August 22, 2007
11:33 am | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
What happens to an idea deferred?
Corel, the software maker who brought us WordPerfect and a whole host of design tools, didn’t want to risk finding out. Or, more accurately, one small band of engineering innovationistas decided to stop letting grassroots ideas get lost to the ethers – a familiar fate at even the most innovation-focused companies. So, a handful of employees created a unique system -- a “virtual garage” -- that helped the company capture, then evaluate and develop ideas that bubble up from the Corel rank and file. And, get this -- it’s working. It says something good about the employees who made the system, as well as the company that embraced their efforts.
Failing to innovate is, or should be, the great fear of any company that wants to survive in a fast-moving world. Innovation can look like lots of things -- endless meetings, arm-waving at whiteboards, focus groups, etc – but at the end of the day, innovation must create value. (Otherwise it’s just bloviation, which can also only be measured using trailing indicators.) One interesting blog defines the “cost of not innovating” as the estimated dollar value your competitors have gained that you have failed to capture through your own innovation efforts. No pressure there.
Intrigued by the Corel concept -- I first heard about it here - I got in touch with Adam McKinty, Director of User Experience Design at Corel, and Jennifer Fraser, the Lead User Experience Designer, who walked me through the development of the system. It started, as these things often do, as mellow but persistent discontent from employees. “It stemmed from a conversation at our morning meeting,” recalls McKinty. “Rus Miller (a manager who has since been promoted to VP, Product Development) shared a frustration from his team - they had ideas but didn’t know who to tell. Or they were telling someone who didn’t seem to listen.”
It was a worrisome complaint. User experience, says McKinty, is central to the Corel mission. Research is a key part of that. But the 'aha moments' that could only come from people who worked with the product or talked to customers all day, weren’t being developed - and those people worked in a variety of teams in a variety of locations. “Not only did we want to harness those flashes of brilliance,” says McKinty, “we wanted to make sure our people felt that they were being listened to. And there is something incredibly satisfying to know that your idea is being taken seriously, and might actually be turned into a product.”
Fraser was tapped to lead the search for the perfect innovation catcher - "a repository for people’s ideas,” she says. She talked to employees, and then studied other idea collection systems in other companies and industries. But there wasn't much out there, particularly around product design. “The big challenge was how to keep the innovation moving,” she says. “Collecting ideas wasn’t going to be enough.”
But what is a "good" idea? As the concept of the “innovation portal” was being shaped, the user experience team realized that they had to teach the larger product development group what they were looking for. “We want to create customer focused products. People needed to understand what that really meant at the innovation level.” The company routinely conducts customer interviews, but they weren’t easily accessible to the entire group. Giving future innovators access to that data within the portal seemed to be an important first step. “We made it easy for them to listen to an interview file, and get first hand what customer needs and pains were.” Then, they created an application process that screened out any cool ideas that simply weren’t right for Corel. “Every question on the application form is from the perspective of the customer. They’re very specific.”
Ideas that make it through the process are "evaluated and ranked – assigned certain values for impact to users, market need and urgency to market," says Fraser. Ultimately, the idea is given a score on a map of values, which can change over time - say, as new market information becomes available. And the cool part: "As soon as the idea looks like it may be turned into a product," says McKinty, "the person who initiated the idea can become part of the team that creates that functionality."
So far, the innovations that have come out the other side are what McKinty terms the "little gems" - elegant tweaks to existing products that he says creates a better user experience. One success story came in the form of a suggested change to the boundary functionality for Corel Draw Graphics X3. "Customer interviews showed that there was a need for a more efficient way to create a boundary around a group of many objects that were selected - a very specific need for say, a sign maker or vinyl cutter." The idea worked its way through the Virtual Garage quickly. "We don't have vinyl cutters working here, so we needed that specific customer feedback to make it into the design process." The tweak was a hit. "I'm sure that when the product specialist first showed (the enhanced feature) to some of our customers, it must have seemed like a throwaway," says McKinty. Instead, he was greeted with oohs and aahs. "It's been a real morale booster all around."
