Re: Vanity fair

Apologies for the delay in getting back to you; had to finish up a couple of articles, but am now deadline-free for a while.

My colleague Clark Robinson and I will be preparing further materials for you over the weekend, but in the meantime, Id like to provide you with a written overview of Project PM to supplement what we went over in our discussion the other evening.

Information flow is fundamental to the success of every manner of human collaboration. Nonetheless, the processes by which information is gathered, handled, transferred, and acted upon receive far less attention than is warranted. The purpose of Project PM is to change this dynamic by developing new techniques with which to more efficiently conduct information.

Because the great preponderance of information crucial to the success of a representative government is transferred through the media, Project PM focuses primarily on media reform. Our first and foremost effort has been to establish a distributed media cartel made up of bloggers as well as journalists who work at least in part through online media. Rather than simply assembling this group of exceptional media professionals into an online outlet similar to those currently in existence, we are instead organizing our participants into a network which itself operates under a unique schematic designed to take best advantage of the internet as a medium while simultaneously avoiding the drawbacks common to even the best online communities.

In order to seed the network, we have recruited around two dozen bloggers and journalists whom we have identified as particularly competent and intellectually honest. Each of these individuals is encouraged to bring other bloggers into the network based on their own judgment; these new participants are then connected to the blogger who has brought them in and may likewise bring others into the network,and so on . As such, the network grows perpetually while maintaining a high average quality in terms of its participants, as is explained further below.

Upon the launch of our network, each of the initial bloggers will be connected to each other via a widget which is embedded on their respective blogs, as well as connected to those whom theyve recruited. When a particular individual composes a piece of work that he considers to be of particular merit, the individual pushes a single button which causes the article in question to be sent to all of the bloggers to whom he is connected. Each of those bloggers in turn then decides whether or not they agree that the article is worthy of greater attention; if so, they push the button and thereby send it along to every blogger to whom they themselves are connected. Thus it is that information deemed worthy of attention by some great number of erudite and honest individuals from a variety of backgrounds will tend to perpetuate through the system and gain a larger audience than they might otherwise receive.

As the network expands by way of the process described above, it is inevitable that there will be failures of judgement on the part of participants when choosing additional bloggers to bring into the network. Let us say that Blogger X, who is rather competent, brings in Blogger Y, who is only moderately so, and who in turn brings in Blogger Z, who is a giant douchebag. Blogger Z begins composing and pushing forward posts to the effect that Barack Obama was born in Tehran or that ethanol subsidies are awesome or some such thing but these posts only initially go to Blogger Y and whatever horrid bloggers Blogger Z has brought in himself, assuming he has brough in any. Blogger Y may or may not be inclined to push forward these nonsense posts, but Blogger X will almost certainly delete them immediately and is quite likely to disolve his connection to Blogger Y for displaying such poor judgement. Thus it is that the system is defended from deterioration by the high competence of the initial round of bloggers and consequently comparable competence of those brought in gradually afterwards, coupled with the nature of the schematic itself. No supervision is necessary for the network to expand while maintaining a high level of quality.

A few other characteristics bear noting. Any participant may connect to any other participant who agrees to the connection, no matter where each participant resides in the network, and thus the network is likely to evolve from the shape of a pyramid to that of a web, which is advantageous in terms of ensuring that good information does not become overly regionalized. All participants are equal regardless of the order in which they joined. Participants are free to bring on as many other bloggers as they would like, although they will find that it is to their own advantage to be selective in this regard.

The system is capped off with another widget distinct from that used by the bloggers the reader widget, a downloadable application which displays those posts which have been pushed forward a certain number of times (as set by the individual reader). The end result should be the best system of news and information filtration that has ever existed.

That is the elevator pitch, at any rate. I have also sending you a link to a makeshift Google presentation that my lawyer and second-in-command Clark Robinson has prepared for you. Having just moved in to a new apartment, I only have sporadic internet access for the next few days, but Robinson is at your disposal and may be reached at robinsonchicago@gmail.com. I may also be reached via cell phone at all times. I will have Robinson share with you some additional documents including an incomplete list of our participants thus far.

Meanwhile, I have spoken to Michael Hastings and a few other of our best journalists and commentators and all of them are more than willing to get involved and will be quietly talking to various colleagues in the coming days without providing any details. I have also asked a couple of our people to begin thinking about ways in which a cable station could be most effectively implemented, emphasizing that we would of course want to rewrite all the rules of such things and take advantage of the internet as best we can.

On Mon, Jun 28, 2010 at 2:27 PM, Robert Green <robertogreen@gmail.com> wrote:

Great article about hastings, barrett.

Im interested in hearing/learning further about project PM.

Ive got my own nascent project that Im working on. I come from a background of production/development/finance in the feature/tv/web world. Ive produced a TON of stuff in all different media over the years (bona fides in the signature below, check my imdb page). I also come from a background of a dad on the board of The Nation, and your basic view of the world that such will engender.

Between these two worlds Ive reached the following conclusion:

The time is NOW to create/fund/finance a 21st century news media org that takes what you/me/jay rosen/michael hastings/etc. Etc. etc. knowthat information isnt he said she said, that information isnt better with access, that information isnt better with one consultant from x, and one consultant from y, that information IS better when transparent, that news should be measured by one analytic and one onlyhow informed is your audience after hearing/reading it.

Heres how to do it:

Grab about 1 billion dollars approx (give or take) and create the new CNN. Thats it. Theres no other way. You cant hope to have any useful impact around the margins. You cant hope to do anything important at a Current TV level, or blogging for a magazine as hopelessly addicted to horseshit celebrity as VF, and really change things. You just cant.

I know some people with some real money. And their hearts are movable to the right place. The thing is to aggregate all the people who are a)smart b) doing it already c) energetic and put together the plan.

Starting point, and yes, this is a tendentious one: just say to jon stewart and colbert whats your buyout number, and pay it. Make them the figureheads. Figure thats 50 million right there.

Im sure you have your own plan, and you dont know me, so take all this with a grain of salt. But if you ever do have time to spend 5 minutes discussing this further, please dont hesitate.

In the meantime, keep up the great work.

best

Robert Green
Another Green World Productions
310-804-1812 phone
323-446-7639 fax
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1299657/
http://linkedin.com/in/robertogreen
http://twitter.com/robogreen
skype: monazu1

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