Brigade.com revamped their new site. Unfortunately, they haven’t rolled out anything interesting. Let’s review their July, 2017 blog.
Lesson #1 — Most voters are not comfortable debating politics with strangers.
There have been many debate sites. In fact, every forum is a debate site! While debates can be interesting, most people not only don’t want to debate, but they aren’t very good at it. So their new feature: No more arguments!
Note: PeopleCount made the decision to leave arguments to forums 6 years ago.
Lesson #2 — Voters want to have political impact between elections
Good! And how do they want to do this? “New targeted petition tool.” I guess they didn’t know that petitions are always targeted. Change.org has been around for over ten years and has made zero difference in politics. In fact, politics has gotten worse! You just have very, very limited expression in a petition.
I’d love to be wrong. If there were a way that petitions could make a difference, you’d think they’d tell us how. Sure, a petition from citizens might sway a representative, but what
Note: PeopleCount recognized this from the beginning, so designed a 3-way communication tool. We propose you, your politicians and other voters stay in constant communication about the issues important to you.
Lesson #3 — Voters have power in numbers, but need organization to realize it.
Good! And their suggestion? Nothing… This point ends with:
Today’s civic leaders need … powerful online tools that lower barriers to building real political power where it ultimately matters: at the ballot box.
Wow! That sounds EXACTLY like PeopleCount! Too bad they don’t understand how accountability works…
Lesson #4 — Voters thrive on shared experiences
This, too, is true. But again, they don’t say how they’ll deliver it. They intend to:
help voters build deeper community on Brigade while also introducing better tools to .. real political power and impact
Do you know what they mean by “deeper community”? Neither do I… The “better tools” sound good, but I don’t see anything concrete behind this desire.
To me, “deeper community” comes from people discovering through their communication that they’re already a community! That’s what PeopleCount offers.
We’ve mapped out exactly how your online actions on PeopleCount will create real political power and impact.
Lesson #5 — Brigade will take over PeopleCount (Fake news!)
Naw, I made that up. As a Brigade user, they invited me for a phone interview about a year ago. I declined. I suggested I come up to their offices. So I did, and they interviewed me. I spilled all I could about PeopleCount and the interviewers were very interested. They promised they’d share with their management and I’d hear from them.
I was so excited, I forgot their names. They never called. I tried several times after that to reach someone there. I even tried to talk to their executives. I never got through.
When I tried the new site today, I entered a couple of suggestions. In one, I suggested they hire me and I’d guarantee them a million users in a year and ten million and profitability in two. I’d be willing to have those be the goals of my bonus plan. I have no idea why they don’t speak with me…
In another blog post from February, 2017, Brigade says:
civic tech is beginning to improve the machinery of democracy
Too bad there are no metrics that support this… yet…
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I have been a brigade user as well and I think your comments are insightful and correct.
What worries me is that you don’t seem to have any clue about what is really going on, who these specific people are, and more broadly, the movement/ intentions of the world around you.
I think you are far too naïve and emotionally involved with your project to be of any real use to people despite the many things that you say that are definitely true.
I’ve done a lot of research on politics and movements and talked to a lot of people.
> you don’t seem to have any clue about what is really going on, who these specific people are, and more broadly, the movement/ intentions of the world around you.
And what clue should I have? If you’re talking about Brigade people, then yes, they’ve declined to answer emails or take a call. I’ve talked to a number of people involved with “movements”. Many would be happy to use PeopleCount, but I’ve been unable to build it alone. Many don’t want to talk about something new- while none seem to be escaping politics-as-usual, they seem very sure they have all the clues.
You seem upset. You said you’re worried about my lack of clues. Thanks for that. I’d be happy to have you fill me in. My contact info is VERY easy to fine.
> I think you are far too … emotionally involved with your project…
I have a choice, to keep pushing my project ahead or give up. And I see no way of pushing PeopleCount forward without being emotionally involved. I don’t want to do something that doesn’t matter. And if it matters, though I can often work on it calmly and rationally, at times emotions arise. I’m not a writer, writing whether I feel like it or not. So I tend to write to take an emotional break.
> I think you are far too naïve and emotionally involved with your project to be of any real use to people
I doubt those thoughts will serve you well. I suggest you suspend those thoughts for a while and instead figure out what value you’d like to get from me, and write a positive letter.
I wrote my negative assessment of Brigade out of frustration. In the worst case, they’d ignore it. In the best case, perhaps it would provoke some actual contact. Perhaps it has…