The US election season is in full swing ("are we there yet?" plead the kids...) and one of the more interesting related online political efforts is the "Ask your Lawmaker" service of Capitol News Connection (CNCNews). We worked with CNCNews in 2007 on the strategic planning for the new service, and we also did the information architecture.

What AYL provides is an online tool for people to pose questions for specific legislators, for people to vote on the questions of most interest to them, and then for AYL staff to go out and get answers to the most popular questions. Our lead Information Architect for the project, Nam-ho Park has recently blogged about the "Web 2.0" interactivity that AYL provides:

What differentiates this site from the Digg's of the online world is that this site has a physical component. The CNCNews reporters actually go out and accost lawmakers in the corridors of the US Capitol, waiting for them in various strategic locations, where they know they will be passing through.

It's a pretty innovative service - read more of Nam-ho's review of it.

I'm at Forum One's second annual Online Community Business Forum
this Monday and Tuesday. Our Bill Johnston and Jim Cashel have put together a great selection of smart speakers and attendees, an invitation-only gathering of about 70 people from community software businesses, media properties, investors, businesses using online community for customer service or building market presence, and others. I've heard more than a few people say this is one of the best conferences they have been to in a long time, because of the caliber of the people and the level of discussion about online community strategy and business models. And spending a few days enjoying Santa Fe (and eating various green chili dishes!), is a treat.
Photo by jwoodphoto.

A few impressions from Monday, day 1:

Twitter: I've been slow to understand the use and value of Twitter (see Wikipedia explanation of this "social media and microblogging service".) So it was illuminating to hear Shara Karasic (http://twitter.com/sharakarasic) of Work.com talk over dinner about how she has used Twitter to build a following of people interested in her work and ideas, and which she then uses to disseminate "breaking" news of a new event, report, product or offering. A light bulb went off in my thick head that, among other things, Twitter is "just" another effective dissemination channel to quickly get out news. Read more of Shana's thinking about twittering for business on work.com.

[Event live blogging versus twittering? Great blog reflections by Thomas Kriese of Omidyar about "Better Way to Broadcast Live"]

Virtual worlds? I am just starting to understand virtual worlds... but interesting discussion about the worth of virtual worlds and virtual goods - ie a virtual single stem rose - $10 on "HotorNot" web site. My first thought was who/how/why, but then - people buy lots of things as gifts for people which may have little value because of the intention effect (my theory)!

But then I found myself thinking - someone must be using virtual goods for donations, for philanthropy (ie rather than a virtual rose for $10, why not $10 to AWF.org and a virtual elephant trumpet?) I found the answer quickly - Change the Present does this:

The Changing the Present app allows users to give "meaningful gifts" that contribute $1 each to a progressive cause. The idea could resonate with Facebook's users for a number of reasons:

* Many of Facebook's users are young, and $1 is a small enough amount that it seems like an affordable way to give to charity. Changing the Present frames its offers in such a way that $1 also seems like it can go a long way.
* It incentivizes giving by allowing users to interact on a personal level with friends and effect positive social change with and for their friends. Giving gifts is fun (Facebook's $1 gifts remain popular even in the face of so much free competition), so it is smart to tap into that trend.
* It publicizes giving. It will be harder for people to receive a gift without returning the sentiment when it is tied to a worthy progressive cause, and the $1 price tag means nearly all of Facebook's users can afford an in kind response.

More impressions from day 2 to follow....

Technorati Tags:
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Online Community

We're pretty excited about the "Global Development Commons" concept that USAID's Administrator Henrietta Fore is recently promoting (see her video on this below). And an upcoming "Document Freedom Day" I think shows a key potential path to build the GDC with a focus on open standards.

The GDC concept is, in brief, for virtual (and physical) infrastructure to enable efficient sharing/collaboration among various players in global economic development - government and public sector, private sector, academics, etc.

The virtual aspect of it is where I see the most potential - to create a framework which allows multiple global actors to create and share tools and information. USAID writes:

The GDC builds and improves on the existing development information architecture (websites, portals, blogs, chat rooms, conferences, gatherings, etc.) to create a comprehensive network that allows users to search for information, facilitate dialogue, and trade or exchange products and ideas.

