Tag Archives: technology

Connected Citizens in the New Year

I read the Knight Foundation’s Connected Citizens report (subtitled, “The Power, Potential, and Peril of Networks”) a few months ago (it came out in late April, I think, but, giving birth kind of put me behind in my reading this year), and I’ve been thinking about it more lately as I look to the future, especially since the report is, itself, in part an effort to predict where and how networks may change our lives and our efforts for social change, in the years to come.

I expect that some of the questions the report poses, and some of the hypotheses it suggests, will filter into my thinking and writing about advocacy (especially in the online context) and community organizing over the coming year, but here are my reactions as we straddle this period between the past and the future, at the (almost) dawn of 2012.

  • Do we truly have greater transparency today? Or does the proliferation of information mean that it’s that much easier to hide the important stuff, in the midst of a lot that doesn’t matter? I’m torn about this, really–on the one hand, there’s the demise of traditional investigative journalism, with all that that means for our ability to uncover the truth and publicize it; on the other, there’s the rise of citizen-supported journalism and independent cataloguing of so much that happens in our world. I know it sounds clichéd, but it’s like “the truth is out there,” but will we be able to find and recognize it, in the middle of so much…stuff? And what does that mean for our efforts to be megaphones for the voices that are so often silenced, as we know we must, in order to truly empower those whose stories need to become part of our policy narratives? Since policymakers are vulnerable to this same information overload, how do we push past the noise to be heard?
  • Will technology enable us to turn ever-more inward, or seek and build alliances with unlikely partners? Or both? How do we resist the tendency towards silos, or, indeed, is such homogeneity all bad, in terms of building strong identity? Since, again, policymakers are people, too, how will their increasing reliance on what their “friends” prefer, in terms of policy approaches, and, indeed, even what their social networks hold as “truth” and “information” impact our ability to construct policy solutions that can cross rigid ideological lines? I’m not too optimistic, really.
  • How can we engage our crowds so that the barrier to participation is minimal but still meaningful? As the default for “participation” becomes quick engagement, how do we invest in the deeper relationships that are truly transformational?
  • Social workers know how to “design for serendipity.” From our direct practice experiences, we get the idea that we cannot predict outcomes flawlessly but must, instead, create the spaces (physically and, more importantly socially and psychologically) for real magic to happen in people’s lives. This makes us, I believe, champion “network weavers”, if we can leverage those clinical skills into social change work.
  • Anyone who has ever read the comments on an online newspaper article about immigration policy knows the link between anonymity and the deterioration of dialogue in a public sphere. The challenge here, as we increasingly shift to broader conversations detached from a local, identified context, is to figure out how to cultivate relationships that breed accountability while taking advantage of the boundary-less nature of online networks.
  • We can all get excited about the rise of mutual support and the tremendous potential of networks to address real, pressing need. But we should also be very afraid of the parallel risk that such indigenous resource provision becomes an excuse for abdication of our collective (read: public) (read: we still need taxes) responsibility to uphold the social contract and provide for the needs of those without strong networks in the first place (because such network resources are, like nearly everything else in this world, not evenly distributed).

    Again, there’s more there than what I’ve captured here, including some thoughts relevant to my work with the Sunflower Foundation, particularly this question of whether measuring network health and strength can tell you how close you’re getting to a desired change, given that networks are, by definition, rather uncontrollable and certainly dynamic entities. But, in chiming in so late on the conversation, I’m partly hoping to restart it a bit, since we know that we’ll be dealing, increasingly, with networks in our work in the years to come–indeed, they may become the default way of approaching our shared concerns–and we need to understand how to engage them effectively, how to critically evaluate their roles and their shortcomings, and how their existence will shape ours.

  • Is it time to up the ante?

    I know, things are hard enough these days, without going out and looking for trouble, right?

    And, yet, here we are.

    Here’s the problem: there’s increasing evidence, I believe, that the kinds of online advocacy about which we were so excited just a few years ago are, in fact, too easy.

