Republican-ster

So I've been thinking about how you could blend web based volunteer operations with social networking, and it occurred to me that the major parties should both set up their own friendster type sites. Beyond the usual friendster operations, the parties or campaigns (I can only imagine this on a presidential level) could set up various groups that can be awarded to people of different posts, precinct captain, block captain, etc..., as well as groups for people of various accomplishments, like a 50 volunteer group.

Within these groups people could discuss their methods and strategies, share information and collaborate with other locals in the group. By making it exclusive (you would want to disseminate some of the good advice shared on them though) it would be an accomplishment and an honor to be invited in, therefore it would act as an incentive.

I don't see this being very effective except on a large scale, such as presidential races or national parties (perhaps statewide as well, although this could be a sub-section of the national site). However, the technology is already out there so it should be able to be done fairly easily (I don't know about cheaply).

Slo-flow...

In his article on Intranet usability, Jakob Nielsen has some good advice: organize an intranet based on how a user will use it, not on how the organizations department structure. Key phrase:

"Unlike our winning designs, many intranets use navigation that mirrors the "orgchart," and organize their information architecture based on departmental structure. For many organizations, basing intranet structure on workflow is a new concept."

Like many design concepts, this struck me as obvious until I started thinking about it and realized how easily a person/group/organization/campaign could fall into this trap. So how can this idea be used for campaign websites?

I often have to backtrack on campaign websites to get from one place to another within the site. Campaigns should track users through their sites and figure out how best to place items that seem to go together. For instance, if everybody who signs up to volunteer also signs up for a newsletter, why not throw the newsletter sign-up on the volunteer page as well?

Website options for successful field operations....

I have been harping on the importance of field operations all week, and I have also listed three rules that I think any successful volunteer operation has to abide by. Let's see how we can use a campaign website to apply these rules. The rules are:

1.) Involve a volunteer in something bigger than themselves.
2.) Quantify everything.
3.) Hold volunteers accountable

A fourth cardinal rule: follow-up, follow-up, follow-up! Is vital, but that is a campaign management issue and less of a web design one. Anyway, some ideas on how to implement these rules online.

a.) Have a volunteer of the day/week/month posted on the volunteer section of the website (or the front page) acknowledging their accomplishments, maybe including a picture and where they are from.
b.) Assign points for various volunteer activities. 2 points for every hour spent phone banking, 4 points for every volunteer recruited, 10 points for a letter to the editor published etc. Allow people to then keep track of where they stand within precinct/county/state and in the nation. The top ten points leaders could be on the front page of the website.
c.) Copy the fundraising levels of the Bush campaign, Ranger, Pioneer etc, only apply them to volunteer efforts. If you recruit 5 volunteers you are a 'friend of the campaign', 50 and you are a campaign 'star' etc., publish the levels on the website.
d.) Allow each volunteer their own 'home page' with quotas they need to fill and barometers marking their progress. Include events in their hometown and local volunteer opportunities/needs.
e.) Send out e-mail newsletters with 'local volunteer heroes' or some such language, recognizing the accomplishments of individual volunteers.

These ideas will also encourage volunteers to provide more information on themselves when signing up to volunteer. You can even have a check box 'would you like to sign up to be a Kerry Campaign Star (only takes 1 more minute)' and ask the volunteer everything about themselves.

These are just a few ideas, I will try to think of even more, can you?

The hits keep coming!

Due to a most useful tool, 'Site meter', I was able to discover that my site had been accessed via a link from Amy Gahran's site. Yours truly was featured in her recommended online reading section, along with other outstanding blogs in this class, Right Blog and Outside Damage.

I have also recieved traffic via some site in Portugal, from someone searching for info on text messaging in Iran, this weird blog, and some site that seems like a combination of spam and virus e-mail on a blog.

Okay, okay, so they aren't all winners, but someone in Portugal likes me!

I'm number #1!!!!!!

If you type in "mososo vlog" in the google search engine that is! I feel like Navin R. Johnson when the phone book came. (Props to whoever can recognize the reference)

Beating a dead horse: Field Operations Edition

I have harped about the importance of field operations (it is my background after all) and I will try to steer clear of it in the future, but for now it is time to beat a dead horse.

