Political Gastronomica : Political Tech

Looking for a few good Democratic developers...

Hey there - was reading my mail and found a couple of requests for two positions the Obama Campaign is looking to fill. More than likely, you are already aware - but if you are not, check these out. Truthfully, they are perfect for making a difference this election - the campaign can use any and all help they can receive.

Role: Deputy CTO/Chief Data Architect

• 2+ years in professional technology management
• Expert understanding of enterprise database architecture including large-scale data integration across multiple systems, API development, automation and matching optimization
• Familiarity with political data a strong plus including voter files, scoring, and political modeling
• Deep familiarity with web development including project management, feature development, and specification
• Willingness and ability to work in fast-paced, multi-project environment
• An abiding desire to be part of a movement to change American politics.

Role: Software Developers for Web Applications

The Obama campaign earned a reputation for smart use of online technology during the primary, but needs to go to the next level in the general election. To make this happen, we need some smart people to join our team.

The Obama Campaign is looking for creative, smart people who are willing to work long hours to be part of an effort that will not just win an election, but change the way campaigns are run. If you find someone who doesn't have the requisite years of experience, but believes they can fill the spot, please encourage them to apply anyway.

Send an email to jg@rock-creek-ventures.com and please reference Political Gastronomica.

I would not suggest that money will be good, but the experience is incredible.

Posted by Sanford Dickert at 10:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Freedom of Information leads to better engagement?

This afternoon, as I was working on an Executive Summary, my business partner said something about Obama touting a major endorsement tonight at 7pm. A few minutes later, he told me it was John Edwards making the endorsement. I asked him how he knew, and he said that everyone was Twittering about it.

A few minutes later, he showed me on PoliticalBase the continually updating content including the flight path information on John Edward's private plane heading to Michigan for the announcement. Not only did this blow my mind when I saw it, but the fact that a community of people - working from scant information - was able to piece together the story faster than the MSM was another step in the direction of distributed management and creation of content. The power of freely accessible data, speed of information across these new social networks and connection technology combined with the tools that are existing - we are still seeing revolutionary things happening in the political and social space.

Ron Paul and the incredible Libertarian energies
It is funny, because just last night, I was speaking to someone about the Ron Paul campaign and how it was able to use data that it gave access to the world freely to create new tools that would engage the electorate and his supporters. From freely offering the data from who was making online donations and how much to video engagement strategies that would make most Beltway campaigns cringe, the use of mashups and freely accessible data into incarnations that new software applications and platforms enable.

For example, imaging if Obama was offering a feed of donations to their campaign as an RSS feed and some person took that data, stripped out nothing but the dollars donated and plotted the information on a graphing solution like Trendrr. Now, imagine people are able to generate their own data and make their own assessments with the information, free from the opinions of the pundits and the "opinionmakers". Whew!

Tags: Political Mashup

Posted by Sanford Dickert at 10:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Wha? Lieberman site wasn't hacked?

So, I was reading TPM today and found myself chuckling with the Federal probe completed today commenting on the fact that Lieberman's website was not hacked, rather that the takedown of the site during the day before the primary election was due to "misconfiguration". From TPM (by way of the Stanford Advocate):

A federal investigation has concluded that U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman's 2006 re-election campaign was to blame for the crash of its Web site the day before Connecticut's heated Aug. 8 Democratic primary.

The FBI office in New Haven found no evidence supporting the Lieberman campaign's allegations that supporters of primary challenger Ned Lamont of Greenwich were to blame for the Web site crash.

Lieberman, who was fighting for his political life against the anti-Iraq war candidate Lamont, implied that joe2006.com was hacked by Lamont supporters.

"The server that hosted the joe2006.com Web site failed because it was overutilized and misconfigured. There was no evidence of (an) attack," according to the e-mail.

And the shame of it all was the negative publicity and slander on Lamont Internet Director, Tim Tagaris. At least in some circles, he finds some relief.

Hey Tim, I know how you feel.

And, one comment - I think I said something to this effect back in August of 2006 where I assumed the site was overloaded based on the facts form the blogosphere. From that post:

My guess is that the server was having problems because shared servers are reknowned for having limited number of web clients to handle traffic. No amount of bandwidth can address not enough web server processes to handle the enormity of requests.

Tim - more power to you.

Posted by Sanford Dickert at 2:59 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Millennial Makeover: Is there a Lincoln or FDR in the 2008 race?

This evening, as I finished my work at Cooper, I took a walk over to the Great Hall to listen to Dr. Fred Shapiro introduce Morley Winograd and Michael Hais discuss their new book, "Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube and the Future of American Politics" with a talk asking the question, "Is there a Lincoln or FDR in the 2008 Presidential Race?" Interestingly, the talk seems to have been a combination of the premise of the book creation, as well as an attempt to answer the question posed at the start of the talk. [Suffice it to say, I think they would say Obama is the next Lincoln/FDR - more on this later] But what was most interesting to me was the discussion of the impact of technology and generational demographics and their impact on American history - which goes to the heart of two of my posts ([1], [2]), "Would social networks impact the 2008 election?".

At the time, I answered in the negative.

After last night (and this book), I might have a different point of view...

Impact of Technology and Generational Swings
Note: I have only started to read the book as of yet, but I was entranced with the discussion by both speakers and their premises. I must say that I agree with much of what they said and suggest, though I do not completely agree (yet) with some of the mechanisms.

From the start of the talk, Morley drew the obvious parallels with Lincoln and Obama, Steward (Lincoln's "primary Republican" adversary) and Clinton and the issue of race during the election cycle. [Note: I promise to go into the parallels that exist]. But, what perked my ears and interest was the discussion of generational impact and the advent of technology and the impact it had on campaigns and their hypothesis on how it has, on 40 year cycles (give or take some years) cause a civic realignment in terms of political parties and fundamental populational relationship with government and civic duty.

