The Best Idea Since Sliced Bread
November 25, 2005
Asian Pacific Americans have finally come full circle. Over half of us are immigrants and most of us are derived from immigrants only a few generations removed. Yet, we now are so integral to the future of this country that one of us has been chosen as a judge for a major national contest that is focusing attention on America’s future.
Better than so-called “reality television” (which actually is carefully scripted to increase dramatic tension), the “Best Idea Since Sliced Bread” contest invites all of us to participate in a real-life national dialogue. The topics? How to address shrinking job security, eroding health care benefits, disappearing pensions and other issues affecting working-class Americans.
Using the power of the Internet, anyone can supply an idea as long as it stays below 175 words and addresses three questions: What is the problem? How would you fix it? How will your fix help working women and men?
If your idea is chosen the winner, you get $100,000. Two runners-up get $50,000 each. The top 21 entries will have the satisfaction of seeing their ideas in a book that will come out in 2006. The book and the entire contest are designed to get us past the bipolar, two-party way big issues have been debated on the national stage. It is also innovative because it invites everyday folks who are not “policy experts” to share their ideas.
The contest, sponsored by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), has been featured in Parade magazine and other off-line media, and has sparked a huge buzz on the Internet. Each submission is automatically posted on a website at www.sinceslicedbread.com (with just your first name and state).
If you go to the website, the instant feedback is a fascinating window into how the American mainstream views issues as complex as the tax code and as simple as job training. Everyone can comment on the ideas of everyone else, and then everyone can rate every comment as being helpful or not.
This two-level feedback mechanism gives you a good idea of what the viewing community is thinking. The website allows the person with the original idea to have an online dialogue with supporters and critics. Also, if someone makes a comment that is not helpful, either because the tone is nasty or because it does not engage earlier comments, then the community as a whole can make its displeasure felt by a rating of, for example, “Two out of nine people found this comment helpful.”
In randomly searching the 10,183 entries submitted to the website as of last week, I did not see many that included obviously Asian names or entries that were based on an experience in an APA community. With $200,000 in prizes, however, I am sure that the APA community will go online and get their entries in by the December 5 deadline once they know about the contest.
Between December 5, 2005 and February 1, 2006, Ginger Lew and 23 other judges will be evaluating tens of thousands of ideas and narrowing them down to 21 finalists and then three winners. Lew, a Chinese American attorney who served as an executive at the Department of Commerce, Small Business Administration, and Telecommunications Development Fund, was chosen to serve as a judge because of her interest in public policy and entrepreneurship –– and also for her knowledge of APA communities.
“I’ve seen a lot of intriguing ideas, especially from Asian Pacific American entrepreneurs,” she said in a recent interview. “Before I came to Washington, D.C., in 1993, I lived and worked in the Bay Area and Los Angeles, and I wondered how us common folks could get our ideas heard. Well, this is our chance. I especially want to reach out to the Asian Pacific American entrepreneurial community. We’ve got ideas about what we need to start new businesses or grow our businesses. I know we’ve got people in our communities who have ideas about how to better save for children’s college education or save for retirement. These issues are especially important to us.”
While no one knows who will win the contest, this is a unique opportunity to both make a difference and get a reward for doing so. Send in as many entries as you like. Good luck!
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