Automated Voice: Recording has started. David Abel: Well, hello and welcome to the politics online expert interview. I’m David Abel, and today’s guest is Zephyr Teachout, a former online strategist for the Howard Dean campaign who’s now a paid consultant as well as a fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet Law and Society. Zephyr, great to have you with us today. Zephyr Teachout: Great to be here. David Abel: Well, let’s get started right away, and maybe you can set the record straight for, once and for all for everyone. Do you think the infamous Dean scream that was spread throughout the world via the internet, did that kill the candidate, or was he already breathing his last few breaths before that took place? Zephyr Teachout: Oh, I think he’d already fallen out of the sky. It’s an extraordinary symbol, and so it caught people’s imaginations. I mean, there’s a few different things that went on, things that I think we could’ve done a lot better in the campaign. And what I actually focus on more is separate from the question of what we could’ve done in Iowa or New Hampshire in terms of our sphere, the internet, we were already seeing some slowing of growth in our online campaign, even previous to Iowa. So the stuff that I’m sort of puzzling and focused on is things that we could’ve done better around that. Does that make sense? David Abel: Yeah that does. And let’s move on to Dean as chairman. Do you think that the energy and the activist that he traded online, do you think he’s doing a good job of bringing that into the party as the new chairman? Zephyr Teachout: Well, he’s pretty new there. And I think what he’s really focused on now is some much more sort of nuts and bolts work within the state parties, the basic infrastructure at the state party level. Now, of course, the newness and the infusion of new people comes when the state parties themselves start reaching out in new ways. And I trust that’s, you know, starting to happen. So it’s not necessarily him on a national level, although, I think that is happening. It’s also him sharing these ideas with say the Florida or Vermont or South Carolina, what have you, state chair, ways to get new people involved, if that makes sense. David Abel: Okay. Well, let me ask you one question that our intern here was dying to ask you who – Zephyr Teachout: Who’s your intern? David Abel: Who’s looking at you as a role model. Her name’s Emily Miller, and – Zephyr Teachout: Hi, Emily. David Abel: She’s down from Bucknell University – Zephyr Teachout: Uh-huh. David Abel: Just for the summer. But she looked at an article in October 2003, and it described you as an attorney with “virtually no net experience” – Zephyr Teachout: That’s true. David Abel: “Before starting the Dean campaign.” And that’s kind of how she came to us with virtually no net experience. And so her question is how did you go from a student of the internet to what you are now, a specialist, almost overnight it seems like? Zephyr Teachout: Well, there’s an interesting article a couple months ago in The Economist, which I thought was – this is sort of related to this question; I’ll get back to the specific question – which said that the first people online in any particular category, be it media or business or what have you, were computer geeks who loved the technology and came to the internet for the technology. And then gradually the sort of second wave of people – and I’m part of that second wave – are not technologists at all. They’re using the internet because it’s the tool they have available. And I still don’t, you know, I still see the internet very much as sort of a new tool, not as an end in of itself. So I want to get offline as quickly as possible. I don’t love sitting around hitting refresh, although, I spend plenty of days, you know, with F5. So I think that part of the reason for my success and other people who are sort of in the second wave is that we approach it as okay, what is the problem we need to solve? Not what cool thing can the internet do? What problem does podcasting solve? Not oh my god. Podcasting is the coolest tool in the world. David Abel: I’m one of the geeks who are on the cool side. So I’ll try to identify, but go on. (Laughter) Zephyr Teachout: (Laughter) Right. So I mean I really sell into my role in the Dean campaign. I’ve told this story before. But I came up, I was a ___ lawyer in North Carolina, and I had heard that Howard was running, and I had known him from before. I had worked for him before and think he’s a wonderful man, one who could be my President. I wanted to work for a political campaign, so I wrote about eight letters. Nobody responded. So I auctioned off all my stuff and drove up and started working. My first job was, my first paid job on the campaign was organizing seventeen states, the traditional field job not a – David Abel: Okay. Zephyr Teachout: Not an internet job at all. And I was swamped with emails, phone calls. And some of the first stuff that we did I wasn’t thinking of it as an internet tool. It