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Archive for January 21st, 2008

A Divided Clinton White House

Posted by Ted Hopton on January 21, 2008

//www.theburningbiscuit.com/Pictures%20for%20site/Demotivational%20Posters/strife.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.I heard an intriguing idea on NPR this evening (sorry, I didn’t make a note of who said it). What would a Clinton White House be like? The commentator speculated that within a year it would be divided. Hillary would have her staff and Bill would have his, not necessarily well-coordinated. He based this on what we have seen already on the campaign trail.

It’s a compelling point, I’d say, and actually is an argument against selecting Hillary. Bill has been saying things on the campaign trail that Hillary’s team would prefer he did not say, but no one can control the former president. Kind of tough to rein in the former leader of the most powerful country in the world! Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Politics | Tagged: , | Leave a Comment »

Political Base for Political Junkies

Posted by Ted Hopton on January 21, 2008

The image “http://www.politicalbase.com/css/base/logo.gif” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.Here’s news for political junkies: Political Base is a website/wiki for viewing and exchanging political ideas and information. It’s written up in the NYT: “A Site Follows the Money So Users Can Slice and Dice.”

One of a growing number of Web 2.0 companies — a category of Web sites that let visitors modify content and contribute material — Political Base has features ranging from serious blogs and a variety of YouTube videos to campaign finance data displayed on a Google map….Mr. Bonnie, a Democrat, sees the site as a place for people of all political stripes to educate themselves on the issues and candidates while they participate in blogs and create new ways of looking at election data.

Political Base is a “structured wiki,” meaning users can edit most of the text but cannot change the underlying database. The site uses the same publicly available Federal Election Commission data used by dozens of other sites. The site lets users correlate data, creating comparison charts and maps showing candidate strongholds.

I’ve taken a quick look at the site and signed up. It remains to be seen how much wide appeal a site like this will attract.

read more | digg story

Posted in Politics, Web 2.0 | Tagged: , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Not-So-Influential Influencers

Posted by Ted Hopton on January 21, 2008

Fast Company has an in-depth story, “Is the Tipping Point Toast?” about the work of Duncan Watts, a network-theory scientist who tests the actual influence of “Influencers” popularized by Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point and finds anyone is about as influential in starting trends as anyone else.

… Influentials have no such effect. Indeed, they have no special role in trends at all….”It just doesn’t work,” Watts says…. “A rare bunch of cool people just don’t have that power. And when you test the way marketers say the world works, it falls apart. There’s no there there.”

And this is not, he argues, mere academic whimsy. He has developed a new technique for propagating ads virally, which can double or even quadruple the reach of an ordinary online campaign by harnessing the pass-around power of everyday people–and ignoring Influentials altogether.

The marketing establishment doesn’t want to hear it, since “going viral” by reaching influencers is the latest big thing.

But as The Tipping Point climbed the charts, marketers fixated on Gladwell’s Law of the Few, his suggestion that rare, highly connected people shape the world. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Books, Marketing, Research, Web 2.0 | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Distance Isn’t Dead After All

Posted by Ted Hopton on January 21, 2008

I like this Wired column, “How Email Brings You Closer to the Guy in the Next Cubicle,” by Tim Harford. His premise is that increasing use of email, web applications and online networking might be thought to minimize the need for living physically close to our workplaces and social circles. However, he concludes that, far from removing distance barriers, technology actually reinforces the value of proximity and face-to-face contact.

Technology makes it more fun and more profitable to live and work close to the people who matter most to your life and work. Harvard economist Ed Glaeser, an expert on city economies, argues that communications technology and face-to-face interactions are complements like salt and pepper, rather than substitutes like butter and margarine. Paradoxically, your cell phone, email, and Facebook networks are making it more attractive to meet people in the flesh.

Thought-provoking article — and although it runs counter to conventional wisdom, it rings true.

read more | digg story

Posted in Technology, Trends, Web 2.0 | Tagged: , , | Leave a Comment »

McCain’s Poetry

Posted by Ted Hopton on January 21, 2008

William Kristol’s NYT column, “Thoroughly Unmodern McCain,” presents an interesting analysis of McCain’s appeal and suggests it could be just what we need.

In his victory speech after winning the South Carolina primary Saturday night, John McCain acknowledged the economic challenges we face, and then said: “But nothing is inevitable in our country. We are the captains of our fate.” McCain comes from a generation that, in its youth, was made to memorize poetry… one of the poems he had memorized in school was William Ernest Henley’s “Invictus” (1875)….One can see why “Invictus” might have appealed to the young McCain. One can see why snatches of it might have stuck in his mind while a prisoner of war, and after. But his allusion to its coda reminds us of what’s so distinctive about McCain as a contemporary political figure: He’s not thoroughly modern….

Maybe a dose of this type of neo-Victorianism is what the 21st century needs. A fair number of Republican and independent voters seem to think so, if one can infer as much from their support of McCain at the polls. But, amazingly, a neo-Victorian straightforwardness might also turn out to be strategically smart.

I can’t say I agree that John McCain is what we need, but it’s a fair point to make that he’s distinctly different in more ways than are commonly acknowledged. He is doing it his way, and that’s worth admiring.

Posted in Learning, Politics | Tagged: , | Leave a Comment »

 
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