Salsa Scoop
Arnold Vs. Arnold
If you can afford them, flash movies are a great way to promote your campaign. You can go funny or disturbing--either way your chances of building a viral campaign increase significantly. The Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet seems to think so.
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11:00 AM Nov 22, 2005 -
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Cyberspace Panopticon
DIA hasn't yet incorporated prospect screening or research services into our own toolset, but frugal nonprofits of every stripe may appreciate OnPhilanthropy's recent review of the truly impressive -- that is, chilling -- prying you can do into your donors using absolutely free online tools.
And if you're going to go digging through the used coffee grounds and week-old fishwrap, you might need this. (thanks, Tutor.)
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01:30 PM Nov 21, 2005 -
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I Was Just In My Office And I Heard A Ruckus.
You take the tendency of technical innovation on the Internet to outpace the regulatory environment, and you cross it with students' ambiguous legal protections against congenitally heavy-handed administrators ... and you get a timely response like the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Student Blogging FAQ, released Friday.
With bloggers of every age fighting for legitimacy, EFF is also running a Bloggers' Rights campaign you might want to check in on. And see Lenin's Tomb for a tartly grounded explication of bloggers' rights in the greater scheme of things.
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09:30 PM Nov 20, 2005 -
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Introducing Our First Guest Blogger!
Single Frequently Asked Question: Why doesn’t my head doesn’t explode when dealing with intricate and developing technologies all day long in pursuit of democracy?
Answer:
Jon Stewart is not available for guest blogging this month so you get
me. Fortunate for you, I’m a lot like Jon Stewart, funny, attractive,
intelligent. Don’t believe me? Just ask my mother. Wait, don’t
ask her, she thinks Bill O’Reilly is dreamy.
Unlike Jon Stewart, however, I don’t wear expensive ties and I’m
not going to leave all the heavy lifting to a cast of talented ready
for prime time players. No, you get what you paid for today.
Rather than cutting away to Samantha Bee, stick with me and we’ll
explore the number one reason why my head doesn’t explode when dealing
with intricate and developing technologies in pursuit of democracy.
Wait, let's start with the number 3 reason my head doesn’t
explode when dealing with intricate and developing technologies in
pursuit of democracy, massage therapy. I highly recommend it and my
massage therapist is adept at working out the pent up energy that could
cause a head to explode. The number 2 reason is curiosity. This
American experiment is fascinating. I want to see where it goes. Which
leads to the number 1 reason my head doesn’t explode when dealing with
intricate and developing technologies in pursuit of democracy: I keep
my eyes on the prize -- democracy.
Dark wood offices and details kept me employed in the last
century -- I got my pay check from law firms. Nothing went
out of these law firms that had to be “corrected.†In those days, bugs
were insects.
As the new millennium dawned I walked into a bright, airy and
industrial setting – American Online at Dulles. At my first
training I learned that one of the proprietary softwares had “bugsâ€
that had been part of the first release and had not been fixed in the
123 releases since then. That software was publishing to AOL’s 25
million paying members and not a one of them knew a thing about the bug.
Law firm training notwithstanding, I picked up very quickly that
a bug was not something to stop the push of online technology. As a
friend of mine says, “Always go forward, never go back.†(he especially
says that when I want to revisit certain scenes in a Time To Kill when
Matthew McConaughey was preparing for his destiny as People’s Sexiest
Man Alive 2005). My job was to keep my eyes on the prize -- that
was making sure the AOL members were happy -- not to monitor bugs in
the software.
Those software bugs had no effect on the subscribers and I loved
keeping AOL members happy and learning about online media – for about
three years. A giant layoff, the kind you read about in the papers,
flowed down on Dulles. I grabbed a life preserver thrown to me by
one of their partners and found myself serving 300 customers in pursuit
of democracy with an online software that has some of the features of
Democracy in Action.
Keeping over 300 advocacy, corporate, association, government
customers happy was challenging and their devotion to getting their
membership, employees, supporters engaged in democracy was inspiring.
There, memories of life at the law grew more distant. What was
persistent was the reminder, keep your eyes on the prize – democracy --
and not on the bugs. One strategy I used was to pull up their counter
for the total number of e-mails sent to elected reps across all
customers. Regardless of what bug was surfacing, I had only to look at
the growing tally to help keep my focus – people, at that any instant,
day or night, were making democracy work by writing to their elected
officals.
This year I came to Public Citizen and got to learn a new
software – Democracy in Action. Every day I’m enthused by the
opportunity to serve our supporters and give them effective ways to
participate in democracy. DiA’s robust service provides
easy to use tools and every now and again I get to witness a bug.
But they don’t make my head explode, even if I am trying to mail 64,000
people. I keep my eyes on the prize – democracy. Hey look a that,
just now, somebody sent a letter to their Member of Congress demanding
hearings on why went to war. Democracy in action. I love it so.
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05:00 PM Nov 17, 2005 -
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Thumbs Up
Last night I joined roughly 30 of D.C.'s young professionals at Mark and Orlando's to watch Walmart: The High Cost of Low Price. I was impressed--mostly by the number of people that came out on a rainy night to see a documentary about Walmart. The organization of over 100,000 activists is, as Jim Gilliam of Brave New Films puts it, the largest grassroots mobilization in movie history.
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10:30 AM Nov 17, 2005 -
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