    Because we’re not the only ones who know that it doesn’t take much to get people to sign an online petition or click to send an email to their member of Congress (I know, it’s sometimes not as easy as it sounds, but that, unfortunately, usually has more to do with the nature of our relationships with those we’re trying to get to advocate than with the actual, technical difficulty of taking that particular action, and that’s an entirely different problem.)

    A relatively recent survey of nonprofit activity on Facebook, for example, found that, while only 40% of organizations were able to convert their Facebook fans into donors or volunteers, about 66% saw an increase in people taking an advocacy action. And while that sounds great, because we can always use more activists, it makes me wonder:

    If it’s known that people would rather sign a petition than give you a dollar, how much is that signature really worth?

    This is related, too, to the common wisdom (enforced by our own experiences) that there’s just SO MUCH out there, and that it can be hard to sort through all of that information. Certainly policymakers feel that way, too, which contributes to their desire to wade through the noise and find that which most resonates with them. Since we can’t count on always aligning with their way of seeing the world, or having their trusted advisors lend us their voices, that means that we need to either make a compelling case related to their constituency (harder to do, somewhat ironically, in the context of online global networking, because of difficulties precisely locating advocates’ geographies) or develop powerful actions that can rise above the chatter…or both.

    This question, and the doubt it reflects, matters not just in the short-term, when we really want people to listen to what our advocates are saying. Ultimately, key to building strong movements is people’s recognition that their individual contributions are, collectively, part of something far greater. And, so, if that’s not really the case–if me calling my member of Congress on my own would really make a bigger impact than joining with others to sign a petition or click “like”, then am I really part of a movement after all?

    Are we authentically inviting people to transcend themselves and transform their lives, with the sacrifices that such affiliation entails? Or are we selling them the idea of advocacy, in a way that may forever distort their understanding of the real thing? If it’s the latter, what will that mean for the times when we have a really big “ask” of our advocates, if we haven’t been building, at all, but rather engaging in a sort of pseudo-organizing?

    Lest we start off the last month of this year with a complete downer, I think that there are some real opportunities to utilize some of the same utilities on which we currently rely to leverage advocacy with real impact. Here are some of my ideas, and I’d love to hear yours, both in your reaction to this whole “time for a game-changer” proposition, and for ways to maximize the power of our online advocacy strategies and dodge the impotent, as we continually react to how our successes raise the stakes.

  • One of the most promising findings from the Idealware Facebook survey was the more than 70% of organizations who attracted new attendees to their events using social media. If we’re building advocacy into all of our events, as well as using social networking to recuit new participants to advocacy-focused events, there’s obvious potential to build momentum for our work using “new” technologies to drive the oldest of organizing axioms: turnout matters.
  • There are some really inspiring and exciting examples of organizations (and, indeed, individuals, who are perhaps naturally better at this than our fortresses!) using online networks to implement completely nontraditional campaigns. There’s no law that says that your online “ask” has to be a petition or an email. Again, sometimes we make the mistake of requesting relatively little, because we think that’s all we can get, when digging deeper, and inviting our advocates to do the same, can both strengthen our relationship and amplify our voice.
  • Those online petitions or social media “fans” don’t have to be THE campaign, and, indeed, they often are not. But when we organize an event to deliver a stack of letters to a policymaker (complete with compelling personal testimonies, appropriate media pressure, and the inclusion of unlikely allies) are we making sure that that effort echoes with those who originally took the online action, so that they see how it fits into the larger strategy and see how they might, in the future, play an expanded role?

    What do you think? What should be the measures by which we judge the effectiveness of our online advocacy strategies–number of participants, or vigor of engagement, or tangible policy changes? Is what we’re doing working, or is it time to push forward?

  • Teaching virtually, not virtually teaching

    It has now been about two years since I first started trying to figure out this “blended” (online and traditional classroom instruction) teaching methodology.

    And, although it risks totally jinxing everything, I think I’m finally getting it.

    This semester has been a sort of revelation to me–that the online and in-person learning do not need to happen in these discrete chunks, but can and, indeed, should truly blend throughout the course so that students become accustomed to learning in both venues simultaneously. I’ve also intentionally sought out materials that engage students in interactive learning online, so that they’re not just responding to my content in virtual platforms, but becoming part of a larger community of interest around policy concerns.

