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Slide 1: Person-to-Person-to-Person Harnessing tHe Political Power of online social networks and U s e r - g e n e r at e d c o n t e n t T h e G r a d u at e S c h o o l o f P o l i t i c a l M a n a g e m e n t
Slide 3: Person-to-Person-to-Person Harnessing tHe Political Power of online social networks and U s e r - g e n e r at e d c o n t e n t T h e G r a d u at e S c h o o l o f P o l i t i c a l M a n a g e m e n t
Slide 5: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Person-to-Person-to-Person: Harnessing the Political Power of Social Networks and User-Generated Content is a publication of GW’s Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet (IPDI). Julie Barko Germany, deputy director of IPDI, is the principal editor of this publication. Riki Parikh (researcher) assisted with research, editing, and writing. Ed Trelinski (event manager), Chris Brooks (financial manager), and Ryan Sullivan (assistant event manager) provided invaluable assistance and helped with the editing. Carol Darr, director of the Institute, provided additional editing. Ian Koski of On Deck Communication Studio designed and paginated the publication. This project benefited greatly from the advice and assistance of many individuals. We especially thank all of our authors: Eric Alterman (KickApps), Colin Delany (epolitics.com), Chuck DeFeo (Townhall.com), Brad Fay (Keller Fay Group), Joe Green (Essembly.com), William Greene, (RightMarch.com), John Hlinko (Grassroots Enterprise), Heather Holdridge (Care2), Valdis Krebs (InFlow), Mike Krempasky (Edelman and RedState.com), Chris MacDonald (Liberated Syndication), Nicco Mele (EchoDitto), Justin Perkins (Care2), Zach Rosen (CivicSpace Foundation), Alan J. Rosenblatt, (Internet Advocacy Center), Gideon Rosenblatt (ONE/Northwest), Carl Rosendorf (Gather.com), Phil Sheldon (Diener Consultants, Inc.), Michael Silberman (EchoDitto), Ravi Singh (ElectionMall.com), and Mara Veraar (Democracyinaction.org). Their opinions, however, as interesting and provocative as they are, do not necessarily reflect those of the Institute. IPDI is the premier research and advocacy center for the study and promotion of online politics in a manner that encourages citizen participation and is consistent with democratic principles. IPDI is non-partisan and non-profit and is a part of the Graduate School of Political Management at The George Washington University. F. Christopher Arterton is dean of the school. For more information about the Graduate School of Political Management, visit www.gwu.edu/~gspm. For more information about the Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet, visit http:/ /www.ipdi.org. © GW’s Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet. The editor is Julie Barko Germany. The date of publication is September 15, 2006. PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | Page v
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Slide 7: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ................................................................................................................................................ 3 By Julie Barko Germany Chapter 1 – Social Media: Promising Tool, Double-Edged Sword .................................................. 7 By Colin Delany Chapter 2 – Don’t Let Go Yet! What You Need to Know about User-Generated Media and Politics before You Take the Plunge ...................................................13 By Julie Barko Germany Chapter 3 – Reaching the Under 30 Demographic: Social Networking in the 2006 Campaigns........................................................................................ 19 By Riki Parikh Chapter 4 – How Howard Dean Turned Online Social Networks into an Offline Phenomenon .............................................................................................. 23 By Michael Silberman Chapter 5 – Call in Now! How Townhall.com Turned Talk Radio into a Community of Bloggers ............................................................................................................... 29 By Chuck DeFeo Chapter 6 – Building Networks of Informed Online Adults ........................................................... 33 By Carl Rosendorf Chapter 7 – The Social Context .............................................................................................................37 By Eric D. Alterman Chapter 8 – The Emerging Podcast Swing Vote .................................................................................41 By Chris MacDonald Chapter 9 – Building a Blog Network .................................................................................................. 45 By Michael Krempasky Chapter 10 – Go with the Flow . . . But Not Just Any Flow ..............................................................49 By Valdis Krebs PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | taBle of contents PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | Page 1
Slide 8: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet Chapter 11 – Identity Formation in Online Social Networking Web Sites................................... 53 By Mara Johanna Veraar Chapter 12 – Take Action, Get Action: Using the Power of Love to Drive Activism ............... 59 By John Hlinko Chapter 13 – How an E-mail Campaign Can Tap into Social Networks ...................................... 61 By William Greene Chapter 14 – Take It Offline: How One Person Can Reach One Thousand .............................. 63 By Brad Fay Chapter 15 – Moving Ideas: A Higher Order Social Network ....................................................... 67 By Alan Rosenblatt Chapter 16 – Building a Network of Political Allies: How the Environmental Movement Is Learning to Leverage Its Network of Allies ................................... 69 By Gideon Rosenblatt Chapter 17 – Essembly ............................................................................................................................ 75 By Joe Green Chapter 18 – Think like a Rock Band: How to Use Social Networking Sites for Political Campaigns .......................................................................................... 79 By Justin Perkins and Heather Holdridge Chapter 19 – Video Games Are Political Tools ................................................................................. 83 By Nicco Mele and David K. Cohen Chapter 20 – Creating an Online Voter Space ................................................................................. 87 By Ravi Singh Chapter 21 – Political Organizing through Social Networking Sites: the Fred Gooltz Story ............................................................................................ 89 By Zack Rosen Chapter 22 – Is the Hot Factor Worth the Trip? Why Some Groups Are Forgoing the MySpace Experience .......................................................... 93 By Phil Sheldon Author Biographies ................................................................................................................................ 97 Page 2 | taBle of contents | PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON
Slide 9: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet INTRODUCTION Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet by Julie Barko Germany “Social software is political science in executable form.” - Clay Shirky, Social Software and the Politics of Groups In July 2006, a Web site called MySpace.com, originally used as a way for bands and music lovers to connect online, became the most popular Web site in the United States. Bigger than Google. Bigger than MSN or Yahoo. Bigger than Amazon. Social networking officially arrived for most of mainstream America. Its reign as King of the Web, however, lasted just a few weeks. YouTube, a site that allows users to post, share, and discuss videos soon emerged as the new most popular site on the Web, serving up more than one million videos a day. Is the hype of MySpace in particular and social networks in general justified? In the grand sweep of social networks – both online and offline – Internet giant MySpace is considered to be a “low trust” social network because of its size, the proliferation of fake profiles, and its devalued concept of what constitutes a friend.1 Further, some would argue that sites like YouTube contain so many different videos that the only way for political groups to break through the clutter is to create extreme, even offensive content – a move that some groups and campaigns may be unwilling to make. On the other hand, the promises that Web 2.0 will engage, rejuvenate, and activate the public in new ways have led many organizations to leverage social networks in relatively simple ways and with successful results. 1 Cindy Gallop, “Monetize My Social Network? How One can Answer the $580 Million Question,” Adotas, August 10, 2006. So what’s a campaign, non-profit, or advocacy group to do when the public wants individualized, interactive, on-demand content thisveryminute? The good news is that the tools for building active social networks already exist. They are surprisingly affordable, and they seem to work well for both national movements and small, local campaigns. “Every time someone interacts with another person, there is the potential to exchange information about people they both know. The structure of everyone’s links to everyone else is a network that acts as a channel through which news, job tips, possible romantic partners, and contagious diseases travel.” – Howard Rheingold, Smart Mobs Nodes and Ties If you’re looking for a tome on social network analysis, then you’ve picked up the wrong handbook. Person-to-Person-to-Person does not delve into social network analysis, a cross-disciplinary study that maps and measures relationships within a network. You won’t find scatter diagrams in this publication (except on the cover). On the other PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | taBle of contents PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | introdUction | Page 3
Slide 10: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet hand, if you’re seeking guidance on how to incorporate the existing technology into the strategy of your campaign or organization, then you’re in the right place. The authors in this publication offer step-by-step guidance and a wealth of expert tips to help you figure it out. Person-to-Person-to-Person includes the advice, strategies, analysis, and predictions of leading theorists and practitioners who work for political candidates, advocacy groups, non-profits, and businesses. Almost all of the authors in this publication highlight the importance of blended networking, which incorporates both online and offline networking. They use MySpace profiles to drive volunteers to campaign headquarters, and talk radio shows to herd people onto blogging communities. They encourage their supporters to talk online and publish content, such as blog entries or Web videos, and they invite them to attend offline events, volunteer as door-to-door canvassers, and evangelize in their communities and offices. All of them use technology to engage individuals in a community and ask them to take some kind of action – whether online or offline. In a social network, the term “nodes” is another word for individuals. The term “ties” refers to the relationships between actors. A “scatter diagram” is used in social network analysis to show potential relationships between individuals in a network. Further Reading Mark Buchanan. Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Science of Networks (New York: W. W. Norton, 2002). Peter J. Carrington, John Scott and Stanley Wasserman. Models and Methods in Social Network Analysis (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005). Steven Johnson. Interface Culture: The Way We Create and Communicate (New York: Basic Books, 1997). Martin Kilduff and Wenpin Tsai. Social Networks and Organizations (Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications, 2003). Apophenia (http:/ /www.zephoria.org/ thoughts/). Network Centric Advocacy (http:/ /www.network-centricadvocacy. net/). Network Weaving (http:/ /www.networkweaving.com/ blog/). Page 4 Some of our authors take a more philosophical approach to using social networks. Others discuss incorporating social networks and user-generated content into strategy. Still others present case studies that outline their successes and failures. Some of them talk about the past; others look toward the future. A few of them discuss large, national campaigns, while others illustrate the best tools for local campaigns and non-profit organizations. One or two question the power of large social networking sites. The purpose of this publication is to introduce you to their ideas, provoke questions within your organization, and give you some concrete techniques. This publication isn’t designed to sit on your shelf. Every chapter includes tactics, best practices, and suggestions for creating a social political space – ideas that you can begin to implement immediately, once you understand the underlying concepts. Social networking involves a lot more than simply creating a MySpace profile and asking people to list you as their buddy. The idea is to use technology, like the Internet, to develop an active network of supporters around your issue, organization, or candidate. It involves creatively altering your communications strategy to give supporters a voice, engage them in the work of your campaign, and empower them to reach people offline. This isn’t new. But it is the new business of politics. In his 1997 book Interface Culture, Steven Johnson writes, “There’s a funny thing about the fusion of technology and culture. It has been a part of human experience since the first cave painter, but we’ve had a hard time seeing it until now.”2 Personto-Person-to-Person takes what you already know about human nature – for example, that people like to be treated as individuals and are more willing to buy into something when they feel they have a voice in it – and incorporates the concepts in an affordable, tangible way into strategy. Top Ten Tactics: Throughout Person-to-Person-to-Person, our authors offer some of their best tips, techniques, and 2 Steven Johnson, Interface Culture (New York: Basic Books, 1997), 2. | introdUction | PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON
Slide 11: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet advice. We’ve summarized some of their best advice below. 1. Make Participation Simple. If it isn’t intuitive, people won’t use it – particularly people who don’t log on to the Internet everyday for work or school. Think about how easy it is to send a YouTube video or post a photo on Flckr. Long registration processes and pages of text are time-consuming, and many people find them to be prohibitively encumbering. One of the main reasons YouTube has become so overwhelming popular has do to the ease of use. Writer John C. Dvorak summarized this best in a piece for MarketWatch earlier this year: “It’s brain dead simple,” he wrote.3 Both Chuck DeFeo and Ravi Singh advise political groups to make it easy for people to communicate with each other – and with your organization. As you will read later, DeFeo’s site, Townhall.com, created a blogging network of over 1,000 members in just a few weeks by providing blog templates for its users. Similarly, Singh suggests using simple, inexpensive software to connect supporters through Web video networks. Technical and financial barriers of entry should not come between you and your supporters. 2. Encourage Conversation. Zack Rosen calls a good social networking site “a living and growing organism.” Feed it by bringing people together and encouraging them to talk to each other as often as possible. Conversation will build a stronger, more active community, as people grow more comfortable working with each other – and with you. Carl Rosendorf recommends jump-starting conversation by posting comments at least twice a week. Chuck DeFeo suggests programming interactivity into every page of your social networking site. Give people the ability to post comments or forward information from every page on your site. In the words of Joe Green, conversation becomes the “gut-level appeal” that gets people to return to your site. Michael Silberman and Brad Fay suggest taking this one step further by creating a two-way conversation with your supporters. Invest personal time with supporters who are active in your online community. Make it easy for them to contact you, treat their inquiries with respect, personalize your response, and respond to them in a timely manner. “There’s a funny thing about the fusion of technology and culture. It has been a part of human experience since the first cave painter, but we’ve had a hard time seeing it until now.” - Steven Johnson, Interface Culture 3. Build Trust. Justin Perkins and Heather Holdridge call trust the “currency” of success in social networking. That trust is a two-way street. Mara Veraar writes of the challenge that advocacy groups face when they attempt to build trust with their supporters online. When conversation moves onto the Internet, identity verification becomes difficult. Help your supporters get to know you because, in the words of Valdis Krebs, strangers don’t make good messengers. At the same time, many of our authors write that political organizations must learn to trust their supporters. If you can’t trust them, how can you expect them to carry your message to others? Mike Krempasky suggests leading by example and giving your supporters a sense of ownership and freedom to make the site their own. Still, Phil Sheldon recommends establishing standards for community conduct – and sticking to them. 3.5 Trust but Verify. Remember the adages about birds of a feather flocking together and being known by the company you keep. Colin Delany offers a cautionary note about letting anybody and everybody link to you. “I’ve already seen news coverage of a candidate’s MySpace site that mentioned some of his more noteworthy, (i.e., risqué) friends,” he says. “My approach so far has been to approve all friend requests, figuring that a blanket policy is the safest course.” What could be even worse is the creation of a fake profile. “Fakester Politicians” has happened to other candidates and it could happen to you. If you, your candidate, or your organization has been in the public eye for anything longer than a split second, you could be a victim of unauthorized profiles. People may have logged onto a site and created a profile without either your knowledge or your permission. It’s not a rare occurrence. In August 2005, the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune reported that at least 14 governors had fake profiles.4 4 Brady Averill, “Fake MySpace profiles pose a dilemma for politicians,” StarTribune.com (http:/ /www.startribune.com/587/ story/612223.html), August 14, 2006. 3 John C. Dvorak, “Missing the point about YouTube,” MarketWatch (http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/ kx41F17ZJwXRG8Lm0R8nK9), August 10, 2006. PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | introdUction | Page 5
