Gavan Reilly

I’m sat at home watching Liverpool play Real Madrid in the Champions League right now, where Liverpool are doing a commendable job – as Man United did before them in Milan last night – of taking the game by its horns and rather than simply hoping not to lose, they are actively chasing victory. Liverpool know the score. Away goals count double and even if they lose tonight, a small loss coupled with a priceless away goal will go a long, long way towards advancing and overcoming a major obstacle.

The attitude is summed up very well by Eamon Dunphy at half time, who casually remarks (as Dunphy does) that “many teams go to the Bernabéu having already lost”, a very succinct remark indeed: many teams are so fazed by having to take on the Spanish giants in front of 80,000 of their own fans that they’re already writing off the chance of success.

While I was listening to the half-time commentary I happened to log into Twitter where the hubbub over the launch of Fianna Fáil’s new website was beginning to hit full swing. They’d invited Joe Rospars, who was in charge of New Media on the Barack Obama Presidential campaign. The press release that was circulated publically, asking bloggers to come along – and to bring friends – was as follows:

Strawberry Media are pleased to organise an open seminar with Joe Rospars, founding partner of Blue State Digital and New Media Director of the Barack Obama Presidential Campaign.

Joe will be discussing the lessons of the Obama campaign, how it can be applied in other fields, and will take a Q&A on his talk. Attendance at the seminar is free.

This event is open to all, and would be particularly suited to bloggers and those interested in technology and politics. Numbers are limited, so please register your interest below if you are able to attend.

The event takes place at the Camden Court Hotel, Dublin City Centre at 6pm on Wednesday, February 25th. Click here for a Google Map to the venue.

You’ll notice, unfortunately, that there’s no mention of Fianna Fáil. Nor is there a mention that Strawberry Media, the “communications powerhouse” handling the event, is run by Cllr Damien Blake, a Fianna Fáil councillor in Letterkenny (a decision I still can’t really absorb – even with the FF connections, why have a Donegal-based company operate a Dublin event? Surely FF have better connections or abilities than farming out an event to a councillor who, although having the expertise to run it, is based hundreds of miles away?).

The following, meanwhile, was the substance of the Fianna Fáil release to party members plugging the event:

Fianna Fáil invites you to an audience with Mr. Joe Rospars, Founding Partner of Blue State Digital and New Media Director of President Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.

In that capacity he oversaw all online aspects for the unprecedented communications and grassroots mobilisation effort undertaken by the Obama campaign.  Mr. Rospars has also helped lead Governor Howard Dean’s hugely successful new media campaign for the 2004 presidential election and worked with Governor Dean at the Democratic National Committee.

Mr. Rospars is in Dublin to announce the formation of an agreement between Fianna Fáil and strategy and technology firm Blue State Digital to work on the development of the new Fianna Fáil website.  The new website will be launched tomorrow and will develop further in the weeks and months ahead.

To mark the occasion Fianna Fáil will be hosting a presentation by Mr. Rospars on his work with President Obama in the Camden Court Hotel on Wednesday 25th February 2009 at 6pm.  We would be delighted if you could join us for this event.

A very different tone, mentioning the words ‘Fianna Fáil’ four times. Clearly one that lets on that it has nothing to hide.

The question arises, why would Fianna Fáil want to give such mixed messages? Surely Fianna Fáil must be aware of the negative public sentiment out there for them; the opinion polls putting them into third place behind Labour surely ring testament to that. Surely, also, they must be aware of the demi-deity that any association with Barack Obama carries.

Why, then, if Fianna Fáil are making the concerted effort (which, I have to say, I do applaud; it’s not perfect but Christ, it’s a start, and from the party’s perspective they’re better off making political hay while they need the boost, and not while plateauing at the top) to seem like they’re changing their ways, starting up an official Facebook group, YouTube channel, Twitter feed and Flickr account, not want to associate themselves with the fact that Joe Rospars was in town, and speaking? Why not pitch the event as an interactive Q&A with bloggers themselves, answering questions on online policy aswell as taking suggestions from bloggers and Twitterers on what they’d most like to see on the site?

