EVENTS
NY LEADERSHIP FORUM
On September 29, 2007, the American Democracy Institute convened 100 leaders for the New York Leadership Forum at the Helen and Martin Kimmel Center at New York University. This one-day program provided participants with high-level development, access to a growing national network of emerging leaders, platforms to promote ideas, and opportunities to collaborate with peers.
Featured Speaker
David Wilhelm was the featured speaker.
David has a background in politics and business; he is a former Chair
of the DNC and is currently the founder and president of Woodland
Venture Management that focuses on investments in rural areas
throughout the central United States.
Emerging Trends in New Media:
Moderator: Geronimo Rodriguez, VP of Diversity & Community Outreach, Seton Family of Hospitals
Panelists:
Charles Forman, Founder, iminlikewithyou; Michael Bassik, VP
Interactive Marketing, MSHC Partners, Inc.; Peter Greenberger, Team
Manager Elections & Issue Advocacy, Google; Dina Kaplan, COO,
Blip.tv
There is a slow but seemingly steady growth of the use of new media in
our work places and social networks. Often-times companies and
politicians still fear the inability to control the messaging that can
come though, although they are beginning to see the importance of
having a presence in this space. New Media can offer a word of mouth
network that is stronger then advertising, more direct and more candid
and has the potential to be targeted to specific and different
audiences whereas broadcast will warrant a more generic appeal. While
there is incredibly slow annual growth of political spending on the
internet it is still a tiny percent of the overall advertising dollars
spent. Corporations too spend considerably less on internet
advertising. Today, candidates, especially Presidential candidates, are
beginning to realize the importance of building an online audience that
is integrated with their offline events. They are realizing the power
that their blogging audience has, especially in disseminating
information and in moving the needle for a social cause or candidate.
Moving forward we can expect to see a continued growth in online
advertising, a tentative embracing of the blogosphere, and a look to
mobile as the next step in new media.
Partnerships & Collaborations:
Moderator: Declan Kelly, Chairman & CEO, Financial Dynamics
Panelists:
Priya Bery, Director of Strategy & Business Development, Virgin
Unite; Michael Madnick, Senior VP, UN Foundation; Scott Shalett,
Principal, Dewey Square Group
Partnerships are vital but are hard work. Not everyone comes to the table with the same agenda -- be honest with motives and work to bring about the greatest change. Each individual, corporation or government can not go it alone. They must often work together to accomplish greater results and even though each industry has its own language, patience, time and deliberation can unite them under the belief that together something bigger and better will be done. You must harness the capacity of all sectors.
When building partnerships and responding to issues, you will need to
realize the time line of action. If caused by natural disaster,
movement must be faster, relief packages must be supplied, protocols
must be set, but the public must also have a voice. With long standing
issues, partnerships have the ability to build policy for advocates and
stimulate markets for economic and strategic growth. They can also
influence markets and create space for government and business to work
together. Within each of these instances there is space for individuals
to get involved without having to make a career change. Very often
these same organizations and partnerships are in need of expertise in
various fields from drafting business plans, to grant writing to any
number of skills that help put together a partnership - including
access to deal flow.
Mobilizing Support:
Moderator: Jamal Simmons, President, New Future Communications
Panelists: Peter Colavito, Political Director, Local 32BJ, SEIU; Malia
Lazu, Executive Director, The Gathering for Justice; Jed Alpert,
Co-Founder & CEO, Mobile Commons; Joe Eyer, Principal, Dewey Square
Group
With mobilizing support we should never fall in love with a tactic,
some work better then others. We should invest our capacity on tactics
that build for the long term while using those that work for the
moment. Text messaging has enormous potential and has been actualized
well and successfully but can not be used on its own as a consistent,
strong mobilizing factor. With out the institutional building, the
infrastructure, we won't win - human contact is still extremely
important. We must also be mindful of over-saturation by too much
texting and emailing.
We need, as progressives, to zero in on what we now know and not try to
do everything. We need to put our money and energy into what will
bring, for certainty, people to the polls.
Launching & Incubating Ideas:
Moderator: Judith Zarin, Former Producer, ADI Board Member
Panelists: Joey Cheek, Founder, Where Will We Be? Team Darfur; Khalid
Reede Jones, Co-Founder & General Counsel, Thrasher Funds; Justin
Krebs, Co-Founder & Executive Director, Living Liberally; Erica
Payne, Founder & Principal, The Tesseract Group; Jon Schnur,
Founder & CEO, New Leaders, New Schools; Taz Tagore, Founder &
Executive Director, Reciprocity Foundation.
When launching and incubating your idea and plan, go to a place where you most believe in the people and leadership of the place or one that is doing the best work and learn from them -- don't assume that changing the world happens only in the nonprofit world. To successfully build your structure you must be deeply committed to your goal. You must understand the problem deeply, become experts and figure out, quietly, what works and what doesn't. Without that deep commitment it will be that much harder to build your network, find the funding, identify and hire the right team and use other organizations, where able, to help you achieve your goals.
