Cairns Blog

Carrot Mobbing

Brent Schulkin in San Francisco has launched the first "Carrot Mob."  What's a Carrot Mob?  Well, it's a way to use the "carrot" of consumer buying power to encourage small businesses to help the environment.  The idea is to use web-based tools to organize a consumer flashmob that channels business to stores that commit to environmental improvements.

Here's the catchy video of the first Carrot Mob "Make It Rain" campaign in San Francisco's Mission District last month.  In short, the Carrot Mobbers asked local businesses how much they would be willing to invest in environmental improvements if the group were to organize a buying spree directed at that business.  The result for the winning bodega?  More than triple the sales of an average Saturday, lots of free advertising, oodles of community goodwill and a scheme to pay for improvements that, in turn, save the business money over the long run.

It's a great example of use of new media technologies to convene and organize a group of people that, working together, is more powerful at bringing about social change than any individual acting alone.  It takes the traditional boycott model and turns it on its head (a girlcott?) to create incentives for good  rather than an injunction against bad action.  It's a collaboration between the business and the consumer to everyone's benefit.  The video is really useful for creating a sense of that group and community and allowing people to feel themselves to have been part of something.  And, it demonstrates that civic activism can be fun!

ObamaWorks: Ordinary People Start Doing Extraordinary Things

A few days ago, I posted an excerpt from an editorial by two Yale students (David Manners-Weber and Justin Kosslyn) who, inspired by the Obama campaign rhetoric, put out a challenge to their peers to take action in their own neighborhoods.  (Incidentally, there's  a new site called The Point, which is designed to help people issue challenges, to others.  I'll do X if 10 other people do Y.)

The Yale article intrigued Princeton graduate student Arvind Murugan, who wrote about the article on a few  listservs which were, in turn, read by Philadelphia area residents who started collaborating through emails and impromptu meetings to launch a grassroots movement dubbed Obama Works.  ObamaWorks is a means to create visible public service projects and inspire collective action.

On March 1, Philly residents will hold a "Philly Sweep" and it is expected that other neighborhood clean-ups will take place around NYU and Yale, too.  As one of the authors wrote me, "I couldn't be more thrilled to let you know that, with the help of people I've never even met, words are getting turned into action."

Manners-Weber goes on to say in his email about my earlier blog posting: "In your post, you wrote of "people collaborating to improve their own social conditions." Well it looks like folks are starting to do just that - within 24 hours, 100 people signed up to participate in the "Obama Philly Sweep," where volunteers will be cleaning up the streets around the Graduate Hospital area."

Here is their press release:

Philadelphia, March 1, 2008...  Within only 24 hours, 100 supporters of Barack Obama signed up for the first Obama Philly Sweep, which kicks off at 2227 Christian St. in the Graduate Hospital area on Saturday, March 1st, at 1:00 pm.  Street cleaning tops the agenda for this community service event - signaling the start of a new breed of political campaign that brings volunteers together around a constructive purpose. The Obama Philly Sweep is the first local event hosted by Obama Works, a grassroots organization currently taking shape in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and New Jersey.  Obama Works intends to implement Barack Obama’s message of change through community service projects. According to organizer Amirah Naim, the group is “working to transcend our differences and transform our country.”

Obama Works will sponsor additional clean-up efforts in other Philadelphia neighborhoods prior to March 24th, the voter registration deadline for the Pennsylvania primary election.  After the primary, Obama Works will continue to develop and organize a variety of community service outreach projects.

Ordinary People Doing Extraordindary Things

""Hope is the bedrock of this nation.  The belief that our destiny will not be written for us but by us....by all those men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is, who have the courage to remake the world as it should be," said Obama in his Iowa victory speech on January 3, 2008.  "Together ordinary people can do extraordinary things."

Justin Kosslyn, a junior in Ezra Stiles College at Yale University and David Manners-Weber a sophomore in Yale's Calhoun College take the message to heart.  In an article the Yale Daily News, Kosslyn and Manners-Weber imagine that, instead of simply getting out the vote, young people follow Obama's exhortation to make change happen in the world. 

We have three examples of what such projects might look like. The first is simple: neighborhood cleanup. Residents driving through town squares and walking through local parks would find groups of enthusiastic Obama volunteers picking up cigarette butts and candy wrappers. The volunteers on this project, and all such projects, would be decked out in Obama T-shirts, stickers and buttons."

Our second sample service project is a 5K run through Main Street to raise money for a local charity. In Connecticut, our state, we could support Operation Fuel, which subsidizes heating for low-income families. Obama has spoken about the impact of high fuel prices on working families, so this type of service complements Obama’s message.

