Archive for July, 2009
Climate change has certainly been good for the health of at least one ecosystem, judging from a piece that appeared in National Journal’s Under the Influence blog this week:
Ire over cap-and-trade is helping conservative groups grow their Rolodex of supporter e-mail addresses this summer as their online advocacy efforts enjoy unprecedented participation levels.
It’s a classic observation in the world of online politics — advocacy grows your list, assuming always that you don’t overdo it and wear out your welcome in the process. Sara Jerome’s Nat Journal piece neatly captures another dynamic as well, the idea of moving activists up tiers of engagement:
For Freedom Works, each new e-mail address represents an opportunity to rear a new small government advocate. “The real value added is when you keep moving these people up the food chain on any issue,” Brandon said.
Also note that e.politics managed to sneak into the article, with a solid quote about using your activist list for something OTHER than just mass identical emails to congressional offices, which in turn fits neatly with the idea of the ladder of engagement. Check out Sara’s article, and see also the Congressional Management Foundation’s findings on engaging Congress through grassroots activism, as well as an e.politics piece from last Fall about finding creative ways to put your supporters to work.
– cpd
July 30th, 2009
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A Tuesday morning’s random harvest:
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Facebook ups its Washington profile (hah!) and the Kojo Nnamdi show takes notice, with Kojo bringing public policy director Tim Sparapani in for a stern grilling about the company’s spreading tentacles. Live today at noon Eastern, archived later. My prediction: Adam Conner is revealed to be a robot infiltration unit, not that anyone would notice.
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Next, if you didn’t catch Swedish jazz/hip hop band Movits! on The Colbert Report last night, you missed out — but not for long, since I embedded the clip below. Hey mom, remember when we were talking about the lack of oomph in the contemporary jazz you’ve been hearing on the internet radio? It’s because actual jazz creativity takes a lot of different directions these days, like this one — particularly when you can’t understand the words, you can really hear the vocals as a verbal riff. Hmmm, dig on the clip some for now, but let’s think on this more later.
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Finally, are video games a valid means of exploring the reality of battle? Some relatives of soldiers killed in action in Iraq are opposing the release of a new game that simulates the experience of being a Marine in 2004′s Second Battle of Fallujah, down to the kind of split-second decisions that mean life and death in battle: for you, for an enemy or for a civilian caught in between. Because of their immersive nature, video games have a unique power to draw people in — like a movie but one that you control, and often for much longer block of time than you would devote to watching any film. What makes them any less valid an expressive medium than books, recorded music or a website? Only the word “games,” and that’s just semantics.
But for now, back to Swedish jazz/hip hop. Enjoy — and crank up the bass to catch the sound of the stand-up.
– cpd
July 28th, 2009
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Here’s a small but revealing example of how communications technologies can work differently once they leave the land of their birth: individual Twitter posts can express more information in Chinese than in English, because the Chinese writing system uses ideograms rather than an alphabet. The difference? Ideograms represent words or concepts with a single character, where alphabetical systems spell them out letter by letter.
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July 24th, 2009
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More details now on our Netroots Nation panel, which will focus on using what we’ve all learned from the Obama campaign, and not just the part about raising money online. The panel now includes, besides me:
- Judith Freeman — with the New Organizing Institute, and also a part of the Obama campaign grassroots mobilization effort and a former AFL-CIO senior political strategiest.
- Scott Goodstein — now with Revolution Messaging LLC (nice site BTW), and was the External Online Director for Obama for America and developed the campaign’s social networking platforms.
- Julia Rosen — Courage Campaign, who’ll help us apply the ideas in the real world of non-presidential politics.
Should be a great discussion, and we’re really hoping to bring the audience into it, since we’re going to get down to nuts and bolts as fast as possible. Should be a hoot — see you there.
– cpd
July 22nd, 2009
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Lockheed Martin has purchased ad space on a number of nonpartisan, politically oriented websites, with many of the ads promoting funding for the F-22 fighter plane. Each presents some information about the company’s position and links back to a web page that makes the full case. The banner ads run in parallel with print ads in the Washington Post and in political newsletters.
When did I write those words? Not this week or last, or even this year or last — they date back to September of 1999, when Lockheed Martin was struggling to get the first production versions of the plane funded and was running ads on a couple of sites I was working on (I looked all over for a copy of the actual banner but to no avail). But they might as well have come out this week, since the F-22 Raptor is once again refusing to go gently into the darkness, at least if its corporate and congressional backers have anything to say in the matter.
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July 21st, 2009
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Hi y’all, poor Allyson Kapin lost her mind long enough to ask me to write a guest piece over on Frogloop, and it’s live at last — now unkillable by man or beast.
The idea behind the article: that in an economic downturn, it may be better to use your scarce resources for expansion even though it sounds counter-intuitive to do so, in part because you can take advantage of lower costs for PR, online advertising and social media. The piece also covers some ways to engage your list at times when people may have more time on their hands than they do money. Some light Friday afternoon reading for you.
– cpd
July 17th, 2009
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Remember that Twitter op-ed piece I wrote a couple of months ago? Let’s take a deeper look at it now that a little time has passed and see what we can learn, since writing a column for the newspaper is a time-honored way to influence the public discourse, whether to promote an idea, an opinion or your own reputation. But a newspaper op-ed turns out to be a very different animal than most online writing, since not only is the form itself distinct, but the results of publishing in a traditionally print-and-ink medium can be unexpected for someone used to the mechanics of online promotion.
