This is my inaugural post on my personal blog, but it is not my inaugural blog post. After graduating college, I started a blog called kegtalk.net with my buddy that I've known my entire life. We set out to cater to Denver sports fans as we are two of the biggest Denver sports fans you will find. A year and a half later and we are sitting on a grand total of 63 followers on Twitter and very little page views to our blog. I began to think "how can someone start a blog today and gain a meaningful following?" By no means did I consider kegtalk to be the pinnacle of the blogosphere, but I felt like we were creative and funny enough to at least gain some followers. We also were broadcasting to a large market, Denver is one of 13 cities (or areas if you count the San Francisco Bay Area) with four professional sports franchises. How could we not gain some readership?
The truth is, we only gained readers when we inserted key words into the titles of our posts. I found this system to be incredibly unfair. If someone wrote a well-thought and coherent post, they would lose out to a post full of nonsense just because the nonsense post had the right word in its title. Google's search engine is one of the great innovations of the past century but it has issues in identifying quality content outside of the major news aggregators and blogs. The idea for the Pollis was borne out of this frustration.
As of this writing the Pollis is nothing more than an idea in the back of my head. Hopefully I pull this plan out of my ass and people will actually be reading this blog a few months from now (To the 2 people who are reading now, thank you, and I bet you're pretty pissed that you ended up here after searching for infinity). The reason I am writing now when I know that no one will read is two-fold. First, I believe that chronicling the efforts of a 24 year old entrepreneur trying to get an idea developed makes for an interesting blog, and hopefully it could help other entrepreneurs down the line. Secondly, I find it cathartic to put my thoughts and concerns into writing.
The world is a frustrating place right now; the United States is broke, the Israel-Palestine conflict is simmering, Europe's budget concerns make the United States' look like a piece of cake, and corruption and greed is widespread in every part of the worlds infrastructure. We are at a turning point in world history. Are we going to sit by and watch as our politicians continue to bankrupt our societies with their cowardice and selfishness? What about the incredible transfer of wealth from the middle class to the richest one percent that occurred over the last decade? Where is the outrage at that atrocity?
The people of the world need a voice (and don't say we have that with voting, you seriously are going to tell me that by being able to choose between two people who are funded entirely by special interests every two years is real change? Please). I want to help give them that voice. You already spend plenty of time on your blogs conveying your thoughts and desires. I want to put a megaphone in front of that message. The Pollis is more than just a business idea or the next "hip" social networking site. The Pollis is an extension of the public's values and ideas. I do not want to use this to just make money (although that certainly is a motivation), I want to inspire change.
That being said, I do not consider myself to be special or unique. In fact, I believe that I am overwhelmingly normal. I have my views and opinions on politics and society just like everyone else. Just because I argue them passionately does not mean that I am right (my mantra is taken from a sign at the Stewart-Colbert rally last summer: I disagree with you, but I'm pretty sure you're not a Nazi). I understand my limitations and that I have made mistakes and that I will undoubtedly make many more in the future. What I have learned in my brief time on this planet is to be honest with yourself and the people you care about and learn from your experiences. The rest is up to random chance.
I am on the precipice of a great journey. I do not know where this will take me, I am prepared for this to end in failure as well as success. I would like to tell you that I would be happy if the Pollis makes a difference in a handful of people's lives but that is a lie. I want change. Big change. And I know that I have enlisted the right people to facilitate this. The Pollis is a megaphone, the blogosphere is the voice. To all the bloggers out there, please, reward my faith in you.
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