Finally, Obama volunteers could work through local YMCAs to further a myriad of small-scale local projects. These range from re-tiling the bathroom in a local women’s shelter to distributing children’s books from the local book bank. Though often less visible than traditional campaigning, these efforts have the potential to generate tremendous word-of-mouth credibility and support for Obama.

They have the right idea.  Unlike the Republican leaders who after 9/11 called for us to shop as a sign of patriotism, these Yale students, inspired by Obama's leadership, talk of becoming engaged and involved.  They do not ask what Washington will do for them nor do they contentedly envision their role as passively voting every fourth year.  These are the young people who want to make change happen for themselves in their own communities.  Working together, people have the ability to do what they cannot do alone and the projects they envision imagine people collaborating to improve their own social conditions.  Obama's message, strongly echoed in the Tech Plan's new vision for government, puts inspired students like Kosslyn and Manners-Weber at the center of the solution. 

TechPresident Rates the Candidates

TechPresident released its scorecard on the presidential candidates' positions on technology, the media, education, transparency and infrastructure.

Obama and Edwards receive an A-.  Biden is next best with a B.  Hillary gets a B- and it goes down from there. Dodd C-.  Richardson C.  Kucinich D.  And Gravel is a D- for having only taken a position on Net Neutrality and nothing else.

Can't complain that TechPresident singled out what is most exciting about Obama's plan:

"Where he goes further is in arguing that "technology offers the tools to create real change in America," by connecting citizens to each other and by opening up the federal government to change how business is done--including "giving Americans the chance to participate in government deliberations and decision-making in ways that were not possible only a few years ago." (He calls this creating "a transparent and connected democracy"--hard to argue with that goal.)"

Barack Obama Unveils Unprecedented Plan for Open Government

George Bernard Shaw once wrote, “All professions are conspiracies against the laity,” and nowhere is this more the case than in a democracy where we organize government as the closed domain of governmental professionals.

And what’s the result? Because we assume that government alone possesses the expertise to make public-policy decisions, the way we “do politics” is broken.

Under Bush, agencies are able to make closed-door decisions about the standards for cross-ownership of newspapers and broadcasting and limiting overtime pay for workers.  They use ideoglogically-driven junk science to justify the failure to confront global warming. Public information that belongs to the taxpayers is hidden in government files and, when available on the Web, not in a form that’s accessible to or usable by Americans. Even when manipulation is not at issue, government is hampered by the lack of quality technology that would make information with which to make decisions available.

Alone among the U.S. Presidential candidates, Barack Obama is confronting the question of how to produce more accountable and effective politics in our democracy.

His just-released Tech Plan (Download Obama Tech Plan) uniquely understands that the time, expertise and enthusiasm that ordinary people invest in making Wikipedia better, for example, can be transformed into practices to make government work better and more accountably.  So he doesn't just call for making information more transparent to citizens; he wants to hear what we have to say and enable us to participate.  The Plan calls for citizen engagement in the work of federal agencies and demonstrates respect for the intelligence and expertise of the American people.  He calls for opening up the closed practices of government and using new technology to enable genuine citizen participation and engagement in our democracy.

This is a major and unprecedented step.

No other candidate “gets it.” 

They pay lip service to transparency.  He proposes making government data available online as well as ensuring that agencies do their work in public.

They talk about citizen congresses that would deliberate in quaint town hall meetings having nothing to do with real world politics or power.  He proposes engaging citizens in the actual and ongoing work and decision-making of government -- not Americans talking to elected officials but Americans genuinely participating.

They talk about technology and innovation.  He offers a comprehensive broadband strategy, commitment to media diversity, and a proposal to improve patent quality, including the practice of rigorous, public peer review like Peer-to-Patent.

They talk about strong IP.  He balances his support of strong IP with recognition of the need to promote collaboration and innovation.

I am excited about Obama’s Tech Plan.  In fact, it should be called the “Democracy Plan.”

He alone does what a President should do, namely articulate a vision for democracy in the digital age.

He wants to:

• Establish pilot programs to open up government decision-making and involve the public in the work of agencies.
• Solicit expertise and opinions from Americans, not just talk to or at them.
• Use the Web to allow people to participate, not just observe the business of democracy.
• Make government information openly available in accessible formats.
• Enable people to make use of government data to comment, derive value, and take action in their own communities.  For example, he describes how greater access to environmental data can help citizens learn about pollution in their communities, provide information about local conditions back to government and empower people to protect themselves.
• Deploy the latest Web 2.0 technologies such as blogs, wikis and social networking tools to make government more effective and more efficient.
• Hire a CTO to ensure more rational and effective use of technology and compliance with the openness requirements of the E-Government Act.