Slide 12: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet 4. Don’t Forget What You Already Know. Joe Green reminds political professionals to apply what they already know about offline grassroots organizing to the Internet. Cultivate your early supporters online and empower them to spread your message. Both Ravi Singh and Michael Krempasky recommend building action tools directly into your site. But don’t stop there. Brad Fay, Zack Rosen, and Michael Silberman all recommend combining online and offline organizing tools to encourage activity. As Valdis Krebs writes, “don’t get enamored of technology and forget everything you know about human behavior. Mix them together.” Provide online resources that they can use in the offline world, such as event planning guides, volunteer registration, customizable newsletters, and printable talking points. 5. Mind Your Content. Don’t forget to post content regularly. Why? Because it provokes conversation, keeps people engaged in what you are doing, and gives people information to share with their personal networks. Content equals activity. Both Zack Rosen and Carl Rosendorf recommend posting no less frequently than every few days. William Greene suggests responding quickly to news and current events within your community. Follow Chuck DeFeo’s advice and ensure that you give people correct information. This includes getting your facts straight the first time and giving people geographically-relevant content, such as the names and contact information for local media and elected officials. 6. Cross Promote. Not everyone can find you on his or her own. For example, Chuck DeFeo writes that talk radio helps push visitors onto his Townhall.com site. Carl Rosendorf recommends maximizing your media strategy by using each component to promote the others. Use events to promote your Web site, and your Web site to promote your events. That way, you reach a wider audience. 7. Manage Expectations. Technology does not win elections. However, using technology effectively can encourage a community to grow around your candidate, organization, or issue. A strong, active community can help you meet your goals – from raising money to winning a campaign. But don’t depend on your network for everything. Set realistic goals, say Carl Rosendorf and Phil Sheldon, and create a group experience that enables your supporters to help you meet those goals. 8. Find the Leaders. Many of our authors recommend targeting influencers – the portion of the online and offline population who function as opinion leaders and share advice with a large network of colleagues and neighbors. Several of our authors offer different ways to capture that collection of influential activists. Carl Rosendorf recommends finding the people who lead the dialogue in your community and engaging them more deeply in your organization. Michael Silberman also suggests pinpointing your super-activists. The point is to target people who are especially active and who are willing to act on your behalf. You’re looking for people who do more than just participate once in while. Once you find them, give them more responsibility and reward them for their extra effort. Zack Rosen writes that you might consider giving them a little message training and letting them create their own messages and respond to online queries. 9. Join a Hub. No one has the money or the staff to solve all the world’s problems. If you’re a smaller organization or non-profit, considering joining forces with other organizations to accomplish major goals. A hub of networks, such as the progressive-leaning Moving Ideas Network, help organizations work together by increasing coordination, collaboration, and social capitol. Alan Rosenblatt, Zack Rosen, and Phil Sheldon recommend creating and driving people to a hubsite – a place where people can sign petitions, write letters, recruit more activists, and learn about boycotts. As Gideon Rosenblatt writes, “By working in harmony, a network raises the effectiveness of each individual while raising the collective effectiveness and value of the entire network.” 10. Be Yourself. All of us feel a special bond with people and organizations that depict themselves genuinely. Don’t try to conceal your identity, or your humanity. Be up front about who you are and what you are trying to accomplish. Often, all it takes is a little Internet research to uncover misrepresentations. Allow your personality to shine through. As Chris MacDonald writes, “If you come off like a press release, you’re dead to the listener.” Page 6 | introdUction | PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON
Slide 13: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet SOCIAL MEDIA Promising Tool, Double-Edged Sword by Colin Delany e.politics Many political campaigns are experimenting with online social networking sites and social media as ways to reach supporters and motivate volunteers. What should issue-advocacy and candidate campaigns keep in mind as they dip their toes into this new medium? What’s working? What might just blow up in your face? Let’s look at three basic ways to use the concept. First, your campaign can work with existing social networking sites such MySpace or Friendster to reach a new audience. Second, you can build social networking tools into your campaign’s own Web site to motivate your existing supporters. And finally, you can take advantage of the broader world of user-created content to help turn casual supporters into passionate activists. Social Networking Sites Social networking sites can be a good way to reach a new audience, though for most campaigns they’ll supplement rather than substitute for an actual Web site. Let’s begin at the beginning – just what IS a social networking site? Social networking Web sites are designed to allow people and organizations to set up profile pages and link to other profile pages. It’s that simple. They work on a “circle of friends” model – presumably MySpace isn’t the only kid on the block. Trying to reach a particular demographic? Try some of the following sites: • Gather.com • AsianAvenue.com • MomsRising.com • MiGente.com • BlackPlanet.com • Eons.com The e.politics (www.epolitics.com/) blog discusses online advocacy and online politics, including a how-to folder on using social networking sites. PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | | introdUction PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON cHaPter one | Page 7
Slide 14: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet most networks of connected “friends” have some preexisting basis in the real world, though they usually quickly grow beyond that initial nucleus. Users can follow links from one profile to another out of curiosity or to look for friends, dates, customers, and supporters. Usually, they can also search by keyword and leave comments on profiles. Getting friends is as easy as going to a profile and requesting a connection. Really aggressive users amass thousands of friends, most of whom they’ve never met in person. Social networking sites can function as mass communications tools when users send messages to their friends all at once. MySpace and Friendster are the best-known social networking sites, with MySpace (originally a place to promote bands) being by far the more popular. By some measures, it became the mostvisited site on the Web in the summer of 2006. Because of its dominance, in this chapter I’ll often refer to MySpace when I’m speaking of social networking sites in general, but the same basic rules apply regardless of which site you’re using. Since setting up a MySpace page or a Friendster profile is quick and easy and the sites reach such broad audiences, many advocacy organizations and corporations are experimenting with the new medium. Social networking site users tend to be younger, so the sites are particularly good tools for campaigns trying to reach high school/college students and recent graduates (e.g., that drive to save Social Security might not be quite as good a match). MySpace pages also automatically include a blog function, so they can be an easy way to get into blogging if you’re not ready to set up a standalone site. Technorati, the main blog search engine, now indexes MySpace blogs, so they’re fully connected to the broader online conversation. Often, your MySpace page will be simple “brochureware” – little more than an online business card and a chance to get your name in front of potential supporters. To get more out of it, try adding links to your individual campaigns (if you’re an advocacy group) or to more information about each of your issues. Always include a link to join your email list, and a donate button wouldn’t hurt, either. Pay close attention to your profile design. Many MySpace sites are garish and assault readers with sound and flashing graphics: they often look like a flashback to late-90s Tripod and Geocities sites, but are even more annoying. Some are so goopedup that they’re almost impossible to read. You’ll probably want to use pictures or other graphics to illustrate your links and dramatize your issues, but use sparingly – having a “clean” site can actually help you stand out. Like so many other pieces of the online organizing puzzle, your results from social networking sites generally depend on how much effort you expend: if you simply post a profile and wait for people to come, you’re likely to be awfully lonely. What can you do to boost results? • Be aggressive! – Successful MySpacebased campaigns really work at getting supporters. For starters, go to profiles devoted to similar issues and ask to be friends, and also try to develop direct relationships with that profile’s friends. It never hurts to ask – the worst someone can do is say “no.” The more profiles your link appears on, the more potential supporters can stumble over you and fall in love. • Use MySpace to promote your normal campaign action alerts. – Send a mass message out to all of your friends and also post a notice of it on your site. Readers are more likely to move beyond MySpace and sign up for your main activist list if you present them with a specific action to take. • Ask your friends to post your alert on their sites. – If they really care about your issue, they’re often eager to help out. Plus, it gives THEM some interesting (you hope) content for their site. • Send information to your friends often. – MySpace readers are constantly bombarded with messages, so you don’t have to worry so much about wearing them out. List exhaustion doesn’t seem to be as much of a problem with social networking sites as it is with e-mail advocacy, so keep in touch and make sure that they don’t forget about you. A few other things to keep in mind: • MySpace and Friendster users are a diverse bunch, and many people use the Try adding links to your individual campaigns (if you’re an advocacy group) or to more information about each of your issues. Always include a link to join your e-mail list, and a donate button wouldn’t hurt, either. Page 8 | cHaPter one | PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON
Slide 15: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet sites for dating and self-promotion. You may end up with some “friends” with an exhibitionist streak, so decide in advance how to handle friend requests from less-conventional parts of your audience. This consideration is probably more important for a candidate’s campaign than for an advocacy campaign – just imagine how your opposition might use that “friend” of yours who loves her bikini shots. I’ve already seen news coverage of a candidate’s MySpace site that mentioned some of his more noteworthy, (i.e., risqué) friends. My approach so far has been to approve all friend requests, figuring that a blanket policy is the safest course, but I’m also working with issue advocacy campaigns rather than for a politician. • Friend lists tend to build exponentially – the more people who see you, the more people who are going to link to you – so try to build a healthy list right away. If you have an e-mail list or newsletter, mention your MySpace page to your readers when you launch it and invite them to become friends. The stronger your initial base, the faster your growth. • As with every other Web site, don’t let your content slip out of date. If you’re afraid that you’re not going to have time to keep your profile updated, stick with evergreen content. One trick I’ve found is to use your main campaign’s RSS feed to keep your MySpace content current (you do have an RSS feed, don’t you?). MySpace blocks JavaScript, which is the usual tool to display a feed on a remote site, but several people have built free applications that convert your feed headlines into an automatically updating image, which you can then link to a news or headlines page. Just go to Google and search for ways to display RSS feeds on MySpace and you should find what you’re looking for. • Finally, don’t just assign some random intern or junior staffer to create and run a social networking profile because “they’re young and know about these things.” A MySpace site is just as much a part of your campaign’s public front as your main Web site is, and it must be on message. Make sure that it meshes with your overall communications strategy. Don’t just assign some random intern or junior staffer to create and run a social networking profile because “they’re young and know about these things.” A MySpace site is just as much a part of your campaign’s public front as your main Web site is, and it must be on message. Putting Social Networking Tools to Work for Your Campaign Another way to employ social networking tools is to integrate them directly into your own campaign by allowing your supporters to create profile pages on your site. The obvious benefit lies in helping to wed your backers to your issue or candidate emotionally: if they have pages on your site and visit them regularly, they’re more likely to identify with your campaign and become seriously involved with it. With prompting, they’re also likely to aggressively reach out to friends and family and draw them in as well. Also, social networking tools can help your supporters self-organize and work with each other to promote your campaign. The potential downside? Just as with campaign blogs, all of these people will be putting content on your site, and you’ll be limited in the amount of control you’ll have over it. As we’ll discuss in the section on social media below, communications professionals are used to being able to control a campaign’s message, and it can be very difficult for them to drop the reins and let the horses run free. And for good reason – if you thought that having an exhibitionist “friend” on MySpace was bad, think about what happens when that same person can post content with your URL on the address line. A second problem derives from the smaller scale of most campaigns. MySpace and Friendster depend on a “network effect”: the sites get more useful as more people sign up. A good analogy is a fax machine: one fax machine is useless (it has no one to communicate with), but two can have a conversation, and a million can become an essential business tool. Similarly, social networking applications work only if they have a critical mass of users, but most campaigns simply aren’t big enough to create one. Think of all the empty message boards that sit lonely on low-traffic Web sites and you’ll realize how painfully and publicly your social networking application will fail if you can’t get enough supporters to sign up. PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | cHaPter one | Page 9
Slide 16: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet Despite the potential pitfalls, campaigns and corporations alike are experimenting with their own social networking applications. One of the most interesting I’ve heard of is planned for the WashingtonPost.com. The site is already implementing reader comments on all news stories, starting with less controversial topics and expanding to political coverage after the editors are sure that the content filtering mechanisms work. Next, the site will encourage readers to create profile pages that gather all of their comments in a central place. Absolute genius – every reader becomes an author! Not only will this tie them more strongly to the site, but they’ll also have every incentive to spread the word about their own creations and draw more people to read the original articles. Turning a chunk of readers into both passionate fans and aggressive marketers is hard to beat. seeing the light of day). To keep from angering the creators, you’ll need to approve or disapprove items quickly – people will get frustrated if their labor of love takes forever to appear. And if you block a piece of content, be sure to contact the person who made it and explain why. This can help keep feathers from being ruffled. If a campaign is going to use social media, good gatekeeping is essential: content must be approved before the public can view it. Social Media Let’s expand our view and look at the wider world of social media. First, what are we talking about? Social media is a broader concept than social networking: it refers generally to content created by site users rather than by a central person or group. YouTube and Wikipedia are great examples, as are blogs that allow comments. Besides the obvious example of blogs, how can political campaigns use social media? Carefully, as MoveOn.org discovered during the 2004 presidential campaign. If you recall, early in 2004 the group encouraged its members to create anti-Bush ads that it would then evaluate for actual use on television. Hundreds of ads were submitted and placed online, but one used historical footage to associate the Bush administration with Hitler and the Nazi party. Oops – that one ad gave MoveOn.org’s enemies fodder for days of attacks on the organization. An ad that never ran got plenty of media coverage and took attention away from the issues on which the group wanted to focus voters. Anytime you open the floodgates to user-generated content, you take the same risk. Many campaign professionals will have a very hard time accepting the concept – too many campaigns have been burned in the past by a candidate or staffer’s loose lips, and political operatives are accustomed to going to great lengths to make sure that information that goes to the press and the public has been carefully vetted. If a campaign is going to use social media, good gatekeeping is essential: content must be approved before the public can view it (be sure to keep those goose-stepping video clips and nudie shots from That said, allowing your members or readers to generate content has some real strengths as a tactic. For one thing, it allows you to capture the brainpower of far more people than you could reasonably hire – you can leverage the collective intelligence of a chunk of the Internet. Some of the content will be junk, of course, but the occasional gems that rise to the surface might just blow you away. And of course, it’s potentially a terrific tool for community building, for all the reasons discussed above. Some of the user-generated content will be junk, of course, but the occasional gems that rise to the surface might just blow you away. As an example of both aspects, in the summer of 2006 the Ned Lamont campaign for Senate in Connecticut made great use of user-created video. For instance, Lamont supporters shot clips of opponent Joe Lieberman’s campaign appearances and uploaded them to the Lamont site. Minor gaffes that would have passed unnoticed in the past could thus be preserved for all to enjoy (all except the Lieberman folks, of course), and those behind the cameras could feel that they really were an essential part of the campaign. Lamont supporters also amused themselves and their comrades endlessly by cleverly editing Lieberman footage into their own online ads and “documentary” clips. Ah, but that sword can have two sharp edges: for the Lamont campaign, social media bit back as well, when a supportive blogger posted a photo of Lieberman doctored into wearing blackface. She intended the piece as a satire of the incumbent’s at- Page 10 | cHaPter one | PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON
Slide 17: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet tempts to reach out to black voters, but it backfired: Lieberman’s campaign pounced and forced the challenger to publicly disavow the piece. Lamont won the election, but responding to media coverage of the dust-up was not how he wanted to spend a day on which he was campaigning with Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. Summing It Up As we’ve seen, social networking and social media can be both a blessing and a curse. Use them wisely and they can help your campaign turn casual supporters into passionate partisans. But use them less wisely and you might just find yourself being spanked in public by the opposition. You have been warned! PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | cHaPter one | Page 11
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Slide 19: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet DON’T LET GO YET! What You Need Know About User-Generated Media and Politics Before You Take the Plunge Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet by Julie Barko Germany Yahoo! is doing it. News Corp is definitely doing it. Sony, Mentos, and Toyota are doing it, too. They’re loosening the reigns, letting go, and giving customers control of their message in an effort to move beyond the same old 30-second advertising spots. Many of them think they have the answer in something called user-generated media. Instead of serving up a helping of the same-old, been-theredone-that TV and print advertising spots, many companies are investing in marketing campaigns produced by consumers. Consider this summer’s unusual pairing of Diet Coke and Mentos in a viral Web video that became a marketing phenomenon. In June 2006, a lawyer and a professional juggler (Stephen Voltz and Fritz Globe) created a three-minute Web video of Diet Coke bottles fizzing up like volcanoes when they tossed Mentos candies into them. They posted their $300 video on the Web, and within two months, it attracted millions of viewers and generated tens of millions of dollars in free, prime-time media. Voltz and Globe became celebrities, and, by posting their video on Revver (a site that shares the revenue it generates by placing ads before each video with us- ers), the duo managed to earn $30,000.5 This is called user-generated media (UGM), and it will change marketing. As Jay Rosen writes in The People Formerly Known as the Audience, “There’s a new balance of power between you and us.” It’s not about passivity. It’s about interaction and participation. The people become the producers, which allows them to engage with a brand or product line more than when they remained a passive audience. It’s cheaper than hiring an ad agency and paying enormous production costs. And, according to writer Ulises Mejias, it has the ability to translate ideas into action.6 Instead of just thinking about a product, consumers do something with the product. Participation appears to translate into growth. In August 2006, Nielson/ /NetRatings reported that five out of the top 10 fastest-growing Web brands focused on user-generated media, such as photo-sharing, video-sharing, and blogging.7 It is a growing trend, but is it right for politics? Can Political Groups Take a Leap of Faith? Political groups and campaigns already engage in a sometimes difficult balancing act. We worry about how to say what we really feel without unnecessarily alienating some voters who may dis5 6 7 Michael Geist, “Video and the Internet: An Explosive Mix,” BBC, July 17, 2006. Ulises Mejias, “Social Media and the Networked Public Space,” E-Business Blog (http:/ /www.line56.com), July 24, 2006. “User-Generated Content Drives Half of U.S. Top 10 Fastest Growing Web Brands, According to Nielsen/ /NetRatings,” Interest! Alert (http:/ /interestalert.com/story/siteia. shtml?Story=st/sn/08100000aaa00045.prn&Sys=siteia&F id=ADVERTIS&Type=News&Filter=Advertising), August 10, 2006. User-generated content and user-generated media refer to interactive, often multi-media material that members, users, supporters, fans, and consumers produce and post online. Many marketers view user-generated content as a way to build loyalty for a brand – or, for the sake of this publication, an issue, advocacy group, political party, or candidate. PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | cHaPter two PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | Page 13
Slide 20: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet Did you know? What amount of money did media consultants spend on network television advertising for political candidates, parties, and political groups during the 2004 campaign? The answer: zero dollars. They placed ads on cable and network affiliates, but they placed no national network advertising. agree. We wonder if we can trust ordinary people to speak on our behalf. We try to balance a project’s potential with the time and human resources deficit that occurs in the middle of campaign season. We worry about financial cost. Even though we’ve seen some evidence to the contrary, we still trust television advertising more than the Internet. As with many choices in life, the decision to embrace user-generated media brings some costs. The picture isn’t all rosy and warm – even though many of us think it’s pretty darn cool. But when used appropriately, it may have the ability to engage a core group of supporters, who will share the messages they create with countless networks and possibly even convince people who may have never heard your name or cared about your issue to take an action. Can you improve civic participation, generate more volunteer dollars, increase the activism of your supporters, or expand the name recognition of your issue, organization and candidate by allowing normal, everyday people to create a media campaign for you? While to our knowledge no one has studied the potential effects of user-generated content on political organizations, we do know that interactivity with your message – whether through a blog posting, a Web video, public discussion boards, mashups, photos, or any other kind of activity – breeds intimacy with your organization. People feel closer to you, and they become less susceptible to being seduced by other messages.8 True, politics differ from big business, but the end result of any marketing campaign is similar: you want to get people to take an action. UGM is participatory. People are already taking an action by engaging with you. In the process, they feel as if they are developing a two-way relationship, and this may, in fact, lead to higher turnout, volunteer, and donation rates. Time will tell. If I let go of your message, will my supporters behave or will they run amok and destroy my credibility? The answer to this question mostly depends upon you and the rules that you set for your community. Two of the authors in this publication – Chuck DeFeo and Michael Krempasky – launched political blogging communities. When I spoke with each of them about whether they could trust their communities, both men said yes. And they mentioned that their communities were very good at policing themselves. Their sites, RedState and Townhall, both contain brief guidelines of behavior, and individual members hold each other accountable. Sometimes these rules are written and posted on the site. Sometimes they emerge organically as offensive behavior emerges. One example comprises a particularly telling chapter in Web lore. According to a few users of a creative, edgy mashup network called YTMND.com, a teenage boy found footage of someone torturing a kitten and combined the footage with music from the game Doom. The YTMND community was so outraged that they started a meme of mashups called NEDM (not even Doom music) to humiliate both the American teenager and the man who originally posted the footage. Not even Doom music justified using the footage in a mashup. The NEDM meme emerged online as a stand against animal abuse. Rules don’t necessarily have to ruin the party. In fact, it may even help create a healthy, vibrant community. Several years ago, Clay Shirky wrote that the communities that will thrive online are those that set guidelines: Can’t find what you’re looking for on YouTube? Try one of these other video sites: • Revver • Google Video • Machinima • iTunes • PoliticsTV.com 8 Max Kalehoff, “Media Specialists Must Grasp ConsumerGenerated Media,” OnlineSPIN, August 4, 2006. Page 14 | cHaPter two | PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON
Slide 21: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet Instead of unlimited growth, membership, and freedom, many of the communities that have done well have bounded size or strong limits to growth, non-trivial barriers to joining or becoming a member in good standing, and enforceable community norms that constrain individual freedoms. Forums that lack any mechanism for ejecting or controlling hostile users, especially those convened around contentious topics, have often broken down under the weight of users hostile to the conversation.9 Thoughtful regulations can actually help, not hinder the growth of your community. Whether you decide to post a few rules for your community (i.e., no profanity) or allow standards of behavior to emerge as the community grows, the fact that you allow your community to have a voice in the first place will breed trust between both you and them. That element of trust works both ways. Yes, your supporters will feel like trusted, valuable members of your community. But there is an added bonus as you watch what they produce – from a blog posting to an e-mail to an animation – you will learn about them and trust them more too. Will it save me money? Quite possibly. Production costs and aggregation cost next to nothing. And people spread viral messages free of charge. Will my message go viral if someone else produces it? No promises. The viral nature of a message depends on its content and its ability both to appeal to emotion and interact with the immediate moment. If a UGM contains each of those things, then it is relatively easy for it to spread through networks and aggregation. UGM doesn’t feel like advertising. It feels fun and catchy, and it has the ability to mesmerize everyone from retirees to office workers to students. Am I just using people to do the hard work for me? The simple answer is yes. But that doesn’t necessarily make you the bad guy. Stealing someone else’s handiwork online and using it to make an enormous profit might categorize you as a villain – as well as a criminal. Asking your supporters and your super-activists to help you and going out of your way to thank them (even if it means an extra hour or two in the office) is a little different. It’s asking them to volunteer in a new, creative way. Would you pay a marketing company or an office full of paid staff to do the same thing? If the answer is yes, then consider being particularly grateful – perhaps even effusive – with your praise. And make sure you individualize your e-mails of thanks. Nothing goes over as poorly as a seemingly standard, machine-generated response when someone has gone above and beyond. In another chapter, Michael Silberman discusses sending your superactivists special thank you presents, such as pins and bumper stickers, as a sign of thanks. “Different people want to drive their opinions around different topics. This results in a richer response, and it helps you reach people you haven’t already met. The Internet allows us to survey a varied audience and let them provide responses on topics they care about in an unfiltered manner.” - Richard Counihan, Senior Vice President Strategic Development, Who’s Calling “To create word-of-mouth about a viral ad, you have to do something that people love to talk about. That usually means sex, political or social humor, or evil and violence – or, of course, gross-out jokes.” - Dave Balter and John Butman, Grapevine 9 Clay Shirky, “Social Software and the Politics of Groups,” Clay Shirky’s Writings About the Internet (http://www.shirky.com/ writings/group_politics.html), March 9, 2003. Many of the most successful niche Web videos and animations are textured, nuanced, collaborative endeavors – much like good Jazz music. Their creators take an image (or several images), a theme, a famous line, or a news clip and reinterpret it in a new way. While portions of Web media may in fact impinge upon what we’ve historically described as rights restrictions, many people know that when they post media content online, someone else will reuse it. However, this does not mean that your organization should sweep the Web for cool media content and post it as your own. Give them credit – a policy that works well with content that supporters produce on your behalf as well. If you just “have to have it,” try tracking down its producers. You never know: they might be flattered that you reached out to them. In any event, make sure you observe copyright restrictions. For a good PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | cHaPter two | Page 15
Slide 22: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet Greg Linden wrote, you may have to work to uncover good content: “The experience of the World Wide Web as a whole should serve as a lesson to those building the next generation of communitypowered Web sites. At scale, it is no longer about aggregating knowledge, it is about filtering crap.”11 Have you visited YouTube lately? For every fantastic video there are dozens of boring clips that someone made by recording a funny part of last night’s Daily Show on her mobile phone. “Homogenous groups are great at doing what they do well, but they become progressively less able to investigate alternatives.” - James Surowiecki, The Wisdom of Crowds summary of these laws, see http:/ /www.copyright. gov/. Will my message get lost in a swirl of crappy handiwork: videos with poor production quality, humor that doesn’t work well, poorly written blog entries, etc.? Have you visited YouTube lately? For every fantastic video there are dozens of boring clips that someone made by recording a funny part of last night’s Daily Show on her mobile phone. Have you seen the Flckr pages of some non-profit organizations? Even the most heart-wrenching trip to dig wells in Africa can be reduced to insignificance with out-of-focus shots of a latrine or a group hug at the airport. As blogger Chris Pirillo wrote during a fill-in-the-caption contest, “I’m going on the record by stating that user-generated content is often user-generated CRAP.”10 Some of your supporters may be professional designers, videographers, or writers. Others may produce professional-quality work as a hobby. Value them and encourage them. But don’t intentionally leave anyone behind. If you want consumergenerated media to be a substantial part of your marketing, fundraising, or political strategy, then consider sharing some of your expertise with your supporters. Teach them how to conduct citizen journalism, what types of images are most appealing for a fundraising campaign, and how to simply edit and post a video. Ask some of your volunteer “experts” to share their advice, and create a minicommunity around message training. Equip your supporters to create better content for you. Finally, consider devoting some of your human resources to monitoring (and removing) inadequate or offensive content and spam. As Blogger 10 Chris Pirillo, “The Great Political Cartoon Experiment,” Chris. Pirillo.com (http://chris.pirillo.com/2006/08/11/the-greatpolitical-cartoon-experiemnt/), August 11, 2006. Can I get away with passing off professionally-produced content, like campaign ads, on our community site? Well, that depends on what you’re trying to accomplish. The standard 30-second, professionally-produced campaign ad often comes across like “brochure-ware,” and just doesn’t seem to work well online. People tend to like footage that shows real emotion, unscripted action, interaction, and humor. On the other hand, one Washington firm, DCI Group, was recently “outed” as having passed off as user-generated content a deliberately amateurish parody they had produced of Al Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth. The Wall Street Journal called it “Propaganda 101.” A useful, cautionary tale for a brave new media world. What can I do when other people make fun of me? The short answer: nothing. We live in an era of video phones and easily updatable blogs. The reality is that many people who create online media – everything from Web videos to mashups to blogs – feel that any public action, mistake, gaffe, speech, or piece of writing is up for grabs. The good news is that this environment is good at holding public figures accountable. The bad news is that somewhere out there, somebody doesn’t like you, your candidate, or your organization. He knows how to create really funny mashups of you looking foolish. And making a big deal about it will only fuel more publicity. 11 Greg Linden, “Community, content, and the lessons of the Web,” Geeking with Greg (http:/ /glinden.blogspot. com/2006/07/community-content-and-lessons-of-web. html), July 11, 2006. Page 16 | cHaPter two | PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON
Slide 23: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet Who else is doing it? Several authors in this publication tackle the topic of user-generated media, and many more political practitioners have been incorporating it into their strategies for a number of years. Both Michael Krempasky and Chuck DeFeo discuss community blog networks as a form of user-generated media and suggest ways to create media coverage around an issue or campaign. DeFeo produced an application that allows users to create their own e-mail newsletters about current events, politics, and opinion. Krempasky said that a community blog, like RedState, sometimes functions better than the professional press. “If written by enough people,” he writes, a blog “can cover an issue more intensely and more in-depth than any single publication.” Eric Alterman writes that by asking supporters to create media content, political groups physically and virtually extend their reach. Each media creation provides a new entry point into your organization – particularly when individuals post their work on other sites. Eric recommends making sure that each piece of supporter-made media links to your site in order to drive people back to you. Their stories are just a few of the many good examples. And keep your eyes peeled the next time you visit YouTube. What you see might inspire you. “Letting Go” Isn’t Enough Incorporating UGM into your political strategy is not the easy way out. In fact, it may be more time-consuming than writing your own copy. Using other people’s content takes time and vigilance, but more importantly, it requires that you engage directly with individual supporters. People need a motivation to create, and they need to feel that you appreciate their creative contributions. But the upside is a site that incorporates other voices and other perspectives. If you want your supporters to be active participants in your organization, then make your organization an active participant in its supporters. “Once we’re part of a group, we’re all susceptible to peer pressure and social norms and any number of other kinds of influence that can play a critical role in sweeping us up in the beginnings of an epidemic.” - Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | cHaPter two | Page 17
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Slide 25: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet REACHING THE UNDER-30 DEMOGRAPHIC Social Networking in the 2006 Campaigns Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet by Riki Parikh “Social networking is probably the next big thing for campaigns because it’s the next big thing within our culture.” - Phil Noble, PoliticsOnline In the 2006 mid-term election, campaigns are pulling out the stops to look fresh in the eyes of voters who are tired of the status quo. And for the more adventurous that includes being hip with the MySpace Revolution. Social networking has already been used by commercial marketers to target certain demographics and decipher their interests and desires. As the social networking phenomenon begins to permeate politics, some of the more innovative campaigns are starting to log-on and create profiles for their candidates. Embracing social networking sites is seen by many as the next natural step in campaigning because of the sites’ ability to directly inform and engage the electorate. Just like a political campaign, social networking Web sites allow for the proliferation of the four Ms: message, momentum, media, and mobilization: “Social networking can be used in the same way it is for everything: to build an audience, to create activists, to raise money, and to create buzz,” said Phil Noble, president of PoliticsOnline. What Makes It Work Using these social networking sites, a campaign can create a personal profile for its candidate, disseminating biographical and professional information to an entire network and acquainting users with the candidate. Campaigns can then add media and messages to share within their network and create groups for feedback and discussion. In return, social networks give campaigns instant information: social, geographic, and (in some cases) ideological connections. A user’s profile lists a person’s social connections (who they are friends with, which groups they associate with), regional location, and political leanings. “Politics is essentially about the sharing of positions and values and the ideas that a politician wants to implement and gaining support of that through conversation and persuasion,” said Chris Kelly, vice president and chief privacy officer for Facebook, the online social networking site for college students. “So, in many ways social networking sites… are a great platform for building support for a candidate or the particular positions of a candidate.” Several candidates running in 2006 are seizing the opportunity to attract and interact with young voters to build that support. They’ve turned to the social networking sites, particularly MySpace and Facebook, which are the two most popular community-based sites on the Web, to target and engage with that demographic. “Young people under 30, who are the social networking constituency, care Social networks give campaigns instant information: social, geographic and (in some cases) ideological connections. PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | cHaPter tHree PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | Page 19
Slide 26: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet passionately about issues and what’s happening in society. They just don’t give a damn about politicians,” said Noble. “If social networking can be used to structure that commitment to channel it in a different way, then I think it has a lot of potential.” By generating interest and enthusiasm among the younger demographic, politicians and candidates can generate a base for both recruitment and organizing. By registering on a site as a “virtual person,” a campaign or issue group can tap into an online community and gain direct access to a supporter’s connections. They can also boost their database by including a user’s demographical information. This gives them a tool for spreading word-of-mouth buzz to the younger generation of online voters and the potential to mobilize their connections to act on their behalf. “It creates the crowd that a politician can have access to online. That’s the new big thing. If I can get some 18 yearold interested, then that works out from there: he’s already got his people, he already knows where they are,” said Noble. The other advantage of social networking Web sites is for those candidates who cannot afford traditional media, such as television and print advertisements. Social networks force everyone on an open playing field, giving everyone the same advantage and opportunity to mobilize a base of supporters from the same pool. These sites can also be a gauge of a candidate’s popularity and effectiveness. In the non-political world, the number of “friends” a user has on a social networking site acts as a validation for the user. Similarly, the number of connections a candidate or organization maintains also serves as one metric for gauging how well the message is getting out. cess to a person’s group of friends and an easy and effective way to target a certain demographic with a specific campaign or message. “With a traditional political site, you’ve got to create your own audience and gather your own crowd,” said Noble. “But with a social networking site, the crowd is already there and they’re already gathered. You’ve just got to attract their attention.” Who’s Using It The candidates who use these sites are more likely to be challengers, and more often than not seem to be Democrats. Jack Carter, the son of former President Jimmy Carter and Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Nevada, created a MySpace account after his daughter, who helped run Carter’s Internet campaign, suggested it. Carter joins candidates such as Rep. Leonard Boswell (D-IA); Bill What’s on Jack’s Profile? Jack Carter’s MySpace profile adapts standard MySpace features in a new way. Here’s what Jack includes on his profile: • Pictures from the campaign • Blog entries • Campaign ads • Special message from Jimmy Carter • Quote of the day • Biography • List of activities supporters can do on MySpace • Links to his bus tour • A virtual “bumper sticker” that supporters can put on their own profiles Social networks force everyone on an open playing field, giving everyone the same advantage and opportunity to mobilize a base of supporters from the same pool. Social networks take advantage of the “social voter” model of the electorate, which hypothesizes that “who we know influences what we know and how we feel about it.” In the offline world, these include our family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, co-religionists, and acquaintances. In the online world, those connections translate to “friends” or “buddies” on the various social networking sites. Thus, social networking Web sites offer instant ac- Page 20 | cHaPter tHree | PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON
Slide 27: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet Ritter, candidate for governor of Colorado; and Phil Angelides, candidate for California governor. The campaign chose MySpace “as one of several innovative ways in which to reach potential voters – many of them young people – who don’t necessarily connect to mainstream media,” said Jay Jones, Carter’s press secretary. “This medium is enabling us to reach out to potential voters who we otherwise might overlook. The interactivity allows people to share their perspectives both with fellow visitors and campaign leaders.” The MySpace profile is accessible at www. MySpace.com/jackcarter2006. The account is registered under the username “Jack Carter for Senate, 2006.” In the biographical portion of the site, the campaign lists that Carter is a 59 year-old male from Las Vegas, Nevada and includes the quote “I’m a Democrat running for US Senate in Nevada and I sure would appreciate your vote.” (Carter won his primary bid in August 2006 with 73 percent of the vote.) The Carter campaign can communicate out through their blog and blurbs section, which gives the campaign a chance to inform visitors about the candidates and keep visitors updated about the campaign. Visitors of the profile also participate by adding “Jack Carter for Senate, 2006” as a friend, messaging the account, forwarding it to friends, and posting comments on the public message board. The campaign has even provided source code so users can put a personalized online bumper sticker in their own profiles. alter ego of somebody who has six profiles,” said Kelly. “They’re rooted in the community and that allows the political types to get volunteers, donations, and voters.” “When you reach a person on Facebook, you’re reaching that person. You’re not reaching a profile or some alter ego of somebody who has six profiles.” - Chris Kelly, Facebook The Younger Demographic There are about 100 million profiles on MySpace, a fact that accounts for it popularity in reaching the college-aged youth vote. Some argue, however, that Facebook users may be more likely to vote than MySpace users, given its connection to colleges and the fact that college-educated Americans are more likely to vote than those with less education. Thus, while MySpace will give a candidate visibility, Facebook may be more likely to generate the kinds of volunteers that campaigns are seeking. “When you reach a person on Facebook, you’re reaching that person. You’re not reaching a profile or some Both Facebook and MySpace are planning to capitalize on their popularity this election cycle by offering candidates attractive advertising rates. Facebook created their own program for candidates to use their site for their political gains. They will begin offering global profiles to candidates so all Facebook users can see their profiles. Also, on the advertising end, they will reserve a billion advertising impressions for political purposes and sell them at the lowest unit rate, much like television commercials. Facebook said they are doing this out of their own desire to see young people more engaged in the democratic process. Through that offer, campaigns can micro-target their advertising based on location, gender, political views and interests. However, candidates will not be able to get user information on these Web sites, which would be a violation of privacy policies. “We don’t share data,” said Kelly. “We will let our users share data if they want to with the campaign, but our privacy policy strictly prohibits taking contact information from a user’s profile…. They (a campaign) can see it, but they can’t use it.” Ultimately, of course the key to a successful social networking campaign is to provide a forum that allows users to connect with one another and with the campaign itself. That way they can easily distribute the content or message to people outside the group, converting the online organization into offline action. Did you know? In September 2006, Facebook will open its site to politicians. Now, political candidates can buy profiles and attempt to reach out to the sites more than 8 million members – many of them college students or alumni. PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | cHaPter tHree | Page 21
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Slide 29: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet HOW HOWARD DEAN TURNED ONLINE SOCIAL NETWORKS INTO AN OFFLINE PHENOMENON by Michael Silberman EchoDitto Certain segments of the political world remain skeptical about the power of online social networks to encourage real-world offline action, such as voting, donating, or showing up for a rally or protest. Yet, Howard Dean and Meetup managed to achieve offline success thanks to their online organizing. Let’s be clear: The Net is not about technology, it’s about people – a fact that is obvious to everyone except to we programmers. The most important things we, as humans, need to do – commercially or socially – is to connect with others. An online community is no substitute for real-world interactions. In fact, the most successful online communities are the ones that throw parties, sponsor events, host get-togethers – help members meet one another face-to-face in the real world. 12 —Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist In a matter of months, the Dean campaign coupled an online event-planning tool with the Internet’s word-of-mouth potential to grow its online volunteer network exponentially and build its active and engaged community of supporters. The Internet and new technologies enabled us to dramatically expand the size, reach, and strength of what otherwise would have been a conventional national volunteer program — all for a fraction of the time and cost. The Internet and new technologies enabled us to dramatically expand the size, reach, and strength of what otherwise would have been a conventional national volunteer program — all for a fraction of the time and cost. EchoDitto (www.echoditto.com) is an Internet strategy firm that specializes in interactive community building. 12 Katharine Mieszkowski, “Are You on Craig’s List?” Fast Company (http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/nc02/026. html), November 2000. PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | cHaPter foUr PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | Page 23
Slide 30: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet work that we did (and invented) to build the largest online/offline organizing program possible. The Meetup team really had only one job in the Burlington, Vermont headquarters: doing whatever it took to support the self-organizing efforts taking place in thousands of communities as best as we could. Building an Online Network Meetup (www.meetup.com) is an online tool that allows people or groups to plan monthly meetings around an issue, hobby, belief, interest, or pet. Over 200,000 people signed up to attend Meetups for the presidential candidates in 2004. Today, Meetup has over 2.5 million members worldwide who participate in 4,500 Meetup topics each month. The Dean Meetup program represented the ideal intersection of the online and offline organizing worlds, as well as the convergence of our supporters’ online and offline social networks. As we started building the Meetup program, we benefited from the hundreds and thousands of people who were looking for ways to get involved in the campaign every day. Every campaign Web site, email reply, and phone response funneled supporters to their local Meetup group. Not only was it the most scalable solution to the ever-increasing (and unmanageable) number of inquiries, but it was also among the most effective ways of engaging volunteers and supporters in meaningful activity. Can Meetups help with fundraising? IPDI’s study of donors to the 2004 presidential candidates, titled Small Donors and Online Giving, found that 24% of all respondents who attended a Meetup or house party said it prompted them to make their first donation. For more information, visit www. ipdi.org/publications. Meetup.com was the most scalable solution to the ever-increasing (and unmanageable) number of inquiries, but it was also among the most effective ways of engaging volunteers and supporters in meaningful activity. The very first Dean “Meetups” took place without the campaign ever knowing. Between January 1 and February 5, 2003 (the first Dean Meetup day), 473 intrepid, independently-motivated “netizens” used the site Meetup.com to join a group or volunteer to host one of 11 self-organized Dean gatherings across the country – outside the umbrella of the official campaign. Within a year, this small cadre grew into a powerful force of 189,000 people who had signed up online to get together locally in 1,200 cities and towns worldwide. The too-often untold stories of the Dean campaign came from a powerful network of 2,000 grassroots leaders — everyday citizens — who volunteered to run these independent Dean events. In most locations, these became just one of many activities being organized by unofficial volunteer Dean chapters that emerged from the Meetups. My recounting of the Dean Meetup story focuses on the part I know best: the behind-the-scenes logistics, communications, and online organizing If a Dean Meetup didn’t exist in or near a supporter’s community, the program and associated Web tools encouraged people to start their own. Volunteer Meetup leaders continued to emerge in places where none previously existed. These local grassroots leaders almost instinctively tapped their own local networks to grow their events and increase the local Dean presence. They reached out to other people they knew, forwarded the campaign’s e-mails to them, and ultimately invited them to join their local Dean Meetup group. Local Meetup groups flourished and grew as a result of our volunteers’ built-in social networks. Almost every e-mail message encouraged supporters to pass the message along to five friends, and every Meetup agenda encouraged leaders to remind attendees to bring one or two new friends with them to the next Meetup. Increasing media attention and press stories only facilitated this process by providing third-party validation for their friends’ personal requests. Our ability to funnel supporters into this self- Page 24 | cHaPter foUr | PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON
Slide 31: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet generating and self-organized Meetup program allowed us to rapidly circumvent more traditional campaign practices of going out into the field to recruit volunteer organizers by hand. The Internet also enabled us to provide a direct link and connection to the official campaign, which provided a good balance to the more local, decentralized engagement that they had via the Meetups. We were also wary of the Internet’s shortcomings in replacing these high-quality face-to-face interactions, so we made a concerted effort to maintain constant dialogue with our grassroots leaders using every available technology (i.e. phone, conference call, mail, instant message, and digital video). As the campaign took off and our Meetup program really started growing, we started seeing gaps in some geographical areas. We saw, for example, that the state of Florida lacked substantial coverage. The campaign needed to grow, so we asked ourselves what we knew about traditional organizing and traditional social networks that we could apply to the online world. As field organizers, we could ask a supporter, “Who do you know in your circle of friends who might be willing to join us?” As a national online campaign, we could ask a similar question, “Who in our supporter database might be likely to organize a Meetup in their area, given their previous engagement with the campaign?” We called and e-mailed those very specific subsets of people, and many agreed to help (and were happy to have been asked!). We used the example of the local Rotary Club to pinpoint other influencers and grassroots leaders. We knew that we needed to find the online equivalent to Rotary Club membership. These are the types of group members who know everybody and everything in town and are respected for that. We targeted people who did more than just sign up on an e-mail list. These were supporters who took actions online, donated money, or showed an indication that they were more than just e-mail activists. Once we found them, we called or sent them an e-mail about Meetups and invited them to build a Dean community in their towns and counties. Our strategy worked: Dean had more Meetup groups across the country than almost all of the other Democratic presidential candidates combined.13 Many of them still meet today as chapters of Dean’s new organization, Democracy for America. We targeted people who did more than just sign up on an e-mail list. These were supporters who took actions online, donated money, or showed an indication that they were more than just e-mail activists. Keeping the Network Alive Once we assembled this core group of grassroots leaders, which included over 2,000 people volunteering to build and host Meetup events every single month, we had to figure out how to organize and support them. How do we keep these leaders engaged with campaign goals while continuing to organize them to take further action? And how do we balance our national campaign needs and priorities with their local autonomy? Many people assume that online organizing only involves building an e-mail group and making PDF downloads. This is just one layer of building a successful grassroots network. As experienced field and community organizers will attest, not everything can be done over the Web. Here are some lessons learned from managing the grassroots leader network that powered the Dean Meetup program, as well as from other successful online/ offline grassroots programs that we’ve managed: • Build a support desk. – We tried to make up for being physically absent from each community by creating a virtual field desk with a fulltime staff of 34 people who responded personally to e-mails and calls from Meetup leaders and followed up with leaders when necessary. We divided the country up into regions, so that we could become more familiar with the volunteers we were working to assist. More than half of our grassroots leaders were new to politics or local organizing and were eager for tips and organizing assistance. • Use the next best thing: phone calls. – In the absence of regular face-toface meetings, we launched a series of monthly conference calls just for our grassroots leaders. These calls built accountability and trust. The ability for us all to hear each other’s voices made the program so much more real for everyone involved, and it deepened the relationships we had established via e-mail. We hosted the maximum 100 -125 people per call, usually at four different times each month to accommo- 13 Christine B. Williams and Jesse Gordon, The Role of Meetup in the 2004 Presidential Nomination Contest, April 8, 2004. PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | cHaPter foUr | Page 25
Slide 32: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet date work schedules and time zones. After providing an inside look at the campaign’s progress and reviewing the suggested national Meetup agenda for the upcoming month, our leaders were encouraged to share best practices with each other. • Don’t forget about the spokes. — There are lots of ways for a campaign headquarters, or hub, to stay in touch with its grassroots leaders, or the spokes. But spoke-to-spoke communication is just as critical to the viability of a network. One of the first and most successful things we did to facilitate this communication between and among leaders was to create a Yahoo! Group discussion list for Meetup hosts, where leaders asked questions of one other, swapped success (and horror) stories, and shared resources or best practices. • Make an effort to visit. – We tried to be physically present at some of the Meetups. While it was impossible to be at every single meeting, Howard Dean and the campaign staff rotated attending the monthly events, and we tried to visit as many as possible. Most importantly, we ensured that Dean could be virtually present at each Meetup by sending a special DVD message to each group every month that they could play at the Meetup. • Give them the credit they deserve. – Phone calls and personal e-mail gave our grassroots leaders access that other people didn’t have. We sent them immediate updates, even in hard times. For example, when Joe Trippi left the campaign, we delivered the news immediately, so that they could be prepared to discuss it with their local networks after it broke on the evening news. We treated them like high-dollar donors. As far as we were concerned, they were the most important people in the campaign because they were doing all of the heavy lifting – without getting paid. We also sent our grassroots leaders surprise thank-you packages during the holidays. Who attends a political Meetup? They look like the average political activist: mostly white, middle income, middleaged, and professional. They’re also highly wired. For more information, read Meetup Study 2004 by Christine Williams and Jesse Gordon at http:/ /meetupsurvey.com. ter-writing parties at Meetups. (We later expanded the program to include voters in New Hampshire and other states, and we encouraged letter-writing parties to take place between Meetups.) We combined online and offline tools to build successful levels of activity. First, we made it easy for the leaders to organize. We knew that the burnout rate could be high. After all, these people weren’t full-time organizers: they were volunteers. We sent each group every item they would possibly need – sample letters, stamps, envelopes, paper, pens, and even information about the county in Iowa to which they were writing and a DVD message from Howard Dean about the program. Secondly, we stayed in contact before, during and after the events. We asked people to call us right after or even from their Meetups and at any time of night. We wanted to hear how it went. This gave us an extra level of personal contact. And almost everyone called in. In retrospect, the effect of this “reverse phone bank” was far greater than we initially intended. We set it up to get an early survey of the data, for ourselves and for the rest of the campaign staff, who would be asking for it next morning. We also realized how powerful that connection to headquarters was for these leaders. It showed that they weren’t alone on this campaign. When you can pick up the phone and hear a familiar name or voice on the other end of the line, interested in you and your last three stressful volunteer hours, that means a lot. How to Run Your Own Online Grassroots Network On our Web site (www.EchoDitto.com), we list several ways to make it easy for your online volunteers and leaders to host offline events fueled by their personal or social networks: 1. Communicate with your online leaders regularly. – Assume that the personal investment of time and energy that these organizers make is equivalent to Taking the Network Offline The first big test of our online grassroots network occurred on July 2, 2003, when we launched a major letter writing campaign to voters in Iowa. We asked our grassroots volunteers to organize let- Page 26 | cHaPter five | PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON
Slide 33: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet the financial contributions of a highdollar donor. Acknowledge this investment through regular “insider” updates and frequent expressions of appreciation. 2. Respect local autonomy while providing leadership and direction. – Remember that your grassroots leaders signed-up to organize an event because they support your cause or campaign. So provide them with clear goals and direction that they need to make the program a success, while respecting the autonomy of the local organizer. Publicly acknowledge that your role is simply to provide the volunteer organizers with the support and resources they need to make the local events a success. 3. Provide step-by-step organizing and planning guides. – Outline specific program goals and simplify the steps required for organizing a local event, meeting or party. Think through every detail of the event as if you are the grassroots organizer, and include these items with any additional materials you may send to event hosts, such as: a. The action that you want everyone to take. b. Goals (fundraising, action, etc.). c. Talking points, special announcements or facts to use when communicating with the group. d. Dial-in numbers for a conference call. e. DVDs. f. Contribution forms. g. Promotional items, like stickers or buttons. Keep in mind that many of your leaders, especially the newer ones, will follow your guide closely through every step of the planning process and even during the actual event. 4. Provide ongoing support. – Hearing from your volunteer organizers is a good sign that they are active and engaged. Keep a tally of the questions you receive from them or the problems they encounter. Communicate the an- swers to frequently asked questions as soon as possible to demonstrate your responsiveness and attentiveness. Finally, when you launch new Web tools, set up a help desk or special e-mail address where people can send questions and get help from a real person. 5. Create a dynamic, two-way communication system. – Keep your network of online leaders engaged and interested by communicating regularly with them, not at them. Find ways to foster dialogue between and among leaders so that you’re not doing all of the talking. Listen for trends and re-communicate best practices back out to the larger group. a. Watch your tone, and avoid speaking to “the masses.” Your tone should reflect the intimate, special nature of your online leadership core. b. Vary communication mediums to maintain interest, and overcommunicate to ensure that your message points are conveyed effectively. c. Assume your leaders are only paying half as much attention as you’d like them to be, and publicly acknowledge that they have busy lives outside their volunteer work. Repeat the most important information. d. Remind yourself of the difference between leaders and participants, as each have different communication needs and expectations. e. Encourage collaboration. f. Solicit feedback and let your leaders know how you’ve incorporated their ideas. 6. Listen and create a feedback loop. – Survey your leaders and your participants to find out what worked and what didn’t both during the event preparation and the actual event. You might be surprised by what you discover. Remember to communicate with them within 24 hours after the events take place, when people are still buzzing about what happened and are still eager to share information and stories. PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | | cHaPter foUr PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON cHaPter five | Page 27
Slide 34: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet 7. Let your program goals drive your technology strategy, not vice-versa. – Experienced community or field organizers will likely be dissatisfied with the reporting and data collection systems included in most of the existing Web tools that are available for decentralized or self-organized event programs. Be wary of letting your technology infrastructure drive your program. For example, Meetup.com was a great tool for local group organizing on the Dean campaign, but it was not designed to support communication or information flow that we needed between local organizers and our national campaign organization. To overcome this obstacle, we rapidly built a Web tool called Meetup Central that enabled us to get up-the-minute information from the network as leaders signed up to host the next month’s Meetup, entered expected attendance numbers and their mailing address, identified secondary hosts, and reported back after their events. Page 28 | cHaPter foUr | PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON
Slide 35: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet CALL IN NOW! How Townhall.com Turned Talk Radio Fans into a Community of Bloggers by Chuck DeFeo Townhall.com How do you merge an existing online community with a national fan base of radio listeners? How do you grow a community and ensure that a platform exists for different voices to be heard? In May 2006, Salem Communications, a conservative talk radio company, purchased Townhall. com, and on July 4, 2006, it launched a new Web presence that combines the grassroots mediums of talk radio and the Internet. Their metamorphosis illustrates how an online community can become a multi-platform political movement. many of them became activists based on what they heard each day. If this concept of finding a voice sounds familiar, consider the parallels between talk radio and the Internet. Talk radio rose to prominence in the late 1980s. At the height of the broadcast era, the ability to pick up a phone and address an audience of millions was revolutionary and powerful. Talk radio Background Townhall.com has been America’s conservative opinion editorial page for a decade, carrying over 100 different conservative columnists. Because of the wide array of conservative opinion leaders carried by Townhall.com, it is home to an active, online community that covers the spectrum of conservatives. Salem’s five nationally syndicated talk show hosts – Bill Bennett, Hugh Hewitt, Michael Medved, Dennis Prager, and Mike Gallagher – reach about six or seven million people a week each on the radio. Like all the Townhall.com columnists, these personalities enjoy a strong affinity with their listeners and readers. Talk radio is a personal medium for its listeners, many of whom feel as though they have developed relationships with their favorite talk show hosts. Further, radio listeners are accustomed to participating in dialogue as it happens. They can pick up the phone and have their voices broadcast to millions of people, which is very empowering. And Townhall.com was launched in 1995 by the Heritage Foundation as the first conservative Web community. It now exists under the umbrella of Salem Communications, and it amalgamates the online information and content of 120 different partner organizations. For more information, visit www.townhall.com. PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | | cHaPter foUr PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON cHaPter five | Page 29
