What should journalism do to reveal the state of our democracy?
Here come the CONTENT CREATORS - 400 million impressions at the Democratic National Convention
I feel quite vindicated this month. The central contention of KIP, my passion project of the past decade, is hitting the mainstream. Everybody sees it!
A journalism society talked about feeling insulted this week. Meanwhile, journalists in the mainstream media had their lunch eaten last week by 200 ‘social media influencers’ invited to the Democratic National Convention who reached 400 million impressions (4x what cable news generated) for a media value of $800 million.
What a masterclass in disinter-media-tion. The Democrats went straight to the people.
The mainstream ‘journalism’ hits keep coming, with Dana Bash of CNN recycling racist Trump taunts as if it’s legitimate journalistic work in the first cable news mainstream media interview of the HARRIS WALZ team. Don’t waste our time!
I cannot help but notice these are the very same social media contributors I've been talking about as the non-traditional bridge media we need to connect to traditional journalism, and I conceived a framework to do that with my passion project KIP.
Journalists, it’s long past time for you to stop feeling insulted and get to work connecting with the people who are bringing news to us. They could use your rigor and training and experience, and we will all benefit from it. Democracy demands it.
By the way, I have a plan for that. Take a look at the KIP framework to connect journalists with content creators (I call them the Fifth Estate) and trusted independent parties to vet, frame, and generate discussion, games, research, education and commerce using current events.
2024 Progress Report: The Bigger Picture
Wearing my ‘serial founder exploring starting a company’ hat, I advanced my passion project KIP3.
KIP is a seven-year long passion project to tackle the disinformation problem on social media that makes us poor information citizens and polarized neighbors who cannot take collective action in the face of threats like the climate crisis.
The September Issue: Drop is "the future of delivery"
“What does it look like when a pre-Series A startup is on newsstands in three national industry magazines at the same time? ”
Congrats to the young diverse team at Drop Delivery which Marijuana Venture calls in its cover story "The future of delivery".
Marijuana Venture writes: “After revolutionizing delivery tech in 2020, Drop Delivery is empowering businesses with even more customizable features to improve efficiency and increase sales.”
Women & Weed calls CEO Vanessa Gabriel “the delivery diva”.
Cannabis & Tech Today says Drop’s on a mission to help retailers optimize their day-to-day operations and delivery services with cutting-edge technology for a monthly subscription fee. That’s the SaaS model.
Why am I writing about Drop?
If you missed it, I’ve been pleased to be bringing my experience to Drop as their chief operating officer since last November!
The tech + cannabis industry space is having a particular moment, as legalization spreads to more states and during the pandemic “cannabis has become an essential household item.” California, which began adult-use sales in 2018, saw consumers rise to 45% of all adults in the first half of 2021 according to BDSA’s business intelligence and market share tracking. Consumption is on the rise across the nation.
“Cannabis has become an essential household item. Consumerism has exploded. Delivery is the future.”
…and the news does not stop.
Yesterday, Drop won the Poseidon Asset Management Green Shoots Pitch Forum, a special event that connects top-performing cannabis companies across all verticals (licensed and ancillary), with accredited investors. It’s organized by Poseidon, a first mover in the cannabis investment space named Top Hedge Fund Q3 2020 by Barclay Hedge. Winning sends Vanessa to pitch to investors on stage during MJUnpacked in Las Vegas in October, an industry conference for brands, retail executives, and investors.
