Can Obama harvest better ideas from the people, online?

By Scott Kirsner, Globe Staff  |  November 10, 2008

Power from the people. Josh Bernoff, an analyst at Forrester Research in Cambridge, was among the bloggers reacting to the presidential election. He suggested the president-elect should tap into what Bernoff dubs the "groundswell" - the digital populace's ability to quickly float ideas, respond to proposals, and potentially shape policy.

Barack Obama faces perhaps the most complex set of problems to face a president in the last fifty years, from terrorism to a teetering economy to a deficit that scares the crap of out me for my children's future. He has the power to inspire people behind the solutions he may come up with. He's clearly intelligent. But does he have the humility to gather those solutions from the popular groundswell that elected him?

If Starbucks can source ideas from the groundswell . . . can Barack Obama's government tap the same sources of energy?

I call on president-elect Obama to create a community of committed Americans to discuss the solutions to the problems that face us. I call on him to designate a US Community Manager, with a small staff, to moderate and harvest those discussions to solve the country's problems.

Forget polls. With a few million people in my.america.gov, Obama will be able to tap into the world's largest focus group. Communities are cheap, compared to most of what the government does. Create a space for the brightest people you know; use them to attract the best ideas. And better yet, use this energized community to sell those ideas to America.

Presidents are powerful, but the reality is that politics requires compromise. But politicians with the people on their side usually win out. With a community behind him, Obama will need no further mandate. And he'll look smarter with a few thousand idea generators behind him.

Or he could just do things the way people in Washington have always done them, in secret, watered down, inefficiently, and in the most costly way possible. That's never worked all that well, and it's been working even more poorly lately.
bernoff.com

Debating bank dividends. Remember all those government bailout plans? Mike Feinstein of Sempre Management cautioned his blog readers to keep paying attention to the way taxpayer money is spent - and what the recipients do with it, even amidst the election hubbub.

With the excitement about Obama's victory, don't take your eyes off the bailout. The government is still doling out lots of money to financial institutions. The goal is to strengthen the balance sheets of banks so they can ease up on credit. And to strengthen weakened insurance companies so they can meet the capital requirements that back up their policies. It is a crisis, and I support these moves with great trepidation.

After writing last week about our investment going to fund deferred executive compensation, BailoutSleuth.com reported [last] Monday about our money being used to pay very high dividends. As bank stock prices have dropped, their dividends have become more significant. Many investors buy bank stocks for the dividends, and that's great. If banks are profitable and want to return profits to their shareholders in the form of dividends, no problem. I even own a bunch of bank stocks and receive dividends from them.

But, if the banks are taking on investment from the US government, they should suspend dividends until that investment is paid back. [Venture capitalists] and private equity firms know how to structure their investments to control dividend payments.

They closely manage companies to monitor compensation. This protects their investment and focuses the money toward building the business. Since we were the investors of last resort, we should get a similar deal.
thefeinline.com

The digital agenda. Harvard Law professor John Palfrey wrote about Internet-related policy issues that will face the next president.

The digital policy issues facing America are not unlike the issues kids face in the home. Just as parents worry about the safety of their children in a digital world, our next president needs to understand the security implications of a fast-growing global network, like how a cyberattack - no longer mere fantasy, as the Defense Department makes plain - might cripple our nation's infrastructure and how to protect against it.

In times dominated by fears of terrorism, the next president will have to consider the extent of government surveillance. He will need to help us grow our high-tech economic sector, as digital natives in countries like Brazil and India vie for the digital-era jobs our graduates also seek. Issues like network neutrality and how US companies operate in countries, like China, that censor the Internet will land on the next president's desk.
blogs.law.harvard.edu/palfrey

Have you seen an interesting posting on a local business blog? Send it to kirsner@pobox.com