Story sketch - the forking election

Saw this tweet way way back, and RT'ed with the comment; there is a short story in that. 

@mwiik Thinking: In the future, candidates for president will advertise "fork me on github" #hacksociety

Not going to write out a full story, most likely, but wanted to get some ideas and hooks down here in case it feels right or triggers something else. Maybe something to pick up in time for NaNoWriMo, or just a fun fragment to look back at a while down the line.

title ideas

the forking election

one man, one fork

don't just vote, push

chars

bob - candidate 1, running for the incumbent party, wants to change it up, but unsure of how far his mandate will hold. Wants to use politico.code [PC] to explore the fringes.

harper - the upstart in the challenger party, pushing for a broader agenda. has a long stint as founder and tech lead behind him, before converting to politics. still dabbles in open source, to keep connected and credible. One of the first ten politicians to structure his platform on politico.code [PC] , and a strong supporter of the vote-platform auto integration

emma - current tech lead for voter engagement at the incumbents, has been an intern in one of harpers start ups, and also at [PC] before getting the current posting. Loves the tech chances the job offers, but unsure about the nuances in the politics of the party.

NN - political hacktivist, loves to challenge politicians on their lack of track record for voting along their stated platform.

scenes

bob office, emma and bob discuss areas suitable for wider testing on [PC] 

coffee shop - harper surfing blogs for ideas, new ad campaign, finds discussion with prominent political thinker X and NN, decides to "challenge" NN and his ilk in the campaign - "keep me honest"

(soundtrack; Count Basie, the kid from red bank, opening track on Complete Atomic Basie)

bob launches his [PC] effort just hours before harpers campaign kicks off, making it a feeding frenzy for talkshows, blogs and corridors

(soundtrack; Christina Aguillera, Fighter)

talk show - bob and harper face off, hangout style on boingboing - [PC] goes mainstream, signups skyrockets

challenger party first tier nominee hopefulls finds themselves sidelined, all the debates are about bob vs harper - with [PC]  taking center stage

the election sees record particiaption - both of "old school" voters who want their voice heard directly, and by the "new gen" of the [PC] involved activist coder voters

closing scenes, bob and harper watching the buzz as voting closes, blogs, feeds, dashboard from last minute [PC] suggestions

THE END 

You should handle the truth

So that went well. Or not. I'm still having a hard time with blogger not having a draft option in the API. Makes it close to useless in 2013 with apps and push and IFTTT ruling the flow of ideas and content.

Ranting done, the post I was planning on writing is a short spin of this note:

"Open DataExecutive Order signed by President Obama. Along with the order is an accompanying Open Data Policy released by the Office of Management and Budget and Office of Science and Technology Policy"

[via Pocket, U.S. Government Data To Be Made Freely Available]

Working with data both for analysis and viz, must say that this is great news. Others have gone into the details, and compared it to the British version.

My main "yay" is the focus on tools, including simple wrappers for making just about any database into a functional (REST based) data source and API. Oh. And did I mention they are open source?

Pushing the legacy forward, I think (and hope) this will be remembered as one of the great Obama moments. Understanding promotes stability and peace, and understanding starts with access.

So, here's to hoping for a good summer for open data, followed by inspired announcements in more countries as fall sets in.