On October 13 a Twitter user named Bob Farnum
(@bobthegreenguy on Twitter) used the hashtag #vtEconNeeds to promote a live
tweeting event scheduled for October 21, where for 90 minutes Dean Corren
(@Dean_Corren) candidate for Vermont Lt. Governor would field questions and
offer conversation via Twitter regarding Vermont’s “creative economy.” During the next several days candidate Corren
offered various tweets such as “LT gov in Vermont ‘can be the incubator for
creativity’” and “doing nothing on health care is not an option”, all
hashtagged “vtEconNeeds”. We can debate
whether Twitter and the concept of a “live tweet” session is a suitable medium
to have a serious political conversation.
Twitter allows a user to express itself in 140 character bites and if
you are of the opinion that television sound bites ruined political discourse
during the past 50 years then you will really dislike the notion of political
discourse Twitter style. I will hand it
to candidate Corren, he is doing something other statewide candidates are not
doing and striding boldly into the Twitosphere to engage the creative
economistas. I give him an A for
creative effort.
There were less than 50 original tweets during the 90
minute session. 23 of these tweets were
from candidate Corren himself and some received some replies and resulted in an
actual twitter conversation. By my count
there were 15 of these conversations. I give that a B- for audience engagement. Many of the posts were retweeted but most
were just retweeted once by one person.
For whatever reason (perhaps simply poor promotion but possibly because
people just aren’t interested) there were few of Vermont’s creative class
participating at least in real time.
There were no notable Vermont creative class entrepreneurs participating
in the event from what I could tell although perhaps they were following along silently as some sort of creative class silent majority.
There were a number of posts about health care and about
cell service and bandwidth speed for broadband internet. I will not delve into those in the essence of
brevity. I agree there is much to
complain about in terms of health care and cell service and bandwidth
speed. Nothing new here and I don’t
think a live tweet is a good way to engage around these issues.
Let me dissect one of the Twitter conversations which I
found somewhat amusing. Hansen for State Rep (@OVTElection) noted in one tweet
“642 total Kickstarter projects from Vermont: 12 currently live, 376
successful. Let’s look at the 254 that didn’t make it!” Interesting notion here
as Kickstarter has become a way for non-profit and for profit entities to fund
startup projects, performances, novels, films etc. In my experience though (my firm periodically
studies the Kickstarter market in Vermont) there are many artistic endeavors and
projects seeking funding through Kickstarter and not so many for profit
business ventures. About 2 years ago we
looked at 179 Kickstarter projects. 20% were music (help me record my CD for
instance) and there was a slightly smaller percentage that were publishing
(help me publish my novel), and art (help me buy a kiln), and film and TV (help me
make my movie). In any event from what I
could tell none of the 179 Kickstarter projects we looked at then had much job
creation potential. Given that, I am not
sure why Hansen for State Rep wants to look at the 254 failed Kickstarter
projects. Presumably the failed projects
were not well presented, or of dubious value, or lacked the special something
that makes Kickstarter projects successful. Here’s the cold hard fact. The world is a
competitive place. Not all projects
deserve to be funded. The state has no
role in picking through the Kickstarter losers to see if there may be a diamond
in the rough. However candidate Corren tweeted back “imagine of the LT gov was a
clearing house for this kind of thing”.
Hmmmm I can in fact imagine that and the result is not pretty. But
@bobthegreenguy Tweeted back “Let’s look at the 376 successful ones too! What
are their needs? Funded businesses hire faster than unfunded”. As I pointed about above, few Kickstarter
projects are actually businesses. Many (in fact
most) are simply artistic projects or soloprenuerial at best. My opinion:
limited benefit to this approach from an economic development (#vtEconNeeds
remember) perspective. However, Hansen for State Rep tweets back “That’s a
terrific idea – the official state facilitator” and @health_citizen chimes in
“that’s the real type of facilitation we need from the Lt Gov job creation
facilitation”. Oh boy that is just where
I want my tax dollars going to work. I
want Vermont’s Lt Gov to become the ombudsman for failed Kickstarter projects. In terms of this conversation, my assigned
grade is F.
If a candidate wants to determine #vtEconNeeds, the platform for engagement is face to face on a grassroots level and the engagement is built conversation by conversation for many, many years. It's well known that to master something one needs to spend 10,000 hours (the equivalent of 5 full years of 40 hour work weeks) to achieve proficiency. My suggestion to Vermont candidates who wish to master #vtEconNeeds, is to start now and plan to run in 2020.
Cairn Cross
Cairn Cross