The quest for the innovation portal began about four years ago - the working group that Fraser led took about a year to get a version launched. (It was a side project for her.) It has been active at Corel for nearly three years -- and has generated just short of a thousand new ideas. And people are getting noticed. "There have been internal team awards, significant recognition of 2 or 3 people," says McKinty. And significant buy-in from the C-suite -- the system is about to be rolled out to the broader company later this year.
What happens to an idea deferred? Can any company afford to take the risk that they'll dry up, fester or worst of all, explode?
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August 8, 2007
04:01 pm | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
A bit more on Current TV.
One of the most intriguing elements of the Current TV trajectory thus far, is how clear Gore and Hyatt were from the start that they wanted to do something completely different. In part, it was to address what they believed to be were the glaring inadequacies of a one-way medium – Gore spends pages exploring this theme in his recent book, An Assault on Reason. It is the very business of television that disturbed them. Hyatt told me that there was "an utter lack of innovation in the media industry"--a barely disguised oligopoly, as they saw it, controlling both content and competition. "We decided that we wanted to build a new kind of media company to democratize--small d--television first and the media industry generally," he said.
They pushed through their ideas under the toughest of circumstances. “There were about seven or eight times when this deal was all but dead in the water,” recalled Gore about hunting for a cable asset to buy. Innovation can be challenging in the best of times; but under pressures of deadlines, itchy investors and looming revenue targets, even the most high-minded goals tend to be pushed to back burner. But once they had a business to run, the two got busy making it what they wanted it to be. Not without drama, but evidently without compromise.
During the course of my reporting on Current TV, I interviewed several of the senior staffers. Joanna Drake Earl was Hyatt and Gore’s first hire, and no slouch in her own right. She has a varied background, from Booz Allen's entertainment practice, to Paul Allen’s Digeo . As the President of New Media, she’s actively creating new places for Current programming to appear. “We’re now exploring and concluding partnerships online with new media platforms – mobile, laptops, gaming consoles – any platform that makes sense,” she told me. With healthy license and advertising streams, it’s time to play. “Now that we’ve launched the tv network and reached our household distribution goal (50 million homes), we’re fulfilling our larger goal of becoming a global media brand.”
Drake shared a wonderful story describing the sausage-making that was early Current. It sounded like the kind of “what color is our parachute?" meetings that in the hands of a bad moderator – like one of those annoying consultants - can do more to alienate a staff than to solidify their resolve:
One recollection that sticks with me, early on, happened when we had first assembled a full executive team. We had gotten together for a full day strategy session around Joel’s kitchen table at his home. I remember one session we were talking about our values. We had and have a very diverse executive team from very different background – some from entertainment, some from outside of entertainment – but there was a wealth of passion and experience. And so much business savvy built into this entity with a specific social mission of connecting with young people and empowering them.
Al gets up to speak – there’s always a lot of arm waving - and he loves to get up on the white board and draw a lot. Some of the values we talked about were not surprising – courage, authenticity and excellence. 'Listening' got pretty far along. Then we got to transformational. There was a pretty heated debate around transformational. In the long term, can we live with transformational every day? Embue it in the culture and manage to it? Managing to transformational can be draining. It’s a high hurdle. Al stuck to his guns – he got very animated. He didn’t want to do the venture if we couldn’t be transformational. We had the vision... and market opportunity... A couple of glasses of wine later, we got comfortable.
When I asked her what it meant to manage to “transformational” she said: “we need to be sure we’re on an innovative path in every area. It forces us to re-think everything, every 3-6 months, to make sure.”
When I sat down with Gore, I shared Earl’s story with him, and asked him what he meant by transformational.