It nearly seemed like it was an impossible thing to do, but somehow Fianna Fáil have managed to come out of this whole event – the culmination of what I’m sure is a lengthy build and co-ordinative process in launching a new site and social media network – in lesser standing than they entered. How couldn’t they think that by mentioning their own name and that of Barack Obama in the same breath, that they would surely be seen in better light?

Damien Blake, to his credit, is currently trying to tackle the online hullaballoo head-on over at his own blog. He does, however, state that

“This wasn’t the launch of the Fianna Fáil website.”

But…

“The new website will be launched tomorrow [the message being sent on the previous day] and will develop further in the weeks and months ahead.”

To suggest that the event wasn’t supposed to be a plug for the new website, or to showcase what was there, is a fallacy – and I don’t need to have been there to state that. It’s pure, unadulterated hypocracy. The event wasn’t a FF website launch, but they launch the website the same day as they have an event to announce that the Obama Web Guy is working with them? Such semantics don’t have a place when a hugely valuable outlet is coming out of incubation at a time when FF so badly need a boost.

Liverpool played the game, and won 1-0. Rafa Benitez’s type of football isn’t pretty, but it gets the job done. Maybe that’s the biggest lesson Fianna Fáil need to take from this shocking, shocking waste.

Edit: the Irish Blogs cluster will be appearing soon – keep an eye on this and have a read of the thoughts of Damien, Suzy, Green Ink, and Slugger O’Toole.

“Dublin Bus drivers would have a far better case to go on strike if they tried working to their timetables every so often.”

Discuss.

For lunch today I popped into town to meet the missus, as a break from the educational humdrum that has returned to our lives with alarming ease. Over grub we ended up chatting – as we invariably do – about politics and the disinterest of the youth.

Now, I’ll preface this thought by saying that I’ve always thought the voting age in the Western World was too high to begin with – and for those of you who may not agree, I recommend going to have a watch of the West Wing episode called A Good Day. If you argue that kids are open to being intimidated or co-erced into voting a certain way (“Vote Green and get €10 free call credit!”), I challenge you to show me an adult who wouldn’t react likewise. What’s the difference between offering a kid free phone credit, and offering an adult a tax cut?

But I digress. We ended up talking about how the youth today seem to be becoming polarised into those who are more politically aware than their predecessors, and a worrying, higher number of people, perceivably female, who are opinionated but casually unaware about how politics might shape their worlds and how their opinions, if acted upon, might effect change.

The age of childhood innocence is dangerously close to complete abandonment: through nobody’s fault in particular, the times where kids weren’t sexually aware at eight or nine, or active by twelve or 13, are over. There’s no point in pretending otherwise or attempting to act in reversing this; it’s just the way it is. But with this comes a greater worldlyness. Last year at work we ran a few day tours around UCD for disadvantaged kids from the northside, and even amongst those nine-year-olds there was a latent disapproval for the Lisbon Treaty and what it meant for Ireland. Though their concerns were entirely unrelated to the Treaty, they were (though in not as many words, of course) duly concerned about the role of European integration in having foreigners coming into Ireland and taking the jobs that their parents and elder siblings would gladly have taken themselves. And this was in nine year olds! Don’t ever try to tell me that young people don’t care about politics. I challenge you to visit a USI Congress and tell me the youth don’t care any more, or to go to Noel Rock’s campaign website – Noel is 21 and running for Dublin City Council in Artane-Whitehall – and tell me we don’t care.

Our schools – though they don’t do a great job at it – even teach people how to become more politically aware. Every single Junior Cert student in the country is taught a basic curriculum in Civic, Social and Political Education – where they’re taught the basic history of each party, the role of the courts, How A Bill Becomes A Law, and the importance of getting involved. Now, the curriculum isn’t without its faults – why only teach people about party history or mention how people get elected, but not go into ay political theory? Why mention that Ireland became a republic under Fine Gael but not mention what republicanism is, or unionism, or socialism, or capitalism? CSPE ought to be a child’s crash-course to creating a more active society where every social structure is under constant review to make sure it’s the best option for the society of its times.

