Quick Hits — September 1, 2010

Weed! Cats! Craigslist sex at the Beck rally! What could it be but A Very Special pre-holiday beach-reading edition of Quick Hits.

– cpd

Add comment September 1st, 2010 Trackback

Building a Facebook Page Following via Email, and Vice Versa

It’s an old idea on Epolitics.com, but a good one still — email and social networks work well together, no matter how many people try to predict (for instance) that Facebook dooms email to irrelevance. Two good examples popped up today, the first in an email from the Center for American Progress:

To be progressive is to be connected. To stay on top of what’s going on, and to spread
progressive ideas to your networks. To challenge conservative misinformation with the facts.

And CAP’s Facebook page can help. Just go to www.facebook.com/americanprogress and click
on the “Like” button at the top of the page:

[big blue button]

After you’ve clicked “Like,” click the “Suggest to Friends” link on the left side of the page to
invite your Facebook friends to join you.

Yep, you can use email to build a base of support on Facebook, helping to create critical mass for future viral growth. Just as you can also use a Facebook Page to build your email list, as Oceana recently did — over 60 days, they gained 5000+ email-list signups and more than 4000 new Facebook “likes”. The keys? Engaging supporters consistently on their Facebook Page, providing people with information and giving them opportunities to sign up for actions while also being sensitive to any blowback (i.e., they were careful not to overdo it). They also made it easy to act, in part by including an online petition in a tab directly on their Facebook Page. So the next time someone presents email and Facebook as an either/or proposition, set ‘em straight — for their own good.

– cpd

Add comment August 31st, 2010 Trackback

Re-Scheduled Summer Party at the Reef: This Thursday

The elements themselves may have ganged up against us the last time we tried this, but let’s see if we can get together and whoop it up WITHOUT provoking the wrath of water, wind and fire. Come kick off your Labor Day weekend a day early at a…

Re-Scheduled Summer Party at The Reef: An Epolitics.com Production

Yes, it’s time for a knock-down, drag-out, old-school party of the highest caliber possible, featuring all the people you like and none of the ones you don’t, plus food, booze and good times all around. Here’s the scoop:

  • This coming Thursday, September 2nd, starting at 6 pm sharp
  • On the main floor of The Reef in Adams Morgan (DC), just a flight of stairs away from a lovely roof deck
  • 6 pm until ???
  • Open bar for the first few rounds of drinks
  • Plus plenty of tasty Reef appetizers and snacky foods, all enviro-friendly to boot

Let’s grab hold of these last long days of summer and wring all good times out of them we can. And with much of DC out of town for the holiday weekend, it’s a good opportunity to shuffle the social deck as well — we have new friends to introduce to old, plus plenty of trouble to get into along the way.

Hope to see you Thursday! YOU WILL WANT TO ARRIVE EARLY OR ON TIME, ’cause the free booze will only last so long, and then you’ll have to cry in a beer you purchased with your own hard-earned cash (buy me one while you’re at it, thanks). Looking forward to an absolutely kickass good time, and you should too. Rock and roll. BTW, here’s the Facebook invite, should you heed your mother’s advice to always RSVP.

– cpd

Add comment August 31st, 2010 Trackback

Online Politics 101 Undergoing Reconstructive Surgery

Finally! A much-needed revision of the legendary Online Politics 101 is under way, a little over two years since its last substantive rewrite. The new version will have an entirely new chapter on Twitter, for a start, and will also see plenty of detail changes throughout. I’m about a third of the way through the document now, and hope to have it wrapped up within the next week or two. Fortunately, Learning from Obama and the Winning in 2010 guide are much more up-to-date, so I’ll be lifting some text from them, and I’ve also been hitting up experts on various topics for ideas. Watch this space….

– cpd

Add comment August 31st, 2010 Trackback

Using Google Mobile Advertising to Catch Voters Waiting at the Polls

Also published on techPresident

Update: See also Kate Kaye’s earlier coverage at ClickZ.

Politico’s Morning Tech column has highlighted a clever use of mobile advertising in last week’s Florida primaries:

As the Sunshine State headed to the polls yesterday, down-ballot candidates bought Google online ads on mobile geo-targeted to specific districts, hoping to capture people who are doing last-minute research while waiting in line at the polls. Democratic State Senator and Attorney General hopeful Dan Gelber, who easily won his primary, used mobile Google ads for a 24-hour blitz on primary day. Lisa Small, likely soon to be declared winner of her circuit court judge race, also used the strategy, Google told us.

(more…)

Add comment August 30th, 2010 Trackback

Upcoming Events: Women Who Tech Telesummit, Plus the Amp Summit

Time to git us some learnin’! First up, the Women Who Tech Telesummit, taking place September 15th on a computer or phone near you:

Women Who Tech brings together talented women breaking new ground in technology who use their tech savvy to transform the world and inspire change. Hundreds of women (and this year men will be participating too) from across the US and abroad in the non-profit, political and business world will be coming together on September 15th to participate in this virtual event. Panelists include women on the forefront of social change and technology.

