Tweeting Your Campaign

I've had a few thoughts as we get into Municipal silly season. David Plouffe’s book about Obama’s campaign has recently hit the shelves (I must get it as soon as possible as any campaign addict must.) President Obama’s campaign famously used social media, e-mails and text messages to motivate volunteers and ultimately to win the Presidency. However, from most of the news I recall seeing right after the 2008 Presidential election, one might not want to believe all the hype.

It’s certain that the Obama campaign used social media to energize volunteers and to coordinate the message. However polls appear to reveal when it came to Election Day many of the same voters came out as in previous elections. There was no mass movement of youth to the polls. Swing voters, tired of 8 years of Republican complacency, a drawn-out War on Terror and the lies that motivated it, apathy about John McCain and rejection of Sarah Palin by mainstream America are what in the end, gave Obama the victory. Many have said that a turnip could have won the election as the Democratic Candidate.

However, this is not to dismiss the role of social media in spreading the message of hope that accompanied President Obama’s campaign. Youth were clearly motivated to knock on doors. A cynical American public, disenfranchised from a government whose approval ratings are awful, often refuse to listen to those with the hope of youth in their eyes. However Obama may have over-reached in many of his concrete proposals for reform, of health care, of the tax-code, of the military’s don’t ask don’t tell policy, of the kind of capitalism that has created the largest economic divide since the Gilded Age, the campaign certainly used new media to get their message out.

Texts and e-mails sent from the campaign, many of which I received having signed up for them, constantly encouraged young Americans to take their country back. But there was also an important distinction that candidates and their campaign managers are wise to regard.

A tweet is a 140-character message broadcast to those that are following you. The Tweeting public, while large and growing, is clearly not the majority of people, nor the majority of motivated voters. That’s important to remember. It’s also important to note that most of the tweets from the Obama campaign, as well as the e-mails, led the recipient to a website with concrete policy positions spelled out in a fair degree of detail.

Looking at Toronto’s early municipal election campaign we can note a couple of divergent uses. While it’s early on, there are a number of early favoured candidates. Each have their own style and it’s interesting to note the differences.

Rocco Rossi appears to get it. George Smitherman is taking some time to eek out his positions but is certainly keeping us in the loop as to his daily activities. That’s good too. I feel for Sarah Thomson, who so far is the sole female candidate to have declared to run for Mayor. However, I have some criticism of her early tweeting. I’d include Stephen Feek but he appears unprepared; earlier this week he posted a link to his Twitter account where he announced that his campaign would start on February 1st. In Tweetspeak; Fail. Not a FTW (For the Win) move for someone with no name recognition. Candidates should be prepared to come out of the gate running the minute they announce they are running for Mayor, particularly those candidates that will not get mainstream coverage easily.

Giorgio Mammoliti has gotten some good press so far but that comes easily to a sitting City Councillor with a record of having lots to say, good or bad. His online profile is non-existent.

There are likely to be others. Other would-be candidates are either continuing a well-run and deep understanding of Twitter and Facebook – Adam Giambrone comes to mind here as a Councillor that has been using both mediums to his advantage for some time. I’d love to go on but to date that’s the limit of candidates using Twitter.

Speculation has it that Joe Pantalone and perhaps Shelley Carroll. Carroll is a sporadic Twitter user at best and while I love her as a person, she faces a tough challenge as Mayor Miller’s Budget Chief.

We have lots of talk so far about who will run and who won’t and only 11 declared candidates. That number will surely swell to 30-odd by September.

In such a wide-open race, which the media almost always narrows down to 2 front-runners, plus 3 second-tier candidates and 30-odd also-rans, the use of social media can be a powerful tool. But it also has its downfalls and shortcomings.

First, the 140-character message is much too short for anything other than bluster and rhetoric. If voters, even savvy online followers can’t dig deeper, the use of social media, in my opinion, can turn voters and potential advocates (Re-Tweeters) off.

Let’s first take the example of Sarah Thomson. Something tells me I may be discussing her campaign to a fairly high degree over the next few months. So let’s get one thing out of the way. I support more female representation in politics. However, just as no ‘gay’ candidate should be considered only on that basis, a woman candidate ought not to be considered simply because she is a female candidate. I think that’s playing a gender card that’s undeserved.

Today, one of her Tweets infuriated me to a degree. It said: “Reading city budget reports, blood boiling over the waste and audacity of our bureaucrats.” For a number of reasons I take issue with this Tweet.

