Sunday, October 30, 2005

Atlanta


Running mate: Hillary.
Secretary of State in waiting: Obama.
Campaign headquarters: Jackson Heights, New York City.
Our Iraq: Nepal.
The South: Conquer it.
Dean 2004: Blog; Dean 2008: Blogalaxy.
Core vision: Three pillars.

I have offered these thoughts earlier. Today I would like to add to that.

Convention: Atlanta.

In 1996 it held the Olympics. In 2008 it gets to host the Democratic Convention. This is about taking the South in a grand way.

This is about paying homage to the past three Democratic presidents, all southerners. Atlanta is the capital of the South.

This is about a great city.

Atalanta just so happens to be the first really big American city I ever went to. It was a Maths Club trip to Georgia Tech first year at college.

And I took all the pictures above. From a 18 wheeler. That I was piloting.

Thinking thoughts on Dean 2008 feels like writing the script for a movie. It will be a blockbuster.

Blogging Is Scalable Media


My blog has become a minor topic of debate among the DFNYC leadership recently. The vision I am offering is very much a work in progress. And I feel the need to explain.

Do events, blog events.

I have offered that as a mantra to Deaniacs earlier. This is not a clash with old media, but the idea is to bypass old media. The vision I am offering is of a scalable media. Google Earth is scalable. You can watch the planet from outer space, or you can zoom in to literally see the house I live in in the city.

Blogging makes that kind of media coverage possible. I have covered some DFNYC events at this blog, and the coverage has expanded. The first one had no pictures and little text. The recent ones have tens of picutures. The most recent one even has video clips. But this is still old media, kind of, although there are bits that can read like my personal journal, and that is very much intended. Blogging is not newspaper gone online. And old media of course does not give that kind of space to these events, if any at all.

But if a half dozen bloggers were to cover one event, then we are talking. That is when you outdo old media. You offer pictures, audio clips, video clips, text. And free flowing text. And each blogger links to all others who covered the event. And you cover one event from many different angles. And if you do it well enough, the event breaks free from both space and time.

It is okay to create an echo chamber as long as you blog it, then it is not an echo chamber no more.

That's the rudiment of the vision. As I said, it is still work in progress.

I have no desire to climb up the DFNYC leadership ladder. It is mostly a structureless group anyways. But for me it is like saying, here is the leading DFA group in the country in the progressive capital of the world. How can it keep competing with itself to keep getting better and better? The passion does not have to depend on presidential campaigns. It can be month in and month out.

I almost function with the detachment of an outside consultant. I play with ideas. I enjoy the company of the people I meet. For me my DFNYC involvement is about doing more of what I have been doing. I really don't wish to get into things like event planning, for example.

For me it is about Dean 2008. DFNYC is one atom, one star in the galaxy, the brightest star, but still one star. I am a big picture person on ideas, and a boosting morale person on leadership. Maximal delegation is my style.

I feel like headway is being made.