Check out the website for the excellent list of panels, presentations and presenters, and also note the after-parties — I’ll see you at the one in DC. Next up, the Amp Summit:

AMP Summit is an annual forum for influentials and thought leaders in the activist, media and political spheres. Public officials and regulators, experts from think tanks, trade associations, and public relations, and members of the media will attend. This conference in our nation’s capitol is intended to bring together respected colleagues and new friends to inspire new thinking, challenge traditional strategies, and create opportunities to learn from each other.

The AMP Summit hits DC September 24-25th, and be sure to take a look at the packed agenda — I’ll be on a panel entitled “Elements of an Effective Online Campaign” on Saturday the 25th. See you there!

– cpd

1 comment August 30th, 2010 Trackback

Friday Fun: Jon Stewart vs. Fox News, Ten Great Moments

The folks over at Ranker.com have done us a solid by gathering their ten favorite instances of Jon Stewart absolutely destroying Fox News, typically with its own anchors’ own words. My only complaint? They link to the clips and describe them, but they don’t actually embed them in the page so you can watch them directly. But all it takes is a quick click and you’re in satirical heaven — fair and balanced, indeed. Here’s my favorite as a teaser:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The Parent Company Trap
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

– cpd

Add comment August 27th, 2010 Trackback

The Fundamental (and Fatal?) Tension in the Tea Party Movement

Also published on The Huffington Post

Check out Kate Zernike’s piece in the Times today for a glimpse of how the Republican establishment is “shaping tea party passion into [a] campaign force” — or at least, how they’re trying to. The article profiles the efforts of Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks to “turn local Tea Party groups into a standing get-out-the-vote operation in Congressional districts across the country,” in part through a series of trainings that would be right at home in the 2008 Obama grassroots operation. But this paragraph shows what game is actually afoot:

Its candidates are libertarians and economic conservatives, but in the 2010 midterm elections, FreedomWorks is urging Tea Party groups to work for any Republican, on the theory that a compromised Republican is better than Democratic control of Congress.

So much for an independent force in American politics! Voting for a “compromised” Republican is exactly the kind of decision that should be anathema to Tea Party idealists, since it’s a classically cynical political calculation. Regardless of their rhetoric and their libertarian-heavy reading list, Armey’s army is essentially trying to channel the Tea Partiers’ anger into a form that furthers the ambitions of the broader Right.

(more…)

5 comments August 26th, 2010 Trackback

How My Dad is Trying to Save the World with Open-Source Machinery, in Four Parts

Here in the Delany family, we’re generally not ones to think small — and my father is the prime example. An inveterate inventor who couldn’t stop playing with ideas if he tried, he’s come up with some fascinating tools that might change the way people live in impoverished areas across the globe. How? By coming up with simple technologies they can use to make and repair everything from pots and pans to agricultural equipment, built with materials common around the world. The essential parts can come from junked cars and trucks, for instance, which are lying around just about everywhere. Plus, one branch of this mechanical family tree can also help power a village, charging cell phones and letting students study after dark by the light of LED bulbs.

Why take this project on? Because the ability to manufacture and repair machinery is one crucial handicap of most Third World economies — for instance, you can help people drill water wells all day long, but if there’s no mechanical infrastructure in place to repair it, they’re still helpless when the pump breaks (the parts are likely a continent or two away, which usually means that they might as well be on the moon).

Perhaps more importantly, these tools also teach skills, since you start with the plans and construct the machines themselves using local materials — and once you’ve done that, you’re on your way to being able to build anything up to and including a battleship. Note that in some cases this project revives mechanical techniques that have been forgotten for a century or two but that are perfect for areas short on resources other than human hands and brains.

But don’t take my word for it; go through the slideshow below, which was prepared for Maker Faire Africa and which describes four the four core interrelated machines, which can be used in everything from a village blacksmithy to a full-scale factory or trade school. The best part? Dad’s giving them away — this is an entirely open-source project. The problem? Getting people in the NGO/development community to even understand what a machine tool is and why one would be valuable. If you can help spread the word, please do! His contact info and links to more information are in the slideshow, so please check it out.

4 Simple, Cheap tools for Africa (v2)
View more presentations from Epolitics.com.

– cpd

Add comment August 25th, 2010 Trackback

Quick Hits — August 24, 2010

– cpd

Add comment August 24th, 2010 Trackback

DC Welcomes Tea Partiers, Kind Of

Welcome to DC, Tea Partiers in town for the Glenn Beckathon in the Mall Saturday! DCist prepared the map below to show you where you’ll feel “comfortable” in the area, based on a handy online guide from a Maine TP group. Stick to these protected areas (Mom,* click each colored area on the map to see what pops up), and you’re much less likely to encounter actual DC residents, who clearly can’t be trusted to be Legal U.S. Citizens with birth certificates and all. Or to be white, for that matter. Have fun! I’d invite you up to my neighborhood, but you’d be a minority here, and that would be scary and stuff.