    And, perhaps most significantly, it has dawned on me that, since most of my students will, as social workers, consume much of their policy-related information online (rather than in a class discussion format or a peer-reviewed journal), part of my task in these courses should be to help them develop skills to critically consume this material, so that they can analyze and filter and apply similar information throughout their careers.

    Yes, another inspiration that should have occurred to me a long time ago, but, better late…right?

    My favorite part of the blended classes is probably the discussion boards, because I get so much more participation from some of the quieter students than I do in class. This semester, I’m going to use a more detailed course evaluation that assesses student reactions to those individual components, so that I can get a better sense of which pieces they’re actually engaging with, and how those activities are contributing to their overall learning.

    I am, as always, open to new ideas and critiques, but here’s what I’m doing differently this semester that (again, knock on everything!) seems to be working so far:

  • Utilizing course technology to bring in virtual guest speakers–if we can have half of our course content online, why not get guest speakers from Washington, DC (via Skype) to talk about implementation of health care reform?
  • Requiring students to analyze media coverage of policy topics, to heighten their analytical skills and give them practice searching for the frames in a given coverage
  • Integrating short videos and podcasts on policy topics, and, often, using them to replace traditional assigned readings, because they offer much more current analysis than what the peer-reviewed process can provide
  • Working in at least a few “virtual classrooms”, which are sort of like chatrooms, but not in real-time, so that students have a venue in which to ask questions about the course, share materials with each other, and access me
  • Creating online assignments, including the “wiki” resource guides on policymaking that I used last year, too (to provide a nonprofit organization with resources designed to facilitate advocacy in a particular arena) and a presentation about future trends that will impact policy that, by necessity, has to draw almost entirely on online resources

    I’ve only tried to teach policy courses in this blended format, so I certainly can’t speak to the experiences of those teaching (and taking!) practice classes. And I know that some of my students wish that they had the option to take a traditional format policy course, and I respect that. There’s no question that I miss getting to see my students more frequently; in my ideal (albeit overwhelming) world, we’d still meet every week AND have the additional online opportunities.

    Another reason everyone is glad I don’t run the world.

    But my goal with these courses is to create a policy learning experience that transfers as much as possible, and as seamlessly as possible, to social work practice, and I do believe that the inclusion of the online components increases that likelihood.

    Because the real world, after all, is increasingly online.

  • Consuming as Advocacy?

    People are going to love this.

    Especially on this Labor Day week, because we feel so uncomfortable, often, talking about working for a living, but so very much enjoy talking about our lives as consumers.

    We love buying things, right? Even I, who hasn’t seen a television commercial or a magazine advertisement in two years, can’t run to Target to pick up generic diapers without seeing 12 things that I swear I’ve been meaning to get forever.

    And, so, because Americans are awesome like this, someone has invented Carrotmob, which is a totally American idea:

    Feel good about changing the world, just by buying things.

    No, this isn’t one of those “embedded giving” platforms, the much-debated practice of companies packaging their products with charitable organizations’ endorsement, with a small percentage of the sales going to support that cause.

    This is much simpler, and, I think, much cooler.

    Basically, companies compete to see how socially responsible they can be, and the winning companies get the support of a “mob” of consumers, spending money to reward the company with both higher sales and a lot of good publicity. There’s a real social component (the mobs are literally big groups of people, and the website content is written in a very personal style), which we of course love too, and it’s very “new media”–the website is filled with videos of actions and ways for people to get alerts sent directly to their medium of choice.

    So far, “social responsibility” has mainly focused on environmental sustainability, but there are plans for campaigns focusing on labor rights, too.

    They’re very open about the limitations of such a strategy (first and foremost, people buying too much stuff is part of some of the very problems they hope to address, and yet their campaigns fuel that), but there’s a real potential to bring in activists who wouldn’t normally engage in petitions or even boycotts, and that’s a part of their model of change.

