Originally posted on November 3, 2011

Do recent changes to Google and Facebook affect political and marketing communicators? Potentially a lot, so let’s take the sites in turn. First Google, which announced today that it’s making major changes to its search algorithms to update its main search index more frequently. Also, results pages for many queries will feature more recent content (including breaking news) over information that might have grown stale.

Overall, this change in emphasis is potentially really useful for users, particularly if Google can follow through on the idea of separating searches for evergreen content (“learning from Obama online campaign PDF“) from those for ephemeral content and recent news (“Herman Cain harassment suit“). One implication for political communicators: this emphasis on the new and the now gives us even more reason to jump on news stories quickly, since Google’s main search function should have a better chance of highlighting relevant recent content. Crank up those blogs and rapid response machines, kids: catch a news wave, and your words might spread far and wide.

Next Facebook, which revamped itself yet again back in September. As Farhad Manjoo points out in Slate today, Facebook’s latest changes emphasize recent content in users’ news feeds over posts from people you might actually like (i.e., friends with whom you’ve interacted with regularly). I’d also argue that the “improvements” appear to be featuring visual content over written, because my feed is now cluttered with photos posted by people I barely know. Manjoo’s article focuses on how the new feed emphasis is leading certain LOLCats-style word/picture combos to go viral, which may be useful for some advocacy and electoral campaigns to know, but it also suggests that our substantive content is LESS likely to get noticed now than before. Great!

Facebook’s solution is to have you “subscribe” to feeds and to set the amount of information you receive from them. Next up for political communicators: begging followers to “subscribe” and to become bosum buddies rather than distant acquaintances. Once again, it’s time to wonder how much it’s worth paying for advertising to get new supporters to “like” your page, potential email list members though they may be. Perhaps the company’s new marketing bootcamps will bring us around to their way of thinking — or else.

The Super Committee is charged with recommending how to reduce the U.S. deficit by at least $1.5 trillion over the next ten years, and has until Thanksgiving to do so. Committee members say comments from the public are being taken seriously (here’s the web form to prove it), though some of them are also limiting participation: for instance, Senator Baucus (D-Mont.) is not taking messages from any one who doesn’t live in Montana — even though the mission is national in scope.

The limited time frame for decisions and the committee’s difficult task makes advocacy especially challenging. What’s an advocacy group to do?

Hopefully, most organizations have plans in place to handle a sudden grassroots need. But if your organization was not quite as prepared as others, don’t despair. Even in this Internet age, all politics is still local.

Meaning stick to the basics and do them well:

1. Key Contacts: Activate the members in your organization that are from these states. They should already be identified as key contacts for the members of Congress, and now is the time to leverage those relationships.
2. District Meetings: Never overlook district staff. These Super Committee members may not make it home very much over the next few weeks, but they will still be getting a daily report from home. Make sure your organization and your members (i.e. their constituents) feature prominently.
3. Social Media: They are listening to social media. Get as many of your advocates as possible to upload content to your YouTube channel, personalizing the issues. Your Facebook and Twitter strategy should be integrated into this campaign as well, for a social media “surround sound.”
4. Coalition Partners: Most advocacy groups are part of a coalition. Are you contacting partners and their followers? It’s imperfect, since your message may not be delivered exactly how you would prefer, but it’s more voices added to your chorus.

At the end of all of this, remember the poor congressional staff of these Super Committee members. You can’t buy them dinner these days, but an honest and sincere thank you for all their work will be (almost as) appreciated.

Google+ went live for the masses today (assuming you got in before the system stopped taking new users), meaning that the search giant has taken another stab at social networking — and at staving off the threat of Facebook. How should political and advocacy communicators approach this new platform?

First, as Steven Levy points out in Wired (via Matt Stempeck), today’s launch is just one piece of a process that will stretch out for months, so we’re only seeing the bones of what should be a much broader set of tools. But what’s out there now is already interesting, and definitely check out Amy Sample Ward’s excellent overview for a glimpse of how it works. Two elements jump out: first, the platform’s integrated ten-person video chat feature (“Hangouts”), which should be extremely useful for volunteer-organizing, for media/blogger calls and for campaigns whose staff is scattered across the country or the world.

To read the entire article on e.politics, click here.

