This election, advance polls suggest young adults, aged 18-30, may be engaging with the political process like they haven’t in a very long time. Perhaps like never before. Why? Because they can.

Power, some say, is about cutting people off. Doctors and lawyers have a special language that takes years to learn, a way of ensuring that they remain a somewhat exclusive club. It is smart politics for political leaders to make promises to groups they think can help them, and ignore those who can’t. Those with power are the “in crowd.” Those without it are “outsiders.”

As an outsider, you stand alone looking in. And until recently, as an outsider, which at any given time is most of the population, you may have been standing shoulder to dozens, hundreds, thousands or even millions of others, just as much on the outside as you, and not really known they were there.

But social media changed all that.

Traditionally, those 30 and under have been “hard to mobilize.” You might call them an “inconvenient youth.” And like young people, women have traditionally felt marginalized in the political process and are less inclined than men to vote.

Think of all of those marginalized people standing around a glass building brightly lit on the inside and filled with the ruling class.  While it’s bright on the inside, it’s dark outside. So dark that everyone on the outside thinks they are alone. Meanwhile, those on the inside can’t see out – the bright lights have turned the windows into mirrors, so they don’t see anyone except themselves.

Social media is like a bright light going on outside the building. Suddenly, those inside are confronted by the sight of people they really didn’t know were there, just as those on the outside realize they are not alone, and they never really were. Nothing has changed but the lighting. And yet everything is different, including the balance of power.

That’s the role social media is playing in this election. Somebody turned on the outside lights.

If you want to win the people, you have to go where they are, not where they used to be or where you wish they were.

People are social. Democracy is social. And now voting is social.

Please visit Vote Social to learn how you can turn your vote into a truly social event.

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So I had a great time with Bob Ezrin on Canada AM this morning. It started early, as these things do, but it must have felt earlier for Ezrin who’d flown in to Toronto late the night before. Good of him to do it, especially since it’s his birthday today (Happy Birthday Bob!).

In case you’ve been living on a Mennonite farm for the last few decades, Ezrin, who was born in Toronto, is one of Canada’s geatest gifts to the world of music, an iconic producer responsible for some truly seminal works from the rock world, including Pink Floyd’s The Wall. He has recently reunited with Alice Cooper whom he helped establish as one of the biggest stars in the world with such works as School’s Out and Welcome to my Nightmare. Ezrin is currently up for a Juno for K’naan’s “Wavin’ Flag.”

Ezrin is an innovator. Someone able to read the pulse of almost anything and know what would make it better. Take the future of the music industry. Frustrated by the caliber of talent being turned out by traditional sound engineering and music business schools, he and legendary producer Garth Richardson (Nickelback, Rage Against the Machine), and teacher Kevin Williams opened Nimbus, a recording arts studio dedicated to turning out music industry professionals ready to work in the music business as it is today, not as it was.

Ezrin, Richardson and Williams are empowering a generation of recording arts professionals to take charge of their own careers, and, at the same time, they’re creating the artists, engineers and administrators they want to hire in the future. Pretty smart, huh?

Speaking of smart, Ezrin makes a pretty good GPS. Now, for the record, I am an excellent driver. I’ve never had a single accident, except for the time I accidentally drove a half ton truck over the car in a Rona parkinglot. But I digress. I’ve never seen Bob behind the wheel but I have seen his backseat driving skills, and they too are excellent. And today, they were particularly necessary as, in a show of bravada, I decided to turn off my GPS prematurely.

As anyone who has ever driven with me knows, I am directionally challenged. I once tried to go two long blocks to the mall near the house where I lived at the time and ended up in a small hamlet some 25 kilometers away. That’s just how I roll. And roll. And roll.

So when I drove past CTV without so much as a glance, despite the fact I’ve been there many, many times, Bob had this to say to me in the greenroom:

And that’s just how he rolls.

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We are profoundly grateful for the thanks and recognition we receive from our clients and those who are near and dear to them.

We are deeply touched that, this month, Hollywood actor Tom Hanks, Honourary Patron of the James Fund, sent Susan McLennan this very gracious acknowledgment of her work to help what has become one of the leading funds fighting neuroblastoma in the world.

Tom Hanks Letter to Susan McLennan

In case the above is difficult to read, it says:

“Many thanks for your loyal support of The James Fund for Neuroblastoma Research at SickKids! Your creative guidance has given The James Fund impressive exposure, resulting in scientific discoveries that are of major global significance in the quest for a cure and better treatments for this childhood cancer. Some day we will fulfill James’ dream of a world where all the kids with neuroblastoma will be able to survive.”

The pleasure has been ours, Mr. Hanks. Truly.

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Ed Begley Jr. and Bill Nye had some fun one-upping each other on who was more green. Daryl Hannah spoke beautifully and passionately about our responsibility to the planet and the animals with whom we share it and the Kratt Brothers delighted kids with their Amazon Adventure story and a family audience with how growing up in the wilds of New Jersey inspired them to be conservationists.

Here are a few shots from the day

Ed Begley Jr. and Susan McLennan

Martin Kratt, Daryl Hannah and Chris Kratt

Ruth Coules, Martin Kratt, Daryl Hannah, Chris Kratt and Susan McLennan

Chris Kratt and Brian Smith of PSEG

Ed Begley Jr. and Chris Kratt

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