First, there was no link to anything beyond that simple message. There was no link to the Budget report she was reading (they’re all available online.) Without any kind of context, the reader is supposed to just take at face value that there are reasons to be angry, that bureaucrats are audacious and waste taxpayer money. That’s easy enough to believe but is it true? No one likes taxes and everyone hates government waste and many assume that most tax dollars are wasted because there have been stories in the past about cases of waste. However, there have also been studies that show the City of Toronto is actually very efficiently run and simply faces a structural deficit.

So, this message is in essence an attempt to say – I’m angry as hell and I’m not going to take it any more. Why we’re supposed to be angry is not important, we just should be. Had there been some explanation of why Mrs. Thomson is angry, the rational reader might say, yes, you’ve uncovered some waste and audacity and I damn well agree with you. Instead, we’re left with populist rhetoric.

Mrs. Thomson doesn’t yet have a website – outside of her Woman’s Post blog (I’ll get to that in a minute) so there is no deeper explanation available. Is it waste because of unnecessary spending? Overstaffing? Inappropriate programming? Why? What is the waste? Is this a provincially mandated program or is it a discretionary program (the vast majority of City programs are provincially mandated.) If I don’t understand the underlying reasons why Ms. Thomson believes its waste or what in fact she believes at all. Where do you want to take our City? (I say our because other than the last 4 months, Toronto has been my home since 1998.)

I have not decided yet whom I will vote for but this kind of rhetoric turns me off. I’m sure I’m not the only one. Rob Ford constantly complains about City waste but rarely identifies any of it at Budget time.

If I look at Rocco Rossi’s use of Twitter and Facebook, I at least get a sense of where he’s heading. Rocco includes links to larger articles, asks readers to give feedback on his positions and has already put forward some concrete proposals.

Smitherman hasn’t said much of a concrete nature but I also know that he worked for Barbara Hall when she was Mayor of Toronto. I know he was frustrated during last year’s Municipal workers strike and organized litter clean-up events. He’s held office in Dalton McGuinty’s government and yes, he must dig out from under the eHealth scandal and shed the image of ‘Furious George.’ I’ve met George and he’s a nice guy. But he also gets stuff done and is the kind of personality needed for a Mayoral office in Toronto.

Similarly, Adam Giambrone is using Twitter and Facebook very well. We’ve always known where he is/was and he constantly posts about policy issues. While it tends to be light, his use of both mediums has always been democratic and open – lots of debate and even insults which are rarely removed. If you’re asking for openness and transparency, Adam pretty much puts it out there with his online presence.

I said I’d get back to Thomson’s use of her Woman’s Post page. My concern is that this corporate site is financially supported by Woman’s Post that Thomson (of that Thompson, the rich family) owns. As such, its use to promote her campaign amounts to a contravention of City Council’s ban on corporate donations to candidates. I believe this is a pretty clear, cut-and-dry case. There’s no mistaking it really – she has already suggested that people visit her site from her ThomsonforMayor Twitter account.

To be clear, I’d have the same issue if John Tory were running and using his radio talk show to promote his campaign. It’s wrong.

As a media outlet, I also worry that it serves as a sort of clearinghouse for information about her campaign. Another Twitter user has been promoting Thompson’s campaign during office hours. While the Account holder states she is independent, her website/office/media company is located in the offices of Woman’s Post. All of this gives one the feeling that corporate entities are having an influence on Mrs. Thompson’s campaign.

Epilogue

Since I wrote the above piece I’ve had a few thoughts and there have been a few developments. I also had an extended argument – I won’t call it debate or discussion since it wasn’t really – on Twitter.

First, the argument; I made the mistake of Tweeting that having met George Smitherman and finding him very pleasant, I didn’t understand the furious moniker but ‘isn’t it appropriate to be angry with bureaucrats.’ Perhaps I missed a story along the way but I think the Furious George is a result of great political messaging and branding by the Ontario Tories and that’s unfortunate – both for George and for the public debate about Toronto’s future. Rather than discussing the merits of his potential Mayoralty (and so far, there’s been scant detail from George) people are discussing a personality trait. We’re told its Mr. Happy versus Mr. Angry (Rossi.)

The argument consisted of the person I was arguing with setting up straw dogs. Rage isn’t appropriate – I never actually said anything about rage. I said he was a nice guy. I asked whether anger wasn’t appropriate. Some Torontonians are quite angry about how the City is being run. And remember I said bureaucrats. The person then introduced working with others. Bureaucrats must take direction from politicians – that’s fundamental to democracy. So while I agree that it’s important to be civil, anger can appropriately be expressed at bureaucrats, particularly when an elderly Toronto Community Housing resident is evicted then dies of an infection, for instance.