Then the Post mentioned an important detail in the seventh paragraph of the story. It seems that “Congress does not have direct oversight over the deal.” In fact, AT&T needs approval from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Justice Department, not from Congress.

Yes, Congress holds the purse strings to the FCC and can weigh in on the proposed merger. But this is not shaping up to be an old-fashioned lobbying battle. The proposed merger, and the process that will be followed to determine its fate, are far more complicated than that.

Yet reporters and activists continue to trot out lobbying and PAC spending numbers to disparage corporate political activity. This is true whether it’s the AT&T/T-Mobile deal, a regulatory issue (“Oil Lobbyists Focus New Attention on Regulators”) or a corporation’s decision to launch a new product (“Apple’s iLobby”).

Last year I wrote about the unfairness of this story line – especially in a political system that supposedly protects “the right to petition government.” But that’s not the focus of this post.

Today I’m ready to claim this story line is more than an over-simplification. It’s a myth. That’s because there are fewer and fewer old-fashioned lobbying battles. Public affairs professionals, just like their cousins in public relations and marketing, are increasingly taking integrated approaches to communication that build support – and certainly not buy support – for their cause.

In 1996, in his best-selling book The Death of Competition, James F. Moore noted “the central game of strategic management is moving from managing oneself to leading a community of allies.” The visible assets of a company, he said, “are often far outweighed by the innovation-driven power of its invisible assets – community goodwill, shared vision, enthusiasm of customers.” These assets extend the influence of the firm.

At about the same time, author Rosabeth Moss Kanter wrote an article for Harvard Business Review called “Collaborative Advantage” that made a similar argument. Companies that understand personal relationships and know how to get the most out of their business alliances are more successful than those that don’t, she said.

How do these ideas apply to public affairs in the 21^st century? When a company faces a crisis or seeks to take advantage of a new market opportunity, it can no longer rely on its size or financial strength to win the day. Its community of allies is often more important than its paid lobbyists or PAC.

We see this trend in the rise of grassroots activism, the engagement of suppliers in legislative outreach, the formation of alliances with advocacy groups, the use of issue advertising, and the growth of social media as a communications strategy.

Everyone involved in the public policy process – from labor unions to corporations to associations to activists – is taking a more wide-ranging approach to getting their message across. Why?

Here are five major reasons:

1. Constituents matter more than lobbyists. A new survey of congressional staff by the Congressional Management Foundation (CMF) shows that 46% believe personal visits from voters have “a lot of positive influence” in persuading an undecided member of Congress, while only 8% say lobbyist visits have the same impact.
2. Voters listen to political messages from employers and interest groups.Companies have become a trusted source of political information for employees, says BIPAC, a business-oriented grassroots network. And an earlier CMF studyshowed that most Americans who contact Congress are asked to do so by a third-party organization.
3. Washington is getting noisier. Every year, a growing number of groups and individuals – representing every conceivable cause – clamor for the attention of Congress and the White House. Smart advocates know they need to be engaged, but in most cases their engagement can’t be limited to direct lobbying and PAC contributions.
4. Inside deals are becoming scarce. Recent political scandals have taught elected officials there’s little upside associated with granting special favors to old friends, former colleagues and large campaign contributors.
5. Long-term, strategic campaigns work. Successful companies and non-profits start early, find common cause with others, develop a positive reputation and build public awareness of their issues. Their goal is to create a favorable environment for their public policy priorities, not to gain a “quick win.” If they do their job well, they’ll win far more often they they’ll lose.

As AT&T begins the long process of trying to convince the FCC and the Justice Department that merging its wireless network with T-Mobile’s will be good for America, we’ll witness a case study in this new approach to public affairs. Because the stakes are high, conventional politics will play a role. But so will every other strategy that can be used to win the hearts and minds of the public.

Just this week, for example, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson told the Council on Foreign Relations that the merger would enlarge the company’s network capacity and improve iPhone service. Was he lobbying the FCC or the Justice Department with those comments? Not really. Was he hoping to gain the support of influential members of the Council on Foreign Relations and millions of iPhone users across the country? Absolutely.

I recently made an historic discovery regarding what is probably the first system to track relationships between Members of Congress and organizations that seek to influence them. Any grassroots or government relations professional knows that it is essential to have an understanding of Congress, and one of the best ways to do this is to set up a customer relationship management (CRM) system to track relationships between supporters and legislators. The tools also are used to note important characteristics or interests of the legislator that may either connect him to your cause, track meeting discussions, and note follow-up actions.

