Oh yeah, this blog thing...

Someone in class last week made a comment about Democratic candidates contintually being forced to reinvent the wheel when it comes to designing Web sites. It made sense to me at the time, and in the context of the class discussion, but I later started to imagine what would happen if more candidates created cookie-cutter Web sites just for the sake of saving a few grand on Web design. Flashing back to the old Geocities make-your-own sites, or even the design templates of blogger, I decided to be grateful for a process that forces creativity in the place of a quick way out. That's how we get innovation, and that's how we get that one sparkling beauty that all the cool politicians try to emulate.

Reading the post over a Kos about the demise of Meetup.com (alas, poor Scott and Peter...), I was again grateful for the part of human nature that requires us to continually strive to build a better wheel. The grassroots rebellion within the grassroots is something to be amused by, and something for others to be inspired by.

Such a rebellion in another context would simply splinter an already pretty divided group--imagine a game of red rover played by competing Democratic organizers: "Red rover, red rover, send The Seattle Impeach Bush Meetup Group right over." Groups would side with one or another, with no clear winner and a lot of duplication. But this time there's no competition--Meetup clearly is on its way down, and the organizers on the Net are just trying to bring it, or a better version of it, back to life.

Of course, whether they do, and whether the concept is still the way to organize by the time 2008 rolls around remains to be seen.