I was told three important lessons while I was being trained to be a field manager, and experience has taught me they are true.
1.) In order to recruit a volunteer, you have to figure out what their self interest is in volunteering, and by far the most common reason is to be part of something bigger than themselves.
2.) Quantify everything. If it isn't counted, it doesn't happen. Voter contacts, volunteers recruited, coffees hosted, signs put up, everything must be quantified or it won't get done.
3.) Hold people accountable. You would think this would be less important for volunteers than paid people, but the opposite is true. If you don't hold people accountable, you give the impression that what you are doing isn't important, and that impression spreads like the plague.

This article, by Matt Bai, shows that the Bush campaign did all three of these things exceedingly well.

Key passages:
1.)

Mehlman explained that Bush volunteers, in consultation with headquarters, set their own goals for their states and counties, and thus had a sense of ownership in the campaign.

and

''They want to have influence over a decision that's made. They don't want to just sit and passively absorb. They want to be involved, and a political program ought to recognize that.''

2.)

But now the Bush campaign was sending an altogether different message; word had come down from the national headquarters that Ohio's 88 county chairmen were to form full steering committees in each county by February, and then they needed to show proof that they were busy recruiting a statewide total of 51,000 volunteers, including captains for each of the state's 12,000 voting precincts.

and

The Bush campaign, Betty said, instructed her to recruit 643 volunteers. Not 640 volunteers or 650, but 643.

and

''We're not imposing this on people,'' Mehlman said. ''But this campaign is more focused than most on measurement. If I have one kind of belief or philosophy, it's that hope is not a strategy. And so you can't say, 'I hope we'll get this done.' We want to see what you're getting done.''

3.)

In an MLM, like Mary Kay Cosmetics or Tupperware, each independent entrepreneur who joins the sales force -- a Betty Kitchen, say -- also becomes a recruiter who is responsible for bringing in several new entrepreneurs underneath her.

Bush & Co. followed these three rules to the T. And the result was a victory. Meanwhile, what was happening on the Democrats side?

It's not surprising, then, that while Kerry lags far behind Bush in organizing his Ohio campaign, Democrats don't seem too concerned about the emerging Bush pyramid. ''I don't care how many people they register,'' said Dennis L. White, the Democratic state chairman. ''They're still in trouble.''

Speaks for itself.

Got to get your hands dirty....

This article, by James Verini sums up all of my frustrations as a field manager in the 2004 election. I have repeatedly stated on this blog that all of the technology and innovation in the world can't save you if you don't get the people to the polls. Verini's experience is almost exactly the same as mine, and from what I have heard, many others.

I repeatedly encountered potential volunteers who refused to do 'dirty work' like knocking on doors or making phone calls. The same people would go on forever about how bad a president Bush was and how they would move to Canada if Bush was reelected. How can you be willing to move to Canada (I know, it was an empty threat) but not be willing to spend several Saturdays doing some grunt work? It was incredibly frustrating. People were much more interested in donating their money and were baffled when I would try to turn it down in favor of donating time.

Look, knocking on doors isn't bad. I would be honest with everyone I trained, 'you will dread the first door, but after that first knock it gets much easier, and in fact, going door-to-door can be a lot of fun.' Person after person would come back and agree that they had fun.

It wasn't just the volunteers either; the campaign was in complete disarray when it came to volunteers. I didn't work directly for Kerry-Edwards and recruited multiple volunteers who had tried to work for Kerry, but had never heard back from them. This is inexcusable. Any website designer needs to be sure that one of their top priorities, probably the second most important (behind donations) is an effective volunteer page that organizes the information entered and sends it to people who are going to USE IT. If no one is going to follow up on the info, you might as well not have the page.

The final point here is that the difference in the two campaigns is that the Democrats took the campaign for granted, while the Bush campaign did not. They focused heavily on volunteer operations and Bush won four more years in office. So if you are thinking about designing a website, or implementing an RSS feed, remember, nothing, NOTHING, is more effective for contacting and persuading voters than knocking on their doors and talking to them.

Parachute malfunction

Reading this article about Howard Dean's cutting edge internet techniques shows both how Howard Dean's campaign successfully took him from dark horse to front runner, but it also unknowingly details what led to his downfall.

While Dean's revolutionary internet campaign led to an outpouring of money and volunteers, his greatest fault was the democrat's biggest fault as well, the reliance on volunteer’s 'parachuting' in to work in important states that they were not from. This is a practice that many democrats, including myself, took part in and was a main reason why Kerry lost. A key quote from the article:

"Teachout believes that coordinated volunteer action is the key to the campaign. More than 33,000 people have already pledged at the Dean site to attend their local primary or caucus. More than 1,650 volunteers have signed up to travel to New Hampshire or Iowa in February, to help boost the first official results of the 2004 campaign."

