Popular culture is blown by many winds: trends, talent, tradition, technology, treasure... But I haven't seen much on the influence of public policy. Three interesting data points that crossed my radar recently:

• Tanz Tanz Revolution: A brief history of the rise of techno music in East and West Berlin as urban policy after the fall of the wall literally makes space for German big dance parties to bloom.
  
  
• How Japanese technology shaped dance music: The favourable exchange rate in the '70s and '80s was a kickstart for Japanese electronics gaining a foothold in the global market.
  
  
• How the 1996 Telecommunicaitons Act killed rock and roll: Clear Channel takes advantage of loosening restrictions on radio station ownership, and soon dominates and neuters rock radio.

I knew about the role of printing and English coffee houses in germinating the seeds of the British Enlightenment, but today I learned about the 1662 Licensing Act "An Act for preventing the frequent Abuses in printing seditious treasonable and unlicensed Books and Pamphlets and for regulating of Printing and Printing Presses."

The Act expired in 1695, which allowed unlicensed printing presses to flourish, reduced the price of printing, eliminated government censorship, and opened the UK to books printed abroad.

Feels like the regulatory context is too often left out of our histories of innovation.

I built a thing: text your US postal address to (520) 200-2223 and get a text back with your state & federal legislative rep phone numbers.

— John Emerson (@backspace) November 20, 2016

I built an SMS bot! Here’s the story: I’ve been looking at bots for advocacy and have been keeping a short list of inspiring SMS projects including TXTMob, Crises Text Line, mRelief, Planned Parenthood’s Teen Q&A; line, and others. I’ve poked around the Twilio API. And then came this message on the Progressive Exchange email list:

Subject: ISO "find your elected officials" by text

I have to think this exists -- is there a simple "text KEYWORD to THIS NUMBER" that will return the names and phone numbers of your elected officials? Congress and state?

Jesse

Turns out it does not exist — so I wired it up and announced it on the list. The response has been super positive.

Continue reading "LobbyPhone" »