I don't intend on making this much of a diary but this Washington Post article caught my attention in a weird way. Is Gavin Newsom going nuts?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
"Newsom spent last weekend in Washington (on NPR’s Diane Rehm show, “Meet the Press” and at a Jefferson Hotel book party Friday night) promoting his first book, “Citizenville: How to Take the Town Square Digital and Reinvent Government.”
The book cover for "Citizenville: How to Take the Town Square Digital and Reinvent Government".It’s all about technology and government and pragmatism and using all those cool tech toys for the greater good. “This is a policy book focused on what the principles of openness and transparency can mean to building trust again to governing institutions, elected officials and civil servants ” he explained.
He goes on like this for a while, sounding like Al Gore 2.0 — no surprise, given he just finished a gig on Current TV. (Democrat Newsom gives props to conservatives Eric Cantor and Darrell Issa for citizen outreach: “They’ve done some very interesting things.”
Ok. Just how have Eric Cantor and Darrell Issa done "interesting" things for citizen outreach? They do NO citizen outreach. ZILCH. All they do is general informational events but don't keep the communication lines open for people to directly contact each of these "Congressmen."
Then I realized Gavin Newsom actually has business outreach that goes far down Southern California. Here he's presenting an event promoting Optum, which last year announced it would hire more than 600 people by the end of 2013.
Ok. I cover Darrell Issa and California's 49th Congressional District regularly but I had no clue of Optum until today. In fact, I didn't even know they existed.
However, being based in the Bay Area, I know that Oracle is hiring sales professionals now and expanding like crazy. It's one of the largest companies in California, the most powerful in the Bay Area. However, Newsom didn't announce Oracle was hiring for sales, did he?
And he also didn't announce there are more financial start-ups and other tech companies hiring as well. He also didn't announce the open house event of Shutterfly, a company based in Redwood City, which has the event tonight. Basically, the company is looking to hire across the board:
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/...
Shutterfly Inc. invites you to join us at our Recruiting Open House to learn more about our career opportunities! Join us on Wednesday, February 20th where you will have the opportunity to meet our hiring managers, employees, and recruiting team for all of the Shutterfly Inc. brands: Shutterfly, Tiny Prints, Wedding Paper Divas and Treat.
Shutterfly Recruiting Open House -- Job Fair
Wednesday, February 20th
5:00pm -- 7:00pm
Faz Restaurant, Sheraton Hotel
1108 North Mathilda Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA 94089
I mean, I go to networking events all the time and establish connections with people all around, from San Francisco to San Jose and even as far away as in Danville (which is more conservative). By Newsom promoting another hiring event, well, what's that going to do for the average person out of work? It's just going to mean the person will be at another Google Hiring Event like Google did with their San Francisco Headquarters in June 2010 when they were doing all of the DoubleClick hiring at that time from people who attended the event. I was there myself and I remember Google employees were like celebrities: TOO many prospective candidates showing up and meeting them.
What about the REAL way to get jobs? Some expert networkers would say that 75% of the market is through networking, where 25% is through online job ads. Seriously, when was the last time a politician ever promoted networking? If Gavin Newsom is so big on technology, why doesn't he promote or work on developing a process where networking efficiency is increased significantly so more people will be back to work and the state of California has to deal with less unemployed and underemployed?
Instead, working professionals like myself deal with Eventbrite, LinkedIn and Meetup while others depend on online job boards and job fairs. And I know we all have dealt with the crazy state agency known as the Employment Development Department (EDD), which is known as the "Error Deficient Department." You can say whatever you want about how does one get employed but the bottom line is, CONSISTENCY is important. I just don't know if Newsom is making this clear in his appearances across California. He does seem to be a guy who knows how to network. So why doesn't he promote networking?
Now, the first thing to make clear of is that I'm a Bay Area native and I've lived here my whole life. I also know San Francisco well and other cities and places nearby the area and across the East Bay. One thing to be clear of is that Gavin Newsom is not that liberal. He may have broke barriers in San Francisco by allowing gay marriage licenses to be issued and yes, he's very pro environment but he's also not the greatest person in the world in being inclusive to the liberal and progressive communiespecially in San Francisco. He's also NOT conservative. He's a "limousine liberal," as some in the Marina district in San Francisco are such. (and Newsom did represent the Marina when he was Supervisor).
Regardless, what is Gavin Newsom's relationship with Darrell Issa and Eric Cantor, if any? That's what I'm trying to figure out.