Any candidate would love to have 1.650 volunteers ready to do anything the campaign asks, but the problem here was that these volunteers were not from Iowa or New Hampshire. This was a major problem because these volunteers did not know the local issues as well as somebody from the area, they stuck out because of their orange hats, and they did not have credibility within the community. The same was true in the general election. I was sent to Arizona to work in predominantly Latino communities and I didn't speak any spanish. I simply had no credibility in the community and was much less effective because of it. This article from CNN outlines the differences.

Bush won because he mobilized members of the community. When a person you know and trust comes to your door, you are going to listen to them more than a 21 year old from Vermont.

All the innovative internet tools in the world can't save you if the other guy is better at getting out the vote.

Voter database programs

Here is an interesting article on how Jesse Jackson Jr. successfully used a voter file combined with a database program (monarch) to target frequent voters in democratic primary races within his district. This blending of voter information with a database allowed him to target 44,000 voters out of a possible 330,000 for targeted mailings and heightened campaign activities (door-to-door, phone banking etc.). The result?

By targeting the most frequent primary voters and using good campaign strategy Jesse Jackson Jr. was able to win a very competitive race. He was able to send multiple direct mailings to 44,000 people instead of one mailing to 330,000. By spending $37,000 on Monarch, he in fact saved money by not wasting time with constituents who had a low probability of voting. Instead of a broad, but shallow campaign, Jackson was able to run a narrow, deep one, and, in the end, a successful one.

That was in 1996, when technology like Monarch was fairly advanced. Today, if a campaign doesn't use this technology, they are putting themselves at a distinct disadvantage. Categorizing voters based on the likelihood of whether or not they will vote is vital for efficient use of persuasion and mobilization resources. Using programs such as monarch or available voter files also allows campaigns to target areas in which to run voter registration drives. In short, computerized targeting is a must for anyone who is responsible for running field operations of any political campaign.

C is for Cookies

In my class tonight, the professor led a discussion on whether or not it was more or less ethical to have cookies as an opt in or opt out option in a campaign website. Her argument was that privacy should be protected unless willingly given up. While I understand her point of view from the viewpoint of the voter, I completely disagree if you are running the campaign's internet operations.

In my previous post, I stated that tracking voters is of utmost importance to campaigns, and therefore they should encourage visitors to subscribe to a newsletter instead of an RSS feed. I feel the same principal applies here. Tracking a user's current and future visits to your website provides campaigns with invaluable information. It lets you know how many times that person comes back, what pages they visit, what issues they are concerned about and even provides information like whether or not visitors who are interested in the environment are also interested in gun control. Why would a campaign willingly give up this information?

As to the ethics of the issue, if a user is concerned about their privacy, they can and should raise the security level on their browser. It isn't the most forthcoming position, but websites of all types plop cookies on a visitor’s computer without apologies, why should a political website be any different?

In this case, I just think the positives greatly outweigh the negatives.

RSS feeds, good for distribution, bad for targeting

There is a good series of articles on webfeeds, or RSS, located here. In part 10, Amy Gahran discusses the downsides and mentions a major downside to RSS feeds for campaigns, you can't track the users.

While it is very important to get information out to potential voters, volunteers and contributors, running an election is all about tracking voters and knowing whether or not they will vote for you. When someone signs up for a newsletter, you can ask them for their location, name, address, as well as offer them a chance to donate or volunteer (it is a good idea to leave these categories as not required, so users don't have to enter them to subscribe if they don't want to). You also have direct contact information for the subscriber. The same isn't true of RSS feeds. You also don't know if and when they decide to unsubscribe to the service.

If you offer an RSS feed, and some of your more savvy supporters use it, how much do you lose by not having those same people sign up for the newsletter? You certainly lose the ability to contact them directly, or know how many people are reading you messages. You lose valuable feedback about your messages by not being able to know when users unsubscribe. You lose an opportunity to ask them to help the campaign. Is this worth it? I would argue that until RSS feeds are in wide use that the cons might outweigh the pros.

