875 total voted in Georgia's presidential race in 2004. Wow.

--The Obama-Biden rally in Chicago tomorrow night is expecting 1 million people in attendance.

--Starbucks is giving away free coffee to voters. Love it.

--Polls open in seven hours....I can barely contain my excitement!

What made the 2008 election exceptional: Gen Y

2008-11-02T11:25:00.000-08:00

So for the many political junkies like myself, we've been following the 2008 election since November 5, 2004. And more often than not, we care more about the horserace than the outcome. The race has been littered with firsts and shattered all kinds of previously unsurmounted barriers. But no matter who wins, one thing is for sure: this election was exceptional in no small part because of our generation.

The amount of interest I've seen from my fellow college students in this election has been phenomenal. People --particularly young people --are paying attention more than they ever have before. Maybe it's the disappointments of the last few years and the abysmally low approval ratings of both the Republican White House and the Democrat-controlled Congress; maybe it's the flagging economy and the realization that we can't pretend it doesn't affect us, with our student loans and credit card debt and jobhunting and an economy in the toilet. Finally, everyone is paying attention. Finally, people are contributing, volunteering, and hopefully voting more than ever! Though the last eight years haven't given us much, perhaps they have given us one thing: a sense of responsibility to contribute and participate in the system.

Ever since I wrote that first term paper on voter turnout in high school, studying voter turnout levels has always made me kind of cynical about young people's involvement in politics. And I've certainly been guilty of getting frustrated with my friends for not caring about elections and politics when it affects their everyday lives so much. It's always been that vicious cycle -- young people don't vote because politicians don't listen, and politicians don't listen because young people don't vote.

But this year, I think the cycle has broken. Or at least, it's been cracked. Young people are starting to take ownership over the system and politicians are starting to care, and it's a really cool phenomenon to see. 316,534 Facebook users are currently signed up for the Facebook Election Rally and are changing their Facebook statuses to remind their friends to vote. There's been a surge in under-30 voter registrations. Remember the CNN/YouTube debates, where everyone and their best friend was submitting video questions and actually got to ask their questions to the candidates? And Students For Barack Obama got started as a Facebook group and grew so tremendously that the Obama campaign did the unthinkable and LISTENED, and offered to let SFBO become the official student branch of the Obama campaign.

Youth voter turnout alreay tripled in the Iowa Democratic caucuses. Rock the Vote estimates 87% of young people plan to vote -- an unprecedented number. Some are calling it a "youthquake."

In 2004, I worked on a voter turnout campaign that focused on youth voter turnout, and my friends and I would always talk about how if only young people could actually all get out and vote, they could easily swing the election (voters under 30 are 25% of the registered electorate). It didn't quite happen that year, but we were on to something, maybe just four years too early. This year, the youth vote is definitely going to swing the election; it is already visible how much more college and even high school kids are suddenly paying attention to politics.

To me, that's the most exciting thing; more than having my candidate win on Tuesday, I'll be satisfied if the Wednesday headlines are screaming about the record youth turnout, and the old political establishments are astonished at how the youth came out to vote in unprecedented numbers and changed the face of the electorate.

The argument for gun control.

2008-10-30T00:59:00.000-07:00

Three weeks ago, University of Illinois officials found an anonymous threatening note saying that a student is planning to shoot someone on campus on Halloween. Everyone keeps asking why someone would do it, or if they're really going to do it. But I think what you should really ask is: how do these people get guns in the first place?

The note, discovered in early October, said that the author had shot a window of a car in a parking lot near campus in early October, and planned to shoot someone on Green Street, in the center of campus, on Halloween night. Sure enough, police received a report that night that a window of a car in the exact parking lot mentioned in the note had been shot that night.

We've been getting emails about it all week from campus administration. They've been investigating all month, but haven't made any progress in identifying the author of the note. Everyone on campus is continuing with their Halloween plans as usual, but making note to stay away from Green Street, because no one has any idea what will happen tonight.

It's times like these when I can't even understand the argument against gun control. What is the point? Why are people so protective of their right to own a firearm? What will you (assuming you are a law-abiding citizen) do with it? Hunt? Is that even important? Keep it in your house in case of an intruder? Buy an alarm system. People have way too much easy access to firearms; instead of protecting people the Second Amendment is allowing more gun violence by allowing guns into the hands of anyone, like the author of this note.

Sarah Palin is a life member of the NRA. She loves her Second Amendment-given right to own a gun and shoot as much Alaskan wildlife as she can reach. But wouldn't it be worth giving up your ability to shoot a few more animals if it meant schools everywhere were safer because less people were able to buy guns? Gun violence has to be reduced, and that means that some gun owners in America have to make some sacrifices. But if it prevents incidents like Virginia Tech or the recent shooting at the University of Central Arkansas, I think it's a sacrifice people should be willing to make to keep firearms out of the hands of dangerous people.

