Friday, February 22, 2013

Stagnation.



I work in a world with incredible, inspiring people. I watch them grow and feel challenged by them every day. My friends and I are not just pretending to be excited to learn more about our field and become early adopters—we are high energy, passionate people with ceaseless motivation.

But I think it's time we take a look in the mirror and get really, really honest with ourselves.

There are a lot of people who work in this space who contribute nothing.

We're not entirely sure what they do, but they're skilled self-promotors and talented at doing the bare minimum to get by.

We celebrate them because they were here when it all began.

It doesn't seem to matter that they're no longer contributing, no longer growing... and that nobody can really remember what they brought to the table in the first place.

We don't need more tutorials on how to use Twitter.

We don't need more workshops on how to start a blog.

We certainly don't need to waste hundreds of thousands of donor dollars flying the same group of irrelevant activists around the country to have happy hours and talk about what innovative conservative activists they are.

It's not entirely the fault of the pretenders. While the work horses are busy promoting their causes and principles, the fakers are busy promoting themselves. We don't work with the intention of gaining recognition—when we speak publicly it's to share our expertise, not elevate ourselves.

But let's not dwell on the negative.

We're faced with an incredible opportunity to learn from November and shape the future of our party. We have the resources and an introspective mindset.

Now what are we going to do about it?