Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Please welcome our next guest, David Kline.

David is a journalist and author whose most recent book is "Blog!
how the newest media revolution is changing politics, business, and
culture" (CDS Books, October 2005), co-written with Daniel Burstein.

In his earlier days, he reported on the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan,
the famine in Ethiopia, and "Coca Nostra" drug wars in Bolivia. Finally
realizing he was too chicken for such work, he turned to business and
technology as more suitable subjects.

Kline is the author of two previous books on technology and business
strategy: "Road Warriors: Dreams and Nightmares Along the Information
Highway" (Dutton, 1995), and "Rembrandts in the Attic: Unlocking the
Hidden Value of Patents" (Harvard Business School Press, 2000).


Former Inkwell host Jon Lebkowsky leads the conversation.

Jon is an evangelist for the Internet, the World Wide Web,
and digital media, has been involved in diverse online initiatives
since 1990, focusing on practical, legal, and ethical issues of
emerging technologies and leading teams of information architects and
developers creating the infrastructure for innovative web systems.  He
is currently CEO of Polycot Consulting in Austin, Texas; President of
EFF-Austin, Vice-President of Austin Wireless, and a contributor to
Central Texas' Digital Convergence Inititiative.
  

    
Thanks, Hal!

David, there's quite a few books about blogs by now... why did you decide to 
do another one? How is yours different from the others?
  

    
Well, at the time we conceived of this book, the only blog-related titles 
were either technical in nature or aimed at other bloggers. Two were 
slated for publication, Dan Gillmor's "We the Media" and Hugh Hewitt's 
"Blog!", but those were both focused solely on the media industry. 

So I wanted to do something broader that would at least take an early 
snapshot in time of this evolving phenomenon and how it was reshaping 
politics, business and culture. 

Also, I thought there'd be interest in aggregating the voices of more than
30 influential bloggers and other observers of the scene and letting them 
speak about what they think is so important about blogging.
  

    
Can you say a bit about the structure of the book, and why you set it up 
that way?
  

    
Yeah, the structure is weird, perhaps not very effective. One section each 
for politics, business and culture, with an essay by me, Q&A interviews 
with influencers and some media commentary for each section.
  

    
I thought it worked pretty well, but I think the interviews are pretty 
interesting however they're structured. Did you hear anything from any of 
the interviewees that really surprised you?
  

    
Many things surprised me.

Wonkette was evevn more flip than even I expected. But she said some very 
funny things.

Jason Calacanis was so eager to downplay the hype over blogging that it 
almost made me suspicious of his motives. 

Joe Trippi and Roger L. Simon and Jeff Jarvis believed more deeply in what 
they were doing -- and in the revolutionary impact of blogging -- than I 
would have expected from jaded guys in their 40s-50s. They had the passion 
I recall from the counter-culture days of the 60s.

Michael Cader of Publisher's Lunch gave me a lot of new ideas about an 
industry-specific blog and its power to alter industry dynamics.

And novelist Ayalet Waldman and actor Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher on Star 
Trek: Next Generation) were far more open about the traumas of their 
personal lives and how blogging helped them deal with those than I would 
have ever imagined from people I had not met before.

My favorite interview is Wil Wheaton's. I just love how he turned failure 
into a new life and built a huge audience out of nothing more than being a 
truly nice guy and a bit of a geek.
  

    
In a feeble attempt to kickstart some discussion here, I offer a (possibly 
equally feeble) set of 6 predictions for the future of political blogging:

1] Blogs have broken the monopoly of the mainstream media over political 
discourse and recast the traditional political agenda to include 
long-ignored voices and issues. Moreover, by challenging the historic 
media pose of "objectivity," blogs are leading America "back to the 
future" of a much more diverse and openly-partisan media -- to a revival 
of the 19th Century "broadside" and "penny press."

2] Blogs are to politics today what TV was to the Nixon-Kennedy campaign 
of 1960 -- the midwife of a new paradigm in campaign strategy. From now 
on, victory will go not just to the master of the television "sound bite," 
but also to the candidate best able to mobilize and direct what author 
Hugh Hewitt calls blog-fueled "opinion storms" around key issues.

3] "Sound bite" politics, of course, was an artifact of media "scarcity" 
-- most especially the limits of the 90 second TV story format. But in the 
new era of media "abundance," in which any citizen can broadcast and 
publish at will, blogs will very likely result in more substantive 
issues-oriented political campaigning.

4] Although some worry that blogs are deepening the polarization and 
divisions already present in American politics, their participatory and 
popular character cannot help but engender a significant resurgence in 
citizen involvement in the political process and in voting. The days are 
over when only 50 percent of eligible voters will show up at the polls on 
presidential election day.

