The Obama campaign sent out an email today from David Plouffe in an effort to bring the movement for change into action:

Please take a few minutes and help shape the future of this movement.

Share your campaign experience and your thoughts on the best way to keep supporting our agenda for change.

The inauguration is just 63 days away, and as President-elect Obama and Vice President-elect Biden prepare to take office, they’ll need your support more than ever.

You’ve built an organization in your community and across the country that will continue to work for change — whether it’s by building grassroots support for legislation, backing state and local candidates, or sharing organizing techniques to effect change in your neighborhood.

Your hard work built this movement. Now it’s up to you to decide how we move forward.

Take this short survey and share your ideas:

http://my.barackobama.com/whatsnext

Thanks to you, this country has an historic opportunity. Electing Barack was the first big step, but there’s a lot of challenging and important work ahead.

Together, we can keep making history,

David

David Plouffe
Campaign Manager
Obama for America

The survey functions as a comprehensive debriefing of the Obama field operation, allowing you to rate your experience with your local field office and staff, how often you used MyBO, and what resources were most useful.

The second part of the survey asks if you are interested in continuing to volunteer to support Obama’s agenda of change, asking about the issues that matter most to you and how you are willing to help.

An interesting touch is asking if you are interested in running for elected office yourself. It will be interesting to see how they use this information. The concept of them recruiting a local candidate farm team seems like a great idea.

Finally it allows you to provide extensive feedback about your thoughts on the campaign and the steps forward and then leads you to a donation page to support the Obama agenda.

Did any of you fill out the survey? What are your thoughts about it? Share in the comments.

Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations highlights the role that the internet has played in enabling people to self-organize for a purpose. We have seen this in practice during the Obama campaign and most recently Join the Impact, created in response to the passage of California’s Proposition 8.

Join the Impact illustrates how online technology can bring people together across geographical boundaries, in this case to advocate for equal rights for gay and lesbian Americans and protest the passage of discrimination laws like Prop. 8. The website is built on WetPaint, a free website/wiki service. It allows supporters to create or find events in their local area, removing the need for a central organizer to plan and coordinate events themselves. Join the Impact is an example of the difference between planning events and advertising them versus giving anyone who visits the site the tools they need to create their own.

Everyone working with non-profits and political campaigns should take note of this new trend. There is a lot of power in the potential of self-organization. Organizations should think about creating websites that provide as many resources as possible for interested supporters to take the initiative on their own. One thing I would like to suggest, however, is that there is a person or people that are designated as something similar to an ombudsperson to answer questions and provide support. In a way that person would act as a community manager for the program. They don’t need to micromanage, or in some cases manage at all, but should be available and accessible for those that need a little help.

The internet has put a lot of power back in the people’s hands, it is important for us to acknowledge that and enable them.

What are your thoughts about self-organization and the role of the internet? Share your thoughts in the comments.

I have a new post up on Future Majority reviewing Democracy for America’s Facebook GOTV strategy. Go check it out.

I just posted on Future Majority with a quick idea about the differences between generations in using the internet for political expression. Please head over there and comment with your thoughts. I’m trying to flesh out the idea with your participation.

I received this email from MoveOn today asking me to attend a phone bank party for Obama. It’s an interesting way to break through the white noise of email communication.

Avast, me hearties!

Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day to ye.

Have ye heard the scum thar bilge rat John McCain’s been slingin’ at me matey Barack? Bad news, ’tis. But a band o’ pirates ken surely blow the man down. Come ‘n’ raise a cup o’ grog this Sunday at “MoveOn for Obama” parties and we’ll call every MoveOn lubber in t’ swing states an’ tell ‘em how t’ help Obama this fortnight. Aye?

Prepare t’ board the Straight Talk Express an’ take no prisoners! Shiver me timbers an’ set yer sights here, smartly now:

(Specific party info was here)

Tell ‘em Ahoy! an’ yer comin’ t’ help:

(Link to event was here)

T’anks fer all ye do. Arrr!