But one does not need to be a masterful 21st century practitioner of CRM software best practices to create this kind of system. In fact, I believe I recently stumbled onto the first CRM of Congress. The group had a vital issue pending before the Congress; they had a motivated and well-organized grassroots base; and they created a system for tracking every detail of their interaction with legislators as well as the interests of congressmen (and they were all men). The time was 1900. The issue: whether women should have the right to vote.

I was attending an event recently that was organized by the Sewell Belmont House, a Capitol Hill home and for a time the unofficial HQ of the suffragette movement. As I was leaving, I noticed some photographs of a card catalog system the National Women’s Party had built. One black-and-white photo showed a woman standing next to what looked like the catalog system you might find in a library. On a sample card was information about an individual Member of Congress: hometown, age, previous legislative record, interests, spousal interests (rather important to the movement), positions taken on women suffrage, and summaries of meetings with the legislator — all in one at-a-glance card. The eureka moment hit me: “These women invented the first congressional CRM!”

This example demonstrated that the methods and strategies for influencing legislators and holding them accountable have not changed in 100 years. It shows that we get too bogged down in the details of technology. Groups and individuals seeking to influencing legislative outcomes should rely on the basics: learn about legislators and their interests (and their family interests as well); create a disciplined system for entering that information; and train all professional and citizen advocates who interact with lawmakers to collect the data. I know this isn’t easy. When I was CEO of a CRM software company that allowed clients to track data on Congress, I would tell my clients one immutable fact: you can make a box with buttons do anything — but getting a lobbyist to enter information about their meeting with a key staffer, that’s hard.

As March is Women’s History Month, it is appropriate to pay homage to the work of the mothers and sisters who paved the way for so many other mothers and sisters to vote, participate in government, and serve in office. It seems now we should also recognize another historic contribution by the suffragettes, the first congressional CRM. One can’t help but think that this system for detailed tracking of legislators had a positive effect on the passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution.

(Transparency Note: I co-founded Knowlegis, which is, among other things, a CRM of Members of Congress. I am no longer affiliated with the company, and this post is not a pitch for that product. In fact, as I pointed out, you don’t need software. All you need is pen, paper, a really big card catalog, and a group of disciplined people committed to a cause.)

Managing high volumes of constituent calls is a challenge for many congressional offices, but the office of Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) is taking matters into its own hands to help New Mexicans get their answer when they first call the office.

Most of us take the telephone for granted—myself included—but I remember as a kid (here we go, right?) calling my friend’s house to see if he could go do something. If the line was busy, I’d hunker down, exercising my redial finger until my call would finally go through. I’m happily pushing 40, but I suspect other people can also appreciate what life was like before voicemail, call waiting, texting, and all the other amazing things we now can’t picture our lives without.

Congress has experienced and leveraged a great many of those advances in telecommunications, too, but still congressional offices struggle with how to effectively manage what can—at times—be an overwhelming volume of calls. I was in Sen. Bingaman’s office recently and his staff told me how they were handling some of the challenges they face on the front lines with phones. I thought one approach, in particular, was innovative.

One of the hot issues recently in the Senate was “rules reform” (the use of the filibuster, secret holds, etc.) and Sen. Bingaman was receiving a large number of constituent calls on the topic. Molly Weisse-Bernstein, a Senior Staff Assistant at the time, had the idea to load a sound bite of the Senator into their voicemail system. Then, when constituents called and wanted to know the Senator’s position on Senate rules reform, the staff could take down the constituent’s comments and provide the added service of offering to transfer constituents to a two-minute audio clip of the Senator stating his position on that very issue.

Listen to an audio clip of Senator Bingaman’s voicemail position on Senate rules reform

Molly and her two colleagues, Derek Skinner and Sarah Garcia, collaborated to institutionalize the practice in their office. So far, the office has offered a single clip at a time, but is contemplating how they could scale it up and create 10, 20, or even more clips pertaining to their highest volume calls. Citizens could be able to hear the Senator articulate his position on anything from the healthcare repeal efforts, to cap and trade, to Senate rules reform. The audio clips could be produced specifically for this purpose, of course, but the office could also leverage floor speeches or other radio or television clips.