Winograd and Hais's basic premise is that civic realignment - where they characterize it by the "enhanced party identification and straight-ticket voting, rising voter turnout or stable turnout at high levels, positive attitudes towards politics and political institutions, and a focus on broader societal and economic concerns rather than social issues involving personal morality". [p. 27] They argue that this civic realignment is a predictable phenomena that occurs every forty years in America due primarily to:

• political coming-of-age of a large dynamic generation, and
• emergence of a new communication technology

which results in clear changes in:

• electoral results: major parties change power
• voting behavior: South going Democratic, after being Republican and back, and
• public policy: from a laissez faire foreign policy to a force-projection policy in 1932

With this premise, Winograd and Hais posit that this generation - the Millennials - will cause another major civic shift and cause a new outcome in our government that focuses on the societal and economic issues of the day, rather than the divisive issues of our time.

I could short-circuit the discussion with the final statements that:

• likely winner of the Presidential election: Barack Obama
• movement of civic involvement in a more responsible fashion: college for public service (as in AmeriCore and Kerry's National Service program)
• redistribution of wealth from the top 1% to a more even spread
• acceptance of programs that require group sacrifice, rather than blind ignorance of the hidden cost of inaction

I must say that I am pleased this is being painted, and hope that it does come about - which we will see what happens in the coming months. I believed it as the time with Kerry and Dean (as Winograd and Hais said that the Millennials and the Boomers did vote overwhelmingly for), but the weight of the Millennials were not felt until this year - and this cycle. And for that, I look forward to seeing the outcome.

After the fold, I give a short summary of their premise.

Start with Generational Analysis
Based on generational analysis (which I knew very little about except that I was a GenX-er that acts like a Millennial), there are essentially four generational types that break down into ten year groupings. They are:

• The Hero/Civic Generation - the last one was the one in 1932 (the "Greatest Generation") who brought about the change that we saw in the election of FDR and WWII - a very dynamic group that tends to be quite large
• The Nomad/Reactive Generation - this generation spends time trying to respond to the impact of the Civic Generation's efforts
• The Prophet/Idealistic Generation - this is essentially the Baby Boomers, where trusting government and involvement in civic responsibilities are throw aside for their self-needs, and then the focus on maintaining that independence - another lare and dynamic grouping of people
• The Artist/Adaptive Generation - currently, GenX is representative of this generation - latch-key kids who had to fend for themselves and provide support for themselves and their families

What is interesting is that the generational breakdowns map interestingly to technological advances in communications, communities and collaboration. For instance:

• 1820 - the growth within America of improved transportation (canals and steamboats) and then railroads which gave rise to the first political convention in 1828
• 1860 - the invention of the telegraph which allowed for the spread of news from one geographic location to another in the form of regional newspapers
• 1896 - the expansion of the telephone allowed for greater collaboration and coordination of the Republican party
• 1932 - the invention and expansion of the radio - and in particular the treatment and growth of its use (which is quite similar to the growth of iPods in this generation)
• 1968 - the invention and expansion of television and its ability to "shrink" the world
• 2008 - social networks and the peer-to-peer communications that exist with mobile telecommunications

What surprised me is how the generations breakdown into these groups quite consistently (based on the past 200 years of research and history - which Wikipedia and the Strauss and Howe book (Generations: The History of America's Future) support. Based on this - and the incredible similarities that history and our time show - I am quite certain they are right, but not sure I completely agree with all of the mechanisms they discuss.

Social Networks Impacting the 2008 Election?
I have written two posts on this topic - and specifically the fact that the campaign that makes use of the social networks will find their success assured, but my skepticism that the campaigns have yet to utilize them. Winograd and Hais speak of the "Facebook platform" that the myBO is built upon, but it is my understanding that this is a tool from Blue State Digital and not an extension of the Facebook platform. Additionally, I am (normally) not a supporter of the YASN (yet another social network) mentality, since I think that the hyper-segmentation of networks will continue to be met, with increasingly lower costs and new communities will be built up.

But, in the course of writing this post, I realize that I have discussed the needs for in-person connections and "tabling" is quite important. I also school my clients (both political and commercial) that the keys of success are found in using the networks to spread the message via word-of-mouth, or "word-of-network". And, the myBO is actually what I have been asking for IF the campaign is seriously using it to rally the supporters and the "influentials" as discussed in the 2004 campaigns.

Process Behavior and Social Capital
Since people have self-selected and become members of myBO, and a large enough community has formed on the space - and IF the campaign has been communicating AND allowing others to communicate across the network, then the natural word-of-network flows happen into these other social networks since the nodal people ("influencers") have allowed for the crossing of physical (and URL) boundaries. Interestingly enough, the viral nature of the message (as in Dean AND Obama was "vision and empowerment"), coupled with the stateless nature and ease of "travel" from one social network to another (via your browser), which allows for the rapid distribution and aggregation of people into events and communities.

Since these nodal people are about building social capital in informing and educating others on the issues and situations, it is a natural effect. And with a large community (such as the Millennials) who have been raised on Napster (sharing copyrighted music) and MySpace (personal expression/exposure at young age), YouTube (peer-to-peer visual connection) and Facebook (who are already conditioned to tracking the state of their personal social network), I think that social networks as a transport medium have impacted the 2008 election - which goes into my BarCamp discussion on the speed of memes in various communities.

Hmmmmm....18 months since my first post on this topic, could it be I could be mistaken? More than happy to entertain the concept.

Millennial Makeover site: www.millennialmakeover.com
Millennial Makeover blog: millennialmakeover.blogspot.com
Buy the book: Millennial Makeover

Tags: Social Networks in Politics, Millennial Makeover, Millennial Generation Impact, Impact of Social Networks, Speed of Memes

Posted by Sanford Dickert at 3:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Blast from the Past - Kerry's 2004 Online Fundraising Performance

I have been reading all sorts of posts on the performance of the different campaigns, including Colin Delany's post on TechPresident about John Edward's $1M funding surprise in five days and the insurgence of online fundraising after a successful win in Iowa and/or in New Hampshire. Well, I have always had the online stats from those first two weeks after Kerry won Iowa and New Hampshire and thought maybe I could share them with you.