You just don't get it.

2008-10-26T21:27:00.000-07:00

During the 20 or so hours I spent on the road/in the air/on trains between Thursday and Sunday, I read nearly all of Joe Trippi's The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Democracy, The Internet, and the Overthrow of Everything.

The whole book was the tale of Howard Dean's legendary bottom-up internet-based campaign that took Dean from dark horse to frontrunner relying almost solely on the internet and social media, and how Dean's campaign transformed political campaigning in general, giving voters a way to get more engaged in the political process. Anyone who knows me can probably guess... that I'm obsessed with this book. I'm all about getting people more engaged in politics and the political process. I also love the internet and seeing how it affects...pretty much everything. If you're interested in that kind of stuff, and you love campaigns, I definitely recommend the book.

My favorite part was a chapter that started with Trippi telling us that his favorite line during the Dean campaign was: "You just don't get it." Trippi explains: "You just don't get it...was the chorus of the song I went around belting at the top of my lungs for a year--that the leaders of American politics, media, entertainment, and business were in the dark...that they were clinging to old methods and ideas that were about to become archaeological relics right before their fossilized, corporate, country-club, never-gonna-get-it nearsighted eyes. The media? The party leaders? The other campaigns? Don't frickin get it." There has always been a difference, Trippi points out, between "those people who look at a computer screen and see what is, and those people who look at the same screen and see what's going to be; between those people who know the whole is changing profoundly before our eyes and those people who-- for one reason of another -- just don't get it."

And I love it. It was probably the most exciting book I've read in years. The Dean campaign and their innovative use of the internet to build a people-powered campaign changed a lot -- but even now, in 2008, it still seems like too many people still "just don't get it." The majority of college students don't write or even read blogs because they don't seem to get it. People still scoff at Twitter and some even scoff at Facebook, because...they just don't get it. Some think the internet is overthrowing everything...but others still don't seem to fully get it.

It's interesting to me because I've met a lot of resistance from people. I think the internet is completely changing everything about how we communicate, and I think it's exciting. But when I talk about the websites I've written for, my friends nod and smile, but don't really get it. They definitely don't get why the first thing I have to do after I get my coffee in the morning is check Google Reader to see what my favorite bloggers are talking about today. Half still think blogs are those silly "what I ate for lunch today"-style online diaries. We all use the internet on a daily basis, but a lot of people are still missing out on the interactivity and conversation that the internet has the potential to provide.

Why? Who knows... lack of time, lack of interest, lack of understanding? My guess is some of it is just fear of being out of your comfort zone, fear of being laughed at. I know so many people who still hear the word "blog" and might be embarrassed to admit that they read any, or have one. I think in college we also tend to live in this insular bubble where we forget that we still exist in the real world. It's a shame though...

Too Much News?

2008-10-22T07:21:00.001-07:00

When I saw the NYT headline last week, "Too Much News?" I knew I was going to feel instantly at home when I clicked on the link and read the all-too-familiar stories of the people profiled in the piece..."They find themselves taking breaks at work every 15 minutes to check the latest updates, and at the end of the day, taking laptops to bed. Then they pad through darkened homes in the predawn to check on the Asian markets."

Jeez. True down to every last word, including the Asian markets part.

We certainly live in an information age. The accessibility of news in every format is incredible. I don't even have TV anymore, but I'm constantly getting news through websites, blogs, papers, text messages, Twitter, whatever. Not having information all the time is almost impossible to fathom, especially, I think, for my generation, that can't even remember life before the internet. Seriously. I was on the internet by age 6 and haven't really looked back since. This past weekend I was without internet and email for over 48 hours (not by choice!) and someone asked..."Doesn't it feel good?" It kind of felt good, but I really just wanted to check my email and see what was going on in the world.

There's even a kid mentioned in the article, who's maybe 7 years old, and he is so accustomed to his mother watching so much news that he walks around his house saying "I'm John McCain, and I approve this message."

I thought that was hilarious...until I remembered my parents telling me stories of me doing the exact same thing when I was a kid (except in my time it was Ross Perot that I was mimicking. No joke). Well, at least I'm not the only one...the New York Times has unearthed a whole collection of news junkies just lurking out there. Ha ha, and I'm sure every single one of them read and loved that article, too.

Will the millenials actually turn out to vote?

2008-10-12T23:46:00.000-07:00

Lots of organizations and experts are saying, this is the year. The year young voters are finally going to care, to give a damn, to vote in large numbers, to cast off the labels of "apathetic" and "oblivious" that they've been branded with practically since they were given the vote in 1971.

The campaign of Barack Obama (which, even if he doesn't win, will surely achieve a legendary status like that of Howard Dean's campaign of 2003/04) has played no small part in the increased interest young people have been paying to the election this year. The combination of Barack's ability to inspire and motivate crowds, and his campaign's brilliant user-driven, bottom-up, 21st-century grassroots strategy, has given millions of young people a window into politics that they never saw -- or just never took -- before.