    Check it out, sign up if it appeals to you, and let me know what you think. Is this an exciting example of how to connect people to actions for the social good, or a gimmick that people won’t ultimately pay much attention to? How do you feel about the whole ‘mob’ concept? And about consuming as advocacy? Should we be encouraging people to forego consumption as a political act, or can strategic purchasing be part of our repertoire of tactics?

    Hey, it’s good exercise!

    In this digital age, I want to make the case for a return to old-fashioned door-to-door work.

    Yes, as in actual doors.

    And actually knocking on them.

    I know, why would we bother to “waste” all of that time, when we have email addresses and Facebook and so many “easier” ways to organize people?

    In short, because sometimes there’s just no substitute.

    There are still some ways in which door-knocking campaigns are superior to online engagement strategies:

  • You can collect really valuable information about people, the conditions in which they live, and their relationships to their communities by physically traveling in their space. No virtual community gives you exactly this same sense of people’s places.
  • You get a certain credit for showing up that can be helpful in, especially, your efforts to recruit new people to your cause. Precisely because email is so much easier, it’s also more easily tossed away. Yes, some people will slam the door in your face, but, honestly, it doesn’t happen that much. We’re willing to give a little bit more respect to those who actually come to see us.
  • Door-knocking is a great way to get your advocates/members/activists more comfortable telling your story; once you’ve knocked on a stranger’s door (to ask for a petition signature, or a membership pledge, or a vote), you’re much less scared to ask an elected official to take a certain stand. There’s a real comraderie in door-knocking, too, that you don’t get with online strategies.
  • You can multitask on the doors. A good online campaign can get you members and contributions, and maybe petition signers, too. And a well-executed door-to-door effort can get you all that plus some media coverage (because knocking on doors, these days, for anything except a political campaign is really kind of news) and intelligence about your target community, and maybe some good volunteer connections, too.
  • Door-knocking can be part of a multifaceted online and in-person organizing campaign. Of course, these days, you don’t have to choose one or the other. You can collect email addresses when you’re talking with people on the doors, sign up canvassers on Facebook, and vice versa. My point is not to get you to abandon online efforts in favor of traditional neighborhood ones, but rather to rediscover the potential of the door-to-door campaign as part of your overall approach.

    There’s a reason why local and state elections are often won or lost on the doors, rather than with paid advertising or mailing: people build relationships and connect with issues in a different way face-to-face. That’s still true today.

    There are many sources of information about how to put together a good door-to-door campaign (including how to choose your target area, how to prepare your door script, how to train volunteers, how to protect your folks in the field, how to debrief your canvass, and how to follow up once you’re in the office).

    But I think that most of these campaigns fail not in any of these areas of detail, but in the most fundamental respect: we’re just not trying them anymore.

    Really, any social justice issue lends itself, potentially, to a door-to-door campaign, but those with a strong geographic component (think: school finance, environmental justice, zoning, unemployment, city services, law enforcement) are especially well-suited. Here, there’s really no substitute for constructing a strong connection among neighbors, and awakening a specific, localized population so that they can advocate on their own behalf.

    And, from my own experiences, 10 minutes on someone’s front stoop can do that. Really.

    So happy knocking.

  • You’re most welcome: political opinions as “gifts” to share

    In this last post during this week of reflections about social media, I’m reflecting on a passage from The Facebook Effect where one of the founders shares his belief that Facebook creates a space for generosity by reducing the costs associated with sharing of oneself.

    And that got me thinking about the ways in which I use social media, and about social work boundaries, and about transcending taboos about disclosing one’s beliefs.

    And, if I can pull all of that together into anything coherent, I guess it’s this:

    I share my beliefs about justice, and politics, and the world, not as much in an attempt to bring anyone ‘around’ to my way of thinking, but to be an integrated, whole person, and to rather transparently share that self with others.

    I don’t think that I do my students, or my friends, or even my family members, any favors if I hide my beliefs, or tried, in pursuit of politeness, to present a bland caricature of who I really am. Nor, of course, would a single-minded pursuit of my own vision of righteous truth likely bring me closer to a generous sense of community.

