Netgain Challenge

Because the Internet makes it so much easier to have voice, we are now all experiencing the collapse of collective attention. The current battle for attention--which every progressive cause needs to win in order to make progress--ironically pits all against all. Emotional hyper-spectacles are the only things that truly "win" in this environment. Giving advocacy organizations better media and technology training only puts a band-aid on the problem. Instead of arming groups to fight better for their sliver of attention, we need movement-wide big listening resources and brand-agnostic networked campaigns on behalf of causes, not organizations. We need to name the problem of collective attention and measure its fluctuations in order to start to fix it. And we need to invest in a new generation of tools for democratic deliberation and decision-making, so the Internet can help us get better not just at saying "stop" but also at agreeing on "go."