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>>Erik: What did you learn about interacting with an older, more diversified community
as a 23 year old politician that you`re now applying to your business today?
>>Mike: Some people just didn`t feel like I knew what I was talking about maybe or that
I too young to truly understand the issue. And so what that did for me if anything inspired
me to work even harder, to read more about what was going on to prove them wrong constantly.
So, when I had a conversation not only did I know about the issue but in some cases I
knew more, or had a solution that I was already setting up. And I think that`s how I started
getting a lot of respect with my colleagues and people in the government itself, it`s
that I was going to come to this meeting, I was going to know what I was going to talk
about, I was going to stand up for something, I was going to be very passionate about it
and in many cases, and in public records, if people kind of tried to kind of put me
put me in my place by my age I was very willing to stand up for my self, I was very willing
to let them know how I felt about the issue and I wasn`t someone to be kind of be messed
around with or that I wasn`t here for something cute and simple, I was here to get the work
done. And I think that as you go on, and our agency is a very young agency, we deal with
some of the biggest brands in the world at our social media agency, at Carrot Creative,
and having to deal with traditional, we deal with a lot of major brands that have veterans
of the industry who are in charge of the brand, in charge of the interaction, in charge of
the brand management, like I said earlier, they are taking a risk with someone who is
maybe younger and not as experienced. But in the in industry I`m working on now, in
social media, it`s a benefit about being younger, younger people are truly the ones who have
grown up with this type social media so we kind of understand it in a different way that
people who are adopting it later on as a communication outlet. So we get a little more respect because
we re younger but the same thing of being fearful of handling budgets which is what
I experienced in politics, people don`t think a 23 year old should handle a 7, 8 million
dollar budget. You know, handling budgets now for large companies, being able to know
that this is someone they can rely on is something that you have to be very sincere about, you
have to be very passionate about that and have let both whether it`s your constituents,
your government clients, or your business clients know that you`re going to be very
honest and truthful and transparent with them and that they should trust you. And thatÕs
usually how you can get over it.
>>Erik: Did you feel by entering the game of politics you were able to deconstruct what
actually was going on?
>>Mike: Every politician you see when they first run, they want to expose everything,
they want to address all the issues, and when they get into office, they don`t address those.
And the reason why is not because they`re not being good politicians, the reason why
is that once they`ve actually, maybe sometimes when they`ve had time to really look at the
situation, they realize that what`s currently in place is the best one, but it`s very hard
to describe that back to your constituents. A perfect example, I`ll never forget this,
a woman called me up, `Mike there are no seatbelts on school buses. We need to change this`.
And you know what, I`m sitting there thinking, `How can we pass seatbelt laws and not even
teach young people that they should have seatbelts.` And I did my research, we had the Connecticut
Conference of Municipalities which was an advocacy group which was allowing us to give
more information to legislatures it was getting you information on seatbelt laws. And of course
there`s the money issue. But the real issue is that in order to put seatbelts in school
buses it actually was not as safe as not having seatbelts. Kids were using them to hit each
other, they weren`t putting them on properly so in case of an accident it lead to more,
and through the research we found out that seatbelts caused for more accidents and more
injuries than not having seatbelts at all. So, then you go back and tell that to your
constituent, `You know, I`m not going to be supporting this because in the long run it`s
not as safe`. And they don`t want to hear that, they haven`t looked through 50 pages
worth of this information so they don`t understand what you`re saying and they don`t feel like
youÕre fighting for them. And that`s something very little on the much broader scale is when
you talk about trying to regulate unions, trying to cut taxes, trying to find out `Hey,
why are we buying this parcel land instead of selling it to developers?` And the problems
run so big and they`re so massive, the constituents care about one certain cause, and when you
see how it effects the bigger picture you realize sometimes it ends up being the best
thing. And that`s very difficult because these people trust you. You worked on rallying for
that cause and then you realize at the moment it might not be the best thing for the town.