Regardless, kids are more astute at a far younger age – and at 15 or 16, they’re taught about politics, the number of TDs, the election of parties, how coalition works, and all of this – and then, once they sit the exam (which doesn’t even have the Pass/Honours divide – you can’t be an Ordinary Level Citizen or Higher Level Citizen…) they take up part-time jobs where they’re taxed and treated like adults, but never given the choice either to vote for those who decide how their tax is spent, nor put their learning of the political world into reality.

If any of you readers reckon the voting age is perfect as it is, leave me a comment – I’d love to hear why you think so.

So, today’s the day. Blue Monday has been and gone and a proper Blue Tuesday dawns upon us. As if you needed reminding, today’s the day that Barack Obama becomes the 44th President of the United States. Frankly there’s no escaping it – front page stories, homepage homages, radio rebuttals and television topics worldwide are all eminate to one story today.

While nobody should realistically expect Obama to be the be-all-and-end-all as regards the message of change and reform of the west’s creaking political establishments, Obama’s inauguration does bring – if only for a little while – the prospect of tangible change, where no longer do we have a Leader of the Free World™ whose inarticulation makes for an easy scapegoat in the current problems the world finds itself, but rather a bestselling author, noted academic, and the personal embodiment of everything the 2009 zeitgeist demands of its leaders.

For me the highlight of Obama’s historic rise to the top of the political pile was the surpassing and genial use that he and his campaign made of the social networks and media that we, as citizens of the third millennium and the information age, use to talk to each other. Obama & Co had their fingers on the pulse to know that traditional media was becoming too fragmented for it to be the exclusive source of campaign news for voters, and that only enormous media buys – nailing down a half-hour segment on every main TV network in the run-up, for example – would be enough to get people onside. They knew that a speech couldn’t be mediocre for it to be well-received: in the age of YouTube, every word of every speech was always available. Thus, they embraced the means that you and I use to talk to each other: social networks, microblogging, social video networks. Obama nobly sacrificed climactical style for emotive and political substance in his speeches and made them all available online, and set up a notable – and what’s more, active – presence on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. The results were phenomenal: by Election Day Obama had 125,000 followers on Twitter (he currently has 140,000 exactly), 3 million fans on Facebook and half as many again on MySpace. By talking to people on their own means, and in their own time, Obama bypassed the need to have people pay attention when he wanted them to.

Since election, however, these channels have sadly become little more than heartfelt souvenirs of the epic campaign that had long passed. While the Office of the President-Elect has set up a very Web 2.0-esque website at change.gov – including YouTube and Twitter accounts – the level of interactivity and responsiveness of these accounts has been sorely lacking. Fireside chats posted on YouTube are all well and good – well, to be fair, they’re better than well and good – but active consultation with the citizenry who spawned such critical and spirited debates with each other is quite another matter indeed.

Frankly, there are a few steps in online life that every elected public representative, no matter how menial or trivial their work, should be taking – and largely it’s a blueprint that Obama himself laid out, which others have since taken to the levels they ought to aspire to. Firstly, every politician ought to be on Twitter (and I mean every politician) – but not only should they have an account that they use, they should Tweet more actively and more honestly. Don’t do what Obama did and merely say “At a Vote For Change rally in Raleigh, NC. Watch online at (link)”. Say something like:

Voting on the Dáil floor on vital amendments to the Anglo Irish Bank Bill. Enjoyed the tense and spirited debate here today.

Be open, be accountable, but be honest. What people hate most about politicians is that they all seem so uniformly phlegmatic and without really empathy or emotion. Twitter – even if you use it the shallow way and ignore responses – is the perfect response. (Responding to your @ replies would be a bonus too, but take one step at a time. John Culberson literally can’t keep up with the replies he gets as a Texan congressman.)

Of course, no politician should be ever allowed to hold a public office without keeping a blog (frankly it should be mandatory). Even if your posts are far less frequent than they should be, just try to take out a half-hour a month to write about what you’ve been up to that your constituents won’t know about; what your priorities are; what anecdotes you’ve been told that you think deserve a wider audience… just blog! For the love of God, blog! Think of it like your Twitter but without the crummy character limit. You have as much time as you want to air your personal thoughts to the world, outside of the constraints of the traditional media – use it. Supplement your canned press releases with more honest follow-up on why your local area needs the new childcare facility you’ve secured, or how the rezoning of local land will help the people you’re elected to serve.