Slide 36: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet influenced politics in a major way, particularly during the 1994 election. As the Internet grew to become a truly broadbased medium, it opened opportunities for selfpublishers – bloggers – to build an audience. In fact, the blogosphere comprises the next big wave of grassroots opinions media. Our goal was to take these millions of grassroots listeners, who were accustomed to voicing their opinions on the radio, and move them online for activism, blogging, and commentary. We accomplished that feat in several ways. Step 1: Cross Promote The talk radio hosts played a large role in driving their audiences to the Web site. For example, rather than just saying, “Call in and talk to me now,” Hugh Hewitt now adds, “If you have something to say, go to my blog and post your comments.” Even more powerfully, Hugh has called on his listeners and other bloggers to create their own Townhall. com blogs. People started logging on in droves, creating over 1,000 blogs in three weeks, and they brought intelligent conversation with them. Hewitt calls this the “great blog migration.” Now, talk radio listeners have a bigger platform to voice opinion. Instead of just calling in during a pre-set, three-hour block of time, they can access the Web site and comment anytime and any way. The only requirement is having something to say in the first place. Step 2: Don’t Forget the Individual More importantly, talk radio listeners joined a large, online community of people who shared their views. Rather than going to blogspot.com and creating a single blog in a sea of other blogs from across the spectrum of interests and political views, conservatives can now go to Townhall.com and join a like-minded community of people. Our members don’t become anonymous. Each person has his or her own chair in this big town hall where nobody is more important than the individual. You get to sit right next to the celebrities, like Hugh Hewitt and Bill Bennett. Step 3: Make It Easy to Have a Voice Next, you want to get your community talking, and you want to make it easy for them to join the dialogue and buy into the community. Townhall.com does not require an advanced degree in technology. Supporters can create their own blog in three easy steps, and they can individualize it. We currently offer eight blog templates and plan to expand that and expand features as we continue to grow. They can create their own blogroll. They can set up their own mailing lists, so when they post to their blogs, their friends will know about it – and they will visit the site to post comments of their own, thereby building the community. We give people standard blog features, like the ability to turn comments on or off. We also offer a Townhall. com newsfeed and bibliographical information. The results have been phenomenal. In the first few weeks of Townhall.com’s new site release, we gained over 1,000 bloggers. Step 4: Acknowledge Effort We want the individuals in our community to know that we are listening. One of our editors regularly reads across the blog community and pulls quotes that are then featured on our homepage. Further, when people post to the blog, the most recent post automatically appears at the top of our main Townhall.com blog. They will also appear in a section of Townhall.com called “Your Opinion.” Step 5: Give Them the Right Information We want to know who our community members are, so we developed a personal tracking action center, similar to GeorgeWBush.com and GOP. com. Once you register with the site, we remember you, and we feed you specific information, such as the names of your federally- and state-elected officials and how to contact them. We also know what media market you’re in, and we tell you how to contact the right newspaper editors, similar to what we did on GeorgeWBush. com and GOP.com. We break the media down by largest circulation and closest geographical location in order to improve your punch. We want you to reach the most effective media outlets within your community, such as the local paper that your neighbor reads because it covers your local high school sports team. And, we don’t neglect talk radio! Not only do we encourage people to call our Salem hosts, but we also provide them with the information of other talk radio shows in their media markets. Our members don’t become anonymous. Each person has his or her own chair in this big town hall where nobody is more important than the individual. You get to sit right next to the celebrities, like Hugh Hewitt and Bill Bennett. Page 30 | cHaPter five | PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON
Slide 37: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet Step 6: Trust Them to Carry the Message Our audience is influential, and we want them to produce their own content because we trust them to know which topics will interest their social networks. Hundreds of thousands of them have received e-mails from Townhall.com’s editor-in-chief Jonathan Garthwaite for over a decade. We asked our members, “Can you write an e-mail as well as Jonathan Garthwaite? Can you find the best content in Townhall.com? What is it that your circle of friends wants to read?” One of the actions we invite people to take is to become the author of their own “what’s new on Townhall.com” e-mail, and we give them the tools to do it. We trust our community members to carry the conservative message. They are movement conservatives first and partisan party people second. The vast majority of our readers and listeners are thoughtful conservatives who seek to put out conservative ideas and values in order to persuade and inform people – not shout over them. Grassroots-style media is hitting mainstream marketing in a major way. Thanks in large part to sites like YouTube, original ads created by fans, product users, and people with a cool new idea, are making their way from the Web to the TV screen. Marketers are paying attention. And they are using the cleverest ideas for new ads. Who’s doing it? Sony, L’Oreal, MasterCard, Mentos, Chevrolet, and Burger have all used ads created by everyday people online. Why are they catching on? Because traditional marketing isn’t working anymore. Many user-created ads have a strong viral component, and appeal to people on a more personal level. And don’t ignore the fact that many of the ads become full-fledged online trends! We invited the community to interact with us on every page. Conversation is ingrained in the DNA of the Web site. Step 7: Make Conversation a Policy We didn’t create the community around one “big bang” feature like “Your Blog.” Instead, we invited the community to interact with us on every page. Conversation is ingrained in the DNA of the Web site. Everywhere on the site is an opportunity to post a comment – whether you’re listening to audio or reading a blog post or reading a column. And there is an opportunity to forward everything to somebody else. At every turn, we encourage visitors to create their own blogs. After all, this is the era of interaction for politics. That is what our job is: to create a platform, to create opportunities for people to voice their opinions in political debate and participate in the arena of ideas. Step 8: Look Ahead Remember the film The Graduate with Dustin Hoffman? At a house party early in the movie, a friend of the main character’s parents takes him to the side and gives him a piece of advice on what to pay attention to in the future. That one word was “plastics.” The social commentary of that scene aside, if I were to give my one word on the future today it would be “broadband.” Broadband will only continue to enable both our opinion leaders and grassroots activists to achieve a new level in voicing their opinion by allowing video. The Internet has always been a visual medium. But because of load speed, it has been primarily a text-driven medium. Up until now, people have mostly consumed printed words, but that is changing. As download speeds increase and as the broadband infrastructure gets bigger, video will be a relevant player, and we will see more and more YouTube-style, grassroots video media. The political impact will be powerful. Conclusion What we are seeing today – the grassroots participation in the political debate – is not new by any means. It is how politics has always operated. For centuries prior to 1960 people knocking on neighbors’ doors, participating in the local town hall meeting was how ideas were communicated. Candidates literally touched voters with personto-person contact efforts. For decades the dominance of broadcast television has served to push grassroots participation out of politics. The Internet has brought the grassroots back. The Internet has brought the grassroots back. PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | cHaPter five | Page 31
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Slide 39: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet BUILDING NETWORKS OF INFORMED ONLINE ADULTS by Carl Rosendorf Gather.com How do you merge an existing online community with a national fan base of radio listeners? How do you grow a community and ensure that a platform exists for different voices to be heard? The Internet has made one thing incredibly difficult: you simply can’t stop people from talking. Not that we’d want to. In fact, just the opposite is true. The Internet has created a medium for dialogue, which allows for a broader, deeper discourse than ever before. For some, this has been a hard lesson to learn. When it comes to social networks, some political groups have a fear of letting go. In my capacity as President and COO of Gather.com, an online social networking and social media site, I talk to the leaders of a lot of political parties, campaigns, organizations, advocacy groups, and non-profits. Many of these organizations share a hesitancy to loosen the reins on how they control their message. They typically have a Web site and most now have a blog. But generally they follow the traditional path of one-way communication: centralized content distributed to the masses. They want to control the communication and their message. Most of these fears reflect an older paradigm that fears change. We live in a changing world. Political groups need to look no further than the big media organizations, including network television and newspapers like the Washington Post and the New York Times, to find examples of how an equally hesitant industry is learning – slowly and steadily – to adapt. Media companies are just as concerned about letting go of their message as you are, but they are beginning to face reality: people want the ability to have a voice. They want the ability to talk to you, and more importantly, they want the ability to talk to each other. Gather.com is a network for people who want to share their own content online. Gather.com members are rewarded for their participation with Gather Points™, or even cash for top contributors. Media companies are just as concerned about letting go of their message as you are, but they are beginning to face reality: people want the ability to have a voice. PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | cHaPter siX PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | Page 33
Slide 40: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet Social networking sites offer just that — a voice. Think about one of the most visible phenomena of the 2004 presidential campaign: political Meetups. People used the Internet to meet each other in the real world and act on behalf of their favorite candidates. That physical component was incredibly significant, and it provides a metaphor for what social networks do in the virtual world. be incorporated into your overall Web strategy. Using a social media platform provides an additional opportunity to extend your reach, generate donations and sign-up volunteers. Think about social media as an integrated part of your strategy, both as a part of Internet efforts and as a link to build offline support. Building Online Communities MySpace is one of the biggest media trends of the year. At the time of this writing, it was announced that MySpace was the most visited site on the Internet, above all the major media outlets and portals. Granted, MySpace tends to skew toward teenagers, but those teenagers are speaking to each other. My company, Gather.com, as well as other sites like LinkedIn and Eons.com, offers a grown-up alternative, providing the 30-year-old-plus demographic with that same capability to interact online. Social networks like ours provide organizations with a multi-directional communications platform. Not only can a political group communicate with its constituents and the constituents communicate back to the political group, but the platform also allows the constituents to communicate with each other. Most importantly, the conversation happens within the construct of the organization itself. Thus, the organization can shape the dialogue, respond to any concerns, and be exposed first-hand to the issues on people’s minds. And, while enabling this flow of ideas, thoughts and discussion, you actually maintain a great deal of control. Companies like Gather.com provide organizations the ability to create their own group – a customized, branded area within the broader online community. Group owners can tailor the group experience through a series of easy-to-use tools. The group owner has the ability to decide who can join the group or post content. A group can be open to anyone, allowing everyone the ability to post articles, or be more restricted as determined by the group owner. Private groups, for example, can enable a political field organization to restrict access to those invited by the campaign itself. They can use their online profile to share their field notes collaboratively and confidentially. On the other hand, a public group, such as a group involved in the issue of immigration, can provide access to the public yet still moderate the content. In this case, the group owner decides which content appears on the group site. Think about social media as an integrated part of your strategy, both as a part of Internet efforts and as a link to build offline support. Take the example of Alex Sink. Alex Sink, a businesswoman and former President of Bank of America in Florida, is running for Chief Financial Officer in Florida. Her campaign incorporated a social network, Gather.com, into its campaign strategy, and the campaign promoted both the social networking group and the Web site simultaneously. Alex Sink created six different groups on Gather, targeted towards different constituencies, such as businesspeople and geographical groups. This way, the individual constituencies can hear messages from Alex Sink that address their unique concerns and communicate amongst themselves on issues of importance to that specific group of people. She is building her online groups through promotions What’s on Alex Sink’s Gather group? Alex Sink uses her gather group, Floridians for Alex (http:/ /floridaforalex.gather. com), as a way to encourage her supporters to write articles on her behalf. During August 2006, this included everything from articles on hurricanes and the insurance industry to tips on increasing attendance at a grassroots house party event. Web Site & Social Media Convergence As you develop a social media strategy, it should Page 34 | cHaPter siX | PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON
Slide 41: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet from her campaign Web site. The online groups were promoted prominently on her campaign site’s home page, and supporters could fill out a form to sign up for one of her online groups on the campaign site. Likewise, she used the online groups to draw people back to the campaign site. This example illustrates a very important component of politically-motivated social networks. The way to build traffic to your group is to crosspromote across all mediums: on your Web site, in your e-mail, and in your printed material. The goal is to drive traffic to each and every one of you online outlets, including your campaign site and your social networking groups. And you want them to support each other. The goal is to drive traffic to each and every one of you online outlets, including your campaign site, and your social networking groups. And you want them to support each other. It is already evident how the Internet is changing politics. Now, with social media, that change continues. People want a voice, and they are using online tools to do it. They want their voice to be heard wherever it makes a difference. People are engaging in state and local politics beyond state and local lines. Geography isn’t holding back political donors or political activists, for that matter. People are beginning to recognize the impact of legislation and elections outside their states. People in Missouri are starting to care about elections in Indiana or Florida or Texas or Massachusetts. And, they are willing to donate to political candidates outside of their state who share their views on a particular issue. This trend gives your campaign or issue a national platform, and that is where the fundraising component of social networking sites comes alive. Your voice can be greater than your typical reach or the content on your Web site, which usually just speaks to people who seek you out in the first place. Remember: This Isn’t (Only) Kansas Anymore Online social networking communities are highly viral. People connecting to people connecting to people. This growth enables you to extend your reach beyond your core constituencies. You will have access to people from around the globe that may share your concerns on the issues facing all of us. For example, if you are running a local political race or a geographically-specific issue campaign, then the fact that you are engaging people in an online social network means that a lot of people outside your region will become exposed to your organization or campaign. This opens new markets, new opportunities, and a broader audience for your message. Think about it this way: online social networks provide a way for you to reach out beyond just the people who might visit your Web site. You might say that social networks are a no-cost marketing vehicle, with a high-impact potential amongst supporters and voters. People want a voice, and they are using online tools to do it. To maximize your media strategy, leverage each of the component parts. All of your media assets should promote each other. Your e-mail should promote your Web site, your Web site should promote your online social networking group, and your online social networking group should drive traffic back to your Web site. This type of cross promotion further enables you to reach an audience wherever they may be. Don’t Fear User-Generated Content Web sites distribute a fairly universal message across a mass medium, but it doesn’t always speak directly to the individual. On social networking sites, you can target specific groups, just like Alex Sink is doing in Florida, and tailor your message to individuals who are interested in a specific area or issue. More than that, individuals can become active participants by writing articles on the issues that matter to them most. They can blog about it, or go on a social networking site, and they can write and publish articles. When other people share their comments on an article, an online conversation ensues. Suddenly, activism is more than just reading a position paper or a pamphlet. Social media converts readers into advocates. They become your You might say that social networks are a no-cost marketing vehicle, with a high-impact potential amongst supporters and voters. PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | cHaPter siX | Page 35