(click to see larger image)

Performance-based Metrics
One of the things we were doing from November until January was trying to unlock the secrets of fundraising and online performance. I spent untold hours pouring over data and online donations to determine the potential success formula. We learned that more pages on a contribution page is bad (went from a 20% conversion rate to an 80% conversion rate), one page minimum on the forms, fewer elements are better (you do not need them to check off each line on the FEC disclaimer) and watched how the conversion rate (contributions/unique visitors and finished contributing/started contributing) improved. But nothing could prepare us for the avalanche that happened on the day after Iowa.

The very next day, as the graph shows, we were having incredible performance on the donations. At the time, I got besieged by one of the communication staffers who asked me for metrics on performance. After a bit, we rushed out numbers and found our press going through the roof. Everyone wanted to know how we were doing. I remember a staff meeting a couple days later where someone from the senior staff commented on the ATM machine finally was working with the Internet. Within a week, we had hit $1M on online donations - web and email.

New Hampshire and Super Tuesday
We were seriously worried about the software doing on contributions since it was relatively cheap and had not been tested under serious load conditions, but when New Hampshire went to JK, I was there all night long watching the server load, making sure we were okay. And, we made it quite nicely. It wasn't until SuperTuesday that we discovered the fallacy of low-cost solutions in an enterprise world.

The evening that SuperTuesday was announced for JK, we were in a large auditorium and were watching the celebration of JK becoming the presumptive nominee. It was astonishing, and I had someone watching the server to make sure all went well. The very next day, MeetUp.org decided to point their 2M members to our server. According to our software provider, we were assured everything would be okay. It could handle the load. Uh huh.

Within 15 minutes, the server suddenly froze and gave up the ghost. We restarted the server and tried again. Less than 5 minutes and it stopped. Interesting, at the same time, Nicco Mele of the Dean Campaign called wondering how we were doing. We discussed performance - and even commented on the sudden uptime challenges - and he said that their (the Dean Campaign's info) had always said there was a pent-up energy for donating once the nominee was chosen. I had to dash off, and fortunately for us, we had a backup plan in place to handle the donations - making them a more "batch" process rather than a "real-time" (authorization right at the time of request). Once that system was in place, we easily took in another $1M within 24 hours.

It was an amazing time, and I wonder how Joe is doing over at the Obama campaign right now...

And for the political/data junkies, I offer the following PDF with the graphs for each of the online efforts during those weeks. Click here for the PDF.

Tags: Online Fundraising, eCampaigning, John Kerry, Campaign 2004, Online Fundraising Performance

Posted by Sanford Dickert at 3:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Will Social Networks Impact the 2008 Election? I think NOT.

On the 12th of September, it will be was the fourth anniversary of my involvement in US politics - from the presidential to the state level - and I have worked on campaigns from as lofty as JK's 2004 Presidential effort to a local run (Jennifer Gottlieb's run for an At-Large seat on the Broward County School Board). In this cycle, I find myself on the sidelines - due to forces beyond my control (thanks to the "speed and rapidity" of the NY Supreme Court System).

In 2003, I came into politics with the enthusiasm as any American school kid does - fed the stories of civic action, civic duty and the thinking that with good intention and hard work, you could make change happen in the political process. And, from my experiences, I think for the most part, you can - especially in the primaries or on the edges where the elephants (and donkeys) will not risk to play. But when risk is mitigated, the older, wiser "A-team" comes calling, and the younger, less-experienced are layered, transferred or simply pushed to the edges. The process teaches you valuable lessons for both politics and life in general - if properly seen in context.

But being on the outside of the campaign cycle this year has given me a chance to see if the hub-bub about this being the Year of the Internet is all that it is cracked up to be. From my vantage point, I think the hype is not going to make up for the lack of connectivity that people think the Internet (and social networks) are supposed to bring.

Will Social Networks Impact The Election?
I was asked this question last year by my friend from Wired, after I finished with another campaign, and I can STILL heartily say - even with techpresident's MySpace, Facebook and YouTube counters - I believe that social networks will still NOT impact the coming 2008 election.

"Wha?", I hear my poli-tech friends gasp. "Didn't you read the study that shows Facebook numbers are an indicator of relative success of drawing voters?" "Weren't you at the Facebook Political Summit?" "Aren't you impressed by / using the new Facebook tools?" "Aren't you impressed by the incredible reach of all of the candidates and their supporters through MySpace, facebook, flickr, YouTube?".

No.

And why not? I think they are missing an essential ingredient: simple, human contact.

All social networks are not the same
Funny thing, these social networks; there are over 100+ of them - addressing various issues, spaces and sundry interests. MySpace - the behemoth that is (IMHO) on the wane is not a place to connect, it is rapidly becoming the place to be a surrogate website for candidates - not for people to connect. Consider the actions you can take on MySpace:

• Email Your Friends
• Invite to an Event
• Post on the Bulletin Board
• Comment on their Page
Blog

....and? Well - you can add widgets, videos, and other visual attractors - but, between you and me, how often does Jack and Jane Voter plan on watching the same video over and over again? Read the same blog post which more than likely came from the candidate's main site? And, for anyone who truly believes that they are speaking to the national candidate or the candidate is actually listening on that comment site, please know that Suzy Intern really appreciates your involvement.

I could go on about Ryze, LinkedIn, hi5, tribe.net, Friendster (that is soooo 2003), Orkut, myyearbook, eons, mygrito, think MTV, flickr....oy! I could go on, but what are the campaigns actually doing?

Social networks (in version 1.0) have been about exposing data and allowing for a simple search query to allow you to discover other like people in your interest sphere. Web 2.0 suggests that social networks are about a fundamentally different, albeit enabled premise - being social - not simply by having a profile presence, but seeing what is happening in your network and becoming part of the life within that network. Living the pulse of the network and either being part of it - or wanting to be part of it. Do candidates offer a glimpse of that life within the network that is something supporters want to be part of? Does the campaign truly offer a chance to engage in simple, human contact?

