Unpaid Internships and Hill Experience

14 Nov

Posted by Kevin Bondelli as Issues

Most people familiar with government employment are well aware of the catch-22 of working for Congress: you need Hill experience to get a job, but you need a job to get Hill experience. For most people the only way to break into the ranks of Hill staffers is to get an unpaid internship.

Here is my problem with this situation. It is expensive to live in the Beltway, far too expensive for most young people to live there and work a job for no pay. This pretty much prohibits most prospective staffers from ever getting the experience needed to begin a career on the Hill.

Who is able to take advantage of these opportunities? The independently wealthy.

That’s one thing that Conservatives have managed to address brilliantly, while Progressives have lagged behind. Conservatives have created scholarships, institutions, fellowships, dorms, etc. for their young talent to make sure they have the opportunities to start a government career. We Progressives barely have anything that serves that purpose.

Two things need to happen:

Congress should offer more paid internships. First, it’s not very fair to capitalize on someone’s work without paying them. Second, everyone will be better off by enabling the Hill staff to become more diverse.
Progressives need to start building the infrastructure that supports the movement’s young talent. Young Progressives are a lot less likely to begin a career in the public sector than their Conservative counterparts since the institutional support is just not there.

What do you think should be done to solve this problem? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

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links for 2008-11-14

14 Nov

Posted by Kevin Bondelli as Links

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Internet Has Changed ‘Power of the People’ From Rhetoric to Reality

13 Nov

Posted by Kevin Bondelli as Online Organizing

Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations highlights the role that the internet has played in enabling people to self-organize for a purpose. We have seen this in practice during the Obama campaign and most recently Join the Impact, created in response to the passage of California’s Proposition 8.

Fight the H8 Join the Impact illustrates how online technology can bring people together across geographical boundaries, in this case to advocate for equal rights for gay and lesbian Americans and protest the passage of discrimination laws like Prop. 8. The website is built on WetPaint, a free website/wiki service. It allows supporters to create or find events in their local area, removing the need for a central organizer to plan and coordinate events themselves. Join the Impact is an example of the difference between planning events and advertising them versus giving anyone who visits the site the tools they need to create their own.

Everyone working with non-profits and political campaigns should take note of this new trend. There is a lot of power in the potential of self-organization. Organizations should think about creating websites that provide as many resources as possible for interested supporters to take the initiative on their own. One thing I would like to suggest, however, is that there is a person or people that are designated as something similar to an ombudsperson to answer questions and provide support. In a way that person would act as a community manager for the program. They don’t need to micromanage, or in some cases manage at all, but should be available and accessible for those that need a little help.

The internet has put a lot of power back in the people’s hands, it is important for us to acknowledge that and enable them.

What are your thoughts about self-organization and the role of the internet? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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links for 2008-11-13

13 Nov

Posted by Kevin Bondelli as Links

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Video Explaining User-Generated Government

12 Nov

Posted by Kevin Bondelli as Issues, User-Generated Government, Video

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User-Generated Government

12 Nov

Posted by Kevin Bondelli as Issues, User-Generated Government

Monday on Future Majority I wrote about some of the next steps the youth movement should take now that the election has passed. One of those steps is to work to bring government and campaigns into the 21st century. While the buzzword for this vision has been Government 2.0, I see it more as User-Generated Government.

The Obama transition appears to be moving in the right direction with the creation of change.gov, which allows visitors to submit their ideas about the direction our country should take. Though this is a step in the right direction, it is only that: a step.

I believe that technology’s role in the next generation of governance should increase transparency, allow for broader feedback, and make data easily accessible for user-generated mash-ups.

There have been some great examples of this idea at work, mostly in local communities. There was an article on Mashable earlier this week about the Apps for Democracy contest, which awards prizes to developers creating applications in this spirit from the District of Columbia’s Data Catalog.

These efforts have been taking place in the United Kingdom for some time now, with the Free Our Data and Show Us A Better Way campaigns.

I want to come back to the DC Data Catalog for a moment, because this is pretty much what I have in mind at the Federal level. The data is easily available in a searchable database in a variety of formats, making it a perfect source for creators of mash-ups or just interested parties that want to view current data. While at the Federal level each department could have their own data catalog, I think there should be a centralized usdata.gov that provides all of the data in a single location. The site should also highlight and share the best mash-ups and applications created from the data.

The internet has been instrumental in decreasing informational assymmetry, and such an effort by the government to open up their data and make it accessible would further that equality.

Moving towards a User-Generated Government will bring more people into the process as participants, as well as allow the cognitive surplus of the American public to address our challenges in new ways. Often the solutions to problems come after looking at them in a completely different light, and opening up the data lets Americans with varied expertises and perspectives take a crack at them.

What are your thoughts about a User-Generated Government? Share them in the comments.

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