As the Plan says: “Obama’s forward-thinking 21st century technology and innovation policy starts by recognizing that we need to connect all citizens with each other to engage them more fully and directly in solving the problems that face us.  In tandem with that goal, Barack Obama understands that we must use all available technologies and methods to open up the federal government, creating a new level of transparency to change the way business is conducted in Washington and giving Americans the chance to participate in government deliberations and decision-making in ways that were not possible only a few years ago.”

I am excited about a political race for the first time. 

Why?

Because Senator Obama's proposal to open up government decision-making represents a powerful commitment to democracy and one that I am proud to support publicly and wholeheartedly.

For more on the Obama Tech Plan, also see:

Download Obama Tech Plan

Download Expert Statements_of_Support

Expert Statements Web Page

OpenLeft
Lessig
San Jose Mercury News
Campaign Website

Later in the day.....

New York Times

Chicago Tribune

Wonkette

Wired

Tech President

Patently-O

Information Week

Craig Newmark

New Student Capstone Projects at the Do Tank

Institute for Information Law and Policy Tech Law Lab/Capstone Class 2007-2008

Profs. Grimmelmann, Johnson, Noveck, Sherwin

Introduction:

This year-long course seeks to train a new generation of lawyer: the one who can wield a wider array of tools (law, policy, technology) to solve complex social problems. The lawyer in the digital age must be able to think, not only in traditional legal terms, but also with an understanding of how information and communication work today.  Put another way, the new jurist has to translate the values of law into the world of media, technology and communication. This class aims to inculcate these skills through collaborative work on real-world projects that leverage hi- tech tools to promote civil liberties and social justice, promote open access to law and legal information, foster collective action and deepen democracy.  In this class, students work in small group teams. Each team has a faculty mentor as well as a client. These are all real projects with serious, real-world impact.

Descriptions for: Virtual Company (Johnson), Open Access Law (Grimmelmann),  New York Law School Visual History (Sherwin) and IP Matrix (Noveck) Projects follow.

Virtual March on Washington

Various political blogs are reporting that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is organizing a "virtual march" on Washington, DC in opposition to a bill being debated on the Hill that would do away with the "secret ballot" means of organizing a union at a workplace.  Wonkette mockingly celebrates the event as a "a protest lazier than Second Life's" and declares that "You don’t even need to actually show up to march on Washington anymore!"  Slightly beside the point, one commentator notes the irony that such "grass-roots" means of protesting are being utilized by big business, suggesting that "if there were an actual march, Chamber of Commerce members would have to be carried in their sedan chairs by their illegal alien employees. No use risking loss of valuable workers should the INS swoop down during the march!"

IP Activism Conference

There ought to be a student-run IP Activism Conference.  Today Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM) holds its first conference to bring together law studnents and medical school students to promote its mission: "1) to determine how universities can help ensure that biomedical end products, such as drugs, are made more accessible in poor countries and (2) to increase the amount of research conducted on neglected diseases, or those diseases predominantly affecting people who are too poor to constitute a market attractive to private-sector R&D investment."  Every year, Yale Law School hosts the Rebellious Lawyering Conference which convenes lawyers, activists and law students to explore progressive approaches to law and social change.  Creative Commons holds its events, too.  But, to my knowledge, there is no event that brings together professional students across disciplines including law, business, medicine, computer science and engineering to talk about ways for students to get involved and make a difference in promoting access to knowledge, information openness, innovation and creativity and free expression.  This would be a day (or two) in which to explore projects that would serve the constitutional goals of the intellectual property system and social justice at the same time -- not just in theory but in practice.  Such a conference would be an opportunity to organize at scale students who want to get involved in open patent review, creative commons license dissemination, amateur content production policy, activism efforts to promote more responsible and open uses of IP by government, corporations, empirical research projects relating to everything from orphan works to university tech transfer licensing policy.  Professional students have the knowledge and the interest in how IP is created, used and regulated and, together, have the ability to use their know-how and numbers to make change happen in the world.

Good Grief

Deleting Online Predators Act of 2006 (H.R. 5319) Subtitled: "To amend the Communications Act of 1934 to require recipients of universal service support for schools and libraries to protect minors from commercial social networking websites and chat rooms." Good grief.

Big News

Susan Crawford has been elected to the board of ICANN!!! See the ICANN announcement. This is a very good day for the Net. Hurray! Congratulations, Susan.