When I go to the local mall, county fair, outdoor market - I can often see the ardent supporters of candidates "tabling" in the flow of traffic - holding their campaign literature, sign at the edge of the table, looking for eyes that are ready to learn more about the person running for State Senate, Congress or even President. You and your friends are there, giving each other moral support as the throngs of people walk by - nary paying attention to you, until a person walks up and says, "So....tell me about Senator X."

Where does this happen on social networks? Can I put up a "table" and engage in a conversation? Where is the flow of people that are milling about that can be "chatted up"? Certainly not on MySpace or many of the other social networks.

While I may have sounded dismissive earlier, Facebook does something that others do not - provides a news feed on my friends. Coined as "exhaust data" by my friends at Yi-Tan, the news feed - if updated regularly, gives me a sense of who is "walking around the mall" of Facebook - 'specially ones that are part of my social graph. This is where the campaigns would benefit.

Where are the Virtual Tablers?
This is where the campaigns can use their volunteers and give them the power to reach across their own networks and chat up people when they are interested in learning more about the candidate. But, it is not easy to go and "speak" to someone in Facebook since all of the communications are not interrupt-driven (as a face-to-face might be), they are addressed whenever the receiver wants to. How do you get people to accept the interrupts? Usually, that is the sense of presence - of human contact. Once that magic ingredient is "captured" and enabled, then I could see social networks truly engaging people.

Posted by Sanford Dickert at 3:06 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Keeping Personal Democracy personal

This morning, I got an email from an old friend of mine, Aldon Hynes, who made two interesting posts at Greater Democracy:

• Keeping Personal Democracy Personal
  where he talks about the migration of politics from the personal to the professional, where the operations of politics is about optimizing certain performance metrics, and
• Interaction and Interactivity
  where Aldon discusses the difference between "interaction" (where you respond to a stimulus given) and "interactivity" (where a conversation or dialog ensues between a grouping).

In reading his posts, I see a lament of the migration from a civic, personal contact to a business mentality of running a campaign. Considering the masses under nebulous demographic and psychographic metrics may seem cold and calculating, but the challenge of achieving the goals of campaigns is to win. And to win, the campaigns have little else to do but place bets on particular expenditures, rather than trying to be all things to all people.

In every campaign I have been a part of, there is always a major constraint that they have: money. While the assumption that volunteers for the candidate is "just around the corner", that is almost as funny as hearing that "there's gold in them thar hills", convincing the old '49ers that they should keep digging into the hills for that chance of finding the motherload.

In an archived post, which I never made public due to last cycle's issues, I wrote about being a campaign manager and the business of running a small campaign - especially one where resources are scarce and the opponent is entrenched. I promise to finally publish this post which should be instructive on how campaigns have to have a startup mentality in order to succeed - since the goal is to raise awareness with the individuals that can best bring about your success and find a way to fund your efforts, especially when you are a candidate who needs to rely on the support of others.

The challenge is to maintain a close relational contact with your supporters while keeping in mind that there is only 24 hours in a day, and you can only occupy one physical space at one time. Technology is meant to help enhance the ability of a person to communicate with a group of people, and allowing for some personalization of the communication to the supporters in the best way possible. Note, I did not suggest "converse" with all of the supporters, since people are limited with one mouth and two ears (or you could include two hands). But, by using technology to enhance the chance of communicating (e.g. John Edwards on twitter, every candidate on email and/or blogs, Chris Dodd and Tom Vilsack on video sites), the candidate (and/or his staff/surrogates) tries to keep the connection with the supporters to ensure the energy continues to flow.

I, too, will be attending the PDF - this year, for the first time, as a participant. This cycle has been difficult for various reasons (as some people know), but my affection for the art and business of politics still exists. No matter how difficult it can be, I believe that we will be able to create relationships through these technologies - in ways we have yet to understand. In the business world, I spend more time confirming with clients on how to work together online with their customers, considering the long-term value of a customer given the power that technology can give them. If it was not for Microsoft Outlook, Plaxo and/or google Calendar, I would loathe to remember every one of my friends birthdays. If not for the ability to blind cc my friends, I could not keep them up-to-date with my goings-ons. And if not for the ability of blogging and the easy publishing and syndication tools (thanks Dave!), I would not keep in touch with my friends in the blogosphere. Personal Democracy is about maintaining a connection with others - whether one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-one or many-to-many. In a later post, I will explain where I think we are heading in our technological evolution such that Personal Democracy can remain personal.

Tags: Personal Democracy, Personal Democracy Forum, Greater Democracy, Aldon Hynes, PDF2007

Posted by Sanford Dickert at 9:56 PM

Announcing PoliticalWarez.com

For the past two years, I have been banging around an idea of building a blog that would help political campaigns get advice on technology solutions without having to rely on consultant's connections - or basically borrow mine. Well, after a couple of abortive attempts (Britt Blaser had a terrific idea back in June 2004 of offering a Consumer Reports version of this), I finally began work on PoliticalWarez - an homage to the TechCrunch collection of sites focused specifically for political campaigns. (I am not affiliated with Michael or TechCrunch in any way)

The goal of PoliticalWarez is to discuss the technology and impact on campaigns - including some of the consultants who offer servicess - to help the consumers of these services get a leg up on understanding what options are out there. After three years of political campaigns and dealing with the technical infrastructure and the business processes that need to be addressed, I hope to convey basic English to a maze of technical jargon and help to overcome the complexity in making the important buying decisions for campaigns.

I will talk about some of the majors (e.g. Akamai, Convio, getActive, NGP, Aristotle) but I will also bring up some of the DIY solutions (e.g. OrchidForChange, civicspace, CacheFly, VivaDemocracy) that offer less functionality or service guarantees for a lower price. An old friend of mine once said, "better to be forwarned and forearmed, than not to know at all". Consider this an opportunity to help the community as a whole.

I do ask for any and all feedback - especially from people using the platforms and tools. I have already begun talks with some vendors I know very well and will be publishing articles on a regular basis. If you have stories or comments that you would like published, feel free to send them along. The email is on the site - and I appreciate the feedback.