    But somewhere in between, in the realm of sharing how who I am (wife, mother, neighbor, friend, teacher) shapes what I believe (that we must welcome the stranger, that all children deserve a chance at their dreams, that health care is a right, that poverty is a global shame), I hope that I help others clarify their own beliefs, challenge their previously-held truths, and articulate a vision of “the good society.”

    I did that before Facebook, obviously. Politics have never been off the table in my family, even though there’s considerable difference of opinion, and my friends have always known what I think.

    But I will grant that social media have changed the nature of the conversation a bit, increased the number of occasions when there’s a chance for real dialogue, helped me to discover that some of my friends and even family share views of mine that I hadn’t known, and given me a chance to remind those with opposing views that there is a bond of love and respect between us nonetheless.

    I’m still working on how to challenge statements without attacking that messenger, especially on issues (racial justice, equal rights for gays and lesbians) where I see things very clearly in “right” and “wrong”. I value the practice I get on Facebook, and the chance to weave humor and life and motherhood, in particular, into my activism as well.

    I see it as a gift, too, when my students and others are willing to share their own beliefs with me, as a sort of extension of trust and demonstration that they’re engaged enough to invest a bit of themselves.

    Have social media changed how you share your political perspectives with those in your social networks? If so, how? What’s your response to policy and political debates on Facebook and other social media? How do you live generously, as an advocate of social justice, in this connected age?

    The Facebook Effect: Rethinking Productivity

    I’ve never been one for chatting.

    During my full-time career, I think I went out to lunch with colleagues about three times in seven years.

    These days, I tend to view any moment not explicitly tied to production as a minute wasted–60 more seconds that I’m kept away from my awesome kids.

    I love to-do lists, and especially crossing them off.

    And, yet, one of the quotes from The Facebook Effect that stuck out at me most is this: “understanding people is not a waste of time” (p. 143).

    And that has me thinking about what productivity really looks like, and about the kinds of behaviors nonprofit organizations should reward, and about the proper role of social media in the social work workplace.

    Because the truth is, of course, that social workers are not immune to the time-wasting potential of social media. We often need to relieve stress, and a few moments spent in idle browsing can turn into…a few more, until we’ve been distracted from our real purpose.

    That’s not just poor time management. It’s unethical social work. We have an obligation to use our agency’s resources wisely, and to keep our clients’ needs foremost in our minds. To do less is to violate a core trust, and to abdicate our most sacred responsibility.

    But what about social media usage that connects us more deeply to our constituents, helps us to engage with donors, shapes the nature of the conversation about our issues, and gives us insights into how others view our organizations, and our work?

    It’s hard to argue that collecting that kind of information, building those relationships, and broadening our scope of influence could ever be a waste of time.

    Even beyond “official” agency uses of social media, I think a strong case can be made for individual social workers using their own connections to engage friends, family members, and colleagues in the quest for social justice, and, indeed, to practice their listening and relational skills in this medium.

    When I look back, actually, I think about the relationships that I may have shortchanged with my intense focus on accomplishing tasks. Would it have been easier for me to permeate the organizational culture with an emphasis on advocacy, had I engaged in more relational work with colleagues? Did I ever unintentionally send clients the message that they should “get down to business”, and, in so doing, cut off important relationship-building?

    Did I ever make people feel that understanding them was a waste of time?

    How do you use social media at work? What dangers do you see, and what opportunities? How do you balance collegiality and productivity? How would our work lives look differently if we valued building relationships as much as accomplishing tasks?

    The Facebook Effect: Practicing Advocacy in Baby Steps

    There is a debate, of sorts, at the intersection of traditional activism and avant-garde technology, about whether advocacy on Facebook (and other social media, but it mostly seems to center on Facebook) is a poor substitute for “real-world” activism and a diversion from important work, or, conversely, whether such online activities represent the future of organizing and a replacement for more traditional campaigns.

    This week, as I think and write about my use of social media and my observations in that field, in response to my reading of The Facebook Effect, I’m wondering what if, in fact, it’s kind of neither?

