The Future of Information Work: politics

A Free is Part of the Answer to National Security

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 03:24:07 GMT

The August 18-25, 2008 U.S. News & World Report ran a debate on freedom of the press between Lucy Dalglish and assistant attorney general Elisebeth C. Cook. You can read their thoughts here:

Dalglish's argument can be augmented with the view of freedom as a deterrent to terrorism. In a country where the press works in partnership with government on the issues that matter: corruption, poverty and terror, a free press can be a powerful weapon and proof point. The partnership is often seen in disarray when the press concentrates on celebrity loves and habits more than it does on key issues. But from Watergate to revelations about corporate corruption, the press has played a vital role in the discovery of threats to Americans in their pocket books, in schools and in the streets.

In an environment where freedom of the press is protected, terrorists should be worried about their exposure, about the information given to people about actions they can take, or signs they should watch for. When I say partnership with government, I don't mean that the press acts on behalf of the government, but it complements and supplements the government through its own investigations. A free press, one unimpeded to question both those in power and those asserting chaos, is part of the shield against ignorance that leads to the triumph of ideology.

We may question our press, its motives, even its facts, certainly its choices of what to cover, but that too is part of the freedom we enjoy. People who attentively and critically read are well aware of the bias in what they read, and that too is a choice. If we give people the choice to be ignorant, or informed, conservative or liberal. We should also ensure that our press has the freedom, unimpeded and protected by the constitution, to investigate and report. A terrorist organization with its operations meticulously detailed on the cover of the New York Times is a better deterrent to terrorism that an obscure reference to a cell disbanded because of wiretap information. Chaos theory suggests that anything too tightly held will find a way to unravel. With a free press we have a distributed system that can cast a wide net. The institution of a free press can be not only a representative of our freedom, an icon, but also an active part, as it was always intended, in helping protect everyone's freedom.

Discovery Channel - When We Left Earth

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 06:47:41 GMT

The Discovery Channel is running a fascinating look at the early NASA programs. I grew up with NASA. I watched every launch, I recorded the Apollo-Soyuz mission on real-to-real tape. I find it sad that space exploration has become work and not exploration. We have lost our nerve as a nation and as a planet. We worry about the loss of astronauts, but we send soldiers into combat, a combat that perhaps meant more in Vietnam, not because of the war against communism, but because the nation was involved in testing limits while it was defending its right to test those limits. We need to test limits today, not fight for complacency and comfort. There are many things to be learned, many limits to push. We need to push limits - to inspire the next generation to test themselves, to understand the cost and struggle of progress.

So here's to NASA of yesterday, the NASA of today, and the hope for agencies and individuals that will push our limits tomorrow and beyond.

A Vacation from the Gas Tax - Working Out Our Future

Thu, 01 May 2008 15:54:30 GMT

I don't think Americans deserve a vacation from the gas tax. We are just starting to feel what it is like to live in the real world (for those of you who don't travel - the real world is expensive, not overly safe and does not include three or four cars in every garage - or for that matter - even a garage that some members of the family don't live in). What we need is a tax system that rewards the right behavior (yes, policy makers get to define right). If we think that right behavior is about being greener and weaning ourselves off Texas tea, then we should be subsidizing solar panels, wind farms and giving tax rebates to people who use less energy year-over-year - and that probably means raising gas taxes, highway fees and automobile sales tax.

The election year pandering on federal gas taxes will have as much impact on the economy as the tax rebates: a cost to implement with a return perhaps in good will at the polls (perhaps with a little "p").

If we want to figure out how to create the future we want, candidates should start talking about real innovation. Real innovation - radical departures from the norm that set a new context - create a discontinuity. I know that is hard for most people, as continuity is a comfort, but as gas prices, food prices and the inverse relationship they are currently experiencing to home prices illustrates: discontinuity is something that is thrust upon you if you don't take a leadership position.

As the wonderful HBO program John Adams showed us, the American Revolution was a discontinuity that changed the world. As Kevin Philips (hear him here from a 4/20/2008 KUOW interview) discussed recently, our revolution, at least the capitalist model it developed, may be nearing the end of its lifecycle. Innovations have a lifecycle - those in technology know that, as do the recyclers of old electronics. Maybe you can't get elected discussing real change (not the Obama kind of change - which though it has some good feeling social aspects isn't really about change at the practical governance level - though he does get credit for not backing the gas tax vacation) - after the election though, if the three branches of US government don't address innovation in government, we'll be in an even worse position four years from now. It is important to think about futures where discontinuities prevail and how we manage through those. Only organizations - government entities or commercial companies, who face those futures, learn and practice their reactions - and then actually take a leadership position moving toward them by influencing the influences of the future - will be in any shape to shape the future in a meaningful way.

Tanker Deal Should be About Competition and Innovation, Not Protectionism or Incumbency

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 05:29:34 GMT

Boeing should be disappointed is did not win the new tanker contract. It should be disappointed in itself. I am all for domestic manufacturing when the company creates an innovative, cost effective program, but in this case, from what I have read (and the Pentagon debrief awaits) Boeings solutions used smaller planes with lighter payloads, translating into more planes, and therefore more complexity and expense.

Although Boeing has been selling tankers for 50 years as reported in the Seattle PI (read it here) neither its incumbency nor the need to generate local jobs should be factors in a military contract award. An even bigger issue with some of the complaints about the award is that a foreign nation is building military equipment for the defense of the United States. This is, hypocritically, something we do for other nations all of the time, with a high expectation that they will continue to buy our products based on the superior craftsmanship, performance and value - not to mention it is a good thing politically for an ally to do.

