(2006-02-21) Since Sliced Bread

The SEIU created the Since Sliced Bread contest to pick a "best" idea to grow the economy... (and) Create good-paying jobs that allow people to raise a family, afford Health Insurance, pay for their children's College Education, get additional training and save for Retirement.

• Echo Ditto, comprised of some people who worked on the Howard Dean campaign, built it

• Jan10, Andy Stern was surprised at the hostility meeting the 21 ideas announced yesterday morning.

• Jan12, Jan Frel noted dissatisfaction from the participants with the list of finalists, which were chosen by a group of judges.

• Jan19, Zephyr Teachout describes the separate site created by Brian Julin who let everyone (or at least 7k people) vote on 10 randomly-selected ideas that were submitted to Since Sliced Bread, as another approach to identify the best ideas. Teachout notes I don't like consulting much - because what people really want to learn from the ex-Dean people is how to list-build. "I don't want to help build their lists," I said, "You need lists, sure, but it's the wrong lesson." My pal responded, "Democrats learned the wrong lesson from 2004. They learned list-building was important. Republicans looked at the same information and learned Social Networking."

• Jan21, Britt Blaser reviews the reviews and finger the probable cause, which I think of as a "filtering slope." I Commented there that...

It seems to me the biggest issue is that the whole thing is an artificial Zero-Sum Game, which is the cost of trying to build Engagement via cash reward.