    What if putting your politics in your status updates and inviting your friends to community events, which are both relatively passive actions that nonetheless require being “out” with one’s concerns and preferences for social change, is kind of like an interim step towards the kind of organizing that can build lasting movements, and the kind of advocacy that can take down whole regimes?

    Because, sure, there have been some pretty dramatic examples of Facebook campaigns that have resulted in significant “real-world” impact, like the anti-FARC work in Colombia but, on the whole, most people’s use of Facebook is a whole lot more mundane. And there may even be some evidence that having an online outlet for policy frustrations reduces one’s willingness to take those complaints directly to those in power, although I haven’t seen any conclusive research to that effect (and I have been looking). The concern is that people will feel that “they’ve already taken care of it,” and stop short of real change. On the other hand, Facebook is now one of the first places people air grievances, and some studies suggest that these actions foment offline activism, too.

    Even casual use of social media, though, makes obvious the ways in which political conversations seep into interactions, and the ways in which people practice defending their beliefs, and seeking out the likeminded, in an online forum.

    And I think of that as baby steps.

    Because organizing is always about asking people to make a leap, to step out of the private life that, while not necessarily comfortable, is at least known, into a public realm that promises conflict and tension and inevitable disappointment. And getting people to do that from scratch has always been hard.

    But if today’s potential advocates have already seen that the world doesn’t fall apart when people don’t agree with you, or even when few respond to your invitation, then maybe they’ll be less reluctant to step out. And, conversely, if activists have used social media to discover that they’re not totally alone in their passions, then maybe the alienation and apathy that are an organizer’s worst enemies can be chiseled away, at least a little.

    I don’t think the revolution will be on Facebook, although it’s also unlikely that it will be a complete bystander.

    And maybe, just maybe, the revolutionaries will have practiced some of their arguments, refined some of their skills, and connected with some on their comrades, on this platform.

    Our challenge, from this view, is to neither glorify or denigrate this online activism, but, instead, to recognize, translate, and leverage it in the social change arena. That requires getting past the outdated (and never that true in the first place) idea that social justice work necessarily equates with painful sacrifice, and creating movements with enough room for people to enter at multiple points.

    And, then, we can all take some big steps together.

    Watching sausage being made

    I love teaching policy classes.

    And I love talking about policy.

    But I know that our policymaking processes, at different levels of government and across many topic areas and within the contests of opposing viewpoints, and often seemingly hidden behind closed doors, can seem arcane, muddled, and even completely baffling, including to students who desperately want to understand how the policies that affect their work, and their clients’ lives, are made.

    And, so, I’m always looking for tools that will help make policymaking real, for students and for social work practitioners in the field, to demystify what’s really not all that mysterious a process: the way that power collides with power to, more often than not, prevent anything really seismic from changing at all.

    Especially after feedback from my generous and kind and forgiving first class of students, I’ve incorporated more case studies, guest speakers from the field, interactive online content, and classroom debates, to try to peel back the layers and help students engage with the policies that so need their voices.

    And one of the things that I have to help students struggle with is their innate disgust, really, with some of the political realities. Social workers are mostly a pretty ethical bunch, and we pride ourselves on process, and so learning about how budget rules are broken and deals get made can tend to send social work students running as fast as they can in the opposite direction.

    And I understand that. I do.

    When I first taught U.S. history and government to new immigrant adolescents, more than 10 years ago, I was so caught up in my own disillusionment that I had a hard time even reading the Bill of Rights without rolling my eyes.

    But they reminded me then, and so I remind my students now, that no system of governance ever got better by people sitting on the sidelines. Our democracy has managed, perhaps almost in spite of itself, some pretty wonderful victories for justice, and there’s tremendous potential for more. Besides, if we’re going to throw up our hands in despair, we might as well be holding a protest sign.

    In other words: do not avert your eyes. We need witnesses.

    And that’s why I’m so excited about some of the new tools (and some that aren’t SO new, now, anymore) to help people understand policymaking, and the workings of our government, in meaningful ways.

