Some Random Dude

Not too long ago, Brendan Lee over at Ribbit got a hold of me to work with them to showcase their technology. We bounced around a bunch of different ideas, that we really liked, but it was a conversation I had with Gil Gershoni of the creative agency Gershoni where we came to the idea you see at sayhear.org. We both loved the idea of using Ribbit’s telephony technology to give a voice to the voter and create an open sounding board for people to put in their two cents on this election. What you see at sayhear.org is the culmination of real cooperative work between Gershoni, myself and Ribbit. This was not a top-down production but rather a equal collaboration between all partners. I really do believe it is that relationship which allowed us to launch the site that is up today.

What is most amazing is that sayhear.org launched on one of the worst days possible - a Friday which just happened to be Halloween. Additionally, we had a very meager PR budget which mainly relied on the hope that people would share the site with others. That said, we are now over 495 messages (excluding the moderated entries) - the vast majority of them coming Monday. The content of the messages ran the gamut - as you would expect. While many were immature, some were quite hateful and others were just downright odd - they all added to the conversation. Even though we moderated many, it is my hope to open those back up since many have a charm of their own (in a 4chan sort of way). I do not think this project ends with the election.

I have been fascinated with using the internet as a platform for social discourse for some time now. The problem with the current model is that text-based methods are too impersonal and anonymous to have true weight. The Current Viewpoints project that I worked on excited me because it attempted to solve those issues with video-based opinions. We came up with some really interesting ideas and visualized information in what many thought was both effective and aesthetic, but it ultimately did not catch on. From my perspective, the small numbers of the population with video-recording equipment along with the difficulty of creating/submitting video and a general unwillingness for many people to put with face with their opinion posed a hurdle too high for Viewpoints to get over. The lesson I took away from Viewpoints is that you cannot force a medium on a public uninterested in it. If you want public participation, work with the public’s habits. This seems obvious, but it can be hard to compromise a vision in order to make something catch on. We knew calling in would be easier than recording/submitting video, apply to a greater age/economic range and fit into people’s daily habits, but we had no idea it would work this well. From some rough calculations, I would estimate that the call-in rate was a little over 2% - much higher than I would have ever expected. Voice audio seems to have the perfect combination of intimacy and anonymity. People were honest and raw and more than willing to contribute. Additionally, we were able to automatically get information such as general geographic location based on phone numbers which added another perspective to each call-in. I am a firm believer that this method of public discussion has some serious potential. It’s easy, there is no technological overhead, nearly the entire population has a telephone and each voice audio recording is minuscule in size - meaning very little storage needs. Video is great for a vast swath of solutions, but as far as I am concerned, audio makes the most sense for a project like sayhear.org.

Regardless of where you sit on the political spectrum, it is hard to deny the importance and historic weight of this election. This project was our little contribution to the public to say - hey, we give a damn and we’re going to do something to make a difference. In the end, this site obviously made no difference in the outcome of the election. However, it added to the discussion and archived the thoughts of almost 500 people days before the election. I am already looking forward to my next project in this arena.

Thank you to Gil Gershoni, Amy Gershoni, the Gershoni crew, Dave Johnson, Brendan Lee, Kris Chant, all of Ribbit and everyone else that contributed to this project.