Calling Constitutional Convention: Building Democracy 2.0 to Order

Greetings from Philadelphia!

The Mobilize team arrived last evening in this historic city, ready to join with young leaders from across the country for a groundbreaking summit about our founding document and how the Constitution is a framework for building Democracy 2.0. At this hour, over 75 participants, including 11 teams, are en route to the National Constitution Center to join this conversation and compete in a Democracy 2.0 grant competition.

But there is no reason why YOU can’t join us.

This morning, we launched a new home page at www.democracyupgrade.com that will give you the chance to know what is happening at the summit up-to-the-minute and allow you to participate in the conversation. We invite you to join us this weekend as we bring Constitutional Convention: Building Democracy 2.0 to you through various Web 2.0 platforms, from Flickr to UStreamTV and You Tube to Cover It Live.

The latest schedule of events is available (http://www.mediafire.com/?nliofmt2mdx) if you wanted to drop in during certain times. Tomorrow, for example, Congressman Murphy will be speaking at 9 a.m., and you can follow along on the live video stream and ask a question through the live blog. As our declaration states, democracy is an unfinished project.

Through the 2008 election, we, the Millennial Generation have been telling different story about civic engagement and what it means to be a citizen. This weekend, we have come to a place where “We the People” first began, to upgrade our democracy. We hope you will join us. - The Mobilize.org Team

A Generation of Dreamers and Doers

From New York Times Reporter John Schwartz, on a rise of entrepreneurship among college students across the country:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/education/edlife/innovationmain-t.html?_r=1&ref=edlife

"Today’s students have grown up hearing more about Bill Gates than F.D.R., and they live in a world where startling innovations are commonplace. The current crop of 18-year-olds, after all, were 8 when Google was ­founded by two students at Stanford; Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook in 2004 while he was at Harvard and they were entering high school. Having “grown up digital” (to borrow the title of Don Tapscott’s recent book on the Net Generation), they are impatient to get on with life.

“They’re great collaborators, with friends, online, at work,” Mr. Tapscott wrote. “They thrive on speed. They love to innovate.”

Obama: "America's First Online Social Networking President"

From Wednesday's Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/30/AR2008123003518_pf.html

"With some notable exceptions, federal Washington -- how agencies deal with citizens, the process in which policies and laws are created -- is stuck in the Encyclopaedia Britannica era. A relatively small group of editors and contributors is in charge. A growing portion of the country, however -- the Web-enabled set that swears by MySpace and YouTube (and note the emphasis on "My" and "You") -- lives by the wisdom-of-the-crowd, I-have-something-to-contribute ethos of Wikipedia.

In the same way that anyone can edit a Wikipedia entry, not only will Web-acculturated citizens speak their minds, but they also won't ask anyone's permission to do so.

It has been only a decade since an American president first used the Internet. In the mid-1990s, the Clinton administration created WhiteHouse.gov and ordered all federal agencies to get online. For the first time, the government used the Web to describe what it was doing in its own terms, bypassing media middlemen. George W. Bush's two terms brought podcasting, online chats and videos to the presidency's online presence."

Change Can Begin with YOU

With the inauguration around the corner, we have been asking ourselves
"What's Next?" How can we be a part of the change? In response to those
questions, this campaign calls for Americans everywhere to think about the
change they can make in their community in the coming year, then visit the
Case Foundation's web site and share this commitment with us ­ and the
world. The campaign is simple and easy. There is no idea too big or too
small.

Just by pledging to make a difference, one lucky individual will win an
all expenses paid Inauguration trip for two. This includes airfare, a three
night hotel stay, and tickets to the Inaugural ceremony and the Hawaii
Inaugural Ball. And, in the spirit of giving, this person will be set up
with a once in a lifetime opportunity to serve in Washington, D.C. as part
of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service.

The Change Begins with Me campaign is just the beginning of our year-long
effort to help transform inauguration excitement into community action. In
the coming months, the Case Foundation will connect commitment makers with
ongoing opportunities to serve, provide a venue for discussion and networking, share inspirational stories, invite participation with our civic-engagement programs and partners, and catalyze action through mini-grants and other incentives, including:

· A six month survey reporting on the status of commitments;

· Monthly spotlights on inspiring commitments to change;

· An Ask the Changemaker online chat and Q&A series, highlighting government and non-profit leaders at the helm of change efforts;

· Talk + Action = Change monthly mini-grants competition, where five $500 grants will be given away each month to passionate individuals with innovative ideas about simple ways to connect with others in their communities, talk about what's needed, and then take action together.