5] Blogs are not simply political persuaders, however. They are also 
"collective organizers" of grassroots political action that are already 
beginning to weaken top-down party control of the political process, erode 
Big Money's absolute domination over the selection of candidates, and 
enhance the ability of insurgent candidates of all political hues to 
emerge and compete effectively.

6] Indeed, bloggers' unique and unprecedented ability to mobilize the 
"long tail" of electoral politics -- i.e., the myriad streams of 
independent political opinion in America whose collective vote-getting 
ability, if only harnessed and directed, could potentially rival that of 
the two main parties -- could very well fuel the emergence of viable 3rd 
party candidates by the end of this decade.

Your thoughts?
  

    
I can play devil's advocate with #1, where you say "...to include
long-ignored voices and issues." Why should we believe that the conversation 
will be more inclusive? And even if it's more inclusive, won't many still be 
excluded?
  

    
Because it already is much more inclusive and nuanced since blogs appeared 
and ended the monopoly of MSM coverage of what constitutes the approved 
agenda. It's not just left and right now, but everything in between.

And no, it'll never include everyone. But it can include almost everyone 
who has something to say and wants to say.
  

    

(Note: If you have a question or comment and are not a member of The WELL,
you can send email to <inkwell@well.com> and we'll add your comments to this
conversation)
  

    
How do blogs lead to greater citizen involvement? Even if there are more 
people expressing opinions, don't they have a significant echo chamber 
effect? Don't blog readers pretty much stick to blogs that echo their 
opinions?
  

    
We've already seen blogs transform the political fundraising landscape,
and serve as potent collective organizers of grassroots action in the last
election (the GOP was better at this than the Dems were, but whatever).

I think we're going back to 19th- and early 20th century style partisan
media, during which we had much higher electoral participation rates.
There's been good social and media research showing that partisan media
encourages citizen participation in the process. Information without 
debates that citizens take part in leads to passivity.
  

    
I assume you're referring to the fundraising by the Dean campaign - was that 
really blog-driven? Or was it driven more by email campaigns and regular 
meetups?
  

    
I look at all online citizen participation as part of a whole process.  
Blogs get people involved and voicing their opinions. DailyKos raised 
hundreds of thousands of dollars just from his blog alone, by 
highlighting critical campaigns. Email followups then continue the process 
of getting people involved.

I mean, you have to look at results. 10 years ago, citizens really 
motivated by political issues either whined on the WELL or gathered 
together at some local Marriott meeting room to organize. Now we've got 
these political motivators and organizers caslled blogs that have made a
difference in certain local elections, or changed the running paradigm for 
fundraising (a la the Democrats in 2004) or even brought down certain 
powerful figures like Trent Lott and Dan Rather.

The citizen voice just didn't have that kind of clout 10 years ago.

Who knows what the next few years will bring?
  

    
At the risk of repeating myself, I really believe that blogs represent the 
revolt of the voiceless against the heedless.

Good has got to come from that.
  

    
Were you a blogger when you started working on the book?
  

    
Nope. I didn't start blogging until after I finished the book.

That has something to do with who I wanted the audience to be for the 
book, and also something to do with the way I work.

Plus it also has something to do with the fact that had I started blogging
right away, I probably would have never finished the book.
  

    
I bet that's right!

Following up on that, what audience did you expect to reach?
  

    
Jumping in late here, David. I'm not done reading the book - I'm
jumping around, reading interviews in my own sequence because I'm
looking to understand blogs as a slightly different mechanism: as a
team tool. From what I have read so far, your perspective is mostly
from people who blog to communicate out. In your conversations, did you
hear any examples around internal blogging for team work? 
  

    
In my essay in the business section, Nancy, I talk about the use of blogs 
as enterprise management and collaboration tools, and predict that they 
will become much more common. Since I finished the book back in the 
spring, I have since heard of many companies (or at least departments 
within companies) that are using them as team tools.

Is that what you're talking about?

On more point about the above: I was shocked to realize how poor current 
document and enterprise management systems really are. For one thing, most 
are email dependent, and email is neither searchable nor particularly 
persistent (aside from email's many other faults). Once someone leaves the 
firm, usually all his email is erased and all those contacts and all that 
learning is gone. Plus, if the head of a business unit wants to know 
what's going on with sales, marketing, R&D or whatever, he or she has to 
go searching for it -- sometimes in a backup tape somewhere.

HTML (and blog) based management systems, in contrast, never lose 
information and managers can simply subscribe via RSS to whatever 
relevant reports they want.

