qvisory

In one of his Netroots Nation recaps, Kevin mentioned a new organization called Qvisory, which essentially aims to be the AARP for young people. In conjunction with the research group Greenberg, Quinlan, Rosner, Qvisory just released a poll on the economic concerns of young people.

We all know that the economy is the #1 issue for (non-latino) youth. The poll has some good information that fleshes out young voter's economic concerns. Here's the situation in which many young people today find themselves:

Financial concerns top the list of problems facing young adults in their lives today, at 55 percent, an 11-point jump over the past year.

What are those concerns?

Many of these concerns are problems faced by all Americans in this tumbling economy, but debt is a particularly fierce problems for young people:

• Three out of four young people report having gone deeper in debt over the past year.
• More than half of young adults say they are only paying their minimum monthly amount on their credit card.
• Nearly one in five (19%) report having had their phone, cable, or utilities cut off, and more than one in seven (15%) have faced repossession or had their credit card cancelled due to non-payment.
• One in three young people who owe money on a credit card owe more than $10,000 overall.
• 28% of all young adults are carrying medical debt.
• More than half of all young people have gone without health insurance at some point in the past five years – including 75% of those who are now carrying medical debt.

This is not really a surprise - especially since congress has long been on the side of credit card companies - making it easier to obtain credit and harder to get rid of debt and start over. So is it any wonder that:

Only 32% of young people think the leadership in Washington, DC represents their interests well, in contrast to their views about how well corporations (79%), veterans (52%), and seniors (53%) are represented.

Which is, of course, to say that there is a real need for something like Qvisory to help young people manage their finances, and find health care. It also means that we need more people in Congress who will represent young people and promote bills that ensure our economic security, such as Clair McCaskill's bill to make it more difficult for credit card companies to sign up college students who lack a regular income and cannot afford to make payments.

On a side note, what's up with 52% of young people thinking that Congress pays too much attention to veterans? This survey was taken right around the time of the initial fight over the 21st Century GI Bill, so that might account for it. But to my mind, veterans and our troops get a raw deal more than anyone.

It's crazy how hard it is to find the time to actually write a blog at a bloggers conference.

Yesterday morning I went to the From Dean to Obama: Four Years in the Internet Revolution Panel. Both Joe Trippi and Karl Frisch were dropping some comedic gold throughout the entire panel. I think the most valuable comment was from Joe, who said that we are in an awkward transition between an era where authenticity is valued (the internet) and the era of the 30 second spot. Because of this, snippets of our authenticity end up being taken out of context and turned into 30 second spots.

The next panel I attended was called What's Next for the Next Generation. The panel was actually just a long infomercial for Qvisory. They bill themselves as an AARP for young people. The problem is that they are trying to become the AARP at their inception, and that isn't possible. Qvisory offers a lot of great tools for young people to manage their finances, get health care, etc. Unfortunately they are stuck in the mindset that they need to be an advocacy organization as well. They would totally be more successful marketing Qvisory as a service and not as some lobbying entity. The AARP did not start out as the powerhouse it is today. It took a long time to build their organization to the point of being an advocacy organization as well. Qvisory doesn't get that.

Another problem is the fact the Qvisory spends all their money on consultants to design their logo, website, etc. and then when we brought up strategies to spread the word to people they said they don't have the resources. Hey, guess what. If you don't spend all your money on consultants that are going to come up with a crappy name you would have those resources. And oh, by the way, you can get people to promote your organization that aren't being paid to do it. They don't get that either. And the sad part is that Qvisory actual offers a very good service that young people should know about.

After that a bunch of us youth vote people hung out for awhile waiting for the coming parties. Somehow, the entire Future Majority team and Ian McGruder thought it was an hour earlier than it actually was, so we ended up missing the Huffington Post/GQ Politics party. Luckily Kos had a party as well and we ended up at that.

Speaking of the Kos party, this just may be me getting older in the youth vote movement, but what is the deal with having a party where people are supposed to talk to eachother and socialize with a band playing so loud you can't hear anything? Seriously, it was annoying, and it was Zydeco.