At least some out there have already noticed it, but in case you haven't: be sure to check out the "Validation" step of your email blaster today.

It'll validate more than your mail deliverability.

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If you're a Salsa user, you'll be hearing a lot more about it over the next four months, but for now, just stick a pin in the calendar:

Salsa Users Conference
June 24-25
Washington, DC

This will be our second user conference. The first (in June 2008) was a huge hit, highlighted by a Lawrence Lessig keynote address.

No Lessig slated this year (at least not yet), but that's all the excuse we need for this remix of his recent Colbert Report appearance.

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All politics is local, after all.

TechPresident toots the horn of Wired For Change -- which provides the Salsa CRM platform for political campaigns and basically anyone that isn't a 501(c)3 -- for its innovative DLCCWeb product.  DLCCWeb enabled Democratic congressional state legislative candidates to set up an entire "website in a box" for $40 a month. (Sure could've saved Charles Rangel some cash.)

Quoth TechPrez:

many have missed one of the more fascinating online programs this cycle: The Democratic Legisative Campaign Committee’s DLCCWeb program.

Developed for the DLCC by Wired for Change the concept is simple: For $40 a month any Demcoratic State legislative candidate can have a website, online contribution system with ActBlue, and the web marketing tools they need to make their web program successful.

Compared to just one cycle ago and the dizzying array options at the time – ranging from too expensive to taking too much time – the DLCCWeb is a much simpler and cheaper option for your state legislative campaigns. With this price tag everyone from low-cost campaigns in New Hampshire to high-cost large campaigns in states like Texas and California found ways to use it to help their campaign.

Which is not only nice, but it's a price point cheap enough that campaigns can keep the doors open easily in between elections.  In fact, DLCC is already landing signups for the next election cycle.

Ultimately, all these accolades are for Salsa, the toolset used by both Wired and its nonprofit cousin DemocracyInAction -- for the flexibility and extensibility of Salsa, which was built precisely for the plasticity to plug into new features, applications and uses.

With the November launch of Salsa Commons and its developer zone, we're already starting to see some fascinating tinkering, like this rebuild of our donation page by Public Citizen.  And if you hit one of our public forum calls this week on feature set buildouts -- like extensions to incorporate a full donor database into Salsa -- you got a sneak peak at some of what's cooking in our part of that kitchen.

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You may have noticed, if you normally read this humble blog from democracyinaction.org, that it's become part of Salsa Commons. (Feed subscribers should have had the seamlessly -- no need to update.)

This is actually the second move for this blog, which now goes by the handle of Salsa Scoop and is part of the Salsa user space being created at the Commons.  We'll keep chattering away here, commenting on both Salsa developments and those in the wider world, but this is only one (relatively small) part of the Commons, which integrates such features as.

• Dedicated blogs by our tech support guru and our new user
• An ever-growing documentation space, including video
• Strategic help, as well as technical how-to
• Training event postings
• Developer space to geek out with Salsa's robust API and its slick package development framework for independent programmers
• User forums -- chew the fat with staff and fellow users on tips, tricks, workarounds, bug fixes, development priorities, or the price of rice in China

It's a major new enhancement of the Salsa community's resources.

There's a decent chance if you're reading this that you've had a whole bunch of e-mails about this site's deployment, so consider this another nudge.  But whether or not you check it out today, next time you click through on a blog post, that's where you'll be finding yourself.  We hope you'll stay and browse.

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DemocracyInAction's mass-mailing needs have made it a case study for scaling delivery for our own e-mail vendor, Message Systems.  It's a bit inside baseball, but if you've ever wondered about the scope of DIA's e-mailing and what's involved in making that happen quickly after you hit the "send" button ...

[A]s opposed to 100,000 messages per hour [years ago], DIA can now send 1.5 million to 2 million e-mails an hour. ...

Delivery Manager software['s] real-time analytics allows DIA to immediately identify why a message doesn't reach its intended target.

DIA's deliverability rate now nears 99 percent, and blacklisting from ISPs is no longer an issue.

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Flattering call-out from Billy "Upski" Wimsatt, League of Young Voters founder who probably doesn't even remember working down the hall from me on U Street.

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Monday's registration deadline for the DIA user conference has passed, but you might have noticed you can still get to the registration page. Here's the deal: there are about a dozen spots left. We'd like to fill them, but we also need to have a final-final head count for the hotel by the end of the week. So registration is going to be held open to tomorrow, Friday, June 20. That's the stone-cold, after-the-deadline deadline; we won't be able to handle on-site registrations, so if you're still juggling plans or otherwise uncertain, get in touch with us and let us know what's up no later than tomorrow.

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This. Is. Hot. Lawrence Lessig, Stanford law professor, free culture paladin, social change advocate -- man, in short, about the technology activist town -- has just been officially confirmed to keynote the upcoming DemocracyInAction Community Conference. The conference takes place June 26-27 in downtown Washington, D.C.; Lessig will address the morning plenary on Friday, June 27th on "Change Congress". Maybe you caught him at the recent National Conference on Media Reform? You'll find him on the expanded agenda also just released. Did we mention (repeatedly?) that that's on top of two days' wall-to-wall Salsa training, online strategizing, and elbow rubbing with the best and brightest? Did we mention there are only three days left to register?

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Don't put it off another day -- register now! The speakers list is coming together, and dang if it isn't a fine one. Rub elbows with the likes of:

• Marty Kearns (Green Media Toolshed, Net-centric Campaigns)
• Judith Freeman (New Organizing Institute)
• Marc Laitin (Consultant)
• Colin Delany (e.politics)
• Jenn Smith (Watershed)
• Allyson Kapin (Rad Campaign)
• David Taylor (Radical Designs)
• Rosalyn Lemieux  (Consultant)
• Alan Rosenblatt (Center for American Progress)
• Trina Zahller (Oil Change International)

And crib organizing notes from the best and brightest, like

• MomsRising
• Center for American Progress
• Oceana
• 1SkyBrave
• Step It Up
• Oil Change International
• CIVIC
• True Majority
• Genocide Intervention Network
• Code Pink

Did we mention that you're running out of time to register?

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Last-minute shoppers, the June 16 deadline for registration is fast approaching. Maybe you've been busy. Haven't had time yet. Been waiting on a few things to fall into place. We've all been there. But the calendar has rolled over to June and space is limited, so now's the time to make the time to register.

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