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Using Technology To Fight For Democrats
by Heather Greenfield
Stuart Trevelyan was a member of the Bill Clinton-Al Gore "war room" in the 1992 presidential campaign, and now he hopes to help other Democratic candidates win.
Trevelyan is the new president of NGP Software in Washington, a software and technology consulting company for Democratic clients. He said the 10-year-old company has had "significant growth" recently, and he looks forward to continuing that as president.
Trevelyan worked in Clinton's White House legislative affairs office for a couple years after the election and then spent a dozen years working on Internet strategy and technology for progressive clients at Kintera and the Carol/Trevelyan Strategy Group. Most recently he was the acting general manager for Ludi Labs, a Silicon Valley pre-launch, venture-funded social-networking company.
NGP provides campaign technology services to two-thirds of the Democrats in Congress, along with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
"We're thrilled to have Stu on board," NGP Founder Nathaniel Pearlman. "He brings a great combination of a deep understanding of the political market, innovative product and strategy ideas, appreciation for a mission-driven company culture, and knowledge of how manage a growing business."
Comings And Goings On Capitol Hill
After six years as the senior legislative communications associate for the Washington legislative office of the American Civil Liberties Union, Shin Inouye is leaving for Capitol Hill.
Inouye will start his new job next week as communications director for Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y. Nadler now chairs the House Judiciary Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Subcommittee.
Meanwhile, Jake Michael Ward has joined Qorvis Communications as a new director, advising clients on communications and media relations.
Ward left his job as press secretary for Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine. Before that, Ward was director of communications for Rep. Dan Lungren, R-Calif. So far Snowe's office has not announced a replacement for Ward.
New PR Firm To Handle Tech Clients
Two longtime communications specialists have opened their own public-relations firm specializing in agribusiness, technology, trade and energy issues.
Paul Cummins and Phillip Hayes have teamed to open North Bridge Communications. "We've planned and executed countless communications campaigns for leading players in those industries," Hayes explained, saying that he and Cummins would remain involved in all aspects of strategy rather than assigning the work to other people in the company.
Cummins left the DCI group, another communications strategy company. Before that, he worked for Westhill Partners, as well as several presidential campaigns. Hayes has a Hill background and was most recently the communications director at the American Sugar Alliance.
The Karl Rove YouTube Craze
A video of American University students protesting a speech by White House adviser Karl Rove has become a favorite on the video-sharing site YouTube, with more than 77,000 viewings.
The very blurry 30-second video shows security officers trying to remove protesters who are lying in the road outside the site of the April 3 speech Rove gave to an audience of Republican supporters. The protest has now gone online, with competing postings on YouTube and a growing debate over what happened.
James Kotecki, a Georgetown University student and Rove supporter who attended the speech, posted his own video under the heading "Karl Rove: What Really Happened". He says he saw protesters yelling and lying in front of Rove's car to prevent him from leaving, but he never saw security police beating protesters.
Tech Columnist Resigns Amid Ethics Flap
Bambi Francisco has resigned as a technology columnist for MarketWatch. The resignation came Friday after various news reports that raised questions about her financial stake in the startup company Vator.tv.
Dow Jones, which owns MarketWatch, has a policy that bans employees from investing in companies they cover. A News.com story cited three examples of Francisco writing about companies involved with Vator.tv.
Francisco wrote in a column Friday that she founded Vator to become a matchmaker for other startups and venture capitalists. She said she "mentioned the idea to Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal." Thiel is now a venture capitalist and invested in her company. She also said she never wrote about companies using her startup service.
"With much regret, I'm leaving MarketWatch, my employer for eight years, as a full-time columnist and correspondent, though I hope to maintain ties," Francisco wrote in her final column. "I'm going to try my hand as an entrepreneur. I think I'm making the right decision. If I didn't make this decision, I would always regret not trying."
The company did not say whether Francisco was forced to resign in a statement it released. "Dow Jones demands the highest journalism standards at our own publications and services, as reflected by our strict code of conduct," L. Gordon Crovitz, publisher of The Wall Street Journal and executive vice president of Dow Jones & Company, said in a statement. "Our MarketWatch reporter Bambi Francisco started Vator.tv on her own time with our approval, under certain guidelines on permitted areas of coverage. Bambi has decided to pursue her enterprise full-time."
Jon Friedman, who writes the media column for MarketWatch, called the incident a cautionary tale in journalism, saying it is too easy to identify with wealthy, powerful people interviewed by a tech reporter and then to think "that we, too, deserve to be wealthy beyond any reasonable expectations." He said Francisco should have "used much better judgment."
Quote Of The Week
"From the outside, it looks as if [the Homeland Security Department] doesn't really know what it's doing. They're trying, but many of their efforts lack timeframes for completion."
-- Susan Crawford of the Internet Corporation for Names and Numbers, speaking at a Hudson Institute briefing on the preparation, or lack thereof, for a major attack on the Internet.
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