Tags: Political Technology, PoliticalWarez, Political Tech, Campaign Technology

Posted by Sanford Dickert at 3:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Net Neutrality - John Stewart style

Just could not keep this one from being discussed - when working on the last campaign, I had to get details on what "net neutrality" was. I had discussed it with Congressman Anthony Weiner and needed to help my candidate understand it. Where was John Stewart then?

Posted by Sanford Dickert at 6:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Personal Democracy Forum '06

This past Monday, while in the midst of a campaign, I had a prior commitment to a friend to help the Personal Democracy Forum to do their podcasting and speak on the panel, "Free, Easy and/or Cheap Tools That Anyone Can Use". After a terrific conference with various speakers which included NY Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, Markos from Daily Kos, Jerome Armstrong (formerly of myDD), Congressman Anthony Weiner, Joe Trippi and a host of other luminaries in the political and technology world - it was said that this conference was a resounding success.

During my panel, I was talking about a number of products that I found to be very useful in doing a number of tasks necessary in political campaigning. And to that end, I wanted to list them for public consumption. These are not necessarily "endorsements", they are recommendations to others on my experiences of products I have used to deliver the needed services during my time in eCampaigning. Note - this is a list of free, cheap and/or easy tools - ones that give great service for the price (when price really matters).

• Content Management Systems: Democracy in Action
  I have used a number of CMS tools in recent years and while I have an affection for tools like Atomz and GetActive, know about cheap systems like OrchidforChange and appreciate the free nature of civicspace and Drupal, I have found DIA to be one of the better, inclusive products available for campaigns in the past year. I worked with them on a recent campaign and, while they have some bugs at time (like changing the URL from the candidate's domain to their own), the system is easy to use, somewhat flexible if you are technically saavy, and integrated to handle bulk email, contributions, petitions, databases and (very limited version of) email CRM. They recent relaunched with some new tools within their product line, and I look forward to seeing them.
• Database Management: NGP Software
  I have worked with NGP pretty much most of the time I have worked in political campaigns, and their are a number of reasons why NGP is the software of choice for most, if not all of the campaigns for fundraising, voter file management and compliance. While not perfect, they have become the de-facto standard for Democratic campaigns looking for a good database solution without having to pay a heavy price for services as some other solutions require. And, with recent investments in consulting and a new product NGP Field, they look to develop their product line further to be in the process of managing campaigns with a seemless offering throughout the cycle.
• Scheduling: google Calendar
  A complete surprise to me - after being addicted to my Microsoft Outlook and Exchange Servers all this time. google Calendar with it's multiple calendaring function, SMS and email reminder integration, ease of use with their mapping functions, clean, crisp and clear hardcopy schedule generation and reasonable reminder integration with Microsoft Outlook calendaring - I found an incredible tool for scheduling and coordinating across the campaign.
• Podcasting Tools: Microsoft WordPad and Audio Magic or GarageBand3
  One of the challenges still in place today are prepackaged tools for podcasting and/or blogging. And while I am a personal fan of Moveable Type and heard wonderful things about WordPress, I am still a fan of hand-coding my XML for my feeds (like the Yi-Tan Conference Calls). For that purpose, I use Microsoft WordPad. For audio recording, I recently acquired GarageBand 3 - which was relatively easy to use (once I figured out - with the help from Howard Greenstein - how to overcome the confusion of their different offerings) for audio recording. If you are not a Mac user and do not want to shell out money, there is always the standby of Audio Magic to record your audio. And, for an easy condenser mic solution, Sam Ash offers a host of podcasting solutions which include a simple condenser mic with a USB cable that is ready for recording use. Not on the same quality as some of the other condenser mic solutions - but unless you want to get into XLR cables, phantom power and mixing boards - I would highly recommend their offerings at this time.
• Video Podcasting Production: Final Cut Pro
  Sorry Microsoft and Adobe, but when it comes to easy video editing and creation of video content, nothing comes close to FinalCut Pro. You can see how powerful this tool can be at one of my favorite sites, Goodnight Burbank, a funny, satrical sketch comedy combining the sarcasm of Ricky Gervais, Aaron Sorkin's "Sports Night" and a local, TV newscast. (Disclosure - I have done some of their technical work). They used FinalCut Pro extensively - and it is quite a job. Enuf said.

Tags: Personal Democracy Forum

Posted by Sanford Dickert at 8:53 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Personal Democracy Forum - May 15th

This year, the Personal Democracy Forum is being held in New York City at the CUNY Graduate Center.

This year, the keynote speaker is Attorney General Elliot Spitzer, candidate for Governor of New York with Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas signing their book, "Crashing the Gate".

Various topics will be discussed, including

• Opening Plenary: The Changing Nature of Political Media
  With Merrill Brown moderating, Chuck Defeo, Joshua Marshall,
  Chris Nolan, David L. Sifry, and Ben Smith
• How Campaigning Online Will Affect Who Will Win in 2006
  With Matt Bai (moderator), Jonathan Garthwaite, Markos Moulitsas, Joe Rospars, and Patrick Ruffini discussing the potential impact of online campaigns
• "Net Neutrality" or "Hands Off the Internet"
  A debate with Susan Crawford, Stephen Effros, Timothy Karr, Chris Wolf and Congressman Anthony Wiener moderating
• The Rising Power of Local Political Blogs
  Conversations with local political bloggers and their tactics on how to influence campaigns within the local community
• To Blog or Not to Blog
  Should campaigns or advocacy organizations adopt a blogging strategy, and if so, how to do it right.
• How to Win Friends and Influence People in the Blogosphere
  Developing smart relations, and how to deal with a "blog-swarm."
• Fundraising Best Practices
  How to turn supporters into donors, how to choose the right fundraising software, mistakes to avoid.
• Making Online Work Offline and in the Field
  How to use your list to strengthen your field and communication operations and vice versa.
• Why Your Website is Probably Obsolete (And How to Fix it)
  Top political website designers will show what works, and what doesn't (submit your own site for discussion, if you dare).
• Online Political Advertising With, and Without, Money
  Where to spend your money (i.e. Flash movies? Google ads? Blogs?), and how to get attention cheap, or for free.
• Is Online Video More Powerful Than TV Advertising?
  Do you YouTube? Hear from pioneering videobloggers and top campaign strategists who are integrating interactive video into their efforts.
• MySpace for Politics
  How campaigns and advocacy groups can use online social network platforms to create powerful political communities.
• Regulating Online Politics? The FEC, Bloggers and Campaigns
  Will the feds crack down on online politics and should they? The experts speak.
• TxtMessaging and Mobile Politics
  The Next Generation Platform: Hear from leaders in the rising field of phone-based fundraising and mobilization on what's over the horizon.
• Free, Easy or Cheap Tools That Anyone Can Use
  Working on a small budget? You can practically run an organization or campaign for free with these tools.