In our work with congressional offices we encourage them to engage constituents—as much as possible—using the same method through which the constituent contacted them. That advice has never been feasible when it came to phone calls from constituents, however; it’s just not practical to answer every legislative inquiry with a return phone call. This innovative approach to answering the constituents question right away is what is called “first call resolution” in the customer service industry.

If constituents will not be able to speak to the Senator live when they call, the next best thing might be a recording in his own words explaining his position before they ever hang up the phone.

Large, diversified companies – especially those that are tightly regulated – are more likely to be politically active, right?

While everyone in public affairs knows this to be true, it took a major study analyzing 78 research projects on corporate political involvement to prove the point. What’s newsworthy is that the study, “Mixing Business with Politics: A Meta-Analysis of the Antecedents and Outcomes of Corporate Political Activity,” made another important conclusion – firms become more profitable when they become politically active.

In the study, published in this month’s Journal of Management, researchers at the University of Tennessee (Knoxville) and the University of South Florida say companies that lobby or contribute to political campaigns “enjoy about 20 percent higher performance.”

The authors conducted a “meta-analysis” of studies from the past 40 years to identify reasons why businesses are politically active, including a company’s size, level of regulation, amount of government sales and extent of foreign competition.

The study creates a profile of companies most likely to be involved in politics. In addition to the characteristics listed above, the study also concludes that:

- Firms facing foreign competition are not more likely to use lobbying and campaign contributions to push for protectionist policies. The authors suggest that both the business community and government have increasingly embraced “free-market perspectives.”

- Companies in rapidly growing and slow-growing markets show roughly the same levels of political involvement. The researchers had assumed that firms in mature industries would put more resources into public affairs because they had fewer options for capital investment, while high-growth companies would devote fewer resources. But that’s not the case.

As companies expand, cope with new regulations and increase their business dealings with government, they strengthen their public affairs capacity. It’s clear that CEOs understand this is important to their firms’ success.

Perhaps I should end this post now so we can all feel validated by our friends in academia. But then you wouldn’t get the full story.

It seems the view that corporate political involvement is inherently corrupt has become such a powerful media narrative that academics are using it to draw attention to their research.

A press release on the study from the University of Tennessee (Knoxville) notes that its findings are more relevant than ever because of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in last year’s Citizens United case.

“There will be more corporate political activity because donations will be subject to less scrutiny and transparency; thus it will be more difficult to track down the source of corporate political activity,” said T. Russell Crook, one of the authors. “Given this, we think that the Supreme Court ruling means that corporations and politicians will develop closer relationships than ever before.”

Since the Supreme Court forbade corporations and unions from coordinating with candidates on independent expenditures for campaign advertising, it’s a stretch to say that corporations and politicians will have closer relationships.

But Crook didn’t stop there.

Policymakers, managers, journalists and citizens alike should be concerned when corporations step up their political involvement, he said. “We do not believe that this activity is illegal, but this activity constrains natural market forces and is thus undesirable. And with the new Supreme Court ruling, it is only going to get worse.”

What got worse was the way the media reported on the “Mixing Business with Politics” study. As has been the case during the past 12 months, Citizens United was the hook that got the attention of news editors.

Scripps Howard News Service, for example, reported the study’s key findings, but mischaracterized the impact of the court decision. “Before the Citizens United decision, corporate political spending was constrained by requirements that campaign donors be publicly identified,” wrote reporter Roger Harris. (In fact, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of disclosure and disclaimer rules.) He then quoted shareholder activist Bruce Freed, who argued that political activity actually hurts profits. “Political spending does pose serious risks for companies,” said Freed.

If you follow coverage of corporate public affairs in the national news media, these are familiar narratives. And given the level of public distrust for politics and corporate America, they are not surprising.

But they do make one wonder what the story would have been had researchers concluded that political involvement was a total waste of money, rather than a strategy for business success.

Let’s acknowledge that, in the first three months, it will be a bit difficult  to deliver your messages to Congress. What do you do when some offices haven’t been filled yet (some Senate offices won’t be filled until March) and many House offices aren’t yet fully staffed?

That said, the first quarter also brings tremendous opportunities to educate and engage members of Congress, particularly the freshman class, early on.

