We were profoundly moved by how many good ideas we encountered in conversations with "ordinary" people, and by how hard it seemed to get these ideas a hearing.

We chatted online with Philip, a retired accountant from Cleveland, who had a slogan he thought would be effective with undecided seniors. Later, we met Adele, a middle-aged nurse practitioner from Philadelphia, who said she had a way to reduce hospital costs nationwide by millions of dollars. Then there was Juan, a New York teacher who had a model for an after-school program that he thought could reduce gang activity, based on one he had started at his school.

We left each of these exchanges, and dozens more, eager to pass these ideas along, but we found it more difficult to do this than we expected. We couldn't find any chat rooms or political blogs dedicated to discussing solutions instead of just analyzing problems. In our real world volunteer work, our supervisors had access only to their own supervisors, and so on up the chain of command. There was no easy way for ideas that came from the field to get a hearing from the people who decided the campaign strategy. This was not the fault of any of the individuals or groups involved. Everyone was busy and overworked. Decision-makers couldn’t possibly listen to every proposal or suggestion that a volunteer might come up with or stumble upon.