Feel free to signup - and when you so, tell them that you were sent by me - and I believe there is a discount avaiilable.

Tags: Personal Democracy Forum

Posted by Sanford Dickert at 4:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Movable Type 3.2 - Excellent

This weekend, I spent some time on two client's blogs - and spent far too much time working with Movable Type 3.2. With this version, I can confidentally say that this product is incredibly powerful, easy to implement (once you have a handle on the MT APIs and CSS), and a joy to use. Impressively, if you use the various elements within the interface (including excepts and category descriptions), search engines are highly likely to improve your ranking and relevance for the topics you discuss.

For discussion sake, I am listing the position of PG on google and Yahoo! as of today, based on the categories I count as my areas of attraction. In one month, I will retest this metric to see how the blog has improve on these search queries.

For google:

• eCampaigning - 27th
• Political Tech - 27th
• English eCampaigning - 1st
• Contagious Conversations - 11th
• Campaign 2004 - unknown

For Yahoo!

• eCampaigning - 10th
• Political Tech - unknown
• English eCampaigning - 1st and 2nd
• Contagious Conversations - unknown
• Campaign 2004 - unknown

In one month, we shall see how we improve...

UPDATE: Looking my stats on the search engines for the five terms and I find:

For google:

• eCampaigning - 6th
• Political Tech - 1st(!)
• English eCampaigning - 1st
• Contagious Conversations - 1st(!)
• Campaign 2004 - unknown

For Yahoo!

• eCampaigning - 3rd (but for English eCampaigning)
• Political Tech - 2nd(!)
• English eCampaigning - 1st and 2nd
• Contagious Conversations - 1st(!)
• Campaign 2004 - unknown

Quite an impressive improvement....

Tags: eCampaigning Movable Type political tech

Posted by Sanford Dickert at 3:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Civicspace moves to Compumentor

Just got a couple of press releases from Zack Rosen in the past seven days - first, announcing the launch of the alpha version of the hosted version of Civicspace (see them at www.civicspacelabs.org). Then, today, Zack announced the "fiscal sponsorship" of the non-profit arm of Civicspace - working through the auspicies of Compumentor. With Kieron and Andrew leading the for-profit arm and Zack doing what he does well (evangelising) - we shall see how the next phases of Civicspace works out. I, for one, am very interested in seeing how Civicspace (hosted) competes against the likes of Convio, Kintera, GetActive, OrchidForChange, DIA and others in the space.

I am a *big* fan of the open-source/shared building premise that Civicspace offers - sharing the technology across the universe of Drupal developers. But the challenge is how to drive the community of developers toward what will deliver for particular constituencies. It will take time to develop a fully-fleshed product and then to establish the brand (as Kieron and Andrew are working on) but the challenge tends to be the market opportunities - and how things will drive development priorities. I anxiously await the next stages of development...

Tags: Civicspace Zack Rosen

Posted by Sanford Dickert at 11:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Process makes perfect

During IPDI, I had a number of campaign consultants speak to me about various companies and their technologies. In the course of the conference, I discussed database solutions (e.g. voter file database management like Aristotle and NGP), web content management solutions (e.g. DIA, OrchidForChange, civicspace, iStandFor, GetActive), bulk email services (e.g. ExactTarget, WhatCounts, Sparklist, ConstantContact), blogging and podcasting services (e.g. TypePad, Blogger) and contribution services.

While all of these technologies have their strengths and weaknesses, the real magic is not specifically in the technology. It is in the process behind it - how does one use the tools in an effective manner with the right content and respoinse system behind it?

The best contribution engine coupled with the easiest bulk email system will do very little if:

• the content is not compelling,
• the response to customer needs are not met, and
• if the campaign does not "interact" with the constituents.

The Internet and the type of interaction that people expect from an Internet site is at a higher response level than what has previously been assumed. The Internet (like the McCain-Feingold Finance Laws) brings everyone down to a common level and can bring power to individuals that were previously unidentified as strong influentials. But, in order to handle the change in dynamic, campaigns need to get the tools (read: technology) and the talent (read: people with process). The question is: how do you find the right process to improve your interactions to generate what you want (read: donations, volunteers and votes)?

Don't Be Impressed with Bling
For the most part - I offer the following advice: do not be impressed with showy design and flashy technology. Good design is incredibly important, cost is paramount - but performance on key metrics matters most. I have seen terrific success with some of the most basic looking websites (one of my favorites is Chris Bell's site from echoDitto).

Ask your consultant a couple of questions:

• What is your conversion rate? How many visitors did it take to get a signup? How many to get a contribution? How did you improve the performance?
• How do you guarrentee my message is getting "out there"? What are the tactics you have used to make it happen? How did you measure performance?
• What is your open rate and click thru rate on emails? What are the tactics that you suggest to improve performance? How do you resolve "list fatigue"?

Technology is meant to address scalability - it does not solve the interaction problem. It is similar to assuming that any old television ad with a candidate's face splashed on late-night television in every market will be as effective or better than an effective, well-written, engaging ad that calls voters to action with proper production values and proper placement into the right cities. Knowledge of the viewers, knowledge of the market and know-how of how to engage people online is not as easy as publishing a web page and sending out emails. With the Internet, the process of engagement and feedback becomes all the more important.