When people normally cite that it’s important to work with others and build consensus, they are generally referring to relations with other politicians. Having worked at City Hall and having seen many City Councillors in various situations, there are some instances that would make any rational person angry – stupid things said, mischaracterizations, abuse of City Staff, suggestions of impossible policy etc. I’m thinking of Francis Nunziata as an example. Politics creates winners and losers and it is naïve to suggest that a non-partisan approach can always be successful. The US Health Care debacle is an example. Sometimes you have to play hardball just to get a middle-of-the-road compromise achieved.

The Mega-City has created such a dysfunctional City that often compromise on friendly terms is simply unachievable. Policies favouring a dense urban core that allows for sustainable active transportation for instance, including bike lanes is heresy for some suburban Councillors whose residents are largely car dependent. Tax policies favouring efficient use of properties over ones that favour location will enrage some citizens and as a result, their representatives. That’s politics. By definition it is the struggle for power and hence, it involves a lot of passion.

The Straw Dog here was that the Mega-City should be separated. That’s not something I’d necessarily argue for but it comes with intrinsic political problems, just as Canadian federalism does with huge differences in interest between the Oil Patch and downtown Toronto. You must therefore accept that there will be some dysfunction on Council. I’d suggest that those who do not understand this either tour the Mega-City or spend a day speaking with people from different parts of the City. I asked the arguer what experience he had at City Hall – not as a put-down (which he took it to be) but to assess his level of understanding of the level and cause of the dysfunction.

For the record, City Hall has a Code of Conduct for the Mayor and Members of City Council. Staff must be treated professionally and cannot be threatened with job loss. However, there is no shortage (I believe the number was 19) of former high-ranking bureaucrats who have been fired or driven out due to philosophical differences with Mayor Miller. It is not appropriate to ‘rage’ but the expression of anger is totally appropriate in some circumstances.

He insulted me – saying that any ‘management trainee’ knows this. I said it was City Hall and not The Gap. I guess I touched a sensitive nerve there as he took that personally but my point was simply that we are dealing in some cases with lives, in all cases with Taxpayer money (which is limited) and not simply how a shirt has been folded. I don’t know the individual or where he works but insulting him was not my intention. You cannot tell me that people don’t get ‘called on the carpet’ at the highest level of a multi-billion dollar private sector corporation.

Enough with that argument.

Now. Back to Twitter. A new group has formed called @voteTO based on the discussions on Twitter. A question was posed as to whether or not such a group can change an election. I do not believe so. I posted on Facebook that it takes offline political action to reach the vast majority of people not on Twitter and that those people on Social Media generally share a point of view. In the end, people will vote based on their beliefs as to how the City of Toronto should be run. Given the way my argument unfolded above, I further doubt that this group will have much success, unless it gets actively involved in campaigns and in spreading its messages to the broader community. But I love being proven wrong.

There seems to me to be a growing number of people don't believe that people are fully entitled to their own views and opinions about how a City or government should be run. I find it generally to be left-minded people that are in this group though those on the extreme right can be equally dismissive. However, this group is young, urban, hip and socially conscious. They may very well be right. However, unless they actually get out and knock on doors, employ traditional campaign methods, they are unlikely to achieve widespread success - but that's just my opinion (validated by former Trudeau Staffer Patrick Gossage.)

a draft OP-Ed re Technology Incubation and the Clean Tech Sector

Green Sector Needs more than Encouraging Words from Government

Economic Development officials the world-over are heavily in pursuit of the next ‘bio-tech’ sector to create new employment opportunities in their Cities. The 2008 version of bio-tech is the ‘Green’ or ‘Clean Tech’ Sector. Toronto Mayor David Miller has talked openly of his goal to brand Toronto as an ideal location for such businesses to locate.

Warning to Businesses! We talk a great game but when the rubber hits the road, expect little support beyond rhetoric and encouraging words.

How so?

First, let me state that Canadian governments have done an excellent job to lay the groundwork for technology innovation. While we can always do better, our Universities are creating dynamic, intelligent and innovative graduates in sciences, math and computer science. In Toronto, one has to look only as far as the MaRS building at College and University (its building program co-funded by all 3 levels of government and private contributions) to see that excellent facilities do exist to incubate and commercialize clean and green technologies.