"They've married the incredibly powerful online community they built with real on-the-ground field operations. We've never seen anything like this before in American political history," says Simon Rosenberg, president of the Democratic think tank NDN.

"They have taken the bottom up campaign and absolutely perfected it," said Joe Trippi, the man who orchestrated the rise of Howard Dean largely through use of the internet.

All this would make you think young voters (18-24) are going to turn out in record numbers this year. After all, polls show young voters adore Obama: they prefer him to McCain in a 61-30 margin. But, it looks like the Obama campaign still can't count on the youth vote just yet:

When asked to rank their interest in the Nov. 4 election, just 49% said they were "very interested." By comparison, 70% of voters of all age groups said they were "very interested," according to a separate Journal/NBC News national poll taken a week ago. Moreover, 54% of the new voters said they would definitely vote Nov. 4.

So they love Obama, but only roughly half of these new voters plan to vote? What exactly is holding them back, I wonder? The amount of work America has been doing to reach out to Millenial voters has been almost to the point of ridiculousness. Voter registration is now easier than ever...so easy you can "do it while you're pooping" according to Sarah Silverman. Early voting is enabling millions of people to vote who are too busy to vote on election day (I still don't get how people are too busy to do their civic duty, but that's a different story) -- 27 million Americans are expected to vote early this year. Groups like Rock the Vote are spending extensive amounts of time and energy on getting the attention of young people and getting them to vote. The Obama campaign, and its Students for Barack Obama, have spent millions on registering voters and plans to get them to the polls. Hundreds of celebrities have started or supported campaigns to get people engaged and get them to vote. They've reached out to us on the turf we're most comfortable with, too -- social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, and Youtube all have adopted some kind of voter registration promotion, application, tool, or whatever else, to try to grab the attention of these Millennial voters.

If large numbers of 18-24 year olds were to vote, they have the potential to swing the election -- yet they've never realized their full potential. America is recognizing this, and has spent thousands of hours and billions of dollars trying to get 18-24 year olds to vote. So what, then, is still holding them back from actually voting?

2008-10-06T12:01:00.001-07:00

Someone just posted this comment on an article on Marketwatch about the wreckage going on around the world today:

If you had purchased $1,000 of AIG stock one year ago, you would have $42 left.

With Lehman, you would have $6.60 left.

With Fannie or Freddie, you would have less than $5 left.

But if you had purchased $1,000 worth of beer one year ago, drank all of the beer, then turned in the cans for the aluminum recycling REFUND, you would have had $214.

Hahaha. I always knew beer was a better investment.

Don't Vote.

2008-10-01T15:53:00.000-07:00

I've never been really into viral videos, but it always made sense to me that if a video were going to spread and thousands (millions?) were going to see it, wouldn't it be great if it were for a cause?

Tom Peters wisdom.

2008-09-29T00:25:00.000-07:00

I love Tom Peters. I subscribe to his blog and it's always full of fun, witty, and insightful posts. A few of my favorites...

"Acting Like a President: Most politicians who make it to the White House have also become masters of the art of performing."

Reminds me of a favorite quote I often use in my presentations:

"It's always Showtime."--David D'Alessandro, Career Warfare

Axiom: Only excited people can excite customers over the long haul--i.e., again & again.

Corollary: To cause our colleagues to be excited we must put--and keep--the maintenance of their well-being and their opportunity structure at the top of our agenda.

1. Excellence comes from human beings doing things of value that customers find memorable.

2. Remember. You are the only human being in the world who can help this particular customer at this particular moment in time.

3. The thing that keeps a business ahead of the competition is excellence in execution.

4. Brand inside is more important than brand outside for sustained success.

5. Leaders' careers will usually be determined by their handling of one or two critical events that no one could possibly anticipate or plan for.

6. Make sure that you spend your time on the things you say are your priorities.

7. Tuck the shower curtain in and give away two-cent candy!

8. It's remarkable how quickly an excellent culture can be torn apart by poor management.

9. Irrelevance comes from always doing the things you know how to do in the way you've always done them.

10. If you love your company and love what you do, you will serve your customers better--period!

Still on the run

2008-07-23T13:09:00.000-07:00

Mehboba Ahdyar, the only woman on Afghanistan's 4-member 2008 Olympic team, is still missing after disappearing nearly two weeks ago. Now reports are surfacing that she may be claiming political asylum in Europe, that she may be dropping out of the Olympics, that her parents may be imprisoned in Afghanistan if they can't convince her to return. Not surprisingly, this story hasn't really gotten as much press attention as it deserves. Because, you know, the American media has important things to cover -- like Heidi and Spencer, or Sean Preston holding a pack of cigarettes.