GIS and field operations

I know this is slightly off topic, but I wanted to bring people's attention to GIS (geographic information systems) and how it can be used to help field operations. Check out the Pima County (AZ) Website. Click on "Main MapGuide Map" (you will have to download a plug-in to view) and play around for awhile. You can zoom into to a house level, you are given the addresses for the houses. You can apply precinct lines, congressional district lines, school board lines etc. The maps all print out. It is a wealth of information for anyone planning door-to-door operations. It can replace walk sheets if none are available, or you desire to go to every house. It is also increasingly available around the country. Try out the one in Ithaca, New York as well.

Any republicans want to try to defend this?

Some things just make my blood boil, and the dishonest and irresponsible way the administration is talking about the Iraq War is one of them:
Link
"Q Scott, is the insurgency in Iraq in its 'last throes'?

McCLELLAN: Terry, you have a desperate group of terrorists in Iraq that are doing everything they can to try to derail the transition to democracy. The Iraqi people have made it clear that they want a free and democratic and peaceful future. And that's why we're doing everything we can, along with other countries, to support the Iraqi people as they move forward….

Q But the insurgency is in its last throes?

McCLELLAN: The Vice President talked about that the other day -- you have a desperate group of terrorists who recognize how high the stakes are in Iraq. A free Iraq will be a significant blow to their ambitions.

Q But they're killing more Americans, they're killing more Iraqis. That's the last throes?

McCLELLAN: Innocent -- I say innocent civilians. And it doesn't take a lot of people to cause mass damage when you're willing to strap a bomb onto yourself, get in a car and go and attack innocent civilians. That's the kind of people that we're dealing with. That's what I say when we're talking about a determined enemy.

Q Right. What is the evidence that the insurgency is in its last throes?

McCLELLAN: I think I just explained to you the desperation of terrorists and their tactics.

Q What's the evidence on the ground that it's being extinguished?

McCLELLAN: Terry, we're making great progress to defeat the terrorist and regime elements. You're seeing Iraqis now playing more of a role in addressing the security threats that they face. They're working side by side with our coalition forces. They're working on their own. There are a lot of special forces in Iraq that are taking the battle to the enemy in Iraq. And so this is a period when they are in a desperate mode.

Q Well, I'm just wondering what the metric is for measuring the defeat of the insurgency.

McCLELLAN: Well, you can go back and look at the Vice President's remarks. I think he talked about it.

Q Yes. Is there any idea how long a 'last throe' lasts for?

McCLELLAN: Go ahead, Steve...."

By the way, 80 American soldiers died last month, the fifth most in a month since the war started, and 55 more have died so far in June.

Avoiding the Spam Filter

So I signed up for several political newsletters from campaigns I am doing projects on. After receiving nothing from any of them I went into my spam filter. Presto, newsletter after newsletter sitting unread in the equivalent of my trash bin (I use gmail). With the ever increasing presence of spam filters, how do we send out e-mail and newsletters that avoids going directly there?

Here is a quick article on how to avoid having your e-mails sent to a spam filter.

Friday Blogging: Humor Edition

Can a politician go too far to get votes? Perhaps this would be an example. There is a great scene from the Last Hurrah by Edwin O'Conner that is sort of like this, when the Mayor works a wake.

Required thought for class credit: Perhaps with expanded wi-fi coverage in the future a politician will be able to reach voters in the bathroom.

Partisan controlled media?

I share my fellow American's low regard for the News Media right now. I also think it shows the hubris of the media that they spend so much time reporting on themselves these days. But, while reading the recent coverage of the Downing Street Memo in Howard Kurtz's Media Notes Extra, I was completely staggered. The main points:
"For many liberals already frustrated with the media's coverage of President Bush, it has become a rallying cry over the past six weeks: What about the Downing Street memo?

Their anger, amplified by left-wing advocacy groups, columnists, bloggers and some Democrats in Congress, has gradually forced the mainstream media to take a second look at a document that received spotty coverage after it was reported May 1 by London's Sunday Times...

But Peter Hart of the liberal group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), which sent out several "action alerts" urging members to contact news organizations, said, "Any story that reminds readers that the political and journalistic establishments spectacularly failed on Iraq is a difficult story for the media to report." Now, he said, in conjunction with groups such as MoveOn.org, "activists have pushed this into the media, much to the chagrin of reporters, who have no love for getting e-mails constantly telling them to do the story."

For the past 15 years, conservatives have used their outlets -- in talk radio, right-leaning news operations, editorial pages and, more recently, blogs -- to pressure mainstream journalists into covering stories that might otherwise be ignored. And they have had striking success, from allegations about President Bill Clinton's personal life to CBS's questionable documents on President Bush's National Guard service to the Swift Boat Veterans' attacks on Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) in last year's presidential campaign.

