Netroots Nation: Friday

It's crazy how hard it is to find the time to actually write a blog at a bloggers conference.

Yesterday morning I went to the From Dean to Obama: Four Years in the Internet Revolution Panel. Both Joe Trippi and Karl Frisch were dropping some comedic gold throughout the entire panel. I think the most valuable comment was from Joe, who said that we are in an awkward transition between an era where authenticity is valued (the internet) and the era of the 30 second spot. Because of this, snippets of our authenticity end up being taken out of context and turned into 30 second spots.

The next panel I attended was called What's Next for the Next Generation. The panel was actually just a long infomercial for Qvisory. They bill themselves as an AARP for young people. The problem is that they are trying to become the AARP at their inception, and that isn't possible. Qvisory offers a lot of great tools for young people to manage their finances, get health care, etc. Unfortunately they are stuck in the mindset that they need to be an advocacy organization as well. They would totally be more successful marketing Qvisory as a service and not as some lobbying entity. The AARP did not start out as the powerhouse it is today. It took a long time to build their organization to the point of being an advocacy organization as well. Qvisory doesn't get that.

Another problem is the fact the Qvisory spends all their money on consultants to design their logo, website, etc. and then when we brought up strategies to spread the word to people they said they don't have the resources. Hey, guess what. If you don't spend all your money on consultants that are going to come up with a crappy name you would have those resources. And oh, by the way, you can get people to promote your organization that aren't being paid to do it. They don't get that either. And the sad part is that Qvisory actual offers a very good service that young people should know about.

After that a bunch of us youth vote people hung out for awhile waiting for the coming parties. Somehow, the entire Future Majority team and Ian McGruder thought it was an hour earlier than it actually was, so we ended up missing the Huffington Post/GQ Politics party. Luckily Kos had a party as well and we ended up at that.

Speaking of the Kos party, this just may be me getting older in the youth vote movement, but what is the deal with having a party where people are supposed to talk to eachother and socialize with a band playing so loud you can't hear anything? Seriously, it was annoying, and it was Zydeco.