The Media Trumps the Message

Freedom Works Utah is holding a meeting on Media Training on November 1st.

Sadly, such meetings are few and far between. Even worse, the few meetings that exist rarely include networking time. The last Freedom Works meeting I attended was done in conjunction with the Man on the Moon Show. The meeting had speeches then immediately broke up as people left to attend the show.

My experience in the business world is that public meetings are usually just a show. The real work gets done in the networking sessions before or after the show.

I've concluded that the ideal meeting should have a short talk followed by either a moderated inclusive discussion or with a big block of networking time for unmoderated discussions.

Interesting, all of the Freedom Works meetings I've attended have been about the media.

I think this is a big mistake. In modern America, media is ubiquitous. There are millions of people out blogging and tweeting every day. The people who are blogging and tweeting are looking for messages to promote.

A better approach to media is to engage in the development of the message. If people in the freedom movement engaged in substantive conversations about Free Market Health Care; the people who are actively engaged in social media will promote latch on and promote the message.

Modern social media is a method of group think. Social media sites are built around algorithms which bring the most popular memes to the surface. When one is drawn into social media, one begins to engage in the group think mentality.

Group think is detrimental to the freedom movement which should be centered on independent minds engaged in critical thinking and rational public discourse.

When the freedom movement concentrates too heavily on the media, the movement gives in to the group think paradigm. The group think paradigm favors the left.

IMHO, a better approach is for the freedom movement to concentrate on developing the message.

As mentioned. There are millions of people engaged in social media. These people are looking for ideas to promote.

If the Freedom Movement concentrated on developing the message, the media would take care of itself.


In Internet marketing one often hears the phrase "Content is king." Sites that consistently provide quality content tend to rise above the fray, while sites that focus too much on the media tend to lose ground.

The primary concern of the Freedom Movement at the moment is Health Care. I believe strongly that if a group got together for a substantive conversation about free market health care reform that the effort would draw attention.

Quite frankly, I believe that a well defined message could win the day. Developing a well honed message would take a concerted effort.

I have developed a presentation about Free Market Health Care that I've been dying to give. The presentation is as follows: I will create a mathematical model for a society based on self funded care. I then create a model for group funded health care. I then show that a system based on self-funded care achieves better results than the society based on group funded care.

The presentation is substantive. I create and compare two models. I've timed the presentation. If I give it perfectly, the presentation takes 45 minutes. If I trip over my tongue (which is likely) it takes an hour. I am planning an hour for the presentation. It would then be followed by a moderated discussion.

I want to give the presentation to a group before publishing it as a YouTube video so that I can get some feedback.

Quite frankly, if I met a good public speaker, I would concentrate on filming and directing the presentation while the public speaker gives the talk.

In the screencast below I read a pithy introduction to the Health Care debate into a tinny five dollar microphone. The microphone fell apart and is held together by a piece of tap. I am tripping over my tongue big time. This video is longer than need be because I was playing with the media.


NOTE: The actual introduction to the presentation is only 5 minutes. The pithy introduction does not include my health care model. The goal of the pithy introduction is to note that there is a conflict between health care delivered at the individual level and health care at the group level. The pithy introduction has pithy remarks. For example, it notes that a horse with a healthy infestation of worms is sick. One cures the horse by killing the worms. There is a conflict between the health of the horse and health of the worms. There is no such thing as universal health.

ObamaCare is premised on the idea that the state administers care to people as a group. Think of a healthy group. A healthy group is young, vibrant and disease free. Health care at a group level eventually breaks down to a system in which one removes the sick, elderly and infirm. I introduce "wolf-care" as the quintessential model of group care. The wolves attend to the health of the deer by eating the slow. The tag line for wolf care is: "In a meadow with a healthy wolf pack, there are no unhealthy deer." Do you really want Group Care?

The pithy introduction is just a string of pithy remarks about the idiocy of the current health care debate. The goal was to test the screencasting format. I haven't made a video with the content of the presentation ... just some pithy remarks to test the media.