Content = negligible value (sometimes positive, sometimes neutral, sometimes negative)

Content + Context = Value
* We share a content experience in a way that’s meaningful to us, to our community. It might be content that’s of interest to a community gathered around that topic, or it might be content that’s relevant to a geographical community, etc.

Content + Contact = Value
* We share a content experience in the same space (physical or virtual) and talk about it, react together, share.

Content + Context + Contact = Extreme Value
* This is where the True Fans phenomenon appears — we share content, we share contact, and we have a shared context of meaning and experience. This is what Seth Godin calls the “tribe.”

To relate this to the presidential campaign, I think Clinton started out in a Content mode — I have these ideas, these policies, I have this track record. Obama started out with Context — I feel we’re on the wrong track, we’re not focusing on the deeper issues, we’re not talking to one another, we’re talking past one another, do you feel the same way?

Perhaps this is why Obama’s message continues to resonate — he’s getting at something deeper than policy ideas.

Darfur and Kenya are linked but not in headlines. Understanding why so many states don’t work anymore is key but simply reporting that this outrage has happened and then that one – makes it all worse

Clinton is up in the polls and now Obama makes us more confused – what is the values split that is widening in America that means that the two sides can’t even hear each other. Are we on track for the same kind of split as the last time that America polarized in the 1850′s? That is the context – that is what makes the choices more clear – we can all go on.

Headline news is an arms race that pub radio/TV cannot win. But commercial radio/tv is not able to do context – they can’t do contact either

The great TV on PBS is surely context? I saw the bio of Eleanor Roosevelt yesterday – add this to Obama and we see how race still is so divisive – then we might ask WHY rather than merely blame. That gives us a chance of converting Context to Contact. Again – we can do this and THEY can’t