If you’re undertaking something that words can’t describe, open a Flickr. This is perhaps the most invaluable thing that Barack Obama’s team brought to the electoral playbook, as far as the public are concerned: since the account was opened, and posted pictures of that chilly morning when the skinny kid with the funny name said he wanted to be President, Obama’s team have posted 53,526 photos of the campaign – every pit-stop, every photocall, every behind-the-scenes gaffe, and even the moment when the networks called the election and John McCain broadcast his concession to the world. Again, people see politicians as being too robotic and without emotion to have touching moments like that, it’s why there was such uproar at the “terrorist fist-jab” Obama and Michelle shared onstage.Show yourself to the person you are.

And finally, use the social media that the people use. Set up a profile on Facebook and its competitors, and set up a page where people can pledge their suppotr to you. Set up groups – “Senior Citizens for Obama” or whatever. A politician is lucky to have people set up unofficial supporters clubs for them – but how much better is a supporters’ club going to be if it’s run and operated by you, and where the talking points and overall discussion are on matters that you, as the public figure and as the owner of the group, lay down for it? There may well have been a “Students for Obama” group without the team needing to set one up – but if you control the meeting space, you can manipulate it so that your followers will do whatever you need them to.

On a momentous day like today it hurts to remember that I’m a young Irishman; I’ve never seen my country be the centre of the world stage for all the right reasons. I’ve never had a public figure grab my attention and sway my emotions like those in the United States have had. I don’t have a Barack Obama – and even if I buy into him, he doesn’t rule my country. Any positive effects Obama might have on Ireland will be entirely accidental.What could come from this incredible era, though, is that the only man who the whole world regards as a role model, could make this incredible leap to the 21st century where every public figure, every public body, every office and department, recognises the power of their public and online presence, and spread its Gospel.

Imagine leaving behind a world where everyone who had a responsibility to the public, showed the public how seriously they took it, and made us feel more educated along the way? Now that would be a legacy someone could be proud of.

Mr Obama, I wish you well, and I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you.

You don’t have to be there for very long to realise that despite their incessant, crippling urge to bureaucratise things like breathing and eating, the Germans have a tradition of doing things in a very sensible way.

Nowhere is this more visible in their rail system. Today* we were standing on the platform at the Hauptbahnhof waiting for our S-Bahn back to the airport. On the screens at the platform, we were advised (bilingually) that the rear section of the train would be the one going to the airport, while the front half would be splitting and heading onward. Hence, passengers should board the train “in the A section”. How was the A section signified? There was a sign at that end of the platform.

“The train will arrive in three minutes.” And it did.

“The train will arrive at the airport in 51 minutes.” And it did. And the airport itself? Voted the best in Europe for the last four years: easily laid out, open, warm, airy, well spaced out, and never cramped. All this from a city with a population of about 1.3m, not a huge amount bigger than Dublin’s.

Compare this to Ireland where you’d be lucky to predict which platform any train might arrive or leave from on an hourly basis; where trains cost more than the minimum daily wage, and where combination tickets for more than one public transport service involve brittle, unreliable swipe tickets that don’t work on most buses. And don’t get me started on Dublin Airport – though, to its credit, Terminal 2 really ought to be referred to as Terminal 4, because piers A and D would be named as terminals anywhere else in the world, not least for the reason that you could fit small eastern European republics between the check-in desks and the departure gates.

And that’s not the only example. When the Germans built roads, they did it the right way – big, wide, open, and with no speed limit (I don’t advocate their complete abolition, but when was the last time you heard of a fatal collission on a motorway?). In Spring of 2007 when I lived there, VAT was raised across the board. Now, when the economy gets sluggish? They’re cutting it again. Put more money in peoples’ pockets, and they have more to spend.

Clever, clever people? Not really – just a country who understand that the earlier you spend money, the cheaper a project becomes, and with the profound sensibility to simply think things through.

* which is now yesterday, as I couldn’t get online to publish this post.