He brightened, and immediately launched into lecture mode, a way of being with which he is clearly comfortable. His intrepid wrangler immediately offered him a wide array of tools – pen, pencil, sharpie, paper, file folder. He went straight for the folder and sharpie and began sketching. “This is sort of a geeky analogy, but you’re from Fast Company, so you’ll like it,” he said.
“The top sheet is an early computer with a central processing unit surrounded by a memory field. The CPU would send back and forth to the memory field to get and process data, generating heat and wasting time.
“The second sheet describes a revolutionary architecture, which distributes computing throughout the field with microprocessors, allowing the computer to solve all parts of a problem simultaneously.
“Okay? So, here’s a brief history of computers:”
“ The first computers after Brainiac and all that stuff had a CPU, surrounded by a field of memory. And the CPU would send out to the memory filed and get data, bring it back to the center, process it, then store the result back in the memory field. Three trips. IBM got its initial breakthrough with something called vector processing, which simply meant while one of these circuits was under way, another could begin. And you could have numerous of these under way at the same time. But all the work would still have to stack up at the CPU to be done. So as the challenges became greater and the processors became more powerful and the amount of information increased - the heat that you immediately recognized became an issue - and the size and that this is slow. So some brilliant guys, including Danny Hillis, came up with a revolutionary new architecture.
“And they got rid of the CPU and in the field of memory - and this is sort of a notional representation of it [referring to the drawing]. Every place info was stored they would co- locate a small microprocessor. Just imagine that all of these squares have microprocessors. And each microprocessor was assigned to and responsible for the information stored adjacent to it. So when work needed to be performed or a problem needed to be solved all of the parts of the problems were solved simultaneously. And all the components of the answer were brought to a virtual center. Okay? Instead of one two three trips, one trip. Less heat, less time, smaller spaces, less time still, virtuous cycle.
[He begins pointing to the two sides of the unfolded manilla folder. All things bad are the CPU, all things good are the virtuous cycle.]
So, this is communism [points to CPU], this is democracy [points to virtuous cycle].
This is a command control economy… this is supply and demand.
[Here comes the kicker…]
This is a traditional television network [top sheet] … this is Current.”
He sat back and smiled. It’s an analogy that was too long to make it into the magazine story, but a lot of fun to hear in person. And it’s given me a lot to think about as I analyze other business ideas – as well as some of my own here at Fast Company.
But in some ways it’s less the business model that they chose, but the commitment to being transformational that I found most intriguing. It takes guts to revisit every assumption, premise, brainstorm, strategy and relationship on a regular basis. It’s uncomfortable not to have familiar benchmarks; reinventing the wheel is harder than it sounds on a whiteboard. Reversion to the mean happens for a very simple reason: Innovation is terrifying when done right.
I can see why the wine might have helped.
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August 8, 2007
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Now that the Al Gore story is in print, I can no longer pretend that the hours I spend watching Current TV, the network he started with partner Joel Hyatt, is for reporting purposes. I’ve morphed into a bona fide fan, and I’m always delighted by the strength of the storytelling and the consistency of the programming voice. Within a half an hour of watching, I’ve typically laughed, been moved to tears and learned something interesting; any moments of boredom or disinterest pass quickly because, well, the pods are short. It really isn’t like anything else that you see on television, and it’s getting better all the time.
They’re also getting creative about the ways that ordinary people can get their own images and ideas on the air.
One of my recent favorite initiatives is a collective music video shot entirely by fans at a concert. The band is My Morning Jacket, who recently performed at Lollapalooza. The call for entries:
Make history with Current TV and My Morning Jacket by helping to create a new kind of concert video. How? By using the video from YOUR cell phone or digital camera to film a classic My Morning Jacket song at Lollapalooza. This will be a special performance as MMJ will be joined by The Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra. After we get everybody’s clips we will put it all together into one concert video called All Eyes On My Morning Jacket.
The concert was on Sunday, but if you happen to have footage, you have until September 4th to upload your goods.
