#vtEconNeeds

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