Now the left can claim a similar success."

What's so outrageous? The fact that a major newspaper can calmly and matter-of-factly report that after years of being pushed around by the right, the media is now also being pushed around by the left as well. Why is okay for either side to push the media around?
One of the first American History lessons I learned was of the John Peter Zenger trial in third grade. It was a lesson that I remember to this day, about the importance of an independent media providing a check against the government (or any power). What has happened? Why is the media responding to the left or the right? Why aren't they out investigating stories of interest to everyone? Americans don't trust what anyone tells them any more. Is it a wonder why?

Community vs. Commentary

Over at MyDD, an interesting point is made that the rise in traffic on liberal blogs, which has dramatically overtaken the traffic on conservative blogs, is due to the fact that many top-tier liberal blogs allowing comments and community forums, while their counterparts on the right do not. I believe this only tells half the story, while demographics account for the rest (internet connections and blogging are going to be higher in urban areas and among youth, both far more liberal constituencies). At the same time it does bring into question the present nature of the left vs. the right and how their internal party apparatus works.

Doers vs. Thinkers
It is my opinion right now that the two main traits of the political parties right now are that the right is action prone (see Bush, George) while the left is thought driven (see Kerry, John). Both sides have their advantages and disadvantages, but the main advantage of the right is that they focus on results and accomplishments. In order to do this they have to have effective organizational apparatus in place and this requires a top-down model of hierarchy, something that makes the left cringe. I think this type of thinking is reflected in the blogs. On the left, you have a community sharing of ideas, but a complete lack of organization of those ideas, while on the right, a focus and an agenda, but a lack of inclusion.

Finally, I feel that due to the demographics of the left and the right, that people on the left are going to move forward technologically before those on the right (again due to urban vs. rural, young vs. old). The right will soon follow suit, but for now they are stuck with the traditional ideas of political commentary, namely a blog form of the op-ed page. Whereas the left is pushing new technological ideas, and because of the nature of lefties, these ideas are being shared and promulgated. While I think the republican model is much better for winning support and elections, I believe it is much worse on the internet (and policy wise), and that is why they are starting to fall behind.

Newsletters and usability...

I was reading through Jakob Neilson's article comparing the Washington Post's newsletter with Kerry's and Bush's and I couldn't help thinking, who cares?

I would label myself as 'very interested' in politics and political races, but every newsletter I have ever signed up for has gone straight into my trash can. Not only that, but since I switched to gmail, all of the newsletters go to my spam filter before I even see them, and the truth is that I don't bother to go get them out.

I understand that newsletters and e-mails are just a few drops in the bucket, and that every tool is needed for a successful campaign if the race is close, but I have trouble believing that it is a good use of resources, time and effort to go through 127 design guidelines to setting up a good newsletter.

I guess if I was running for president and had the resources to cover every last aspect of the campaign, this advice is worthwhile, but beyond that, I just don't see it.

On-line spell checker

So I know you can use the spell check function whenever creating a post on blogger, but the same option isn't available when posting a comment. Usually, I just cut and paste to word, but I was working in the library on an internet only computer and couldn't use this....What was I to do? Well I used that highly evolved brain of mine and did an online search for spell checkers and came up with Spellcheck.net. No registration, no downloads, just cut and paste. It identifies misspelled words and gives you a drop down box to correct them, up to 5000 words. It's quick, its easy, no more excuses when your comments have gross misspellings!

Potential Political Podcasting?

After posting about vlogging the other day a remarkable insight struck me, if you can blog with video, then you could also blog with audio. So I did a little research and was reminded that I am perpetually 5 years behind the times when it comes to technology and came across Podcasting. Here's the link to the wikipedia definition, it is quite thorough. Basically, podcasting combines audio files with an RSS feed (downloadable here) to allow listeners to automatically download whatever shows they have signed up for. With the further implementation of iPodder software (download it here), a user can sync it with an iPod or any other computer audio player. It is like TiVo for internet audio files! Here's a good article from the Christian Science Monitor (one of the best newspapers in the country).

"Why are you telling me this?"