–-Salty Cap’n Adam an’ me merry band

Yesterday I wrote a post about getting creative with the use of keywords and landing pages in paid search advertising. Well, today Chris Bowers took the concept a step further with his amazing post on Open Left.

His idea essentially takes the concepts of creative keyword advertising but throws in the concept of running your own paid ads to help Obama.

Taking the solid advice of Open Left commenter Will, rather than just complaining about this state of affairs, I decided to start running my own ads. Instead of feeling disempowered by narratives I can’t do much to change and messaging that doesn’t speak for me, now I have my own anti-McCain ads. The two ads will appear across the entire state of Pennsylvania, on about three-dozen different Google keyword searches for John McCain and Sarah Palin. It feels really good, too.

Chris created two ads: one that targets McCain for being 95% like Bush directing to Factcheck.org, and one calling out Sarah Palin for lying directing to Think Progress’ Lies to Nowhere page. Here are the keywords he used:

Palin Ad
keywords
alaska governor palin
cindy mccain
governor palin
governor palin mccain
mccain palin
palin bio
sarah palin
sarah palin bio
sara palin
sara palin bio
vice president palin

McCain Ad
arizona senator john mccain
conservative john mccain voting record
john mccain
john mccain facts
john mccain information
john mccain issues
john mccain policy
john mccain political view
john mccain political views
john mccain profile
john mccain views
john mccain voting record
mccain
mccain conservative
mccain voting record
senator john mccain
senator john mccain facts
senator mccain
sen john mccain
sen mccain

So seriously, go read Chris’ article right now. It may be my favorite blog post written this cycle.

Facebook’s new design has been hotly debated, with users either loving or hating it. I personally like it. However, no matter your feelings on the design it is probably here to stay. There is a bright side though. The new Facebook design could actually be better for political campaigns.

Facebook Advertising

Facebook ads are popular with campaigns and organizations since they are inexpensive, extremely easy to target, and reach young voters. However, with the old Facebook these ads appeared all the way on the bottom of the left sidebar and didn’t really get anyone’s attention. With the new Facebook, the ads are much more likely to catch the eyes of the users.

Notice how the new ads take advantage of white space to pop out and appear above the fold. If you use Facebook, think about how many times you noticed an ad in the old design and compare it to noticing the ads with the new one. It isn’t even close. This means that Facebook ads will most likely be much more effective and an even better investment for your advertising budget.

Shared Items

Items shared on the new Facebook actually stand out for people visiting your profile to see, as opposed to the old Facebook which only used small thumbnails and some text. Look at how prominent a shared picture becomes on a profile.

Anyone visiting your profile is going to see a large version of what you shared. This helps when you are sharing political cartoons, pictures of flyers for upcoming events, etc. People are also more inclined to comment on your item, so the items you share can spur discussions about it.

This more prominent featuring of shared items also includes video.

The videos you share can be played in full size on your profile, and your friends are able to comment on it. I know that a number of the videos I have shared have been in turn shared by them. The new Facebook is good at helping things go viral.

The feature I would like to see added to the new Facebook is the ability to reshare someone’s shared item into your feed right from their profile, similar to Friendfeed.  This would definitely help things spread.

Give it a chance

Though some of you hate the new Facebook now, give it some time and it may grow on you. Remember when everyone flipped out over the news feed and mini-feed?

What are your thoughts on how the new Facebook design affects the use of Facebook by campaigns? Share in the comments.

It’s that time when local campaigns are starting to get active, organizations are recruiting and carrying out campaign plans, and people are coming up with ways to improve their campaigns. This is a list of 34 resource/tutorial/tips on campaigns I have written in the last year, all in one place.

1. Creating Pre-Populated Twitter Links

The Let Our Congress Tweet site uses an interesting method to get their supporters to use Twitter to spread their message.

By clicking a link anyone that has a Twitter account is taken to their update page with the pre-populated text “Congress, change the rules. Talk to us on our social networks. http://LetOurCongressTweet.org Let our Congress Tweet! #LOCT08.”

