What Would Google Do_ - Jeff Jarvis [118]
When I toyed with this notion on my blog, one commenter, TV-industry analyst Andrew Tyndall of the Tyndall Report, saw potential for reducing the power of the left-right pigeonholes in which we’re too often stuck. Those pigeonholes, he said, make it
so much more difficult to form coalitions with those at radically different parts of the ideological spectrum—with born-again Christians who are leading activists on HIV/AIDS or Darfur genocide; with Wall Street free traders who want to liberalize immigration with Mexico; with Cato Institute libertarians who want to legalize narcotics; with centrist Democrats like Jeff Jarvis who want universal healthcare; with neoconservative ideologues working to replace autocrats and theocrats with democrats in the Middle East; with non-partisan bureaucrats like Michael Bloomberg who want to switch transportation from cars to mass transit.
Personal political pages allow each of us to escape from the conventional left-right authoritarian-libertarian divisions of the political parties and the opinion pollsters. They allow us to align ourselves on each issue discretely, forming ad hoc, opportunistic coalitions not binding ones.
The moment Facebook was translated into Spanish (with the help of its community), it was used to organize campaigns in Colombia against FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) guerillas. Facebook was used to build a youth army for Barack Obama’s run for the White House. Facebook’s Causes is used to help the public gather support for issues. The internet and Wikipedia are used to inform the electorate. Meetup is used to help organize voters. These are tools that can help us collaborate and manage our government. Google and company aren’t taking over Washington. They’re helping us take over.
Exceptions
PR and lawyers
God and Apple
PR and lawyers: Hopeless
When I suggested on my blog that there were three industries immune from rehabilitation through Googlethink, my readers disagreed about one—insurance, which spawned an earlier chapter. But nobody disagreed about PR and law. I won’t turn this into a joke about flacks and lawyers—there are plenty of those already (go to Google, search for “lawyer jokes,” and enjoy). Instead, I’ll use this opportunity to examine a few of the key tenets and prerequisites of Googlification through the exceptions that prove the rules.
The problem for public relations people and lawyers is that they have clients. They must represent a position, right or wrong. As they are paid to do that, the motives behind anything they say are necessarily suspect. They cannot be transparent, for that might hurt their clients. They cannot be consistent, for they may represent a client with one stance today and the opposite tomorrow, and we’ll never know what they truly think. In a medium that treasures facts and data, they cannot always let facts win; they must spin facts to craft victory. They must negotiate to the death, which makes them bad at collaboration. It’s not their job to help anybody but their clients. They are middlemen. They won’t admit to making mistakes well; clients don’t pay for mistakes.
Having said that these folks can’t be reformed according to Google’s ways is not to say that they can’t use the tools we’ve reviewed to their own benefit. Some already do. Many lawyers blog (see a selection at Blawg. com). Like venture capitalists, they find value in talking about their specialties, giving advice, attracting business, branding themselves, and sometimes lobbying for a point of view. Some can be counted on to cover legal stories with valuable experience, background, and perspective. Lawyers are a smart bunch who—surprise!—can write in English instead of legalese. Still, when a law blogger advises me to check my made-in-China tires for problems, I’m also aware that he’s on the prowl for class-action clients. Law is business.
Some lawyers have taken advantage of online networking