was using the internet to recruit people to work for free on the campaign. Sending out emails saying, “Who’s willing to answer, you know, for the state of South Carolina, for ten hours a week and, you know, really take on a local volunteer position?” That ended up along with a whole bunch of other things, leading to real empowerment at the local level and was seen as an internet effort because it was impossible without the internet. But there wasn’t anything fancy about it. It was Yahoo ___ and email and variations on that. And then as I started engaging in this community. People had real needs. Like the Democrats in Georgia wanted to be able to organize meetings online and, beyond Meet Up, which provides some tools for organizing meetings. And so they started using, and actually started using GOP Team Leader, which is the Republican website – David Abel: Right. Zephyr Teachout: To do some of the sort of stuff they needed to get done. So we built pools because our grassroots leaders asked us to. And they really, I mean they would give us the general specs, if you think about it as a requirements process, which I’m afraid, I only learned much later. We were basically going through a requirements process with a hundred thousand people and then building tools for them. You didn’t need any background in technology for somebody to tell you, “What I really want is something that when I go here it says this.” And so and then we just hired technologists to make it work. David Abel: Well, let’s move on to some things you’re currently doing now for those of us who have never been a Harvard fellow. Would you explain what you’re doing at the Berkman Center? Zephyr Teachout: Sure. If you’re a fellow at the Berkman Center, it means that you’re allowed to use their library and set up your computer and nobody will chase you away. (Laughter) David Abel: (Laughter) Zephyr Teachout: Other than that, you could probably go to the Berkman Center and nobody would chase you away anyway. It’s, I mean, more than anything, I was post-election. I’m a Democrat, and I was disappointed after the election. I was sort of looking around for a chance to be reflective. And the Berkman Center’s a great place to explore a lot of ideas and find people who are doing other things. It’s not really a paying, I mean I do get a small stipend; but I need to make my living elsewhere. And I’ve used it to connect with people who are working on this project called Global Voices, which is supporting and connecting bloggers from around the world. I don’t know if you’ve seen any of these studies, but U.S. bloggers tend to be even more U.S. focused, navel gazing, than U.S. mainstream media. And I’m somewhat concerned about that, would love to encourage more of our online media being even more diverse than our mainstream media, diverse in topics covered. And I’ve also been doing some research and looking into the alkida’s use of the internet. And then, you know, just sort of picking up various research projects. I’m a lawyer, so I’m writing a law review article, too. I can’t stay away too long. (Laughter) David Abel: I understand. You’ve got to pay the bills somehow. Zephyr Teachout: Right. David Abel: Well, and that’s something that we have picked up here, that is Global Voices. And I’ve noticed just from our RSF ___, I can tell how many people have subscribed using blog lines. Zephyr Teachout: Uh-huh. David Abel: And it went from like two to, I don’t know if you know where those numbers are, but two hundred really quickly. Zephyr Teachout: Now – Zephyr Teachout: I can tell there’s a lot of interest in Global Voices. But one of, the general question I had was about the language barriers. David Abel: Yeah. Zephyr Teachout: How do you get around finding out about things when you don’t always speak the language? David Abel: Well, and there’s a few different answers to that. One is, the biggest one is that Global Voices is primarily focused on what Ethan and Rebecca call “bridge bloggers.” People whose goal, in whatever country they may be – Nigeria or Syria – their goal is to communicate what’s going on in their country to people outside of their country. So bridge bloggers tend to write in, if not English, English, French, Spanish, some language that is already outward looking. So it’s instead of having hundreds of languages that we’re really looking at, we’re talking about just a few, you know, five or ten that we need some expertise in. With that said, it doesn’t mean translation isn’t a huge issue. We’re looking to recruit people who speak those languages to help get into those communities. I’m retaking French to try get back up on my French so I can read the Moroccan bloggers. But ideally it wouldn’t be me reading doing a roundup of North African blogs. It would be somebody in North Africa who’s bilingual, who can do a roundup of blogs in English and French and somebody who is from that area. One way, there are a lot of different angles to Global Voice. One way I see it is that Global Voice is sort of like an agent for freelance