Technology offers more ways than ever for Americans to interact with their government, yet the turnout for the 2014 midterm elections was the lowest in 72 years. Even though citizens can read bills online, email their legislators and follow politicians on Twitter, many opt out of the political process.

But apathy isn’t an option for forward-thinking CEOs. While the business mantra is “the customer is always right,” the addendum today is, “the government is always right...

Over the weekend, on the car radio, I heard parts of the Global Citizen conference in New York City and some of the speakers talked about the importance of citizen engagement, of changing the world, of coming together with like minds and really being a powerful influence and force on society, politicians and their communities.

They urged everybody to go out and be empowered. They said they should register and vote. The crowd loved it. Why wouldn’t they? It feels good.

Global Citizen...

The purpose of a debate is to arrive at a decision. The point of arriving at a decision is to review options. And the reason for reviewing options is to attain clarity around the problem or issue that you’re trying to resolve. Essentially, a decision is like a vote.

The reason that you engage in debate is to explore options, the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. So when you debate, you are evaluating multiple options in order to determine what the best course of action...

We should get money out of politics. Everyone says it is corrosive and corrupts.

But ask any candidate who lost his last campaign if he could have used more money and I think he’ll say yes.

The problem is not too much money. The problem is narrowly focused sources of money. Narrow money doesn’t work. In plain English, narrowly focused funding sources empower special interests.

ARE YOU AN ADVOCATE? LEARN ABOUT THE INSIDER'S EDGE

In one sense, we don’t like special interests...

  On the second day of Christmas, iLobby sent to me tools, tips and training, and a Congress under my tree.

Tips, Tricks and Tools you need in your advocacy tool shed. 

Ho ho ho,

John :-)

P.S. Share a FREE SWAY eBook stocking stuffer with your civic-minded family, friends, and millennials.

12 Days of Christmas Song

You know, one of the things I wanted to talk about is the fact that a lot of people believe that if they sign a petition or if they protest, that they're actually going to get something done. I'm really struck because our kids at school are attending a walk-out as many kids are regarding the gun violence and the events that happened in Florida a little while ago. And what's interesting is you can have a lot of people walk out, get together, protest, hold signs in solidarity and hope that...

You know, one of the questions I get asked a lot, and this came up last year when I was doing a bunch of podcasts and radio interviews is where did this idea come from? And I guess it goes back to actually the mid 90s. So I was working at MCA, which was the parent to Universal Studios and I was working in government affairs and in the course of doing that we were working with lobbyists, the Motion Picture Association, Senators, congressmen, heads of state, the executives at the company and...

I talked briefly on another video about the iLobby origin story, and when I worked at the studios in the entertainment industry at MCA at, was a parent to Universal and why it was important for and still is the entertainment industry or any industry, to work closely with the government, to work closely with Washington. And when companies realize that they tend to have some success in some cases it's outsized in terms of what they hope to accomplish. And in other times it's significantly less....

You know, one of the things I wanted to talk about is guns and not really gun safety, but the proliferation of guns. It's definitely on everybody's mind, particularly since Parkland, Florida and all the school shootings that we saw.

This is particularly germane to me because in another video I talked about the origin story of iLobby and why I got into how do we change laws, how do we improve things and how do we get more people involved in policy, which is a big step in making that happen.

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