Good question! I mention it because it is taking off on a grassroots level. Podcasting allows anybody with a microphone on their computer to be their own radio host. Just as with a blog, a good, interesting, regularly broadcast, amateur radio show can eventually draw quite a large audience. Also, it is a great way for large candidates, office holders and even political parties to get their message out. Who can't picture Howard Dean giving a weekly podcast? Or the White House could put out the President's weekly radio address on podcast (is the radio address even put out on the radio? I've never heard it...). Certainly a weekly podcast during a large election would get a certain amount of listeners, and if you revealed the occasional tidbit of information in it, the media might even start reporting on it (that is if there are no celebrity trials going on).

I think it would be hard for local candidates to really get people to listen to a podcast for their races, but you can never tell, and it certainly couldn't hurt to have a weekly issues audio segment on the website that people could subscribe to. Why not throw your campaign radio spots on as well, and any interviews you do that are recorded? Testimonials from supporters? You could even put announcements for campaign events. Users will automatically download them and listen to a 20 second spot for where the next campaign event is. You could solicit donations as well, although you would want to be careful about overdoing it, but you could separate these into different 'shows' that people could subscribe to. If somebody wanted to hear any issue announcements, but didn't care to volunteer, they could subscribe to the issues feed, but not the event feed.

Who knows if the technology has legs in the long term, but enterprising candidates don't have much to lose by trying it out.

Reality check, how important is a webpage?

I am currently taking a class called 'Running for Office' in the book we are reading for the class, aptly titled "Running for Office" the author/our teacher states "There is nothing more effective than [door-to-door] canvassing, NOTHING." In my own education about working on a campaign, the idea was to contact a voter three (some say four) times in the week before the election, with mailings, phone calls, and most importantly door knocks. Now, I know a website is a great place to bring in donations and sign up volunteers, but are the people doing this your devote followers? There are two types of people you are looking to target in a campaign, the persuadables and the mobilizable. Can a website really persuade the persuadables better then a knock on the door? The people in a campaign that you are the least interested in talking to are the ones who you know will vote and you know they will vote for you. Aren't these the same people who will be visiting your website? Again, these people will be your volunteers and donors. In view of this, do you tailor your website to encourage those who you know will vote for you to donate and volunteer, and sacrifice on persuasion message? Or do you try to design the site around a persuasion message, knowing that other arenas are more valuable for persuasion, at the sacrifice of reaching out to the faithful?

So a website is incredibly important for fundraising and volunteer recruitment. But for persuading people to vote for you and for mobilizing voters who are generally apathetic about voting, but would probably vote for you (the two most important targets for campaigners) can a website ever overtake simple door-to-door canvassing in effectiveness? I doubt it.

The cell phone will be dead in 10 years (or less)!

This story is just one of many of what I consider to be the future of mobile phone usage. With companies like Vonage starting to sell internet phone service, and the ever expanding wi-fi market, it is only a matter of time before mobile phones become mobile computers with internet based phone service. This would allow a company to charge flat rate fees for service and allow a customer much more usability on their phone then the currently have (or at least for a lot less money). With cities like Philadelphia considering free wi-fi for the whole city (apparently Alexandria, Montgomery County and Silver Spring are also considering free wi-fi) this technology could take off.

Cell phones would still have an (slight) advantage in rural areas where wi-fi is not available (of course cell phones often aren't either) but in Urban areas there would be no reason to buy a cell phone vs. a wi-fi (no reason I can think of, can you?)

What does this mean for politics? Not much maybe, after all, people still have access to the internet on their phones today and you aren't anybody in this town with out a Blackberry (or is it a blue tooth, I wouldn't know, I'm not a somebody). However, for those young struggling candidates, this could be a cheaper and easier option for their campaigns than cell phones.

Anyone have other ideas?

Bloggers made all the difference

I went through the case study of how DailyKos raised almost $340,00 in 18 days for a recount in Ohio (warning, a lot of chaff, not much wheat) and it made me think of the power of blogs. I am a somewhat regular reader of Kos and remember in election time how he would try to raise money for various causes and candidates based on the competitiveness as a race. Atrios has repeatedly used his blog to ask for donations to the DNC whenever Dean has been in trouble (Atrios worked for dean and is an avowed deaniac) and Talking Points Memo was ripe with election advertisement during all of 2004. This should give pause to any campaign manager. Getting in good with these blogs and putting your advertisements on them seems like a great way to raise money. Barbara Boxer has greatly increased her profile on Kos and as a result has become very popular among the left. Its seems that any candidate running for office should be well-advised to consider having a regular diary on some of these major blogs, as well as investing in advertising on them. The fundraising potential is enormous, especially compared to the amount of effort involved.

