I know it’s early, but can you imagine a political convention without a known nominee going in? Hot damn, that’s the best reality TV that can be. So get this, the last convention that was somewhat in doubt was 32 years ago with Reagan and Ford, however most pundits say the last true brokered convention was 56 years ago. Let’s not quibble, the fact is this year both the Democratic and Republican conventions have a chance of being decided in real time. They resemble sporting events and not coronations.

They would be the first brokered convention with mini DV cameras, live blogging, Twitter, Utterz… yipes!

Obama, Clinton, Edwards for the Democrats and McCain, Romney neck and neck with one more heavy Giuliani still poised to win a couple of big states on the Republican side.

Look I just can’t get too excited thinking about it because the chances are still slim, but indulge me for just for a moment.

Delegates will become citizen journalists and spin doctors will all of a sudden wish they had a Twitter or Utterz account. (Twitter and Utterz training available here act now!).

Sure those folks are wired with text messages and crackberries, but they will need to reach out to people that may not be in their distribution lists. They may have to reach out to someone that was the opposition just 10 minutes earlier. They may want to try and drive web users to online polls or engage them to show which candidate can motivate outside the walls of the convention hall because that’s the ultimate victory. Eegadds!

Will journalists be plugged into twitter profiles for the candidates or the candidates’ spokespeople (that is a separate conversation whether to have surrogate profiles to float trial balloons)?

Yes social media friends, a brokered convention is one part crisis, two parts breaking news, and all of it adds up to an interesting scenario for microblogging platforms. Stay tuned.

Here is some background on the convention process and brokered conventions

Election 2008 Countdown and Delegate Count

Democratic Convention Watch

Power Line News

Republican National Committee

Democratic National Committee

The technology dilemma: New technologies are developed quickly and less costly today than even 10 years ago. New technology implementation requires the precise work of three groups: path finders, bridge builders and commoditizers.

1) Path finders: They forge a wild river. They develop for the joy of a challenge and/or the dream of wealth. Many times they traverse to unknown places. They prudently cut a path with precision moving toward a desired destination. They may not know exactly where they are going, but they are learning and discovering with every step.

2) Bridge builders: These are the ones who help the masses on the populated side of the river come across. They painstakingly educate those fearful of going over the bridge and in some cases hope they don’t loose sight of the path finders.

3) Commoditizers come along with the masses and build different uses for technologies that have become common. They help drive the price down, expand usage and, with it, less risk in implementing that technology in a typical business.

The issue that Jeremiah Owyang of the Web Strategist Blog raises in his Utterz post from Nov. 29 is whether the technologists are moving too fast. In my parlance, are the path finders rushing ahead so fast that they are in danger of being alone in the wild?

The pace of what technologists can do is outracing how significant portions of the population can use it or can pay for it. The question technologists and consumers should answer jointly is: Can the new technologies be applied to provide sufficient value that it is worth changing from what we do now?

Social media and different issues than the 90s:

• A more fragmented market, which could mean less total revenue per technology
• Less costs, which potentially mean higher profits per technology
• Insanely short product life-cycles, putting all technologies in danger of being overtaken
• Potentially misunderstood brand power of technology, when the real asset is the communities

The Bar Syndrome

What would make me the most nervous as an investor? Understanding exactly what the asset is and how will that asset sustain itself and grow. I believe a good metaphor is that many of these social media technologies are like investing in a bar or restaurant. If that establishment can be replicated to attract enough people, then you’ve got a winning franchise. If, however, the people are fickle or a new bar opens down the street with better looking, livelier people, then what is left?

The accessories

We are to the point of application accessories; widgets is the accepted term. The issue is how these accessories are going to be paid for. An interesting question formed in the negative, just to make it more painful: What two technologies can you give up today?

A typical business with an abundance of meetings, limited budgets and cautious management needs time just to understand how these technologies are going to add value to the company. Patience is a virtue. Will the marketplace reward patience?

I worked at a venture capital firm in the 90s. There were companies working on 360-degree images of shopping malls, med-tech applications for desktop radiological reading, and video-on-the-Web capabilities. It was just a question of timing more than applications. Those ideas are well in place today and profitable.

History does help predict the future; we just need the patience for the future to catch up with us.