    There’s Many Bills, which is a visualization of legislative content that organizes it into color-coded themes, making even really bad bills look pretty. You can compare different versions of bills related to the same problem topics, such as housing policy. You can also search by a member’s legislative activity, which is pretty stark sometimes.

    Another IBM lab tool is Many Eyes, which I’ve used to make maps for nonprofit organizations before, but which can also do text content analysis, so that you can see tag clouds, for example, of speeches made by prominent elected officials. The graphic above is a visualization of Obama’s Inaugural Address.

    Probably the single best online tool I’ve found for information about the activities of Congress is Open Congress, which has a blog, profiles of individual members, real-time status of the House and Senate, summaries of recent votes, overviews of bills in the news and bills recently filed, and lots of opportunities for comments and engagement with the content. One of the aspects I like most about it is the extensive set of tools to improve individuals’ access to the information: RSS feeds, email alerts, integration with your social media platforms…I use it not just as a go-to for information about Congress but also as a feed of current happenings, for the times when even I forget to look.

    There’s a lot more on the Presidency than members of Congress, and some states aren’t covered at all, but PolitiFact can be a good starting point in sorting out competing claims in the political arena. Of course, here, there’s an obvious element of subjective judgment (as always, in politics!), but the claims are pretty well cited and supported, and the ratings are clear and complete. My very favorite part? Their interest in researching the truth behind chain emails submitted by users. Social Security for Mexicans abroad, anyone?

    A similar site that’s unfortunately not very updated is Speechology, which, at least at one point, had a bit wider reach and a more interactive feel, analyzing candidates’ promises and assertions, not only in speeches, but also in campaign advertisements. I would hope and expect that it might be ‘reactivated’, a bit, for the 2012 cycle, at least, and it could be a model for what local media analysts could do regarding regional officials.

    What I find most helpful about these last two sites, really, isn’t even as much their content as their premise: we have a right to understand what our elected officials are doing, and we have the tools with which to do so.

    Then, when we don’t like what we see, we know what to do.

    One year later: Health care and our “Reform Reality”

    On March 21, 2010, one year ago today, my husband and I stayed up late watching the debate on health care reform stream on his computer. Even though I’d read all of the analyses about the advance vote count, I think I still held my breath when the roll call was winding down.

    No, of course it’s not a perfect bill.

    There were several versions I preferred to what finally passed, and I’m not excited about how long some of the most significant pieces will take to be fully implemented, especially as the country continues to grapple with rising entitlement expenses, a lagging economy, and frustration with Congress.

    But still.

    My kids will be able to stay on our health insurance until they actually finish college. I don’t have to worry that my genetic blood disease will make us lose our insurance. SCHIP is protected. We’ll see increases in preventative care investments. We’re closing the “donut hole” gap in Medicare prescription drug coverage. We’re trimming cost excesses in Medicare Advantage. We will finally stop losing ground, at least, on the rising ranks of the uninsured.

    It’s better.

    And, in addition to the tangible improvements it makes in our health care “system” (what we have now can’t really accurately be called anything like ‘systematic’!), health care reform also represents a triumph of policymaking against tremendous ideological, fiscal, and political odds. I don’t believe in the “better than nothing” school of thought, much, because I’ve seen too many cases where settling for a little meant that we never saw a lot.

    But this is better.

    And, so, on the one-year anniversary, when the vast majority of health care reform’s provisions are but directives to be specified and analyzed and codified by regulators within the Department of Health and Human Services, between now and 2014, I’m spending some time checking out the Reform Reality site created by the Health Care Foundation of Kansas City (for which there are billboards all around my town!).

    It’s a fully interactive site, with options to click to see how health care reform’s provisions affect those with different current positions in the system today. The content is similar to other sites, but I think it’s easier to engage here. You can see some of the expected fiscal impact, check out how reform aims to improve our nation’s health status (which is, after all, the ultimate measure of the success of any health care system), and link to organizations locally and nationally working on the aftermath of that day last March.

    Check it out, and then I want to hear from you. What do you think about health care reform, one year out? Where do you hope we are one year from now? What about health care reform excites you the most, and what were your greatest disappointments?