As Brad Fitch rightly noted in his post, New House Calendar Benefits Grassroots Advocates, the 2011 House calendar currently has 13 District Work periods – more than double from 2010. This means your organization and members have more opportunities to engage with your member of Congress at home, and your member of Congress has more face time with constituents from the district. This is a win-win situation.

The House freshman class is likely to embrace these home meetings, and will be eager to not only get out of Washington (which so many of them campaigned against just a few months ago) but to also engage with their voters where they are most comfortable – in the district.

Knowing they will be home more frequently will also  help these Congressional members  feel better about spending quality time with your group. In 2010, they were home so infrequently there was too much pent up official business to leave much time to meet with constituents. Now, with almost 21 weeks of District Work Periods scheduled, they won’t feel rushed and neither will you – which, again, is a win-win situation.

Additionally, it is important to make an effort to get to know the staff in these early months. So many people overlook establishing good relationships with both the D.C and the district staff, but these individuals can be some of your greatest allies if you take the time. Keep your meetings with them friendly, relevant and informative, and you will discover some of the best partners you could imagine. And don’t forget the most important rule of all – say thank you. When you get home, send an email or a note re-iterating what you covered in the meeting and thanking them for their time. A little thoughtfulness will go a long way.

The first quarter of 2011 is also a good time to discover who may already be a key contact to these new members. At the AMA, we typically survey our physician grassroots advocates about who they know and how they know them. We ask our physicians to self-identify their relationships with their federal office holders via an electronic survey. For a small price (or even free depending on what you want to do), you can set up an online questionnaire through a site like Survey Monkey (or set up your own internally if you have the capability) and walk your advocates through a series of questions about their political involvement. You might be surprised to discover that one of your members is a former fraternity brother of a new representative, or has hosted a fundraiser in her home for a newly elected official. Ask now, identify now, build on those relationships now and it will pay dividends in the future.

In the digital space, the first quarter of 2011 will be interesting. Again, many offices aren’t fully staffed yet, so it will be difficult to judge whether they are able to process emails. Online petitions, while not normally an activity I would recommend, might be an easier way to recruit followers to your issue, and an easier way to present your issue to these new members of Congress initially. On the other hand, this freshman class is more engaged in the digital space than any previous Congress. If you and your members are already on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, you may find educating and engaging these freshmen to be easier through those channels.

What are some additional activities you are planning to do, specifically during these first three months of the new year and the new Congress? What else do you recommend to your grassroots colleagues?

The newly released House calendar for the 112th Congress presents a fascinating opportunity for grassroots advocates seeking to build relationships and influence legislators. The calendar makes good on part of a promise the House Republicans made when they took office that they would operate differently than Democrats, and even previous Republican leaders.

The schedule is mostly a two-weeks-on and one-week-off schedule. It includes five days of voting when legislators are in Washington, no votes after 7 pm, and consistent end times on Fridays. Whether incoming Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor can pull it off is still a question. (The Senate tried a similar calendar during the 104th Congress and punted it after 10 months.) But, for sake of sane scheduling, increased efficiency, and hot meals at 7:30 pm for Members and staff, let’s assume they can. What does this mean for those seeking to influence legislators?

First, legislators will likely schedule more town hall meetings. The 2010 House calendar had 5 District Work periods – the 2011 calendar has 13. This means Members of Congress have more certainty and time to schedule town hall meetings in the district. It also means they’ll likely schedule more events as well – visits to businesses, schools, and groups. Great photo op’s, but also great face time with constituents.

Second, constituents and their representatives often overlook the value of meeting with legislators in their district offices. However, with 21 weeks back home the best venue to meet with a Member of Congress and staff is the district office. Constituents will feel more comfortable meeting in their own locales (and save the cost of airfare to DC). And Members of Congress usually are not crushed for time when not rushing to committee hearings and votes in Washington, offering the potential for a more robust and detailed dialogue.

A few years ago I recommended district meetings to a group that was cutting back their budget and not having a traditional “fly-in” to DC. They were concerned that their lobbyist could not attend a district office meeting, and that the Member of Congress might want his policy expert (usually DC based) in the room as well. “Why not put them both on speaker phone in a conference call so they can monitor,” I said. It was as if I’d proposed some new-fangled technology! “A telephone…Why didn’t we think of that???”