This has a pretty cool precendent. Last year, producers Douglas Caballero and Alex Simmons talked The Shins into doing something similar at the Austin City Limits Festival. The song had yet to be released, which was a nice touch. There were 200 entries, everyone got at least one frame in. (They even got the band to shill for Current.) What it lacks in production values, it makes up for in sincerity and I-was-there-ness:
Up until now, Current seems to have kept Gore’s involvement in the background. In what appears to be their first overtly “Goreish” initiative, they’ve launched a video contest with the Alliance for Climate Protection. The challenge: Create a 15, 30 or 60 second message supporting responsible climate change practices, and possibly win one of a slew of cool prizes. Friend of Gore, Cameron Diaz, did a promo from Current HQ.
They've got several examples already on the site, including one from my not so secret addiction, Ask A Ninja.
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August 2, 2007
09:57 am | 0 recommendations | 4 comments
The news from Minneapolis looks grim in the aftermath of the collapse I 35W bridge, which had been undergoing what has been reported to be "routine resurfacing" this summer, according to the state Department of Transportation. The former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board said in an interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune early today that investigators looking into the cause of the collapse of the 40-year-old arched bridge are likely to focus on two primary areas —vibration and fatigue cracking.
How worried should we be about the roads and bridges we're driving on? Very worried.
On April 5th, Bob Hebert wrote a heartfelt op-ed piece (subscription required) for the New York Times about the sorry state of the U.S infrastructure. He cites statistics from the American Society of Civil Engineers that say it would take more than a trillion and a half dollars over a five year period to bring our roads, highways, bridges, railways, tunnels dams and, of course, levees, back to any sort of reasonable condition. He lauds Felix Rohatyn, the NY investment banker, for his efforts to persuade Congress to pay more attention to this pressing issue.
Hebert is right to be worried. The federal highway fund, which is supposed to handle the lion’s share of road and safety projects, will have a negative balance by 2010 (according to the President’s Budget) or perhaps 2011 (according to CBO estimates.)
Hebert rails against ideological influences that have pushed for smaller government and lower taxes – at the expense of our common infrastructure. But what Hebert fails to mention is that private investors, mostly foreign, are quickly taking de facto ownership of many of the taxpayer-financed infrastructures assets all across the U.S. – and bailing out desperate local governments facing budget shortfalls. To mixed results. A partial list:
• Chicago entered into a 99 year lease on the 8 mile Chicago Skyway for $1.83 billion.
• Alabama sold the Foley Beach Expressway Bridge for $95 million.
• Detroit sold the U.S. side of the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel.
• Virginia sold 86.7% of the toll road between Leesburg and Dulles Airport for $533 million.
• Indiana entered into a 75 year lease arrangement for its 157 mile Indiana Toll Road for $3.85 billion. (The article, from the Washington Post, also does an excellent job exploring the infrastructure privatization debate.)
Who owns most of America’s roads and bridges these days – including all those mentioned above? Increasingly it is one player: Australia’s Macquarie Infrastructure Group (or some related subsidiary). And they are aggressively hunting for more deals. No wonder: Analysts say that Macquarie could make $133 billion over the 75 year life of the Indiana Toll Road Lease, for which Indiana got $3.8 billion. (The entire firm is doing extraordinarily well.) As the 800 pound gorilla in infrastructure deals worldwide, they are shoving other investment/private equity players out of the way. Says a source from a competing firm, “they seem to pay any price for what they want. Other firms simply can’t or won’t do that.”
The majority of these deals are considered public/private partnerships, or PPPs, which are long term leases. Local governments get the cash for immediate -and often pressing - needs, the investors take ownership of the asset, and monetize it through tolls which they set. There is little or no regulation of the tolls. (For example, the Skyway toll rose fifty cents to $2.50. It is currently scheduled to double by 2017.) Regulation of key issues like maintenance, vary widely from project to project. (The Minnesota bridge is owned by Hennepin County, and not a private firm.)
