Park Politics

Last Saturday the kids my husband and I went to the park. At the park, I met a guy.

My husband and I picked him up, or rather, he picked us up. He heard me talking about the company I co-own with two other moms. I was explaining the fortuitousness of our timing in introducing a simple, soft and safe 100% polycarbonate-free bottle to the masses this summer. You've heard the news. You've seen how SF is leading the way and how LA is following in true LA style. Or if you haven't, get on it. I said so.

Anyway, this Nice Park Guy was listening to my explanation of our search for the ideal polycarbonate replacement with which to design our baby bottle, and he spoke up from just outside my range of vision. "Did you say you're working with green plastics?" he said. "I have a friend..."

Nice Park Guy said he knew a Nice Plastics Guy who had created a company to craft products out of "green" plastics. I was intrigued (and when I got home I looked him up. Subsequently, I found a company making biodegradable plastic utensils and such out of freaking cereal. Come on. Cereplast (Cereal + plastics). How cool is that? Items made from it will dissolve in a compost pile in 180 days or less. Voila! And more good news: Cereplast supplied the 2000 Olympics with plastic utensils and etc., and may do the same for Beijing in 2008. That's a big pile of carcinogenic crap we can check off our list.).

Anyway, Nice Park Guy also said he ran an investment fund that partners with innovative Bay Area non-profit organizations to create positive social change. And hey, I'm into positive social change. It would be positive if everyone started using my company's bottle, I got rich, and then moved up in the Menlo Park social hierarchy while simultaneously enabling parents to provide babies with a safe bottlefeeding option. Everybody wants a bottle that doesn't cause cancer years down the line. And everyone wants a yard. I want a yard. We basically have a dog run. A yard in Menlo Park will cost me. Please buy Adiri bottles and stop the bad plastics men as well as help me get a yard for my children to play in. (Is that so much to ask?). I digress. This didn't come up at the park with Nice Park Guy, by the way. I'm not that open.

At the park, Nice Park Guy, my husband and I discussed our respective businesses and the Philadelphia Eagles (NPG and my husband both grew up in Philly). Then NPG invited me to dinner.

Before you leap to your own twisted Little Children like conclusions, this was a dinner at Google (we got our own trays and schlepped through the cafeteria to find our own lamb burgers and all) organized so that Pete Leyden, Director of the New Politics Institute (NPI) and former Managing Editor of Wired, and Simon Rosenberg, the Founder of NPI and NDN, (two very impressive and influential organizations in DC), could do a tech talk on some recent work they've done trying to educate the Democratic establishment about new technologies. These two are political players. Last week they went at the request of Nancy Pelosi, and gave a presentation called "Dawn of a New Politics" to the House Democratic Caucus, looking at how new technologies (web video, mobile media, social networks, blogs,targeted online ads) can change politics.

Let's be honest. I almost told the babysitter not to come. Politics and Wednesday evenings at 6PM don't usually mix in my world. But I went. And again, I was glad. This dinner turned out to be an intimate group of 15 folks from the Bay Area, plus Simon and Pete, who were WAY out of my career-success league (thus far, of course. Some day my partners and I will be on Oprah discussing the first biodegradable bottle. But I digress again.). It was a heady gathering in an airless Google conference room.

Ah, brain time. I was almost transported back to the youthful eagerness of my early Cisco days ("Holy shit, free sodas? This is awesome."). By the way, did you know that everything, and I mean everything, at Google is free? Lamb burger: $0. Beer: $0. POM five dollar pomegranate juice from Whole Foods: $0. Prime rib, salmon with dill sauce, big ass burritos and chocolate cake: $0. For G-d's sake, there was even fresh guacamole (with the pits still in it) and Vegan mayo in the condiment assembly line bins. This particular cafeteria did not open until 6:30PM--an actual supper only establishment on campus. And it was packed when I left at 8:00 PM. I'm sorry, I know quittin' time isn't 5:00 any longer but these people were drinking Red Bulls with their salmon at my normal bedtime. They were just getting started.

For the post-gorging political discussion upstairs I even got the seat next to NPI and NPN founder Simon, who asked me, as we scarfed our cafeteria food, why I was there. I told him I was running for President of the PTA at my son's preschool and I thought I could learn a thing or two at this little meeting. (I'm lying. But wouldn't that have been funny? Kinda?)

I told him about meeting Nice Park Guy, and about our efforts at Adiri with safe plastics related to the baby bottle and he seemed genuinely excited. Three small kids at home and all. Perhaps he'll mention me to Nancy or Hillary. That would rock. (Of course that's near impossible, but this is my blog so let me dream.) Then, after we all introduced ourselves, a woman from Stanford offered that she has a twin sister who is a pediatrician extraordinaire. This twin sister has already published various books on baby care, and is writing another one. And oh yah, she's about to have a baby. Did I want her to put us in contact and show her the bottle? Uh, yes.

Aside from the good company, the inspiring ideas about how to empower the Democratic party with the right tech tools in order to reach and teach the masses, and the good contacts, there was something else. I realized yet again what an amazing job MomsRising is doing at attracting members, inspiring action, and capitalizing on new technology and media. Their website is phenomenally well organized, with a handful of issues that are clearly categorized, summarized, and accessible and easy to read and take action on, even for the uber busy individual.

Each agenda issue is clickable from the first view of the MomsRising home page. One level down, on each of the issue front pages, visitors can immediately see a one line summary of the issue goal (such as: Childcare for all kids. Provide quality, affordable childcare to all parents who need it.). The goal summary is followed by a clickable "Take Action" link that is regularly updated with whatever Web or phone based action is most pressing related to that issue, at that date and time. The "Take Action" link is followed by a chapter from the book The Motherhood Manifesto, which the founders of MomsRising.org wrote (in a fun, easy to read and filled with anecdotes style) detailing all the issues they are passionately fighting for. One screen shot shows me what issue I'm looking at, what the position/goal is on that issue, how I can help, and where I can read more about it.

Additionally, on each page visitors see a side menu with a few clickable links including "Watch the movie" a call to watch the excellent video the founders have put on and offered for sale at about the price of a Venti Extra Hot No Whip Mocha. They even suggest throwing a party in your neighborhood to screen this entertaining movie and tell you how to do it. I have the DVD. I gave it out for the holidays this past season. And next week I am helping Maya's Mom host a screening of The Motherhood Manifesto in downtown Palo Alto. We have nearly 100 people coming, including a SF Chronicle reporter and some influential social networkers and bloggers in the area. MomsRising made it simple, fun and rewarding for me to do something actionable to help, and that was all I needed to push the word out to hundreds of folks in my social network, including reporters and bloggers who will undoubtedly reach hundreds if not thousands more.

I don't know as much about politics or political action these days as the other folks that were sitting around the Google table tonight, but I'd say this MomsRising group has got something when it comes to mobilizing forces via new technologies and social networking. MomsRising is targeting moms, so they know they need to be quick. Us moms need to fit our progressive politics in between diaper changes, work, exercise, playing Monopoly, grocery shopping and fixing meals. And really, doesn't this time debt apply to most everyone these days? Who but the most passionate of us (and we can't rely on these few to fuel the entire progressive political agenda) has time to actually research issues, do our homework on how to help, or volunteer for hours on end? I need actionable things I can do to help ON MY COMPUTER as my children pull on my pants leg. I can't go out and pound the pavement often or ever, but I can reach hundreds of folks through my social network if I am fed ways to do this simply and in some sort of inspiring fashion.

Inspiring, indeed.