So in that regard, we are well positioned for the creation of a clean tech sector. However, if incubation spaces exist only to help companies to get to a pre-revenue, pre-commercialization stage, then much of the money we invest in facilities such as MaRS will have been wasted. Not only are those public dollars wasted but further millions of dollars of private investment threaten to fail to generate returns to ‘Angel Investors’ and further reduce the effectiveness of government strategies to grow this sector. If Angel Investors and then Venture Capital begins to look elsewhere, the ‘Clean Tech’ strategy will be doomed.

So while our governments have created these great frameworks, bureaucrats are still left scratching their heads wondering how to position their jurisdiction as a leader in ‘Clean Tech’ development. So what is the problem? Why, with all the investment in education and innovation are we failing to create and attract companies with innovative technologies through incubation to implementation and commercialization? Policy alone cannot stimulate economic growth.

A colleague of mine from a small yet innovative MaRS-based company I work with recently attended a session hosted by Toronto’s Economic Development department. City officials were asking the important questions about how to help grow this sector. Responses from the private sector attendees were fairly succinct and based upon a few mutually shared experiences: “Working with the government is like banging your head against a wall.”

Similarly, I attended an Intelligent Transportation Systems Conference in Montreal where Transport Canada officials asked: “How can we help create new technology to solve our transportation problems.” My answer to the room was that the problem was not in innovation but in implementation. There are lots of great ideas but without public policy ‘labs’ to test technologies and demonstrate their potential, Canadian companies are often forced to shop the world for clients to be first-users and early adopters. In those instances, Canadian companies face protectionism and local advantage that we don’t enjoy at home.

Here is the problem as I see it. Politicians want a clean-air machine. They have, I believe, largely convinced themselves that if they just set up technology incubators and create the conditions for innovation, a magical climate-change reversing ‘pill’ will be invented that we can all take, go to sleep and wake up a week later to ask Dr. Gore if its all better. Unfortunately, such a solution may never come along and I’m a big believer in using the solutions that are at your disposal, even if they are new and untested.

The fact of the matter is, human behaviour and the systems that we have built to support our lifestyles are largely unsustainable and require significant change if we are to tackle carbon challenges such as climate change, smog and resource depletion. That means we all need to change. That we all need to change requires that government mandate those changes – volunteerism only goes so far when it involves economics.

Furthermore, great innovations come in leaps and bounds – not in baby steps or from tinkering around the edges. I’ll paraphrase two of Albert Einstein’s famous quotes that come to mind: “We cannot solve the problems of today with the same thinking that created them” and “if an idea is not absurd at the beginning it is unlikely to succeed.” I also think Steve Jobs makes a great point when he says “People don’t know what they want until you give it to them.”

So what is my point and how does this all weave itself together? Let me get back to that MaRS-based company that I work with. Toronto Star readers may recall Judy Steed’s fine work in 2007 for her ongoing ‘Business Challenge’ reports. Judy profiled Skymeter, whose innovative approach to GPS signal processing has enabled them to create a market-busting approach to road tolling. Forget traditional road tolls – Skymeter’s beauty is the ability to privately and even anonymously charge for roads when and where they are used. To simplify – it’s a smart meter that would collect Gas Taxes or Road Taxes in a similar fashion to how a Water meter determines your bill – based on actual use. Plus it’s also a parking meter that removes all the hassle of finding and paying for a parking space.

Skymeter is just one example. There are numerous other companies with fantastic new technologies, many of them developed in conjunction with our Universities and Centres of Excellence. Skymeter is receiving fantastic attention in Cities and countries where governments are seeking to marry innovation to public policy to tackle our toughest problems. For instance, the government of The Netherlands is very keen on Skymeter as a potential tool to implement a nation-wide Distance-based taxation system for vehicles and roads. However, all government buyers ask the same question: “Where is this being used?”

What then is the missing link between Innovation, incubation and the wonderland of commercialization and success? The most important ‘I’ word here is Implementation. Had Apple required government for the iPod to succeed, we’d still be having blue-ribbon panels to discuss the idea. Governments must find the courage to test, pilot, demonstrate and otherwise support the export development of technologies made in Canada. Until we do, we will create more Alexandar Graham Bells – people who have to go away to succeed only to have that success nationalized once they return. The 2.0 version of Bell’s work is RIM and Blackberry.