USAID is playing an important leadership role here, which is great to see. But USAID seems to envision a strong role for major IT infrastructure, major IT players to create the GDC, as discussed at their November 27th event? We're hoping that the role of these major IT players (Microsoft, Google, Cisco, etc.) is to help provide leadership, and not pieces of infrastructure. We're more convinced that the GDC will succeed with an open-standards approach. An open-standards approach will lead to more robust and innovative efforts than an approach which is specific to certain platforms.

And an interesting example of an open-standards approach is the upcoming "Document Freedom Day" on March 26th. DFD seeks to raise awarness of, and adoption of, the ODF (Open Document Format), as a way to enhance access to and the flow of information across platforms. The siloed nature of online information in the development business (see separate web sites and services of the World Bank, Development Gateway, DfID, USAID, GTZ, ADB, IADB, PAHO....) is a prime example of the problem that ODF can help solve. The ODF site explains:

ODF(OpenDocument Format) an ISO standard created with the aim to provide an open XML-based document file format for office applications to be used for documents containing text, spreadsheets, charts, and graphical elements. ODF is defined via an open and transparent process at OASIS and has been approved unanimously by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) as an international standard in May 2006. Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel ODF reuses established standards like HTML, SVG, XSL, SMIL, XLink, XForms, MathML, and Dublin Core.

Another example of valuable sharing and collaboration which will be enabled via open standards is the Grants Fire initiative, which Kurt Voelker blogged about here. From GoogleCode:

GrantsFire is a searchable database for philanthropic grants. It aggregates data from foundation web sites published in the hGrant format (http://hgrant.org/). The code is written using the Perl Catalyst framework.

What do you think? Interested to hear more about how the GDC can get up and going.

More info:

USAID Advisory Committee On Voluntary Foreign Aid (ACVFA) meeting on February 28th which will discuss the GDC

Sun's Simon Phipps blog post on ODF





Technorati Tags:
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The Iowa Caucuses are tonight (!) and several online "marketplaces" provide interesting glimpses into the possible outcomes. We think that these online markets are exciting examples of (a) how online tools can collect information rapidly from diverse and dispersed audiences in a way that no other media can (cost effectively) and (b) how online tools can be used to set up a marketplace for predicting outcomes, providing data which are more valuable than straw polling.

Predictive Markets like the Iowa Electronic Markets and Intrade have proven in the past to be pretty good predictors of electoral outcomes, often better than traditional polling. The thinking is that these markets predict better than polling because speculators are wagering their own money (even if small amounts) on what they expect will happen, which may not be what they personally would like to see as the outcome. (See Wikipedia overview of IEM and Intrade/Tradesports.)

These markets tap into the Wisdom of Crowds phenomenon which James Surowiecki has written about and which argues that a diverse collection of independently-acting people are often better than experts at making (some) decisions and predicting outcomes. Add to the wisdom of crowds the power of (online) markets to get at peoples' predications (not preferences) and you get some pretty relevant results.

Anyway - here's what two key predictive markets show as of today, the day of the Iowa caucuses:

The Iowa Electronic Markets show the following average bids for the "winner take all" national Nominee market, which will be determined by the outcome of the political conventions in the summer of 2008. This is not a direct prediction of the outcomes of the Iowa caucuses, but is relevant info to consider:

Market Quotes: DConv08: 2008 Democratic Convention Market, average bids:
CLINTON: 59.4
OBAMA: 28.9
EDWARDS: 9.9
OTHERS 1.8

The trend chart for the Dems shows increases since October for Edwards (a little) and Obama (more so), though with Clinton maintaining a substantial margin. It'll be interesting to see how the bids change after the caucuses tonight.




And for the Republican field:

Market Quotes: RConv08: 2008 Republican Convention Market, average bids:
MCCAIN: 26.8
ROMNEY: 26.8
GIULIANI: 22.8
HUCKABEE: 12.7
OTHER: 6.8
THOMPSON: 3.1

With the trend chart showing... a messy and close race between Giuliani, Romney and McCain - though with McCain gaining most strongly since December.



InTrade has markets in both the 2008 overall election and the primaries. The "Presidential Nominee" market for Dems shows ("last" numbers) Clinton at 64, versus Obama 31, and Edwards 6. Not too far off the IEM numbers.