Additionally, this is a great way to tap into sympathizers for your cause who might not be in your area. Kos is read nation wide. If you are running a competitive race against a conservative in Nebraska, you can reach people in all 50 states for funding, an enormous advantage.

Anyone else know diddily about marketing?

As we get further and further into this course, I am realizing that I don't know square one about marketing or design. Can anyone point me to a good source for introduction into basic marketing (it would be great if it only took 10 minutes to read!). Marketing is so odd to me because every time I hear a marketing strategy or idea, it seems completely obvious to me, but I can never come up with the stuff myself. When Prof. Ireland dropped terms like interruption driven marketing or permission marketing or viral marketing, I understand what they are, but what other types are there? I have the same issues with design (and a new respect for designers, I guess they aren't all living in Paris and wearing too much eye shadow). This stuff seems incredibly important to coming up with a good web strategy and I don't know any of it. Any suggestions or commiserations?

Site Meter is the Bomb!

Taking the advice of my ever so wise Professor, I decided to install site meter on my site (scroll down to the very bottom and click on the icon). It only takes about 10 minutes to set up (it is automated for you if you are using blogger.com) and gives you all kinds of information on statistics of visitors to your site. For instance, as of this post I have had two visitors to the site (oops, they were both me!). I remember the dark ages when I tried to bust out a java book and make my own counter, and now there is one for free that does all of the work for you. I give it my "Stuck in the Middle with Blue Seal of Approval!"

Comment Envy!

I have just realized that I am suffering from comment envy! After searching through the comments of every site in this class for ones I had posted (I am an idiot and didn't record comments I posted as I wrote them!) I realized that my ego was hurting when I went to pages with more comments then my own (and was boosted by those with fewer, haha suckers). I feel like I am running for class president and losing. Perhaps I will add "Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, XXX, Teen" to my website keywords (or I guess I could write more interesting posts). Anyone else feel a little like a loser when they write a post and nobody comments on it? I am also anxiously awaiting feedback on my post to a national website, talk about pressure!

What the heck is a vlog?

Wondering what a vlog is? Well here is an interesting article (subscription required but it is free, I just used the dailykos login UN:kos@dailykos.com PSWD: dailykos1). For an example of a vlog check out Le Garage (slow connection warning!). Basically a vlog is a blog that uses short video clips instead of written entries to get across its message to the user (think jibjab.com). The immediate downsides that I can see are the fact that movies (with sound especially) take up a lot of space on the host computer, and are extremely slow to download if you are on a sub-par or even middle of the road internet connection. The upsides are fascinating.

I can imagine that this would be a terrific way for a candidate to blog during a campaign. They wouldn’t have to do any extra work! Imagine a presidential nominee just carrying (or more realistically having a staffer carry) a digital video camera everywhere filming themselves behind the scenes and in crowds. The biggest problem would be too MUCH footage to use. Visitors could see what the candidate is like when they aren't on TV (carefully edited to show only good things of course). I think it would be great PR. Imagine if everybody had seen that Bob Dole was actually a pretty funny guy you could hang out with DURING the campaign, instead of just afterwards? Funny or really interesting clips would spread across the internet on their own by word of mouth, like that guy who dances to that song in his computer chair (you know the one). That's just one possibility, anyone else have ideas for how this can be used politically?

MoSoSo What?

In his article, Russell Buckley discusses of the future of MoSoSo or Mobile Social Software (www.dodgeball.com is a site, and a service, that spells it all out for you). Like all new internet products, this one could easily be moved into the dustbin for lack of interest, but the possibilities are definitely intriguing. I'll let you ponder the social ramifications on your own, but I want to look at the idea politically. Certainly one could start a MoSoSo service for any political group or organization or candidate. Certainly it would be great if a candidate could say, I am at 12th and K right now, any supporters want to come by and say hello? Or picture a candidate who is able to do that to the population on whole of a group like Friendster. Imagine being a candidate and being able to send out a message to everybody who is on Friendster within a half mile radius saying that you are there and they are welcome to come and talk. You could have almost instant town hall meetings, campaign rallies, or crowds for stump speeches wherever you wanted to go. Political groups could hold impromptu meetings with whoever is in the area. Networking among political parties would be as easy as setting up a Democratic (or Republican) party group in something like Dodgeball, and then just letting the members meet and greet each other over MoSoSo in city after city.