While the process of managing your Internet channel is supposed to be an easy one, would you want to surrender the success of your campaign to a consultant without understanding what you wanted to happen?

Tags: eCampaigning political technology email marketing

Posted by Sanford Dickert at 1:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

TXTmessaging - lesson from abroad?

One lesson from the 2004 campaign that seemed to resonate was the concept that text messaging - those little 160 character messages people get on their cell phones - was not a very effective mechanism for the campaigns. At ETCon in 2004, Trippi mentioned his frustration in using mobile communications during the campaign - and I can personally can discuss the frustrations with it on our own mobile site (mobile.johnkerry.com).

But interestingly enough, I do not believe this is a problem of technology - I believe it was a problem of being ahead of the curve. And from information I have been getting from other sources, the Republican Party is beginning to build TXTing into their process of managing their field organizers for the upcoming elections.

In a recent conversation with Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution, Rick Mathieson of 800-CEO-REAL blog learns of the recent Asian election and how they used email and text messaging to successfully manage get-out-the-vote efforts:

At the other end of the spectrum, we have the president of Korea elected by a combination of a "citizen reporter" Web site, AllmyNews.com, and people using e-mail and text messages to coordinate get-out-the-vote efforts. When they put a call out literally during the election that their candidate was losing in the exit polls, they got out to vote and hit that election. In Spain, there was the terrorist bombing, and the elections several days later, in which there were official government-organized demonstrations followed by self-organized demonstrations. They were organized by SMS and may well have tipped that election.

While the campaigns did not find it a strong tool, rumours have it that the RNC is investing in text-messaging services for it's 2006 and 2008 efforts. As text messaging grows (100 Billion Messages Sent By UK's Texting Generation As Texting Hits All Time High), domestic examples mount (TXTmob: Text Messaging For Protest Swarms), and US users are beginning to get a handle on it's use - can the Democrats and other campaign coordinating services leverage the instant, distributed nature of text messaging to coordinate it's efforts?

Posted by Sanford Dickert at 5:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Are you prepping for 2008? 2012?

Funny thing - coming away from the Personal Democracy Forum in New York this week, there is a lot of discussion about what people thought were good tactics and bad ideas during the conference sessions. But the most intriguing discussions were happening off the conference floor - where people were playing armchair politics - figuring out who was doing what, who was helping whom...

One thing I noticed - the real indicator of a candidate is their understanding of the new medium - and how it can be the powerhouse for the future campaign. If you take a look at the possible contenders that are making news today:

• Senator Clinton
  is going full steam with her new site - building up a mailing list war chest though events and email signups - almost rivalling what Kerry was doing at the height of the 2004 election - and we haven't event gotten to the real primary.
• John Kerry is building upon his original 2.9M - rumours at the PDF were placing his list closer to 3.1M - and applying his PAC powers to other candidates and issues for future benefit.
• John Edwards is still sending emails out to his list of 600K - and potentially growing his coming effort for the 2008 campaign.
• Tony Blair has continued his conversation campaign with the Labour supporters even after his win - continuing to keep his supporters informed and in the loop.
• Betty Castor is still communicating with her supporter base in Florida - supposedly for her upcoming bid for Governor of Florida.

Interestingly - I wonder if candidates realize that the true power of the Internet is not the fact that interested people and read the candidate's position on the issues during the last two weeks of the campaign, but the true power is the relationship that is built up between the candidate and the influentials that are accessible through the Internet - which is represented by the size of their email list and the quality and quantity of dialoging communications occurring between the two?

Does this mean that I think other influentials (read: elected officials, party organizers, community leaders) are less important? NO.

But, the power of the Internet is found in the people that you do not connect to normally, and are given permission to discuss your views with - on their terms. Whether at the workplace, in the bathrobe, after the evening news - it is the TiVo shifting nature of getting the information when they want it - not when the network news shows it.

Any candidate that is serious about building up for the 2008 election is thinking of their Internet strategy - how will they begin and continue the conversation? The parallels to direct mail are compelling - think about the size of the list and the percentage that will convert. But the problem with this model - it is very short-sighted. If the people on the list are thought of as direct mail - they eventually fatigue - and do what I do: either filter out the emails into the Bulk Email box or make a filter for the emails to look at them "when I have time" - which is often never.

Making the effort to engage and converse is the power of the list - longevity of the mailing list is what is the power. Come back to the adage I have mentioned before - it is more cost effective to keep a customer than to acquire a new one. Now, my email list providers might argue against that (What? I have a list for $0.02 per name, how can you beat that?), but I come back to quality - if it takes 1000 emails to generate a quality candidate, is it truly worth it?

Gov Vilsack, Sen. Bayh, Gov Bredesen, Sen Edwards, General Clark - are you listening?

Posted by Sanford Dickert at 10:46 AM | Comments (0)

Participatory Democracy or Integrated Marketing?

On my way to the airport on Friday, I got a telephone call from Friends of Kerry. It had been some time since I had received a telephone call from the campaign - and I was surprised to get a request - not for money, but for having my name included in Kerry's Citizen's Roll Call for saving the Arctic National Wildlife Preserve. Interestingly enough, this did not start out as a call for money, but for my name to become part of the petition - very similar to the petition handlers I often see on the streets of New York or London.

Granted, I was then asked for a donation - which somewhat disappointed me (but then again, how else are they to generate funds) - but this could be the first step in terms of building a true integrated marketing campaign - leveraging what occurs on the web, on the phone, in direct mail and events in the news - to bring the concept of participatory democracy to the next level.

One thing that any of the Democratic organizations could be doing - is integrating the actions of what occurs on the web, direct mail, phone and email. This requires a substantial effort in managing process information (e.g. did the person sign the petition, did they donate, did they mail in a donation) but the potential benefit of being able to comment to me on the phone ("Mr. Dickert, thank you for signing our Roll Call - your involvement helps Senator Kerry make a difference in this Senate...") makes that little difference that can help both in donations as well as future involvement when volunter action is called upon.