More timely for today -- the InTrade Iowa market, however, shows Obama at 70, Clinton 24, and Edwards 17. Not even close.

The Republican "Nominee" market shows a close race with McCain at 28, and Romney and Giuliani at about 24.

The Iowa market for Reps shows Huckabee at 60, Romney at 42, and McCain at 1 (though interestingly, the New Hampshire primary market shows McCain as winning there.)

I'll track how these numbers look after tonight and how they change.


Technorati Tags:
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Wisdom of Crowds

We had a great time at our all-staff retreat this recent September at Airlie Center, and had a lot of fun with a video shorts contest among staff teams. And I think these videos work really well online to explain a complex topic or just show how much fun you can have a a place that is a "Great Place to Work!".

We called the contest "In Plain English", inspired in part by the "paperworks" videos of Lee Lefever of Commoncraft. The idea was that each team had to make a two minute video to explain a complex technical topic "In Plain English" to someone who is not very technically savvy.

With no prior preparation, each team of 7-8 folks got a standard handheld video camera, a topic, and about 2 hours of time. We *also* had to squeeze in a sumptuous lunch in that two hour block, so the pressure was on!

Well, it was a lot of fun shooting the videos. And it was also hilarious to view them afterwards in the whole group. I think we were all pretty impressed, if we do say so ourselves, at how good and how funny they all turned out.

The four topics were: what is a CMS, what is an online collaboration tool, what is the LiveInterviewsOnline! Tool, and what is a wireframe. The resulting videos are:




What is an online collaboration tool?







Takeaway - I think the videos show how easy and valuable it can be to use this format online to explain a complex topic, share a story or viewpioint, or just show the personality of an organization. Not bad for a 120-minute exercise.

Which video do you think is best? Leave your vote as a comment below!

We're the first ones to remind ourselves and our clients to not get too caught up in championing one kind of online tool or another - rather to define a clear strategy and let the tactical issue of tools selection flow from that. *But* even I gotta admit that we see an awful lot of benefits in using blogs to further the work of policy-focused groups.

We've blogged about blogs a few times (economics blogging, government blogging, lessons for blogging, story of the ONE blog, GlobalVoices, policy blogging and more.)

What we and others see as interesting about blogs is, in brief, that they hasten the velocity of your ideas online, they facilitate personal and conversational content (which most everyone prefers to officious tomes) and they provide a platform for dialogue with interested people around the world. Yes, a blog is just a tool for putting content on a web page, but it's a very powerful tool for that, and one that also really helps to connect with people and with other bloggers and blog search services.

A little promotion - here's a list of a few of the clients we have gotten set up and started blogging. They're covering topics as varied as education in the US, education reform in the Gulf Region and Qatar, international development and global health, and conservation and education.

-Center for Global Development, "Views from the Center" (on development), Global Health Policy, and "Millenium Challenge Account "Monitor Blog.

-National Alliance for Public Charter Schools

-Education for a New Era / Education Reform in Qatar

-National Wildlife Federation / Green Hour

Just by blogging these groups are leaders in their sectors, and I think that if they keep with it they will broaden their audiences and continue to learn a lot that will improve their online strategies.

Or thought leaders in climate science, HIV/AIDS prevention, water supply in the developing world, and other global issues?

Economics blogger Tyler Bower answers Dani Roderik's question saying:

1. Very good economists can better use blogs to attract an amazing audience.
2. A blog can be a loss leader... (i.e. for promoting books and other "ancillary products" - ed.)
3. Temporary blogging will become more popular... (i.e. blogging today that helps feed an article tomorrow - ed.)
4. I predict there will arise a rotating blog, run by a consortium of top economists.
5. If you are wondering about me, I face an especially low marginal cost of blogging... I was already reading and absorbing lots of outside material... so turning it into blog posts is relatively cheap.

These benefits I think can convey not just to economists but also thought leaders working on a variety of issues - such as global challenges of health, climate and others. Related to what Cowen lists, I see some of the most interesting aspects of blogs for thought leaders as being to give their ideas some velocity online, and also to invite discussion/interaction about their ideas.

There's also a pretty lively discussion about Cowen's post in the blog comments that follow it.