The Olympics are supposed to be a symbol of pride and unity, hope and change. Countries send their best talent to represent them. A good team can give even a country rife with civil war and poverty something to cheer about side by side. Just look at the Iraqi soccer team of 2004! The Olympics give the world a chance to unite over something, if only for a few weeks every four (or two) years, all politics, gas prices, and wars aside. It's considered a victory to see countries like Afghanistan and Iraq participating, but at what cost? Their female athletes still struggle against all odds to compete. The two Afghan women who competed in 2004 faced constant threats from extremists. One even left Afghanistan after the Olympics with her family out of fear for their lives.

"This is important," Robina Muqimyar, track sprinter and one of the two Afghani women who were the first to EVER compete in the Olympics, said back in 2004. "The women of Afghanistan will know they can do anything, if there is hope in the heart."

Did anyone even hear her?

Future Perfect

2008-07-22T13:12:00.001-07:00

A blog I've become obsessed with lately is Jan Chipchase's Future Perfect. Jan Chipchase has to live what is possibly one of the most interesting, exciting lives on the planet. I first read about him in the New York Times a few months ago:

If you need to reach Jan Chipchase, the best, and sometimes only, way to get him is on his cellphone. The first time I spoke to him last fall, he was at home in his apartment in Tokyo. The next time, he was in Accra, the capital of Ghana, in West Africa. Several weeks after that, he was in Uzbekistan, by way of Tajikistan and China, and in short order he and his phone visited Helsinki, London and Los Angeles. If you decide not to call Jan Chipchase but rather to send e-mail, the odds are fairly good that you’ll get an "out of office" reply redirecting you back to his cellphone, with a notation about his current time zone -- "GMT +9" or "GMT -8" -- so that when you do call, you may do so at a courteous hour.

Keep in mind, though, that Jan Chipchase will probably be too busy with his job to talk much anyway. He could be bowling in Tupelo, Miss., or he could be rummaging through a woman’s purse in Shanghai. He might be busy examining the advertisements for prostitutes stuck up in a Sao Paulo phone booth, or maybe getting his ear hairs razored off at a barber shop in Vietnam. It really depends on the moment.
Chipchase is 38, a rangy native of Britain whose broad forehead and high-slung brows combine to give him the air of someone who is quick to be amazed, which in his line of work is something of an asset.

--"Can the Cellphone Help End Global Poverty?", NYT, April 2008

(Can you say dream job?)

His blog is amazing. Chipchase travels the world in a quest to view life from every perspective in every corner of the world and research how his company (nokia) can help make life easier for every person he meets. No person is insignificant to Chipchase in his line of work; he wants every single story to be heard. On his blog, Chipchase posts pictures and thoughts from his travels. Some seem very simple -- children's haircuts in China, unique cuisines in Tajikistan -- but if you stop to think for a second it's amazing. This guy has been everywhere, all over the world, studying how cellphone technology has changed the world, but he can still appreciate how amazing even the simplest thing can be. Pretty cool.

"Future Perfect is about the collision of people, society and technology...Future perfect is a pause for reflection in our planet's seemingly headlong rush to churn out more, faster, smaller and cheaper.

Somewhere along the way we get to shape what the future looks like."

www.janchipchase.com

On Leadership

2008-07-17T20:08:00.000-07:00

I used to think the perfect leader would be one so great at his/her job, that no one could dislike or criticize them; that they'd be universally loved by all. And I thought I knew a leader like this -- I had the privilege of working with her for over a year -- and naturally, as a sophomore in high school I completely idolized her.

Five whole years later, I've come to the startling realization that 15-year-old Nisha's vision of what a good leader looked like couldn't be farther from the truth. That ideal doesn't even exist in the real world. Leadership is impossible without critics; the good leader is the one who can handle his critics well and remain impervious to it. And the biggest weakness and leader can and will face is insecurity when that happens. Who wouldn't be? It's tiring, but also an indicator of how successful one can ever be in a position of leadership.

It's kind of sad to realize that my old naive concept of what "the perfect leader" would look like doesn't really exist. What real leadership entails seems to be a lot less fun and a lot less glamorous than my high school mind could have ever grasped.

shoutout

2008-07-09T17:23:00.000-07:00

I have been hearing all the fuss about the Twitter "phenomenon" forever now in tech blogs and business blogs and even the New York Times. I think it's funny because it seems like Twitter is a huge hit but hasn't yet really infiltrated the college crowd yet, from what I can tell. Aren't we supposed to be the ones addicted to Facebook, MySpace, RSS feeds, and IMs? Yet why is Twitter hot shit for 25-35 year olds but not really noticed by college kids, when we're the ones who grew up permanently attached to our PCs?

Anyways, I got bored today and I need to figure out why Twitter is so popular. So I jumped the bandwagon. If anyone else is on Twitter let me know... and "follow" me!