Social networks

In thinking about a list of technology tricks I've got up my sleeve, I couldn't but help but notice that I have been using several social networking technologies to cope with my technological pain. I work alone at home, so unless I call somebody or actually reach out to meet and touch someone, I don't get to spread my discontent.

So I've resorted to using a myriad of technologies to ease my pain

1. Blog about it.
2. Twitter your screams of anguish with a 140 character AUUUUGH!
3. Profile your unhappiness at MySpace with a long winded profile update.
4. Vlog about it.
5. Change your GTalk, AIM or iChat status to OMGWTF I DON'T HAVE A COMPUTER!
6. Close every email with a tally of the days you've survived without your tech.
7. Wear a firewire chord around your wrist in solidarity with your computer (especially if it is a Mac)
8. Podcast it
9. Create a Facebook support group and asked to be superpoked with Powerbooks.
10. Go to I has a cheezburger and go to town on their LOLCAT (and sometimes dogs) builder.

There!

Tomorrow is Personal Democracy Forum's 2007 Conference. The theme this year is "The Flattening of Politics", a hat tip to one of the most important 'manifestos' of this millenium --The Cluetrain Manifesto.

The cluetrain was put together by a group of entrepreneurs, corporate communications experts, software engineers and new media scholars who saw 'the writing on the wall' with the new marketplace that was emerging with the rapid adoption of the internet. Yes, there was a time when many CEO looked at the web with suspicion and with a "but how are we going to make money out of this".

Notwithstanding the 1999/2000 bubble and crash, the naysayers got it all wrong.

The internet is not just changing the way we buy products or ideas. It is changing the basic dynamics of human engagement from how we meet, how we learn from each other, even how we mate.

Of course, the internet has proved to be powerful as a tool for political resource building, but in my book, it has not been used powerfully enough.

Applied to politics, the Manifesto reads as a primer on how the internet squashes any pretences of republic-like politics. Gone are the days in which engagement is only mediated by an elite 'entrusted' by the masses with every single policy and political decision making that will end up affecting their lives.

People Powered Politics is just starting in this country, but we are not there yet. Still, I believe 2008 will go down in history as the last Plato-centric, republic-like elections. Yet, after 2008, I cannot imagine the US Electoral college system surviving because people will demand more and more direct engagement in every single aspect of the political process.

Democracy literally means people (demos) power (cracy). And no self appointed leader of anthing ending with -roots will be able to rationalize a republic-like electoral system as people engage more and more with "social-technology" mediated "people power politics".

The 2008 hint at what is possible, but we are not there yet. If not, we would have had a candidate by now publish their own own 95 Theses for a new politics.

So let me take this opportunity to do it, if not for the candidates then for us, the people who are powering the movement that is flattening politics --even with this here blog. And to keep it in the spirit of the original, it would be cool if you "signed it" in the comments or with a link back to your blog.

So I give you,

The Cluetrain Manifesto for People Powered Politics

Online Constituencies...
Networked political constituencies are beginning to self-organize faster than the governments and political organizations that have traditionally served them. Thanks to the web, constituencies are becoming better informed, smarter, and more demanding of qualities missing from most political organizations.

...People of Earth
The sky is open to the stars. Clouds roll over us night and day. Oceans rise and fall. Whatever you may have heard, this is our world, our place to be. Whatever you've been told, our flags fly free. Our heart goes on forever. People of Earth, remember.

This weekend is the Personal Democracy Forum Conference here in New York City. I will be participating in what I know will turn out to be a kickass panel. The title of the panel is on this post Is Cyberspace Colorblind? Addressing Race and Class Online.

Ruby Sinreich, of LotusMedia and Orange Politics, is the moderator. The panel promises to be tight with Cheryl Contee Assistant Vice President of IDI.net, Chris Rabb, my blog bro from Afronetizen and Anil Dash, Vice President of Six Apart.

I am really excited about this panel. I know Chris and Anil for quite a while now, have the luck to have met Ruby earlier this year and work with her as part of the advisory crew over at TechPresident and have heard good things about Cheryl's online demographics work.

I have noticed that my list of MySpace friends doesn't grow linearly. You can't just go to the last page of your "friends" to see who's added themselves to your train.

New "friends" seem to get added and sorted at random. I am assuming it is a ruse used to maximmize pageviews and thusly ad revenue. Still, it lends itself for some unplanned and quite humorous comingly of people who may have never met outside your list.

Like the case of the smiley death-match between Hanifah Walidah, DJ, video producer & master networker extraordinaire; and Barack Obama, presidential rock star. Who has the biggest grin, illest fashion sense and flawless-ler skin? You decide!

Then there's the war of the geeks. There's the policy geek and anti-war powerhouse, Senator Russ Feingold. On the other corner is Jason, "i am lawgeek, hear me roar" Schultz.

I think I heard somewhere that you are attracted to the same 3 or 4 people that made indelible impressions on you early in life, including your parents. If you look at blogdiva|my list of friends, you definitely find a narrative there.

I couldn't resist writing that title because there is so much left unsaid of the power of social networks.

So Lindsay proudly posted that image, celebrating her sell to Time.com --a photograph they found of Amanda via Flickr. Flickr, by the way, has become a social networking site disguised as photo storage company.

Anyhow, she took that photograph of Amanda while she and I and a whole gaggle of political and entertainment bloggers were in Amsterdam. We were part of the Bloggers in Amsterdam group, paid by Holland.com and sponsored by BlogAds.

Many women in the Feminist Bloggers Network know each other now for more than a couple of years. Women tend to operate social networks and powerlines a bit differently than men, and so our presence in mainstream media has not been as forceful as the handful of male-run blogs the mainstream journos tend to call "The Blogs".

Well, we not be as prominent in the public eye as some of us would like to be, but make no mistake --we're everywhere.

Want proof? MAJeff, the last quote in that Time.com article happens to be a FBN member who's been on a blogging (but not commenting) sabbatical; and used to be a key player in our blog.

Just saying.

Check out my photo of Amanda and me in Amsterdam after the jump ...

Personal Democracy Forum asked the following:

As we approach the 2006 mid-terms and look ahead to 2008, the editors at Personal Democracy Forum are asking technologists, journalists, bloggers, and politicos to send us 200-word responses to the following questions:

Was the role of technology in politics different in 2006 than in 2004? How did new technology most affect Election 2006, and do you see any lessons for 2008?

Here's my response, included with comments by other technologists and political observers over at PDF:

It’s more than netroots activism. It’s more than neighborhood politics. Neighboroots is becoming and interesting trend : I find myself exchanging on almost a daily basis notes about what is happening here in my little slice of New York City with people who are in far along places like Oregon, Texas and Ohio.

The idea of neighboroots is simple : Many people are using the social networking practices they’ve developed online to expand their political engagement and strengthen relationships within their offline neighborhoods. So I have been able to share notes and ideas with bloggers and campaign volunteers in cities and towns across states such as California, Virginia and Connecticut.

These are not people involved in high profile national races. These are micro-targeted or hyper-local politics offline : City councils, school boards, state senates. Contrary to the trend of online activists or netroots to target national campaign or high profile races, neighboroots are hyperlocal, microniche politics that are being discussed and even provided with resources by online activists across the country. In most cases, these are the races abandoned by their local party machines. So finding others in similar situations is key to some of these activists. You can say that, as they are more engaged in localities, neighboroots activists also happen to be creating online neighborhoods or affinity groups through forums, blogs, wikis an email lists, in order to to exchange ideas and share resources.

So if there are many more local races these year too close to call, now you know why. Thank the activists who are growing the new political phenomenon, the neighboroots.