CCIA Public Policy & Government Affairs Senior Director
Dan O’Connor joined experts from Twitter and online democracy groups on a “Future
of Social Media for Citizen Advocacy” panel discussion, part of Reboot
America’s recent Washington conference. Happening just days after
the U.S. election and moderated by former Washington Post and Politico
correspondent Kim Hart – now director of corporate communications at Neustar –
the session had a decidedly political bent.
“Real time collaboration and coalition forming used to take
a huge amount of political and economic capital to raise,” said O’Connor, who
heads the CCIA-affiliated DisCo (Disruptive Competition) project. “Now Twitter
and social media have really lowered the transaction cost for getting
involved.”
Fight for the Future board member Marvin Ammori agreed,
hinting admiration for even extreme cases like “social shaming apps” that mine
users election records to target mobile alerts goading them into voting this
time around.
To show the depth and speed of “real time
engagement” this election cycle, Twitter’s strategic partnerships chief Mindy
Finn cited a “four more years” tweet just seconds after the race was called:
Complete with a picture of the president and first lady, the message almost
immediately became the most retweeted in history.
Reboot America is a national movement of corporations and
emerging startups to convene around issue like innovation, sustainability,
citizenship, healthcare and security to face our country’s challenges. It held
its 2012 Summit November 8 and 9 in Washington, DC
For longstanding impact, O’Connor highlighted DisCo case
studies like the congressional OpenGov initiative to crowd-source input at
legislative drafting sessions. “If you can get more people involved up front to
help troubleshoot the implications and map out the advantages and pitfalls,”
O’Connor told the crowd in the Ronald Reagan Building & International Trade
Center’s main amphitheater. “you’ll get better legislation and more transparency.”