To date, I have not seen this effort in the DNC - my understanding is that the web site and the fundraising systems are separate at present (or share a slight interface), but the integration of these systems and databases - and the timely management of the data within them - would help identify the valued Influentials that are incredibly cruical to the Democrat's cause. By building this relationship, and using a little integrated marketing techniques - we can foster more participation - and help every Democratic campaign to win.

Minor anecdote - I was recently visiting a friend's home in London and picked up a call for him. The telemarketing script was incredibly enagaging - and, while I knew the effort was telemarketing, the use of an engaging script and engagement words were spectacular. We in the US could learn a little from this effort - understated but engaging.

Posted by Sanford Dickert at 5:19 PM | Comments (0)

DNC Tech: Open-Source for real?

After all of the hub-bub is done and the Governor is elected as the new DNC Chair - Gov. Dean is going to be inundated with all sorts of issues that need to be addressed: how to work with the DECs across the country, how to work with the party machine there in Washington DC, deal with the many inputs that are coming to him from his advisors both from the primary campaign and the DNC Chair campaign. And, as another voice in the crowd, I think there are a number of issues that need to be addressed in the organization in a more structural sense - this time focusing on the integration of the back-office technology and data services, not as an insland or silo of the organization, but as a true horizontial provider of services that can best work with the ongoing efforts of the party.

Learn the real lesson of open-source
In large businesses today, many CIOs are considering new alternatives to the Microsoft platform or the bespoke initiatives that have hamstrung organizations to particular vendors - whether being a "Microsoft" house or an "open-source platform" house - but keeping code proprietary - and keeping the organization tied to the provider much like a drug addict is to their supplier. My own experiences with outsourced organizations demonstrates that when budgets are tight and the need for innovation is high (e.g. expanding features, responding to competitor moves), the organization is hamstrung.

An alternative which has worked to my advantage in the past is to build an internal team that covered the various development and architectural needs. This provides strong management over development cycles, a strong management of the cost base, and potential innovation benefits are there since the connection to the producers (the programmers, designers, etcera) are close to the organizational customers (e.g. marketing, product team, customer service, etcera).

But, being the DNC and being Democrats in general, offers a unique organizational opportunity to benefit both the Democratic party both inside and outside the party structure and to leverage a truly democratic and distributed effort with all of the democratic minded people around the world.

Instead of focusing all of the attention within the organization, leverage the lessons of SourceForge and Clark TechCorps and build a team of open-source development managers/programmers who focus on the development of the various components and platform structures that are in line with what will be built for the upcoming elections. Instead of keeping the Volunteer Center behind an IP contract with Friends of Kerry or the ePatriots code behind the DNC firewall, hire a OS Project Manager and release it.

Then, use product development techniques by drawing in the customers that will be using the products (e.g. internal DNC staffers and external political types) to build the product requirements and priorities. These meetings have to be with the developers in them - whether they are face-to-face or virtual through conference calls and wikis - to provide the "skin-in-the-game" value and then let the project manager lead the team.

Are we giving away the store?
Is this a strange concept? Truthfully, no. It is an excellent concept - especially if it is a blended effort focusing on the development of a set of tools for a platform that will evolve. Using the internal teams initial drive, building the first branch of the codebase allows others to extend the codebase and grow it with features and add-ons (e.g. the client architecture that would be a secure solution to connecting with the back-end solution). Some of the best innovative work has been after a team launches code into the wild (e.g. Gnutella) and allows the community of developers a chance to extend it. With guidance and support by the DNC, any of these tools can be extended and developed as needed - especially if the DNC communicated with the developers in an effective manner. Think about what might have happened if AOL had actually managed the development of the Gnutella Network in the direction of an iTunes or Napster. Might we be discussing the financial windfall of AOL's vision versus Apple's?

Remember the fabric, not just the tools
One thing that I have seen hamstring organizations is a need to control the development of tools within an group - almost serialize the development along functionary lines (e.g. eCRM solution for Customer Service has integration problems with the email communicaton platform for the Marketing organization). One of the most important aspects of this development has to be the build of the middle-layer: how will the organization, both the enterprise and the extended parts communicate between themselves effectively? While many vendors will offer their solutions (e.g. TIBCO, Vitria), again, the needs here are relatively simple and the tools are available (e.g. XML-SOAP, web services) - all we need is an understanding of the fabric and the integration between the different services.

Interestingly enough, the fabric is all about the data - how will all of the services communicate back to the various data stores. That will be how the DNC will win in the infrastructure war - how fundraising will be able to provide understanding of their effectiveness across a large donor base, how the volunteer coordinators will be able to determine the effectiveness of their staff, and how the political team will determine how effective their message is reaching the public - by allowing the tools to allow the discourse of ideas to rise about the functionality of any particular technology or channel.

Posted by Sanford Dickert at 2:39 PM | Comments (0)

Databases are the 2004 Engine

Parties Are Waging Battle of the Databases (washingtonpost.com)

Funny thing about this article - is that the power of databases were understood by the RNC, but in the Dems world - it took a lot longer and a lot more time. The money wasn't there - the software was all open-source - and now the data is beginning to flow. Fortunately, DataMart is quite large - and cumbersome. There are other tools that help in modeling - and the data within DataMart is impressive. But what will be interesting is how DataMart will be exposed to the state parties - and how they will allow others to access it - with the security and other issues that come into play.

Posted by Sanford Dickert at 1:51 AM | Comments (0)

Databases are the 2004 Engine

Parties Are Waging Battle of the Databases (washingtonpost.com)

Funny thing about this article - is that the power of databases were understood by the RNC, but in the Dems world - it took a lot longer and a lot more time. The money wasn't there - the software was all open-source - and now the data is beginning to flow. Fortunately, DataMart is quite large - and cumbersome. There are other tools that help in modeling - and the data within DataMart is impressive. But what will be interesting is how DataMart will be exposed to the state parties - and how they will allow others to access it - with the security and other issues that come into play.

Posted by Sanford Dickert at 1:51 AM | Comments (0)