I’m not sure what this says about me, but I’m addicted to the Lifehacker blog.  The site provides links to resources intended to simplify (hack) aspects of your life.  While most of the posts consist of tech stuff, there are also posts on finding holiday bargains or inexpensive things to do with your kids, etc.  The blog is one of many that feed a growing culture of “Life Hackers.”  Other blogs include Lifehack, Zen Habits, and 43 Folders.

The subculture is complete with its own bible.  Getting Things Done (GTD) a 2002 book written by David Allen, a California-based productivity consultant created a buzz among “life hackers.”  The organizational system detailed in the book (which I try to use myself) tries to help people organize their lives through an elaborate system of recording and lists.  The system has spawned a wave of practitioners providing their own variations on the system in the effort to create the perfect organizational system.

I’ve always thought this would be a great subculture for a sociologist to study (we political scientists don’t get to look at fun stuff like that, at least not pre-tenure).   What interests me is whether you could create similar subculture of “poli-hackers” or “power-hackers” people who share tips about how to more effecively access the political process.  It would be interesting to create a site where activists or lobbyists share what’s worked for them in the past.   It seems to me that if you can “geekify” the political process, the results would be interesting.