Financial Illiteracy is Not Merely Generational

Financial illiteracy is not just a problem of the Millennial Generation, but it has and will continue to become a problem that the generation will be forced to solve.


http://www.freep.com/article/20081216/OPINION02/812160340/1070/opinion02

There is an intergenerational problem with spending and credit in this country that has contributed to the current financial crisis. Members of the Millennial Generation may not necessarily be "bad with money" or "financially illiterate," but are victims of changed circumstances.

For example, state education is no longer at affordable prices in many states. That used to be one reason many young adults were able to go to college is because education at a state school was so affordable. Now, students are forced to take out thousands of dollars worth of loans or make the decision not to attend college. Further, especially today, stopping at a bachelors's degree does not seem like an option to many, and graduate level education, once again, seems like a "must have" to survive.

One might point out that many people who cannot afford to attend college simply do not go. One may claim they made a financially prudent choice. Yet, many Millennials who do not or will not attend college are also running into credit problems, and are barely able to make ends meet.

Millennials, on the whole, have access to a wider variety of information, both on and offline. Many are fully aware of the risks of taking on high-interest student loans or extending credit lines, but when the decisions of previous generations have left them with their hands tied, it is not always a choice to make perhaps imprudent financial decisions, but a necessity of the times in which we live.

Millennials have inherited financial illiteracy and will have to teach themselves how to overcome it.

The Fundamental Needs of a Millennial

I often ask myself “What are the fundamental needs of a millennial? What are the needs that we have that are unique to us, to where we are in life as a population?” If you are trying to mobilize a population and give them a distinct voice, I think you would have to base your efforts around what is fundamentally unique to them. Kind of like a Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, but specific for the 12-32 population. That’s what the AARP mostly does for the retired population and people 50 and older. They focus on health care and prescription drugs, social security, insurance, and financial planning. Those are the main issues for that population due to where they are in life.

I have come up with three main fundamental needs that are unique to where we are in life as Millennials:

1. Becoming individually self-sufficient
2. Making friends and starting our own family
3. Being a civically engaged citizen who gives back to our world.

These three areas are the bottom line for all the other issues we care about. They are the end product. They should be the foundation of what mobilizes our population.

Being individually self-sufficient is a major goal of our population. That’s why groups out there are fighting for issues like higher education access, lowering of debt, increased job opportunity, and affordable healthcare. It all leads back to economic self sufficiently. Reaching that point of economic freedom is huge a milestone for people in our generation.

Making friends and starting our own family is another major goal for our population. When we are young, having meaningful friendships is a vital part of life. But as we get older, meeting a special someone and getting ready for family life (however you define that), is something almost everyone eventually wants. That’s why social networking groups and online dating sites are so popular with our population. They help fill that need.

The third major need is being a civically engaged citizen who gives back to our world. We all want to discover our own political voice and stay informed on the issues that are affecting our community. We all want to have our say in what goes on in our government, at every level. We all want to play a part in creating the solutions that will makes peoples lives better.

I believe these three needs are what drive the millennial population. They are the end product. Any mobilization effort would be greatly improved if it recognized how their specific cause or program tied into these overarching needs.

In my next article, I will talk about the Six Fundamental Needs of a College Student, and how my organization, Student Advocacy Network, was created to define and address those needs. Access to higher education is a major contributor to fulfilling all three needs of a millennial: becoming individually self-sufficient, making friends and starting our own family, and being a civically engaged citizen who gives back to our world.

The Internet in 2020

The Pew Internet & American Life Project is out with its third report, "Imagining the Internet: A History and a Forecast" today, including hundreds of respondents from the field of computer technology with their thoughts on what the Internet will look like 11 years from now. From the executive summary, here are some key findings:

• The mobile device will be the primary connection tool to the internet for most people in the world in 2020.
• The transparency of people and organizations will increase, but that will not necessarily yield more personal integrity, social tolerance, or forgiveness.
• Voice recognition and touch user-interfaces with the internet will be more prevalent and accepted by 2020.
• Those working to enforce intellectual property law and copyright protection will remain in a continuing "arms race," with the "crackers" who will find ways to copy and share content without payment.
• The divisions between personal time and work time and between physical and virtual reality will be further erased for everyone who is connected, and the results will be mixed in their impact on basic social relations.
• "Next-generation" engineering of the network to improve the current internet architecture is more likely than an effort to rebuild the architecture from scratch.

Check out this site, http://www.imaginingtheinternet.org/, which includes the report.