eekim.com: EEK Speaks

Sat, Jun 05, 2004

Joan Blades at PlaNetwork #

JoanBlades? just gave a great keynote at PlaNetwork. The first part covered MoveOn's history and accomplishments: (1HJ)

Wes and Joan's first email petition went to about 100 friends, and ended up reaching 1,000 people in a week. It eventually reached 500,000 people. (1HK)
MoveOn raised $2 million for the 2000 presidential campaign. The average contribution was $35. (1HL)
More than 300,000 members participated in the MoveOn primary (last summer, which HowardDean won), more than the New Hampshire and Iowa primaries combined. (1HM)
Over 1,000 people submitted commercials for the Bush in 30 Seconds contest, which were rated by 100,000 members and also field tested. (CBS refused to run the winning ad, Child's Play.) Joan showed six of the ads; great, great stuff. The talent and creativity of the contributions were clearly evident. (1HN)
Bake Back America was a nationwide bake sale that raised $750,000 dollars. Joan said, "It's the only bake sale ever covered by the Economist." (1HO)

Ultimately, the MoveOn mission is about connecting people. The bake sales, for example, helped a lot of people with progressive values who felt out-of-place in small towns discover other likeminded people in the same communities. She told several great stories from MoveOn's recent book, MoveOn's 50 Ways to Love Your Country, written by 50 members (selected out of 2,000 submissions). (1HP)

More quotes and highlights: (1HQ)

"Connecting takes us beyond the foolish dichotomy of right and left." (1HR)
"Politics on television is becoming indistinguishable from professional wrestling. There's lots of posturing and a detachment from reality." (1HS)
"The public sector has been hollowed out." It's been replaced by idealogues (neocons) and entertainers (Bill O'Reilly). However... (1HT)
The Internet is changing all of that by giving everyone a voice. "Connection puts us all on equal footing." (1HU)
Because of this change, the leaders of tomorrow need, "Strong vision, big ears." (1HV)
MoveOn did a nationwide survey, and found that there was a consistently strong message in all of the responses: a hunger for connection to core values, things like compassion, fairness, justice, opportunity, family, country, freedom, responsibility, and democracy. It reinforces Joan's assertion that... (1HW)
Progressive values are American values. (1HX)

Joan ended her talk with three suggestions: (1HY)

Lead from the heart. (1HZ)
Be bold. "The way to win is to be about something." (1I0)
Call to the best in all of us. (1I1)

/talks | Posted at 4:02pm

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EEK Speaks

A blog about collaboration, community-building, and the various goings-on at Blue Oxen Associates, with occasional digressions on food and other vital matters.