At least 20 states have recently changed local laws allowing private investment in infrastructure. At least two dozen major projects are being discussed around the United States, including the 537 mile Pennsylvania Turnpike, designed to plug a nearly $2 billion budget shortfall.
What could go wrong? Plenty. One real world example: Orange County, Ca. was forced to buy back a lease from a private French owner after seven years, because the lease provisions prevented the county from building additional highways that had become necessary due to persistent gridlock issues. The cost to the county was nearly twice what they had been paid.
What could go right? Also plenty. Local governments who are struggling under crushing costs - health care, law enforcement, etc - are getting much needed relief budget relief. But the issue often divides local communities, sparking important debate on the wisdom of placing the public trust in private hands.
So, given the math of the matter - an aging infrastructure and shrinking coffers - the question now reads: How worried should we be about who owns the bridge or road we're driving on?
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July 25, 2007
11:47 am | 0 recommendations | 2 comments
As if programming debates and blogging endlessly about the minutiae of our collective lives wasn’t enough, we the people are now taking matters into our own cams to show the Madison Avenue ad geniuses how it’s done.
The latest entrant into consumer generated advertising is Heinz. Ketchup lovers and wannabe filmmakers have until August 6th to create and upload their own Heinz commercial to the super special website, seeking internet fame, glory and a grand prize of $57,000. (Get it? 57?) The company is using ketchup bottle labels to promote the contest – 57 million specialty bottles were made! – and according to their website, more than 1200 videos have been submitted.
"If the old model was to spend money on TV advertising to get people to go to the store to pick up a bottle, the new one is to use the ubiquitous Heinz packaging to ask consumers to generate TV ads for us," said Michael Bollinger, director of client services for Smith Brothers Advertising, via Media Post.
Don’t get me wrong, I like the impulse. A lot. I’m just watching the great User Generated pile-on and trying to make distinctions between what is truly authentic, and thereby ground-breaking, and what is merely a creative (and thrifty) use of distributed talent.
Case in point: The CNN/YouTube Debates. They were entertaining, occasionally provocative, but utterly bogus in terms of creating a new genre of debate. John Stewart did a better job of mocking the bogusosity than I did, so I’ll leave the comedy to the professionals on this matter.
Now, I’m not totally prepared to secede from user generated nation. There are a many notable efforts, and some are succeeding. As I wrote in the July issue, the Current TV network has incorporated a consumer generated element into their baseline business model. In their version, the network functions largely as a production community, encouraging their viewers to create a range of things, from short non-fiction documentaries or pods on any topic, to traditional commercials. The documentary format is the basis of their programming – and about 30% of what is seen on air is created by viewers. Would-be pod makers upload their work to the website, where the community coaches, comments and votes. Current also give their viewers the chance to create promo spots for the network, as well as VCAMs, or Viewer Created Ad Messages. But because they’ve woven this element into their very production fabric, it’s less about contest hype, and more about business as usual. It makes for some compelling programming, but also inspires a vibe that the network is actually… wait for it… by and for the people.
The voting mechanism is particularly interesting. The more that registered members participate – upload video, post comments, green- or redlight various pods or ads - the more their votes count. That prevents newbies from getting all their online friends from greenlighting their submissions into submission, and also encourages a greater ownership of the site and the content it generates. And advertisers and filmmakers alike both enjoy it. Heather Crank, a 35-year old motion graphic artist from Denver, has done several short promos for the network and also got an ad for Pop Secret on the air. The ad took her about 3 days, and cost nothing but her time. “I already had the equipment I needed. And it’s a great way to be creative, get some ideas going.” She enjoys the democratic aspect of the process. “They give you a long time to work on it, a lot of information about what the client wants. The people vote on all the submissions, which is very gratifying.” And, she got paid long before her ad got on the air – which freelancers know almost never happens. (Going rate for ads shown on Current are $1,000, you get more if the client places the ad in other venues.)