I am not for one minute suggesting that Premier McGuinty implement provincial road tolls or that David Miller stand-up where Metrolinx has failed to and force the issue of fair taxation of motorists. However, I am suggesting that governments need to identify ‘test beds’ and put money forward for pilots and demonstrations. For instance, how would charging Courier vehicles for every stop in the downtown core affect the issue of illegal stopping? The City has a problem and Skymeter has a possible solution where all others have failed. This is a win-win-win-win. Traffic solution for the City, pilot for a local company, exposure of innovative clean tech sector, rewards to private investors. What am I missing?

Until Government realizes that it must step up to the plate and that politicians must take some portion of the risk that private investors and entrepreneurs are taking to develop these solutions then they will be doing little more than printing documents with great stated-goals that are never ever met. Ultimately that will lead not only to the failure of our economy but to our failure as a society to deal with our most pressing problems.

If, as Mayor Miller has stated, Climate change is [his] generation’s greatest challenge, than doesn’t that require the boldest steps?

Handguns and Handjobs

Look at the Birdie!!! Don't look at the Camera, the Flash or the photographer! Look at the Birdie.

Now that your attentions are diverted from the real problem we face with violence in our schools, the desperation that an element of our youth face, or the mere fact that we will always have a criminal element in society running an underground economy made larger only by the number of things we prohibit...

LET'S BAN HANDGUNS...Puuhhhllllleaaase!!!!

Typical lefty bleeding heart response. I'm not huge on guns. In fact, two years ago I turned down a chance to go to a shooting range in Las Vegas, later learning that I missed the golden opportunity to fire an Uzi, a 357 Magnum and an AK-47 - at nothing less than images of stereotypical muslim cut-outs.  (tongue planted firmly in cheek, heavy sarcasm font.) Apparently I missed something close to the Zed and the Gimp scene from Pulp Fiction.

But, I did shoot a .22 calibre rifles when I was in Boy Scouts - at a shooting range in the basement of a High School no less! Simpler times I guess? I think it's important to note that I grew up in conservative London Ontario, not Evansville Indiana or some such place. After Toronto's second-ever school related shooting, I'm troubled that Toronto's Mayor simply keeps re-iterating his desire to infringe personal rights and ban handguns, as if the guns being used in crimes are legal or registered in the first place. 

Guns are already licensed at this point and I believe, registered - or at least they were at one point in Canada. In the past, the Mayor has said that the guns being used in crimes are largely coming in from the US where handguns will never, ever be banned. Not even American liberals, serious ones anyway, would ever suggest banning handguns, so this issue dies at the border. Which is exactly where the problem lies - aside from the social causes. So the Mayor's strategy - as well communicated as it is, is sadly off the mark, please pardon the pun. We may as well have a turnip as Mayor given the chance of success of such a strategy. 

While I agree that much of the responsibility for addressing this problem lies at the feet of the Canadian federal government, I believe Mr Miller needs to speak to different people in Ottawa and address different problems than he is with his lame, unimaginative and to date falling on deaf-ears "Ban Handguns" message. The problem is with our porous borders and our pathetic federal criminal justice system, which lacks skills, funding and manppower in terms of enforcement  CSIS? RCMP -who? The US has made a cottage industry from law enforcement! We're also plagued by judges who seem incompetent of reading the winds of public opinion and applying that sentiment to their sentancing.

If Mr. Miller is serious about getting guns off the street and I believe he is, he must push for more support to enforce EXISTING laws from federal law enforcement agencies. Who is Canada's DEA, ATF or FBI? If it is the Toronto Police that is responsible, then perhaps funding should be redirected from hassling pestulant squeegie kids to hassling dangerous gangsters with violent rap sheets. The power to redirect those resources lies within the Mayor's office. Rudy Giuliani didn't just wait for the Feds to clean up Times Square and if that is what our Mayor is claiming he'd like to, then he should genuinely get tough, not put on a tough-guy act when times are tough.

It's ironic too because in the past, the left has traditionally argued for the decriminalization of some things that others consider detrimental to society-at-large. I'm talking mainly about Marajuana, which most honest and educated political scientists will tell you ought to be decriminalized and I frankly agree. I'm not saying decriminalize handguns either - licensing has an impact, as the City of Toronto ironically will also tell you when it comes to Massage Parlours. So the Mayor essentially finds that licensing suffices for handjobs but not for handguns? Or he just believes that prostitution ought to be legal? I didn't see that in his platform, did you?

And here is my conclusion and its probably stating the obvious. City Hall is really good at pointing the finger at others while doing very little to innovate or find solutions to problems that they actually have control over, particularly under this administration.