Who knows whether or not it will be successful, but I surely hope it is!

Sunstein's mistake

A quick note about the idea of building a news 'cocoon' on the internet. I was watching the news the other day and they were discussing the filibuster compromise. The poll they showed had 22% of people in favor of the compromise and 33% against (Fox News). This of course leaves 45% of the people with no opinion. This is why the idea of 'cocoon' does not strike fear into my heart. What it tells me is that about 45% of this country is not paying close enough attention to the news to have an opinion on this issue. Is it likely that these 45% are going to take the time and effort to set up their own news website?
True, a person's selection of news sources will be skewed by which way they might lean politically, but this has always been true. Before the internet, it was whichever newspaper you read (Washington Post vs. Washington Times, for example) that provided the 'cocoon'. I just don't see the average, disengaged citizen going too far out of their way to block out any form of news except those they agree with. And I feel that actively engaged people in fact go way out of their way to be exposed to other sources. Conservatives sit around and cry in their beers about how liberal the New York Times is, but they still read it. And Fox News just about makes liberals' heads explode, but I know a bunch who watch it.
I think Sunstein's article brings up an interesting "what if?" But it ignores basic American personalities. Namely, either we are uninterested in the news in general, and therefore not in danger of being cocooned, or we are very interested and want desperately to argue about it and yell at the other side, in which case we have to expose ourselves to opposing opinions (perhaps with our fingers in our ears, but we can read lips).

Pandering vs. Persuasion

Matt Miller, Center for American Progress (liberal), has an interesting op-ed piece in the New York Times (is anyone else ticked off that they are moving the op-eds to a pay service?). Basically, he muses over whether or not the art of persuasion is dead. However, Miller discounts the fact that talking points are a form of persuasion. Miller has mistaken his argument. He shouldn't be lamenting that persuasion is dead, it has merely changed into a form that he considers less legitimate. George Bush is clearly trying to persuade people that his social security plan is worthwhile, just as he used persuasion in the lead up to the war in Iraq (successfully, I might ad). Clearly the days of the Lincoln-Douglas debate are over, but that is just a sign of the change in times, not the fact that persuasion is dead. I tend to agree with Miller that the level of our political discourse today is too low, but people who want to get their ideas out can't sit and cry about it, they have to adapt and get their message across in this new arena, or else fall by the wayside (see Kerry, John).

More on democracy and text messaging

Prof. Ireland has some more links and discussion on her class blog. There is also an article worth reading on the subject by CNN. The main advantage of this technology is the speed with which the message is distributed. As the CNN article points out, text messaging can provide almost up-to-the-minute information to thousands of recipients. The fact that people carry their cell phones with them means instant contact is possible (versus e-mail, although this is changing as well). The CNN article also makes clear the technological drawbacks, especially in the United States where SMS technology is much less advanced.

So what is the future of text message usage in the United States? I can see no reason why activist groups wouldn't use this technology to their advantage once it is fully available to them (and indeed as the articles point out they already are). It seems as though it would make demonstrations much harder to break up, as once one meeting is dispersed, organizers can simply text message a new location to everyone in the demonstration. In my opinion this is generally good for democracy (insert 1st amendment blathering here). As I said in my last post, the advantages for GOTV efforts are overwhelming. Text messages could be used to remind people to vote, as well as where to vote, and certainly how to vote. Politicians could use it as well to assemble crowds for campaign rallies on short notice, or use it in emergencies if an expected crowd is too small (an embarrassing problem for campaigners). It seems to me that the advantages of this method of communication to political operations are too great for it to be ignored for much longer.

Text messaging and elections.

Intrigued by a comment last class about how text messaging was used in an election I decided to do some research into it. I found several fascinating stories about the power of text messaging. In New Zealand they are using text messaging to allow people to request forms to register to vote. In Thailand the government is using the technology to remind people to vote. They are also using the technology in India, the Philippines, and even among dissidents in Iran. The questions is of course, what future does this technology have in the United States. As a former voter registration and GOTV organizer, I find the ease and relative inexpense (in regards to both money and manpower) with which a person could send out a text message reminding people to vote is incredibly tempting. But would the American consumer react well to a flood of campaign messages on their phone? In an era where Americans are telling messengers to go away (think no-call lists and TiVo) will a candidate profit or perish if they attempt a text message campaign? If I had to place a bet I would guess that the first person to do it would stoke controversy, while everybody else would benefit from the fait accompli.