As for my audience, Jon, I aimed the book at non-bloggers -- people who 
had heard of the word and maybe knew what it was all about in general, or 
maybe who didn't know anything about it but wanted to learn more. 
Basically you can describe these people as "book buyers" but not 
afficianados of blogging. 
  

    
hi, david. i'm finding the book really very compelling. so many smart
viewpoints and not all telling the same story. so like the blog world!

it's really this point that leads me to agree with your premise that "blogs
will very likely result in more substantive issues-oriented political
campaigning." the number of blogs is increasing at an almost exponential
rate. technorati reports a steady doubling in the number of active blogs
every five months over the past three years. blogs are obviously tapping
some innate urge.

we were taught that one of the primary arguments for democracy is that Truth
emerges from the healthy clash of ideas. We're seeing a whole new level of
engagement, both in the number of blog authors and in the number of
individuals choosing to comment on blog posts. actual dialogue is growing
up. individuals are being forced to defend their viewpoints, refine their
thinking, sometimes admit error. it's telling that the more conservative
blogs block comments, but this doesn't stop their critics from making noise
on their own blogs and, at least so far, blog search engines are blind to
political bent and so searches on topics expose readers to at least the
headlines for all points of view.

it used to be that an individual's best bet for sharing a viewpoint or
attempting to shine a light on some malfeasance was to send a letter to an
editor and hope that you were among the few given momentary voice. blogs are
in their infancy and will no doubt grow into something else altogether over
time, but the fact that self-publishing has never been easier would seem to
signal a positive cultural development. noisy, messy, but overall, i'd
argue, positive.
  

    
I am really enjoying the book, David. I did a bit of bouncing around,
like Nancy, and then started at the beginning -- I've now just started
the section that speaks to the kind of blogging I do. 

I was, for some time after I discovered blogs & jumped into it myself,
one of the 'blogging will change the world!' believers. I've settled
down a bit since, but I do still believe that the ability for regular
folks all over the world to quickly and easily read and publish has to
be a revolutionary force. 

And I believe that personal and literary blogging is just as
revolutionary political blogging. 

I also think that the Well spellchecker should recognize "blog".
  

    
Partly due to this book, I've been spending more time than usual
reading political blogs. It seems to me that they generally fail the
ideal of "conversation" -- some (usually conservative) don't even allow
comments. Those that do have comments, often have hundreds -- far too
many for someone like me to dig through. 

And I feel crotchety about this, but I miss civility. Comments on many
of these blogs seem to be narrow, hostile, and rude. From both sides
-- and there seem to be only two sides. 

It's almost like watching cable television news. 

There must be a better way. 
  

    

After a number of emails storms at work where ideas kept bouncing around,
we started a group blog for discussion. It's not so much the one to many
that blogs can be, but more of a place for group discussion of topics as
well as a place to hold key information such as who is getting the duty
pager when and how to deal with the lastest update on bureacratic form
filling.  In this role, it's not revolutionary but has made an
evolutionary difference. Not having read your book (yet!), I'm wondering
if you looked at the use of blogs inside corporations?
  

    
Blogs won't change human nature. But to my mind, a world in which millions 
of people now have voices that can be heard is better than a world in 
which only the chosen few "experts" or "pundits" or media do.

True democracy is messy. And it's true, there's still a lot of 
narcissistic "talking at" rather than "discussing with" going on. But I 
liken that to the ego-centric stage that early toddlers go through. 
Ordinary people -- people who have no special access or reach -- are 
learning what it means to now have a voice. As we mature and become more 
confident that what we say is valuable, if only to ourselves and to 
perhaps a few dozen of our readers, then I really truly believe the 
"noise" will be pierced by ever-increasing dialogoue and meaning.

Civility comes from confidence and self-assurance that you do, in fact,
have the right to speak. Early practitioners of the new social invention
of democracy a couple of hundred years ago were not very civil at all. Per
capita, there were probably as many nutcases and angry narcissists as
there are now. But by the mid-19th century, the average citizen could
think of no better form of entertainment and enlightenment than to spend
12 hours listening to a Lincoln-Douglass debate. These were common men and
women who attended these events, who eagerly read partisan newspapers, and
who lived peacefully with their neighbors who read entirely opposing
partisan newspapers.

Does this save the world? Usher in a permanent era of peace? End war?

No. But at least the world increasingly becomes *our* world, a world that 
reflects the voices and concerns of many millions rather than thousands.

If you believe in people's capacity to eventually sort through their crap
and come to deeper and wiser understanding -- and given that we no longer
live in caves or tolerate witch burning and slavery, it seems reasonable
to believe that generally-speaking people do have that capacity -- than I
think you have to look at this phenomenon as overall a very good thing.

One other point I might make: I am so NOT a new-age kind of person. I
think we spend far too much time whining about our "bad" childhoods. But I
do believe that the more mindfully we live our lives and document our
struggles and thge things we care about -- and this is probably what most
bloggers do when they blog -- the more valuable our lives will be.

In fact, a recent study showed a large proportion of bloggers feel that 
the process has a therapeutic and anti-depressive effect.

Still, I don't think we should throw out pharmaceuticals just yet.