View The Tea Party Guide to DC in a larger map

– cpd

*Mom wanted me to strike her name so that no one would think she was a Tea Partier…meaning that she must be a commie socialist. No wonder I turned out this way.

2 comments August 23rd, 2010 Trackback

Facebook Places: Foursquare Without the Fun?

The big news in the social media space: Facebook has released “Places,” a much-anticipated geo-location service that will allow users to “check in” at locations around the world. Or rather, Facebook is in the process of releasing Places, since it’s not available everywhere as of this writing. In an interesting move, Facebook has partnered with several of the top providers of location-based tools, including Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp and Booyah, rather than taking them on directly. In fact, Places as it stands is relatively rudimentary, with none of the competitive features that have turned Foursquare into a game for millions of users, for instance.

But the slim functionality of the initial release suggests something deeper about Facebook’s approach to geo-location: they’re providing the basic tools, but letting others provide the interesting applications. In some ways, it’s similar to Facebook Apps, since Zuckerberg and company built the framework in which Mafia Wars, Farmville et al live, but they didn’t build the actual games themselves. Foursquare has already been working with its larger colleague for months (roughly 20% of Foursquare users currently push their check-ins to Facebook, for instance), and Facebook appears to be trying to turn other potential competitors into partners as well. Watch this space — with 500 million users, Facebook’s attitude might not stay so benevolent forever. One potential clue? The new Places logo is a “4″ in a square…hmmmmm.

More on geo-location in politics and advocacy:

– cpd

1 comment August 19th, 2010 Trackback

The Online Political Advertising Trinity: Google, Facebook…and AOL?

Also published on techPresident and K Street Cafe

Maybe not yet, but AOL would certainly like political professionals to start thinking that way — with Google monopolizing search advertising and Facebook dominating the social space, AOL wants to own political display (banner) ads through its Advertising.com platform. Judging from conversations with AOL staff at a launch reception for the company’s new political advertising dashboard, AOL sees what Google and Facebook have done in the political space and sees an opportunity to build a new constituency for online display advertising, something that campaigns have tended to drop in favor of search and social advertising in recent years.

(more…)

1 comment August 18th, 2010 Trackback

Quick Hits — August 13, 2010

Extra-large Friday the 13th edition.

– cpd

Add comment August 13th, 2010 Trackback

Geo-Social Street Wars in Election 2010?

Another guest article, our second this week! This one comes from my NMS colleague Matt DeLuca, and it originally ran on the NMS blog. Matt’s been a great source of Quick Hits ideas lately, but this is his first actual guest piece on Epolitics.com. For more tips on using Foursquare and other geo-social tools for political advocacy, see Shana Glickfield’s article from a few weeks ago.

Geo-Social Street Wars in Election 2010?

By Matt DeLuca

There’s a lot of general talk and buzz about Foursquare — we’ve discussed it at length on the NMS Blog (At SXSW Last Year’s Next Big Thing Was This Years Actual Big Thing) but with Foursquare and Gowalla gaining more traction and greater acceptance by small and big businesses, it’s time to start thinking about the 2010 and 2012 election cycles for geo-social.

At the heart of geo-social is the reward system established by Foursquare and Gowalla. Users are encouraged to check in and those who check-in the most are rewarded in a variety of ways. Foursquare uses a badge and mayor system to reward users for checking in to a variety places or being the most frequent user at a location. Gowalla uses a similar system but uses a leader board to list user check-ins. More importantly, Gowalla uses a trip feature that allows users to travel to various locations and follow a pre-determined itinerary.

(more…)

Add comment August 12th, 2010 Trackback

Six Questions a Candidate Should Ask before Tweeting, Blogging or Posting a Status Update

Guest article! This one comes in from Kayle Hatt, an up-and-coming political organizer based in Canada who works with candidates on field organizing and communications and occasionally moonlights as a speechwriter. He also holds province-wide party office with the Ontario New Democratic Party. Take it away, Kayle:

Six Questions a Candidate Should Ask before Tweeting, Blogging or Posting a Status Update

By Kayle Hatt

Social media is a great campaign tool and you shouldn’t shy away from it (In fact, if you neglect social media it could hurt your chances of getting elected), but you should be careful when using social media for campaign purposes. Here are six questions to ask yourself before posting something:

1. Would I say this to a reporter?

Your social media updates don’t just go to your ‘friends’ or your ’supporters’. These are public statements and will be seen by the media as surely as if you had put them in a press-release — in fact, they may be more likely to be seen because in recent elections most newspapers have started having newsroom staff follow candidates on social media. Mess up and they will know!

Would you want to see this tweet on the front page of tomorrow’s paper? Enough said.

(more…)

3 comments August 11th, 2010 Trackback

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