But she gave a significant endorsement to the Current staff as well. “On one of my promos, I had trouble with music rights – there was a flake out on the signing of the paperwork, so I had to create the music myself. They were really nice – and give you a lot of information if you are new or haven’t done something before. You can get a lot of training.” It’s that commitment to the users in the user-generated model that seems to distinguish Current TV from the rest.
Another great example of user generated nation came from my pals at Arnold Worldwide.
These are the same folks that brought us the Truth Campaign, those edgy, multi-dimensional and radically activist anti-smoking ads and related experiences. I’m always interested in what these guys are up to – from Drivers Wanted to Straight from the Bog - never mind that I have a mad geek-crush on their managing partner and creative genius Pete Favat.
The agency was tasked with promoting Extra Value Meals, and, found this homemade homage to McNuggets on YouTube. (Industry research or procrastinating? You make the call.) The goofy film had been posted on the web about a year ago by Fernando Sosa and Thomas Middleditch, two Second City trained actors. Evidently this “bit” originated backstage before a student show.
Instead of going through the hype and circumstance of calling for entries, Arnold reached out to the filmmakers directly and negotiated usage rights and payment (not disclosed.) The ads are airing on television now. Of course, I love the – “Kid, I’m going to make you a star,” - aspect of this. But there’s something gratifying about taking a thing that was actually made by creative people in an authentic process – goofy though it may be - and taking it to a larger forum, rather than asking people to conform to a promotion that may or may not authentically capture their love for McNuggets.
Or ketchup.
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July 23, 2007
09:15 pm | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
The debate is over and the group is back on a conference call, ready to be debriefed by the Clinton campaign. There's a surprise guest scheduled to talk to the national throng, but a fairly heady debate breaks out while this group waits for the breathless campaign recap.
The conversation, which nearly devolves into a fight, is inspired by one of the YouTube questions: Does it bother anyone that only two families -- the Bushes and the Clintons -- have inhabited (or want to) the office of the President for the last decade and a half? The issue of dynasty bothers one member of the group, but not others. (An intense discussion of the meaning of legacy follows, along with some unprintable comments about the current President.)
The group abandoned the call entirely -- they've been on hold for a while -- in order to debate the debate, a discussion which at time got passionate. Which leads me to one of the big winners of the night -- the questions themselves.
It seems that the questions excited the group more than the candidates. The true YouTubish fare - the singing tax guy, for example - didn't get much love. But sincere questions, like the young woman who wanted to know why there were no nationwide standards for processing votes at the polls, or the man who wanted to know if Senator Clinton expected that she'd be taken seriously by Muslim countries that have alternate views on women's rights, impressed the group. These questions inspired long, heartfelt side conversations that spanned everything from modern campaign tactics to slave reparations to whether women were unfairly dismissive of other women candidates. For a liberal enclave, the debate was surprisingly varied, and in times quite emotional. In fact, the group did a better job than the candidates did in baring their souls and making their cases.
The other big winner was YouTube, which managed to solidify its brand by forcing the campaigns to create their own "YouTube" style videos which were interspersed between the question and answers - as if being able to be authentically YouTube was proof of something substantive. (FYI: My group just didn't think Biden's effort was true 'Tube.)
I didn't think a candidate emerged as a true winner, the structure didn't allow it. There were only a few truly unscripted moments, and the front runners all managed to pull off some emotional highpoints without shooting themselves in the foot.
But according to this (admittedly biased) group, the winner was Hillary Clinton. Their random thoughts:
* She articulated a viewpoint, didn't sloganeer but presented the thought process behind her viewpoint. Winner hands down.
* She seemed the most moderate - the rest seemed like left wing lunatics to me.
* Barack Obama continued to make no impression on me. I think he's clearly very smart, but just not ready.
* Yeah, but she won by not losing - it wasn't a great showing for anyone.
*She doesn't make a caricature of herself. Obama doesn't say much, so that's the reason he's number two.
* Bill Richardson is quite possibly the least likeable person I've ever seen on television.
