RealPolitech: Pursuit, possession and application of people power. Online and off.

This last Friday, I presented on the topic of Online Technology and Social Media. Granted, I had the impression that the session attendees were already using some of what I may consider to be the basic social media platforms, Facebook and Twitter, but I realized about five minutes into my co-presenter’s thoughtful background on social media that most of the audience appeared to be lost.

After a few cries from the audience, I attempted to regroup and change my presentation to be a basic “how-to” on social media. I feel that this was a failed effort, since I did not have the appropriate materials to engage in such a presentation. Although I present on “stuff” like this all the time, I experienced a severe FAIL with this particular group. It bruised my presenter’s ego. As I left the gathering, I ran to the airport to catch a flight to San Jose, so thankful that I would be joining a bunch of people at Transparency Camp West who were totally immersed in social media, transparency and politics.

In retrospect, I can sum up my attitude in one word: crappy.

I run a firm where I am committed 100% to our attempt to engage ALL people, whether through online or mobile efforts. We engage in extensive outreach when we take on projects to make sure we include groups who are often excluded from online projects, and we are continually innovating behind the scenes to fill the gaps in modern day political participation. We build platforms that make sure to explain in simple “how to’s” how to use them. Yet, when embracing an audience that had yet to use these tools and was hesitant to, I became frustrated.

This attitude was a reflection of a larger cultural problem with the online world. We EXPECT people to catch up with the rest of us. We do not INVITE people to participate or enable them to do so. While everyday we read about the latest technologies on TechCrunch or ReadWriteWeb or tweet our way through life, we fail to realize that we just think that EVERYONE else is doing it too. Looking so towards the future and more innovation, we sometimes forget to stop and look at the present. And the present reveals that there are many people, of all ages, who do not know anything about these technologies, may have zero to limited digital literacy or have no one to teach them how to use them.

Even though we cannot physically sit down next to people and show them how to join these online communities and use these tools, we will at least virtually commit to teaching people how. We are going to launch a free series next week, which will last for eight weeks, on how to use these tools. More information about these webinars will be posted on our website later this week.

We all had to learn how to use this “stuff” at some point. Now, it is time for us to invite and teach others how to use it as well.