The unpredictability of the House calendars and scheduling has wreaked havoc over the years to the best laid plans of Members of Congress and staff, and probably wrecked a few marriages as well. The 2011 calendar not only might make legislators more efficient, it could be a boon to grassroots advocates. Who knows? It might even save a marriage or two.

Last Thursday, Edelman released the findings of our 2010 Capital Staffer Index during an event hosted in the Washington, DC office. Edelman’s Public Affairs & StrategyOne teams interviewed senior legislative staffers around the globe in several capital cities including Berlin, Brussels, London, Paris and Washington to determine the role and influence of various communications channels both online and off. Below are some of my initial — and personal — thoughts about the survey results.

Citizen Engagement in the Digital Age

When Barack Obama was sworn-in as the 44th President of the United States in January 2009, much was written about his campaign’s effective use of digital and social media tools to build support, reach new audiences and engage younger voters. Many credit those efforts as being critical to his successful bid for the White House.

Once in office, it was largely expected that the Obama Administration would utilize similar digital strategies for government application. They set out to build on the foundation laid by their predecessors by seeking to leverage emerging digital outlets to better serve and connect with Americans while simultaneously adapting to a rapidly evolving media landscape. The same was true for Capitol Hill.

Growing, Growing, Gone?

The 2010 Capital Staffers Index demonstrates significant increases in digital media including four-times the usage of Facebook compared to three years ago, nearly double for text messaging, almost three-times for blogs and over five-times worth of growth for Twitter. During key policy debates on issues such as the economy, jobs, healthcare, national security, energy and immigration, constituents flocked to the Internet to make their voices heard.

Members of Congress and Hill staffers quickly learned how to navigate in these new channels through direct constituent engagement and the creation of content best suited for social media and networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr. In many cases, such content was embedded on official House and Senate “dot gov” sites to augment message reach, optimize digital footprints and increase the opportunity for sharing across various social platforms.

In May 2010, the House Republican leadership even created their own unique digital channel with the launch of “America Speaking Out.” The site was built to serve as an online clearinghouse for crowd-sourced policy ideas with the best rising to the top based on community votes. However, sites like this aren’t designed with the intent of completely replacing traditional methods of contacting Congress such as in-person meetings, phone calls, letters and e-mail which are all still effective in many ways. Rather, they simply open up new avenues to connect.

Similarly, though the rise in social media and digital engagement is remarkable, let’s be careful not to write obituaries for mainstream media outlets just yet. Newsrooms may be shrinking but according to the survey results, their influence on Capitol Hill sure isn’t. For staffers, online news sites remain valuable and consistently rank far above social networks, blogs and social media with the highest usage (64%) occurring from 9 AM to 10 AM and the lowest (42%) from 5 PM to 6 PM.

The Key To Surfing Is… Timing

One of the most interesting findings in the 2010 Capital Staffers Index is how online activity trends throughout the day. Heavy traffic for online news sites early in the morning are likely due to staff who are preparing for briefings, conducting research or just getting caught up on the news of the day.

For the most part, social networks run a distant second in usage percentage when to compared online news sites with two exceptions where they experience significant spikes both during the lunch hour (31% from 12 PM to 1 PM) and at the end of a typical work day (tied with online news at 46% after 6 PM). This would seem to suggest that Hill staffers utilize social networking sites all day for both personal and professional purposes, with an emphasis on the personal during perceived down time.

The Next Wave

Two short years after President Obama’s historic victory, the political tide seems to be turning once again. Perhaps the November 2010 midterm election will most certainly be remembered for the GOP’s sweeping wins, especially in the House of Representatives where Republicans netted over 60 seats, the biggest gain since 1938 when the Democrats lost 71.

In preparation for the start of the 112th Congress, freshman members will endure orientations, elect party leadership, set legislative agendas, learn shortcuts from their new offices to committee rooms, attend briefings and of course, hire various key staff. Many likely campaigned heavily online – but now politicians and staffers alike find themselves in positions of power with great responsibility where they must learn to govern online, as well.

For those who are either unable to accept or unwilling to embrace these new communications realities, perhaps these words from American philosopher, writer and 1983 Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient Eric Hoffer will serve as encouragement, “In times of change, learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.”

Cross-published on CapitalGig