2. Promoting Your Campaign Online

Last week I wrote a post about horizontal segmentation in political communication on my blog, and this post will look at ways you can harness the concept online in promoting your own campaigns.

3. Horizontal Segmentation: Harness the Power of Multiple Media

In his TED lecture, Malcolm Gladwell talks about horizontal segmentation as applied to the food industry. Instead of trying to find the one thing that the majority of people like, you should discover the different varieties of something that people like in order to reach everybody. The concept of horizontal segmentation is also applicable to political communication.

4. Facebook’s Phonebook Feature

Facebook has a new feature that was added to the new and improved Facebook Mobile called Phonebook. Phonebook is exactly what it sounds like: an alphabetically organized list of the phone numbers of all of your Facebook friends that list them.

5. Confirm RSVPs For Facebook Events

I spent this last weekend doing trainings for Arizona high school students who are interested in starting Young Democrats chapters at their schools. In a little experiment, we confirmed that by calling the people that RSVPed as attending or maybe attending to our Facebook event we dramatically increased turnout.

6. Collecting Vote Pledges on the Internet

This last Saturday in Nashville I held trainings on how to use the internet to collect vote pledges. As I promised, I will put some additional resources on here to supplement the training.

7. Build Your Exposure and Spread Your Message With Blog Comments

The more people here your message, the more likely it is to stick with them. This is why it is important to spread your organization’s message as frequently as possible throughout multiple avenues. One of these avenues is the comment sections of blogs.

8. Don’t Hate, Appreciate: Thanking Your Members

One of the easiest ways to lose active members is to take them for granted and not openly appreciating their contributions to your organization. If someone does not feel like they are valued for their work, they might just put their efforts someplace else where they are appreciated. Here are some ways to let your members know that you appreciate their work.

9. Facebook Group Membership Building

A Facebook group is now a staple for youth-oriented organizations and chapters, but building membership isn’t like Field of Dreams: just because you built it doesn’t mean that they will come. You need a strategy in order to build membership in your Facebook group, so here are some tips to help you reach your goals.

10. Your Website as a Fundraising Tool

In terms of online fundraising, there is no resource more valuable than your organization’s website. It is important that your website successfully makes your case to potential donors as to why they should give you their money. Here are some tips to make your website an effective fundraising tool.

11. Using Google Spreadsheet’s Form Tool for Free Online Surveys

As mentioned in my earlier post, I created an online survey using the new form tool in Google Documents asking the questions “where should I move” and “where do you think I will move?”

12. Using Twitter for Your Organization

This post is an attempt to unravel the mystery that is Twitter for the youth organizing community. While Twitter is pervasive amongst the early adopter crowd, it is just now beginning to gain traction with regular internet users.

13. The Bring Back Bondelli’s Blog Strategy

Following the success of the “Bring Back Bondelli’s Blog” strategy (if it wasn’t a success I couldn’t be posting this right now) I thought it might be helpful to explain my methodology and show how you can apply the same techniques for your own causes and campaigns.

14. More Tips on Blogging and Websites

I have come up with some additional tips on blogging and websites since I published my Blogging for Young Democrats Chapters and The Importance of a Quality Website posts. Here are those tips.

15. The Importance of a Quality Website

We have reached the point in the internet revolution where organizational websites are not only common but expected. If you don’t have a website, you don’t appear to exist. With more people using search engines to find information than ever before it is critical that your organization have a strong web presence. This post will cover the importance of chapter websites and ways to improve or start one.

16. Getting the Most Out of Your Members

Chances are that the members of your organization have a wide range of experience, skills, and knowledge that you may not even know about. This post is designed to help you learn what you members bring to the table and how to effectively utilize their skills through goal-setting.

17. Developing a Traditional Media Strategy Part 1: Media Lists and Press Releases

So I have written about reaching out to new media, but it is always important to develop a traditional media strategy to get your message out to print, radio, and television news. This post will help you create a media contact list and learn some best practices about writing and sending press releases.

