Journey of a Capital Insider From Hill To Valley

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In a way, Kralik is going back to school. Silicon Valley is his university. Armed with his laptop, Kralik drives his black Saturn SUV up and down Highway 101, the region's main artery, meeting top employees at some of the Valley's leading high-tech firms.

He runs scenarios in his head, potential solutions for this-or-that problem, which typically end up in a what-if formulation.

Take a recent afternoon meeting at Yelp.com.

Yelp is an online soapbox for anyone who wants to review and rate their local gyms, restaurants and shops -- your local anything. Jeremy Stoppelman came up with the idea for Yelp when he was sick with the flu four years ago. The concept, Kralik thinks, could be applied to government. While Stoppelman talks about the Yelp community that's blossomed in Washington -- "The activity is really picking up there" -- Kralik interrupts, wondering out loud, "What if we could Yelp our government, you know, review and rate how government, how a particular agency or department, is doing its work?"

Another day, another Silicon Valley company. This time, he's on a video conference call with Bobbi Kurshan of Curriki. It's a play on the words "curriculum" and "wiki," and Kralik cultivates the seed of an idea: Can it be used in federal education policy?

Curriki operates under the wiki-fication of knowledge: an open-source site in which teachers and educators can collaborate in building curricula for K-12 students. After listening to Kurshan further describe Curriki's goals -- "We want teachers across the country to share what they're learning" -- Kralik has another brainstorm: "What if the Department of Education adapted Curriki?"

Kurshan, carefully couching her words, replies: "They have other priorities when it comes to technology, and content is not their priority."

Kralik sighs. That's the hurdle.

In the past two years, since the overhaul of Social Security died due to what he calls "that nagging red-and-blue divide," he's considered himself more an independent than a Republican. Then came the "colossal governmental failure" in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, then the scandal of mistreated veterans at Walter Reed, then the "continuing mismanagement" of the war in Iraq. Kralik says he's had enough.

"This whole red versus blue, Republicans versus Democrats, us-versus-them thing hasn't done us any good or solved any problems," he says, walking down Fourth Street in downtown San Francisco after the conference call. He has to get his car, jump on Highway 101 and drive to another meeting.

"Customers walk away from businesses if they're not happy. But we're not customers. If we're unhappy, where else are we gonna go? Cuba?"

Nothing else to do, Kralik says, but work with the government you've got.

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Surrounded by 30 guests in a spacious San Francisco apartment, Kralik tells a story that refuses to die. Always gets laughs. Nearly two years ago, Ted Stevens of Alaska, the longest-serving Republican in the Senate and former chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, stunned techies when he referred to the Internet as "a series of tubes."

"Yep, I'm sorry to say it, but that's what we're up against in Washington," Kralik says to his audience, a group of Republican and Libertarian high-tech entrepreneurs called Lead21.Then, as he does sometimes, he pumps his fist, raises his voice and gets excited by a project that, for him, requires immediate attention.

He's frustrated that there isn't one site that lists the country's estimated 513,000 elected officials -- not just Washington officials but local city council members, school commissioners, judges, etc. So he's helped create what he calls 513Connect, "the Wikipedia for all elected officials." On the site, not yet available to the public, users edit a list of elected officials across the country. Type in your Zip code. Find your community. Enter the name of your local officials.

It's an interesting idea, for sure, but not earth-shattering. These days, all it takes is a click of a mouse to figure out who certain local officials are. That's the big picture. The forest. But Kralik, the geek in search of solutions as he drives up and down Highway 101, is still studying the trees.