storytellers around the world. And because of Rebecca’s connection to mainstream television stations and mainstream newspapers, she and Ethan can be really successful agents for people whose voices would not otherwise be heard. At the same time, it’s an extraordinary resource, you know, for all who like to be around mainstream journalists and mainstream media. They’re really overworked and because of, in large part, because _____ we were under-resourced because there isn’t the same revenue stream. So we’re trying to make it easier and cheaper for people to get access to great and meaningful stories. David Abel: Has mainstream media picked up on anything you’ve done and actually acknowledged that you’re a resource for them? Zephyr Teachout: No, I don’t, it’s a really, it’s in the really early phase. I know Rebecca’s really focused on trying to figure a way to track that, not just because it’s a way to measure Global Voices’ success but also because if you’re going to go to somebody in Singapore and say, “Hey, spend some time translating or doing a roundup of some of these bloggers,” then we want to give them some reason to think that they’ll be heard because of it. So that’s, which is really in the early stages, but there is a lot of excitement around it I think because there’s a lot of hunger for stories from the rest of the world, not just pictures of famine, but real human stories and real human voices. David Abel: What about the opposite end, the people you’re reporting on? Do you think that there’s a hunger for democracy, and the internet is acting as a medium for that to help spread it? Or is that just something that all of us hope is happening? Do you have any thoughts on that? Zephyr Teachout: (Laughter) Whoa! I can’t speak to the world. I mean every region of the world is so specific. I think that in a lot of parts of the world, that’s true; and you do see South Korea as a really inspiring example of that. You know, my own sense is that, and I don’t know enough about this, but that you go to lots of parts, there’s a hunger for democracy that has nothing to do with the internet. It does enable a lot of strong connections and new kinds of coalitions, new kinds of unions, if you will. Of course, those can, people can organize around all kinds of different things. And one of the things I’ve been interested in is radical Islam online, and there’s really strong communities around that. So don’t discount radical bureaucracy when you’re talking about new ways in which people are going to use the internet. I just think it means that it’s all the more important for those of us who care about civic society to support the connections between people who are interested in building civic society as opposed to the radical bureaucrats. David Abel: Well, let’s talk about one more radical issue in the news. And that’s the, I’m sure you’re probably aware of the House bill to ban municipal broadband. And I don’t know if you’ve had much time to research it, and I don’t know if our listeners have either. But basically it’s HR2726, and it’s called “Preserving Innovation in Telecom Act.” Zephyr Teachout: (Laughter) I love these names. David Abel: Well, it does have a rather catchy name to it, but it’s talking about doing away with municipal network services. Zephyr Teachout: Yeah. David Abel: And have you been able to study this? Zephyr Teachout: No, and what I’ve heard is that it’s bad. But I don’t like speaking about things until I know – David Abel: Right. Zephyr Teachout: More about them. So you know my gut reaction is it’s yet another super protectionist effort. But again, I don’t know enough about it so. David Abel: Well, here’s one final question, and you might not know either. But what does the future hold for Zephyr Teachout? Are we going to see you again in 2008? Or are you going back to work with a firm? Or what are you thinking at this point? Zephyr Teachout: I’m not sure. I’m settled in Burlington, Vermont, which is great. I’m from Vermont. My nephews and nieces and sisters and brothers and a lot of my great friends are here. So I’m going to be doing some teaching, which I’m really excited about. And then I am really interested in applying in the areas of citizen media of all different kinds. You know, citizen media in itself isn’t necessarily a great, but trying to enable say you, one of the things I’m focused on now is how do you enable connections between small business owners and, give small business owners their own sort of citizen media home so they can connect and have relatively more power compared to some of the multinational corporations? So really looking at the network connections that are positive as opposed to all network connections being positive. David Abel: Well, Zephyr, this has been great. And we appreciate the time you’ve spent with us today, and we hope to have you back again real soon. Zephyr Teachout: Okay. Great talking to you, David. [End of Audio] PoliticsOnline Zephyr-Teachout Page 1 of 8 David Abel, Zephyr Teachout www.escriptionist.com Page 1 of 8