*Biden is smart and incredibly capable, but comes across as angry. (The group graciously agreed that Biden could be Secretary of State.)
*The group expressed compassion for Obama: He's failing to meet the unrealistic expectations of the crowd. Clinton has the reverse problem of being assumed as unlikeably - so she surprises and delights by being even mildly funny or warm. (A fight breaks out about whether Clinton is mildly funny or terribly funny.)
*"I'm mildly offended by the way Clinton is being marketed by her team as "a compassionate friend" - I'm really impressed when she's being strong on the issues, not being positioned as a woman who may or may not have baked cookies."
As I unplugged, the group was still talking.
Looking forward to the view from the Republican side, when the CNN YouTube Republican debate airs in September. (I'll be hunting for a Facebook Republican group near me.) But unless the structure of the actual debate is different, I'm expecting that any group of viewers will learn more about each other than they will about the candidates.
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July 23, 2007
08:37 pm | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
A global warming question was asked by a YouTube snowman character that sounded an awful lot like Mr. Bill.
Gravel makes his case for a "fair tax" -- a retail sales tax which would encourage an overconsuming nation to stop overconsuming.
Dodd wants a federal fleet of hybrid vehicles and a corporate carbon tax.
Awkward moment alert: Show of hands -- who took a private jet here?
Clinton, Obama, Edwards all raise their hands, trying not to look sheepish. Richardson joins in with a late hand that would have gotten him disqualified from any well-officiated rock, paper, scissors contest.
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July 23, 2007
08:28 pm | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
Random comments from the house party (now 8 strong) on the format:
It seems disjointed and the flow is disrupted.
I like debates that have a strong moderator and that can do strong follow up, and bring the correct candidate into play.
I like the theory, I like the concept, you know the whole "democratic thing", but I think that it's basically not that different because it's the same old editorial process.
YouTube questions are more hard hitting. Some exceptional questions, but there is no follow up.
(They seem to miss Chris Matthews, even Wolf Blitzer. Anderson Cooper not cutting it.)
I like the idea, but I think it's a little misleading. It’s a "democratic hearing the people approach" but it’s obviously being edited. Some candidates are getting tougher questions, that's not working for me. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth -- it’s an editorial process. It’s being packaged as democratic and open discourse. And it's just not.
I'd rather have the journalists ask the questions and do a strong follow-up.
But some of the questions are fantastic -- and that's great.
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July 23, 2007
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Although there is a poignancy of hearing from real people -- for example, the mother of a deployed Iraq servicemember, the crowd agrees that there is little different about this format that moves the ball forward in terms of debate structure.
An unfortunate close-up causes one house party attendee to wonder if John Edwards has a rash. Discussion ensues. Proof positive that the content is not that compelling. Yet.
Side talk alert: The women in the group just learned about selective service -- didn't know about it, never heard of it. Thank God for Tivo. The men are schooling the women on the issue -- raised by a questioner. The screen is frozen, sadly, on John Edwards facial rash, while we discuss.
Clinton: Women should register for selective service. Draft not so much, universal service, yes.
Obama, same question: Mentions Tuskegee Airmen, proof positive that he's black enough. And women should register, forshizzle.
Q: Will Clinton Be Taken Seriously be Muslim States Who Deny Women's Rights?
Short answer, she assures us she will. She makes her case, the crowd goes wild. Clinton looks pleased, my hosts nod approvingly.
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July 23, 2007
07:29 pm | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
Kucinich: Uh, duh. Cites constitution, gets applause from the crowd.
Dodd: How would I want my daughters treated? Compassion for all; civil unions, not marriage. (He has daughters five and two? The mind reels.)
Richardson: I would do what is achievable - full civil unions and full marriage rights. Push for hate crimes legislation and abolish Don't Ask Don't Tell. Eliminate discrimination.
House party nods appreciatively. Long debate on the definition of marriage versus civil unions ensues, lasting well beyond the commercial break.
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