The FCC, the US Federal Communications Commission can often seem mysterious and complicated in a world of social entrepreneurship that doesn’t need to navigate the complicated infrastructure and regulation of radio and TV. An organization that is often misunderstood has taken to social media to become more “consumer friendly,” according to Dan McSwain a former Senior New Media Fellow at the FCC, who focused on reinventing FCC.gov in the digital era.
Dan McSwain shaking hands with Steve Wozniak. Via fccdotgov Flickr.
McSwain, now a partner with GEER Strategies, a strategic services firm delivering creative digital engagement for political and non-profit clients, discussed his time at the FCC and his opinions on the evolving TV landscape. While McSwain never worked on FCC policy, and doesn’t purport to speak on behalf of the agency, his insights help provide a unique look at the social TV and connected device world.
Lost Remote: What’s your background, what are you working on now?
Dan McSwain: I was lucky enough to spend some time in two big career buckets before 30 — online media and online politics. Let me recommend either or both to pretty much everyone, depending on how you roll. Fighting for Internet radio royalties in 2007 strangely led to working at Obama for America HQ in Chicago in 2008 and then to Washington for various jobs inside and outside the administration.
Starting Spring 2013 I became a founding partner with GEER Strategies, and we’re taking our digital advocacy experience and moving it in some new directions (media, government) as well as continuing our issue advocacy and mobilization work.
LR: From your work at the FCC how do they approach social? Social TV?
McSwain: Social media played a major role in making the FCC more “consumer friendly” and connecting with audiences who have deep interests in the global media landscape but might not have, for example, deep knowledge in telecommunications policy. In particular, the FCC’s presence on Twitter helped established the agency’s brand — the FCC became known as a place where social media could play a larger role in external communications while having fun and interacting with the public in ways you wouldn’t expect out of Washington.
Here is my favorite example — this was fun.
Social TV was still largely on the horizon in 2010 when I left the agency, but like most developing technologies there’s a contingent inside the agency’s leadership that’s always trying to see around the corner and make way for future innovations from a regulatory perspective.
LR: Will social TV ever be regulated? If so, will this be a good thing or bad thing?
McSwain: As an outside observer, I would be surprised to see the FCC move very quickly to impose big picture parameters to innovations so long as the underlying technologies don’t pose a threat to the operations of existing broadcast and consumption technologies. The tea leaves to watch here is if and how the existing players in television infrastructure might pressure regulatory agencies to take a look at nascent, potential competitors.
LR: Anything else?
McSwain: As a Roku user, my mind was blown at the ads during the season finale of Mad Men, which I just happened to catch on live AMC. Either I’m just out of touch with ads after cutting my cord, or maybe this was an anomaly designed for higher-than-usual numbers of eyeballs from creative professionals, but the Nationwide Insurance ad that actually shows a picture of an Ogilvy memo as part of the narrative was bizarre. But here I am talking about it, for a TV blog no less, so I guess that worked.