18. Developing a Traditional Media Strategy Part 2: Working With Reporters

In Part 1 of the Developing a Traditional Media Strategy series I discussed how to create a media contact list and best practices for writing and sending press releases. Today’s post will give you some advice on working with reporters once you have their attention.

19. Developing a Traditional Media Strategy Part 3: Media Monitoring

It is important for you to know what is being said about your organization in both new and traditional media outlets. You may also want to keep track of posts and stories about candidates, issues, and legislation that your organization is interesting in. This post will give you two tips to efficiently monitor the media. These are the methods I use in compiling all the stories in my link posts.

20. Developing a Traditional Media Strategy Part 4: Rapid Response and LTE

This is the fourth and final part of my Developing a Traditional Media Strategy series. Part 1 covered media lists and press releases, Part 2 covered working with reporters, Part 3 covered media monitoring, and this post will cover rapid response and letters-to-the-editor.

21. Making Your Website’s Posts Social Bookmark-Friendly in Textpattern

A lot of state and local chapters use Textpattern for their websites. Sometimes the page templates don’t have adequate textpattern code for the titles of your posts. This means that no matter what page, article, or post is being viewed the same title will appear. While this may not seem like a big deal, it makes a difference on social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us. I use del.icio.us for my links posts, as do a lot of bloggers. With some chapter sites when I go to add a post it will just show a generic title, for example if it were YDAZ every post would show up as YDAz.org :: The Young Democrats of Arizona. I have to write in every post title that I share. While I am willing to do this, some bloggers won’t, and it can limit your exposure.

22. Blogger Outreach 101

One of the best ways to get your message out to an audience that is likely to be receptive to your message is by working with established bloggers to cover your organization. Good blogger outreach is a subtle art, and this post is a crash course in implementing a strong outreach program.

23. Why You Should Get Involved in Your Local and State Parties

We all know the stereotype of the composition of local and state Democratic Parties: a plethora of old activists that consider anyone under 50 a young Democrat. While this keeps many younger voters from becoming involved in those entities, it would be to your advantage to bite the bullet and take the plunge.

24. Blogging for Young Democrat Chapters

Blogging has grown from being a novelty in political communication to a vital tool for candidates, campaigns, and organizations. This post is designed to guide Young Democrats chapters in developing their blogging strategy.

25. Tips for College Chapters Starting a New Year

It’s that time of the year again when college chapters are looking to recruit new members from the influx of wide-eyed freshmen joining their campuses. Here are are a few ideas for new member recruitment that have been used effectively by chapters in the past.

26. A Perfect Email

Luigi Montanez wrote a great post on TechPresident about the perfect campaign email. He used the recent Hillary Clinton campaign’s Kentucky/Oregon appeal to show exactly what an email should look like.

27. Building Link Posts with Del.icio.us

A couple of people have asked me how I do the link posts on here. I know I have mentioned before that it is through del.icio.us, but I’m going to get more specific in how to do it.

28. Keyboard Shortcut Resources

Most people will never realize the amount of time they will save using keyboard shorcuts unless they actually take them time to make their use a habit. Here is a list of resources for keyboard shortcuts from a number of popular programs.

29. Vote Pledges and Why They Work

Over the weekend Michael wrote about the vote pledge and peer-to-peer program kick-off at the Young Democrats of America conference in Nashville. During the conference there was a lot of excitement about the program and I had great attendance at my trainings on using the internet to collect vote pledges. However, as Michael stated earlier, not everyone is sold on the idea of vote pledges, but I am going to show why they should be.

30. Vote Pledges are Valuable, Even in Heavily Democratic Areas

I just posted an article over on Future Majority about why vote pledges work. There is some debate currently over whether or not it is a valuable use of time to collect vote pledges in areas the tend to vote overwhelmingly for Democrats. Here is why vote pledges are valuable to the youth movement and the Democratic Party no matter how Democratic the area.

31. Moving Beyond the Low-Hanging Fruit in Youth Organizing

In youth organizing there is also low-hanging fruit: college students. Most organizations and campaigns have primarily focused their efforts on college students because they are the easiest to reach. However, if we are going to evolve as a movement we need to reach beyond just organizing college students and start working on those young voters that are harder to reach.