I am always disappointed when American manufacturers cry foul when beat on merits, as this appears. I'm sure their is politics involved, but dispassionate appraisals seem to favor Northrup Grumman-EADS.

The last thing we need to drive the American economy is protectionism that rewards inferior products or processes. Boeing should take this as a challenge, not in the political sense, and not for its litigators, but for its engineers and proposal managers. From the analysis I saw in terms of capacity, overall number of aircraft required to fulfill the mission and other factors Northrup Grumman and EADS beat Boeing. Most companies try to build military proposals on top of existing platforms. From the onset was the A330 airframe was bigger and more capable. (see more analysis @ Seattle Times here). American manufacturers should win contracts on merit - this may trigger changes at Boeing that will be hard to see from the outside, but changes that will force it to rethink its approach to such proposals.

Finally, this is not a national security issue. Northrup Grumman has been in the aerospace business for years and EADS may be a commercial competitor, but its military interests are clearly aligned with ours in a general sense (some specifics may very). We are, for instance, all still part of NATO.

We need to drive innovation in America. We need to understand what differentiates our products by clearly understanding requirements and responding to them in innovative ways - ways that may challenge assumptions built on years of protectionism and assumptions of incumbency. I would love to see an air tanker built in Washington - but I would one that is competitive, innovative and worthy - one that uses my tax dollars to maximum effect - not one that is built around political maneuvering that spent those dollars in an inefficient way - a choice that might even threatens national security because the military was not allowed to make what it thought was the best informed choice based on all of its mission parameters.

There will be other chances for Boeing to be competitive. I hope this does get their teams thinking about innovation in innovative ways.

Remembrance of Super Tuesday Past

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 04:48:36 GMT

1984 was the first Super Tuesday. I was working in the Santa Ana, California headquarters for Gary Hart running the 40th Congressional District (my apartment). Mondale was trounced in the West but won early victories in the South. This Super Tuesday, the first, was not as big and grand as this one, in fact, back then, California wasn't a player. California didn't go until what has come to be known as Super Tuesday III. I did my job, beating Mondale 46% to 34%.

Politics is a very interesting contrast to a normal workplace. I was promoted to running the 40th Congressional District because I did a great job running a bus during a fund raising trip to LA's Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. We saw Carol King, hung out with what was really Linda Ronstadt's backup band at the buffet (and if I remember right, Hal Linden of Barney Miller).

Of course, running a bus wasn't my first work in politics. I had been in student government since 4th grade, held offices, and had experience running everything from Christmas tree lots to newspaper recycling weekends to homecoming dances and even homecoming "the half-time spectacle." I often tell high school students the best preparation I had for the workplace was skipping class to help run the school.

And so in 1984 I did my thing for politics. Hart ended up giving way to Walter Mondale and Geraldine A. Ferraro - and I worked for them while I transitioned to the Carol Anne Bradford for Congress Campaign as a strategist. I had won my political stripes with Hart, running a good fund raising campaign, managing 400 volunteers and doing most of it out of my apartment on a Radio Shack TRS-80 computing running their floppy disk-based database system.

All of the coverage and advertising and web feedback feels very distant from those days in the trenches, buying lunch for local homeless people in exchange for canvassing (well, we hoped, college students and hard working local democrats did most of the heavy lifting beyond the downtown Santa Ana office once the national campaign rolled in).

Anyway, when I hear about Super Tuesday I remember the time fondly. Goals are very simple in politics, despite the rhetoric on programs and voting records. If you don't win, you're out. I didn't end up with a candidate that won. I did a bit of consulting for Senator Alan Cranston, attended the California State Party Convention in Carol Anne Bradford's stead. I ended up with memories of meeting Ferraro, Ted Kennedy and Russ Kunkle (Ronstadt's Drummer and one time fiancee to Carol King). And yeah, I ran for office for about the length of one interview before I realized the state and county parties had their wires crossed and they weren't going to run me for State Assembly as promised (which they can do with only one candidate - and not two). My campaign finance VP became my wife - and perhaps someday as an empty nester I will reenter the fray. I still have some good precinct work in me, especially when I think about all the adrenalin a Super Tuesday can produce.

My best wishes to all of the volunteers and staff members in the Obama and Clinton campaigns who won't sleep again until sometime Wednesday.

The Work of Politics and the Presidential Election

Tue, 08 Jan 2008 23:18:54 GMT

Hilary broke down this week, or at minimum, showed what many considered genuine emotion before recomposing herself. Hilary is on the cusp of becoming a real 21st Century candidate, but she is still a late 20th Century candidate trying to use marketing rather than connecting with an electorate increasingly aloof to marketing.

This election will be won with transparency and honesty, not with marketing. And it will not be won with advertising or budgets or fundraising. It will be won by connecting with the most educated, most technologically savvy and perhaps most skeptical group of citizens in history. When the pundits look at the past performance of youth in the election, they fail to realize that this generation of citizens, the Millennials (those born 1980 to 2000) will perhaps defy past behavior and engage in the election in entirely new ways. Technology, and the borderless connection to the world that it creates, is a disruptive factor that makes extrapolation from past behavior risky.

This is one blog among many predicting changes in the way American politics will work in the future. That politics, and the ultimate re-engagement of the electorate in activism will begin perhaps tonight in New Hampshire. The future is one of extreme democracy. The leaders will earn their right to represent America and Americans by being authentic. Their brand loyalty will be built through trust predicated on proactive transparency.

I may wrong. Predicting the future is also risky. The electorate may return to its complacency once the outcome of the primaries becomes clear, but then again, the pundits may indeed be surprised by an newly engaged American electorate.