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By Kelly Ward, America Forward on Saturday, August 30, 2008

While at the Democratic National Convention last week, I had a chance to wander through The Big Tent, the gathering place for bloggers set up by the folks at Google, Digg, and other organizations. As I watched the bloggers at their desks, heads down, earbuds in, diligently reporting the day’s news and gossip, it occurred to me just how the blogosphere has changed the media landscape. No longer must we rely on the newspaper editor or the national TV stations to determine what news we have access to. With the advent of blogs and other technologies that facilitate mass communication without massive financial resources, the information economy has become far more democratic—with the substance coming from the bottom up and the best material having the greatest influence.

In many ways, these same principles apply to what we’re doing with America Forward. We’re working hard to present a new, more effective, more community-driven way to solve our nation’s domestic problems. In the world we envision, the best solutions emerge from the community, not necessarily from the best funded think tanks or from government programs, and they are supported by the rest of us based on their proven results and ability to have a positive impact.

Just as technology facilitated the shift in the media landscape, we need the tools to fully make this shift and solve problems in this way. Those tools include a Community Solutions Fund Network to support the work of social entrepreneurs who are developing results-driven solutions, and an Office of Social Innovation and Results to encourage more innovation in the social sector.

With these tools in place, we believe we can create the conditions in which leaders from across sectors and at all levels work with social entrepreneurs to help solve our country’s most pressing domestic problems. And that will be something for the bloggers to write about.

Posted in Innovation