First off, those results: at last count, the column had run in 20-odd outlets, mostly newspapers and associated websites in the McClatchy chain (including the Miami Herald, Fort Worth Star-Telegram and Cleveland Plains Dealer) but with some fun extras (Quatar? Smithtown High School East? — here’s the full list). Not bad for the first attempt! All thanks of course to friend-of-e.politics Burt Edwards, who BTW just surrendered and joined Facebook. He had the idea that the world was ready for a Twitter op-ed, got me to write one, beat the results into shape and helped launch it out into the world.
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July 15th, 2009
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Time for that rare moment in this business, when you actually get to unveil a project that’s been in development for months. In this case, the International Biochar Initiative’s new online home is also my first site built using Drupal, which turned out to be a lot of work to learn but well worth it (though next time I’m charging about 50% more…). Drupal sites require tons of setup time because the system is bare-bones straight out of the box, meaning that every advanced feature has to be configured (and often installed) separately. Which of course can be a pain in the butt, but it means that you can end up with a site that’s tailored exactly for your (or your client’s) needs.
I started working with IBI back last Fall to begin planning the site, and we dove into the design and development in earnest earlier this year. The group will use the site to promote their issue (biochar, a simple technology with applications ranging from improving agriculture to sequestering carbon in the soil) and to connect practitioners and researchers around the world, so we integrated in a Democracy In Action/Salsa CRM account for mass-emailing, supporter-management and donations, helping to solve several problems at once. We also used several Drupal add-on modules to create a sophisticated events calendar, a easily updated list of recent news stories and an extensive database of biochar-related articles and scientific papers. Check it out! Now, the joy of maintenance…
– cpd
July 11th, 2009
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Speaking of The Good Doctor Rosenblatt and continuing the week’s apparent emphasis on elections and their aftermath, let’s vote again, this time for the Top 10 Who Are Changing the World of the Internet and Politics. Alan’s Internet Advocacy Roundtable made the cut, as did others of our friends and comrades in arms, including the Personal Democracy Forum, Google’s Peter Greenberger, Joe Rospars and the Obama Singers (well, close enough), Blue State Digital and the entire Iran protest movement. Winners receive acclaim and valuable prizes, up to and including a trip to Paris for the World eDemocracy Forum (daaaaayum).
Swing on by PoliticsOnline to see all 20 nominees, who are certified as being among the “individuals, organizations and companies having the greatest impact on the way the Internet is changing politics.” BTW, voting’s also going on in the Superheroes for DC mayoral race today; I ain’t officially taking sides [cough]Wonder Woman[/cough], but go exercise your Democratic rights — it’ll sure count more than most votes do in DC. Apparently, things have turned ugly in the race in a few cases on Twitter, via email and in the blogosphere. Remember kids, it’s all fun and games until somebody loses an eye!
– cpd
July 10th, 2009
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Alan Rosenblatt has unearthed a most fascinating artifact: a guide to online activism produced by a white supremicist in the days before the World Wide Web was all that wide. Alan ran across it in the late 1990s and recently found it again, and he’s published it on his site in part because he doesn’t want it to disappear. Why?
First, it’s a glimpse into the self-justified worldview of a genuine and sincere racist who is not ranting like a crazy man, which has anthropological value on its own. Second, it’s a comprehensive guide to promoting an unpopular stance, in this case one associated with illegal acts, while alienating as few people as possible and simultaneously staying out of jail — a line that radical groups of all political stripes sometimes walk. Finally, as Alan points out, the guide shows that online social media outreach began before what most of us would now consider the internet even existed.
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July 8th, 2009
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I surrender! I surrender! The e.politics inbox has been besieged by messages like this one over the past few days:
Late Sunday night, eight superheroes announced their candidacy for DC Mayor.
The brains behind these campaigns are New Organizing Institute’s own 2009 BootCampers – over 50 of the nation’s best new organizers are gathering in DC to learn how to become technologically-enabled organizers. The campaign teams of Wonder Woman, Spider-Man, The Atom, The Green Lantern, Batwoman, Superman, Cyborg, and Batgirl have built websites, designed and targeted their message plans and are now building their lists of supporters via email, online advertising and blogger outreach.
Find your favorite Superhero for DC Mayor here!
We don’t want you miss out on the fun – take a minute to visit their websites, join their email lists, and support the work of the next generation of progressive online organizers as they run an intense mayoral race. The best part of this? You get to vote – and help BootCampers reserve bragging rights for years to come.
Online voting begins at 7am EST this Friday – bookmark www.neworganizing.com/superherovote to cast your vote when the polls open.
Thank you for supporting the next generation of progressive organizers!
Vote early! Vote often! These kids and their Interwebs — be advised, e.politics is in secret negotiations with the Wonder Woman team; they’re trying to lasso me in…
In other nerdalicious news, I saw the Space Station pass overhead this evening! Very bright, a little bigger than a star but still just a blob, faster and obviously much higher than a plane. It was in view for 3 or 4 minutes, passing south to north. Never seen it before.
– cpd
July 7th, 2009
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Well, Sarah Palin’s sure given the political class something to chatter about this week, but what impresses me is that she’s apparently managed not to hold a job for longer than a year or two throughout most of her professional life (mayor of Wasilla, a post apparently with real responsibilities, excepted).
So now that she’s relinquished the plush post of Alaska governor for the rough trade of private citizenship, what fate lies four crucial years in her future? Your vote counts, so cast it carefully. (Note: no Magic 8 Ball assistance allowed — we have standards here at e.politics).
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But wait, there’s more! Suggest other options for our heroine in the comments below. Best one wins the acclaim of the masses.
July 7th, 2009
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