32. Using Flickr for Your Organization

While many people are aware of Flickr as a photo sharing site, there are a number of features and uses that are underutilized by organizations.

33. Your Organization as a Brand

In the wake of articles discussing the destruction of the Republican brand, it is important to look at our own organizations and chapters as brands.

34. Branching Out Beyond Traditional Party Politics

Traditionally partisan youth political organizations have been based solely on promoting the party and its candidates. Membership has been dominated by hyper-political and super-active aspiring politicians, staffers, activists, and party leaders. With the rise and coming of age of the new Millennial generation, we must branch out and expand membership to those that are not necessarily die-hard party politicos.

+1: Another great resource for online campaigns is Colin Delany’s Online Politics 101, a free pdf ebook. Check out Colin’s site at epolitics.com for additional resources.

If I had a dollar for every time I heard an organization talk about wanting to create their own social network I could buy a couple shares of Google. While you may be looking at my.barackobama.com and thinking “hmm, we could build our own social network like that,” guess what? You can’t.

At Netroots Nation, Matt Browner Hamlin put it this way: if the best-funded Presidential campaign in the history of the world has a hard time creating its own social network and making it work properly, you probably can’t do it. Honestly, you shouldn’t even want to.

Here is Tony Cani’s metaphor: if you found out that young people like to hang out in coffee shops, you aren’t going to build your own coffee shop. You are going to go to the ones that people already hang out in.

Your time, energy, and money are much better spent actually reaching out to people on the social networks they already use instead of trying to create your own, encourage people to use it, and then be responsible for not only outreach but running a social network itself. But let’s be honest here, the people aren’t going to go to your social network anyway.

At the Arizona Democratic Party, we had the BlueStateDigital social networking component that both the DNC and the Obama campaign use. Tony Cani was the first person to try to get it to take off, I was the second. No matter how much I tried to get our supporters on to our social network to use those tools, it just wouldn’t happen. I would have to go to Facebook and MySpace instead.

Here is one of the big problems. People are getting to the point where they have account overload. People only have a finite amount of attention to give their social networking profiles. If you spent the time required to be active on Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Friendster, Windows Live, Yahoo360, Livejournal, MyBO, DNC Partybuilder, as well as networks for other things it would be more than a full-time job. That is why campaigns pay people to run these profiles for them. Users are going to remain on the social networks that give them the most value, which normally means the social network most of their contacts are active on. A social network without users has no value, and that is exactly what you are thinking about building.

So instead of trying to start your own social network, think about the demographic of people you are trying to reach out to and establish yourself on the networks they frequent, whether it’s college students on Facebook, young latino(a)s on MySpace, etc.

Still think it is worthwhile to create your own social network? Tell me why I’m wrong in the comments.

The idea for this post came from a comment on one of Jeremiah Owyang’s posts by Peter Kim:

Let’s take this a step further - companies CAN’T join a conversation - only people can. Unless you decide to have your mascot come to life.

This is a concept that a lot of organizations miss when coming up with a social media strategy. Even if you have a Twitter account for your organization, or a Facebook group, or anything else for that matter, a person needs to be engaging in the conversation.

I would like to make the suggestion that even if you are tweeting as your organization, it is clear who the person is that is actually updating the account. People have a much harder time engaging with a faceless organizational entity as opposed to a person that is speaking for your organization.

Better yet, get people that are a part of your organization to create their own social media presences and use their relationships to advocate for you.

The point Jeremiah makes in his post is that maybe your organization does not need to have conversation as a part of their strategy. Jeremiah, however, is writing to an audience of businesses and company social media strategies. Since my audience (you) tends to come from youth political organizations, I think that the conversation aspect of a social media strategy is important.

The first take-away of this post is to make your online conversations personal: have someone that is responsible for it whose identity is known. The second take-away is to have your members and even your leaders use social networking on their own to promote the work of your organization.

What are your thoughts?