Slide 42: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet cheerleaders, voicing support for your position, and they can have conversations amongst themselves – all under the umbrella of your organization or candidate. That is very empowering. More importantly, those voices are heard outside the choir that is already preaching to itself. Your participation in a social media site enables you to extend your reach to those that have not heard your perspective. As you know, victory comes from engaging those people outside your normal base. The viral nature of a social networking site makes that happen. Tips for Leveraging the Power of Online Social Networks. • Know who you want to reach. – It is very important to participate in a social media site for the demographic that you want to speak to. If you are looking to speak to 15 to 25 year-olds, you go to MySpace or Friendster. If you are looking to speak to 30 to 60 yearolds, you come to sites like Gather. You want to reach as many people as you can, so target the broadest community that best represents your target demographic. • Define your expectations. – Create a group experience for your members that enables you to meet your strategic goals while encouraging those who join your group to participate as you hope they will. Whether your goal is to inform others of a platform, spark debate, get out the vote, or raise money, be clear about those goals and you will increase your social media success. • Get them talking by initiating conversation. – Post content twice weekly to spark dialogue and to act as a catalyst for conversation. Conversation engages readers and writers within Gather and that leads to a vibrant community for your organization. • Identify the influencers in every community. – What is interesting about social networking sites is how quickly you can identify the influencers and their capacity to shape the discussion and the dialogue. Find the people that lead the dialogue and engage them in your group. Read the articles and especially the readers’ comments that drive the conversation. It’s that on-going conversation that makes social media so special. It fosters communication. Find the influencers as they can play a significant role in driving traffic to your group. Remember, people have always sat in cafés or bars or around the dinner table, talking politics and debating issues. Now, through social networking and social media, they continue the conversation on politics online. The Time Is Now Today, the path is clear. People are now engaged. The dialogue has already begun. The only question that remains is whether you will be part of it. The key is finding the right balance and developing a communications strategy that enables you to accomplish your goals. Remember, people have always sat in cafés or bars or around the dinner table, talking politics and debating issues. Now, through social networking and social media, they continue the conversation on politics online. Page 36 | cHaPter siX | PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON
Slide 43: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet THE SOCIAL CONTEXT by Eric D. Alterman KickApps Context will drive the next phase of social networking and user participation. The two teachers who influenced me the most were both professors at American University’s Washington College of Law. Although they had been tasked to teach us mundane subjects like civil procedure and contract law, both spent an inordinate amount of time during the first weeks (if not months) of law school lecturing on linguistics and other esoteric subjects, often evoking the bewildering writings of philosophers like Ludwig Wittgenstein and Jacques Derrida. While most of us initially would have preferred that they cut to the chase and tell us “the law,” we soon figured out that “the law” was a much more amorphous concept than we previously imagined. In short, we learned that the language of law only had meaning within specific contexts and that the art of persuasion had everything to do with the parties defining that context. Today, outside the law school lecture hall, context remains a key part of my role as an entrepreneur who develops social networking tools. What does all this talk of context have to do with the social networks that have come to dominate the Internet experience for many people? The answer is that context will drive the next phase of social networking and user participation. Over the past few years, online social networking sites have emerged, skyrocketed to the peak of popularity, and fallen into irrelevance. Early innovators like Friendster provided basic social networking tools, quickly stealing attention away from traditional portals like Yahoo! and AOL. But Friendster’s reign over the social networking space was shortlived. A new player named MySpace emerged on the scene, and by the summer of 2006, it became the most visited site on the Web (that is, until YouTube surpassed it a few weeks later). While technology and design may have played a role in MySpace’s ascendancy, it’s clear to me that its focus on building audience within a specific context – music – was the key driver of its early success. Wherever there are guitars and poet-singers there will be girls, and where there are girls, there KickApps (www.kickapps.com) is a hosted platform that allows webmasters to quickly and easily deploy user-generated content and social networking functionality directly on their Web sites. PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | cHaPter siX cHaPter seven | Page 37
Slide 44: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet will be guys. Things snowballed accordingly. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, of course, and MySpace soon found a spate of imitators, all claiming superior technology and more user-friendly interfaces (e.g., Tagworld). As of writing, though, none have made serious inroads into MySpace’s dominant market share. The cool kids will continue to hang-out at the most popular social networking Web sites. But social networking sites aren’t just for kids, or teenagers for that matter. Granted, a teenage conversation riddled with references to bands, girls, and “my parents don’t get me” on a MySpace profile is not particularly compelling to slightly older adults. Twenty-something, thirty-something and an increasing number of forty-something web-savvy surfers fully appreciate the excitement of sharing their ideas and media with friends and interested strangers. Many will turn to Web sites that provide niche contexts more relevant to their specific interests and lifestyle. However, that’s not where the story ends. The promise of the Internet has always been about providing a platform through which individuals participate in conversation, covering every conceivable subject, moderated by webmasters with a full range of political and social points of view – on a neverending stream of Web sites. The idea of a single venue like MySpace moderating 99 percent of our online social experience is a not a viable long-term reality. Context will again be the driver for what comes next. Blogs and message boards already exist on millions of content-specific Web sites. But this is just the beginning. Web sites are starting to incorporate easier access to other technologies that allow richer participation, including user-generated video content and media management tools. From a user’s perspective, uploading photos and videos to new, niche-oriented communities is not a significant barrier to entry: anyone under the age of 35 can handle that task in a matter of minutes. However from a webmaster’s perspective, the harder barrier to entry is having the tools to manage all of this new technology. Resourcerich, major media properties require sophisticated media management, administration, and reporting functionality. Why? Well, for one thing, it protects their brands (and advertisers) from people uploading pornography and other potentially offensive material on their Web pages. In other words, building a simple application that accepts video uploads and displays them on a page is relatively easy, but building all the tools necessary to moderate and customize a community experience is quite a different engineering challenge. Building a simple application that accepts video uploads and displays them on a page is relatively easy, but building all the tools necessary to moderate and customize a community experience is quite a different engineering challenge. What’s a widget? For the purposes of this essay, a widget refers to an interactive, graphical interface. Think about the recent success of YouTube, which allows users to place someone else’s videos directly on their Web sites, social networking profiles, and blogs. Those are widgets! According to Eric Alterman, allowing people to steal your video- and audio-rich widgets provides a wormhole that funnels people back to your Web site. Why? Because all of your widgets link back to you – whether they are premium content developed by your organization or user generated videos. Page 38 With access to hosted platforms that provide turnkey community technology, it’s easy to imagine why active communities will form overnight around specific television networks, reality shows, talk shows, radio stations, newspapers, political campaigns, universities, religious groups, expatriate organizations, gaming enthusiasts, celebrities, extreme sports, etc. Any online community should be able to invite its members to participate in a media rich way. And it’s easy to see why advertisers will be willing to pay a meaningful cost per thousand for advertising within communities with knowable demographics and closely moderated content. Nowhere is this discussion more relevant than within the context of politics, where discursive participation is its actual purpose. While contextual participation may be the promise of the Internet, participation is an actual requirement of democracy. Despite the proliferation of blogs and cable networks, the process of American democracy is still dominated by too few VERY LOUD voices. In most other parts of the world the social context is, of course, even more limited. But I think there’s hope that technology may soon play an important role | cHaPter seven | PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON
Slide 45: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet in facilitating unprecedented participation at the Web sites of political parties, candidates, interests groups, and individual communities. “Distance on the Web is measured by links, so the way to make your site ‘close’ to where your customers are is to get lots of places to point to it. How? By being interesting or worthwhile.” – David Weinberger, Small Pieces Loosely Joined Think about it this way: when you combine user-generated media content within the context of a social networking community, you allow people to touch and feel your cause, candidate, or issue. They become part of the action as it happens. And the media they create extends the reach of your Web site. In a way, they (and their creations) become entry points into your organization for people who might not otherwise know your organization or candidate’s name. How Big is YouTube? YouTube is perhaps the biggest consumer media company on the Web. Several others, including Google Video, Revver, and Metacafe, also serve video content to large audiences and allow users to watch, upload, and share video content. What makes YouTube special is its audience size. In summer 2006, YouTube surpassed MySpace as the most trafficked site on the Web. Users view 100 million videos a day, and the site attracts 20 million people a month. The most popular video content remains stunts, song parodies, TV clips, and video content paid for by sponsors. But, YouTube is quickly becoming a political medium. John McCain, Ned Lamont, Joe Lieberman, Hillary Clinton, Tony Blair and Al Gore have all been captured in hundreds of TV clips, parodies, animations, and campaign ads. But by far, George W. Bush is one of the most visible political figures on YouTube with almost 3,000 video posts by the time of writing. If power and meaning are defined by context, contextual diversity in social networking may be more disruptive and interesting than most of us now imagine. So in a very real way the philosophical musings of my two favorite law professors are finding relevance outside their classrooms. And the issues go beyond the score-keeping and Internet strategies of venture capital firms and major media conglomerates. If power and meaning are defined by context, contextual diversity in social networking may be more disruptive and interesting than most of us now imagine. PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | cHaPter seven | Page 39
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Slide 47: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet THE EMERGING PODCAST SWING VOTE Liberated Syndication – IndieFeed Networks by Chris MacDonald Podcasting isn’t just for geeks anymore. Politicians are joining the world of the subscribed media file – albeit cautiously – and their messages are meeting with success and new challenges. This chapter looks at how the podcasting medium can drive social networks – and vice versa. Background Podcasting – the delivery of scheduled audio and video digital media, consumable on the computer or a portable media device like an iPod – is a natural environment for political discourse. Apple, credited with bringing mainstream media to podcasting through its release of a podcast-enabled iTunes in mid 2005 (the dominant media delivery service is available in both Windows and Mac operating systems), currently provides a rich platform for issues-oriented audio and video programming that is free to users and rich in content. While Apple’s support brought mainstream media to podcasting and helped to establish podcasting as a popular, legitimate media distribution platform, it also – and perhaps more importantly – helped bolster independent and alternative programming options. Approximately 50,000 free shows are available through this system, and several other podcast directories, including Yahoo, exist outside of iTunes that provide even more access to podcast feeds. This is not to say that all the programming possesses outstanding quality and production value. As with blogs, the natural consequence of providing everyone with the means to produce a broadcast is a wide mix of releases, some of which is by most measures uninspiring. The output by politicians who have rushed to the medium are no dif- Indiefeed Network is a community-oriented micro-media broadcast network. Its blog offers tips for people who want to record and post their own podcasts: • Your content is unique, high impact, high energy, and compelling. • Your art pushes the envelope and resonates, stimulates and perhaps even challenges the audience. • Your work is of a high production and recording quality. • Pieces no longer than six minutes are preferred. What’s a Podcast? A podcast is a publishing tool. It uses online syndication to deliver multimedia content, such as the audio file of a speech or interview. It’s a relatively new tool. In fact, it’s only been around since 2000. PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | cHaPter eigHt PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | Page 41
Slide 48: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet ferent. Some have great shows (Wes Clark), some have good to passable shows (Pete Domenici, John Edwards, Barack Obama), and some have been simply terrible (Bill Frist, Russ Feingold). The TiVo sensibility is no longer a fad but has become an imbedded practice. The Political Factor Why do we care? Research has yet to demonstrate that user-generated content such as blogs and podcasts will help turn out voters to the polls. Nonetheless, those of us who work in this field cannot deny our positive bias toward Internet-enabled media, and we might over-accentuate the impact of this new phenomenon. One thing does ring true: the user generated content echo chamber is certainly alive and reverberating. We care because all indications point to the fact that media distribution in general and podcasting in particular, in their evolving states, are undergoing rapid change on the fringes and increasingly moving inward. An analogy with global climate change is appropriate in that mounting evidence and intuitive judgment simply cannot be denied: we are facing massive upheavals in the way we interact and consume as a global community. The TiVo sensibility is no longer a fad but has become an imbedded practice. Adopting personal schedules to accommodate the prime time television lineup has given way to getting it when you want it and how you want it. Recent polls indicate a precipitous drop in television viewership. Television is still powerful, but we are beginning to see the stress fractures on the walls of the terrestrial and cable television infrastructure. Does this spell the end of television? Of course not. The myth of a mass audience is simply eroding to provide a much richer, more diverse environment of choice, and, most importantly, participation. Tom Webster of Edison Media Research in a recent presentation aptly predicted that the days of Thursday night NBC “Must See TV” are a golden era that we are unlikely to see again. It was not a matter of mass audiences electing a Thursday night lineup; it was simply the best we had available at the time. To then make extrapolations about the mass media viewing population was also erroneous (“which Friends character are you?” The real answer is none). If certain portions of the population, then, want to hear more about the fine details of health care reform, politicians should be using these niche vehicles to expound on their subject matter position. Boring to some? Sure. But to the group where the discussion is primary, it may be the difference between a vote or a pass. Niche content by design is not consumable by everyone, just by the right person. Leaving these fine categorical messages within a static webpage is shortsighted because chances are most people will fail to dig in and find the information. Multimedia presentations that appear fresh and relevant (and therefore subscribed) are much more likely to penetrate the clutter. And if you are not participating, be assured that someone in the podesphere is talking about you, probably negatively. Podcasters ignored are a scornful bunch. Who’s Using It? WesPAC, the Political Action Committee of retired General Wesley Clark, offers ClarkCasts, a weekly podcast series in which Wesley Clark discusses political issues and interviews political figures. For more information, visit http:/ /securingamerica.com. If you are not participating, be assured that someone in the podesphere is talking about you, probably negatively. Podcasters ignored are a scornful bunch. From a political standpoint, depending on where you sit in the political spectrum, the diversity of content choice with podcasting is a welcome movement that gets us closer to a truly democratic system. By blurring the lines between content creator and consumer, we collectively take on a higher burden of accountability of accessing what’s available to hear and read. Listeners become partici- Page 42 | cHaPter eigHt | PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON
Slide 49: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet pants and many become contributors and content creators themselves. More often new social networking tools, like call-back features, audio comments and tagging, lend to the necessary debates that help formulate policy and public discourse. Podcast Demographics We also care because we are learning through research and practice that this new emerging creation class is an extremely influential segment of the population. Woe be the politician that dismisses this group as being simply nerdy and out of touch with the mainstream. Arbitron and Edison Research recently released some interesting data on the audio podcast consumer: • 11 percent of the population listens to podcasts. • Listeners include 52 percent men and 48 percent women. • Ages are more spread than you might first imagine: 12 to 17 – 12 percent 18 to 24 – 12 percent 25 to 34 – 20 percent 35 to 44 – 22 percent 45 to 54 – 17 percent 55 and up – 8 percent • They are more likely to be students and/ or full-time employees than the average population. • They are more likely to live in higher income households. • They spend less time watching TV and more time on the Internet, consuming alternative forms of media. • They purchase significantly more music, movies and video games than the average person. • They spend more both online and offline, and they spend a tremendous share of their income locally. • Podcasters are above average consumers of news and get their news via Internet video. • Given the choice of having to give up TV or the Internet, 62 percent voted to drop their TV.14 14 Tom Webster, “The Podcast Consumer Revealed: An Exclusive Early Look at the Growing Podcast Audience,” Arbitron/Edison Media Research Internet and Multimedia (http://www.edisonresearch.com/home/archives/2006/07/the_podcast_con. php), 2006. Internet savvy consumers who may very well become the most important swing population over the next decade due to their habits and influence. Ask any politician if he or she is interested in ignoring 10 percent of his or her constituency, and I doubt you will be surprised with the response. Yet this is precisely what is happening in today’s political campaigns that have chosen to ignore this cohort of voters. Television ads are less likely to penetrate this group. Sound bites are less likely to make a significant dent in their voting impulses. These are bright, accomplished, culturally invested, Internet savvy consumers who may very well become the most important swing population over the next decade due to their habits and influence. Podcast creators, in turn, tend to be highly networked and leveraged influencers. The average audience per podcaster is around 100, and superstars are able to touch as many as a half million per download. Simple math argues that savvy politicians should adjust their communications mix, even slightly, to make an impact within this environment. Whether it’s creating one’s own feed, or being available to provide content for other shows, they could reach those who are tuning out of traditional media. Today, the average audience per podcaster is around 100. Superstars are able to touch as many as a half million per download. Building a Relevant Podcast Presence My non-scientific, low-sample research suggests that some common elements make for great political podcasting: • Don’t be uptight. – Podcasting is an intimate medium. Podcasts are experienced by listeners in very personal places, such as your computer at home or work, or during a work out or a stroll or on a commute. As such, audiences are receptive to a casual, up-front environment where candor and getting to the point score highly. PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | cHaPter eigHt | Page 43
Slide 50: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet • Meet acceptable levels of production value. – High fidelity sound acts as proxy for personal presence. You don’t have to win a production award, just edit with an ear toward listening enjoyment. Appropriately tag the metadata of the podcast so that searching your content is easy in directories. • Stop selling. Be yourself. – The force of personality plays heavily in podcasting, and politicians who respect the medium can create a special bond with their constituents, which is very hard to replicate in other communication mediums. If you come off like a press release, then you’re dead to the listener. Conclusion Podcasts are one of the newest and most innovative ways to deliver niche content, and they will change communication habits just as surely as fax machines and e-mail did. Politicians who get out ahead of the curve will find a receptive audience of educated, influential and intellectually curious people – just the kind of voters that a savvy politician should cultivate. “The party’s already started. You can join or not. If you don’t your silence will be taken as arrogance, stupidity, meanness, or all three.” – Doc Searls, The Cluetrain Manifesto Page 44 | cHaPter eigHt | PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON
Slide 51: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet BUILDING A BLOG NETWORK by Michael Krempasky RedState “We saw the emergence of super activists – the precinct captains of the online world. Some individuals began to take more of a leadership role within the site by moderating content and keeping it fairly organized.” RedState was the brainchild of Josh Treviño, a war blogger who wrote at a site called Tacitus.org throughout 2002 and 2003. While Tacitus stayed focused on a particular topic, other sites like Daily Kos took a much broader view of politics and community building. We felt this sense of a broader community was absent on the right side of the aisle and saw the potential advantage of developing a community culture akin to what the left was doing, but adapted for a Republican audience. We wanted to build our network from scratch, so we started identifying other people who blogged on their own and invited them to be a part of a new site: RedState. The goal was to avoid making this a top down effort. Instead, we wanted to bring on as many of the best bloggers on our side as we could, particularly people who were good writers and who (we felt) deserved more traffic. We knew that the site had to be far more community-focused than right-of-center blog efforts were historically. We launched RedState with an understanding that each of the founders had been primarily involved in significant offline political activities – me in grassroots politics, Treviño and Ben Domenech as speechwriters and policy staffers – which was something that set RedState apart. At the time, blogs generally – but Democrat and liberal blogs in particular – lacked this type of background experience. We launched right before the August 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City. We blogged at the convention and covered it with a different perspective, including a lot of interviews and original content. However, unlike many of the other new media folks at the convention, we wanted our site to be more than just an information source. We wanted people to use the site to encourage people to take action – not just read something and agree with it, but take the next step of donating, volunteering, or otherwise supporting a candidate. We wanted people to use the site to encourage people to take action – not just read something and agree with it, but take the next step of donating, volunteering, or otherwise supporting a candidate. PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | | cHaPter eigHt PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON cHaPter nine | Page 45
Slide 52: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet We picked three Senate campaigns in 2004 to raise money for: Tom Coburn in Oklahoma, John Thune in South Dakota, and Jim DeMint in South Carolina. We raised $10,000 to $12,000 for each of them, which, at the time, was a big achievement for us because we were a new brand. All three of them won their elections. Online Activism and the Courts Almost immediately after the 2004 election cycle, we started taking the next steps in building the RedState community. Traffic was up. The number of registered users was up. We started to see the site develop into a community akin to any offline political network of the users and activists. We saw the emergence of super activists – the precinct captains of the online world. Some individuals began to take more of a leadership role within the site by moderating content and keeping it fairly organized, and unlike some other social networks, we retained a significant level of editorial control. We set fairly specific rules about content – what goes on the site and what doesn’t – and we relied on the community to police the site, which they did remarkably well. Our next step was to get involved in policy issues. The first one that engaged the site in 2005 was the Supreme Court nominations fight – one of the biggest issues of the year. One of the things that we noticed during 2004 was that the most interesting media coverage about particular nominations wasn’t from the Washington Post or Roll Call: it was from blogs and bloggers who had personal connections to individual nominees or who worked in the legal field. We wanted to take media coverage one step further by assembling a community of bloggers from all over the place with the intention of actually changing something. Simply writing about the nominations and drawing traffic to the site was not enough. That’s one of the reasons we started a blog project of RedState, called ConfirmThem, focused on these judicial nominees, and featuring writing from some of the best lawyers and court-watchers on our site. We were able to aggregate enough written material that people started to turn to RedState as their first source about what conservatives said about the issue, a place to see reaction, in real time, and to the fight over the direction of the courts. In the end, the RedState community produced more written content about the Supreme Court nominations than any single publication in the country. Looking Outside the Community In spring 2005, RedState launched a national coalition of bloggers from across the political spec- trum focused on one issue: the Federal Election Commission’s proposed regulations on online political activity – regulations that could have significantly threatened what many political blogs were doing. On March 4, FEC commissioner Bradley Smith gave an interview to Declan McCullagh voicing his concern about the proposed regulations. By March 12, we had assembled a coalition of left, right, and libertarian bloggers, and we had already reached an agreement about a list of principles that we wanted the FEC to recognize. Along with a Democratic colleague, Michael Bassik, we handed a letter to the FEC chairman in person at IPDI’s Politics Online Conference. When we handed him that letter, we opened a Web page for other bloggers to sign on and make their own comments. We enlisted 3,600 bloggers within 72 hours, all of them from very broad and diverse political backgrounds. This coalition was unusual because it did not consist of the same boogie men who consistently fight in the online political world. This was a new issue and a new coalition. The FEC is a very inside-baseball game. Its history is one of dealing with the elite, the smallest number of people with the most money to affect politics. But our coalition had the perfect confluence of timing and events. For the first time in its history, the FEC had an audience of hundreds of thousands of people, not just political insiders. That summer, we submitted one of the largest collections of public comments to the FEC. These were substantive letters with enormous reach — bloggers who were lawyers weighed in, and bloggers who weren’t hired lawyers to help them navigate the process. A number of us ended up testifying before the FEC. This was one of the first times that the government recognized a real constituency in the blogosphere, and in a way, they reached out more to the everyday public. Bloggers, by definition, act as a proxy for their readers. They may not always be completely representative, but they certainly represent a new constituency – a constituency willing to work together on important single issues even when they disagree over other political issues. Remember, the broad-reaching FEC coalition we assembled occurred simultaneously with RedState’s heated campaign over the Supreme Court nominations. That the online coalition didn’t crack under the pressure of the broader political fight says a lot about the maturation of folks who engaged in politics online. Since 2004, RedState has grown by leaps and bounds. We’ve taken on new talent, new bloggers, and new leadership – in our CEO Erick Erickson, a political consultant, and CFO Clayton Wagar, a technology executive – in order to become the Page 46 | cHaPter nine | PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON
Slide 53: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet most vibrant and active Republican community site on the web. Bloggers, by definition, act as a proxy for their readers. They may not always be completely representative, but they certainly represent a new constituency – a constituency willing to work together on important single issues even when they disagree over other political issues. Today, RedState is a for-profit media company that looks and feels a lot like an opinion journal. We drive opinion, and we’re focused on changing the country. We have launched a network of sites, each focusing on key issues and appealing to specific activist audiences. This will allow us to be both more flexible and more strategic as we continue to build a place for conservative activists to make a difference both online and off. The forward-looking nature of the medium provides a way for a small media company to combine the advantages that Republicans and conservatives have had for 40 years: small donors, grass-roots activism, and volunteers. This is an opportunity for us to connect directly with the voters, donors, and people who care about the future of American politics. can sign up and write an article about a campaign that they care about, an issue in their town, or their opinions on national politics. • Don’t underestimate your constituents. A blog, if written by enough people, can cover an issue more intensely and more in-depth than any single publication. There is no way Washington Post can assign someone to write an article about the FEC every day for 200 days. They would go broke, because there are not enough people to buy that many papers. However, RedState was able to do just that. • Let your message be one of many. Be willing to lose a little control over your message in order to gain a more engaged community of supporters. Remember that bloggers are not disinterested parties, but at the same time, they are not wholly owned subsidiaries of your campaign or organization. Lessons from RedState • Lead by example. We discovered that if the leaders of an online community lead by example, then they can encourage the community to rally around a particular political campaign. They will also give their time and money to it. • Give the community some responsibility. Shortly after launching RedState, we discovered that if you invited the community to help control the site, they were willing and able to take the reins. People need to feel a sense of ownership in any community (online or off) that they join. They need to have a real measure of freedom to make your site their own. One of the ways that RedState accomplishes this is by allowing, encouraging, and soliciting anyone to produce content for the site. Anyone At IPDI’s 2006 Politics Online Conference, Idil Cakim, director of knowledge development at Burson-Marsteller, spoke about tech-fluentials, online influencers who filter news and communicate their decisions on social and political issues with others. In Cakim’s words, “social influence and peer networks have to be taken into consideration when addressing political constituencies.” She shared the following guidelines for communicating with political tech-fluentials who blog: • Check for consistency and credibility. • Learn about bloggers’ backgrounds by reading their biographies. • Disclose your affiliation. • Do not send them canned messages. For more information, check out IPDI’s 2006 Politics Online Conference Magazine at www. ipdi.org/publications. PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | cHaPter nine | Page 47
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Slide 55: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet GO WITH THE FLOW... BUT NOT JUST ANY FLOW by Valdis Krebs Orgnet “The easier it is for you to send a message, the harder it is for you to get my attention.” Are You Receiving Me? Online organizing is the new buzz word in politics. It gives us ways to connect to people whom we normally wouldn’t reach. Online tools for tracking connections and finding others keep getting better. However, there is a cloud in this silver lining – when it comes to politics, the Internet doesn’t solve every problem. In fact, it sometimes causes new ones. Social networks are popular online. They are also gaining interest among political organizers and activists. A major piece of the political puzzle is how we influence those around us. In other words, how does influence “flow” in our social networks – in our connections among neighbors, colleagues, friends, and family? Practically speaking, how do I get you to vote? And how do I get you to vote for my candidates? How do we engage people who normally stay away from the polls on Election Day? The particular communications medium we use affects how influence flows. Face-to-face, e-mail, chat, and VoIP, are all different media with different abilities to transmit influence. Unfortunately there is an inverse law of media transmission that keeps the Internet from being the ideal political tool everyone thinks it is. The inverse law goes something like this: the easier it is for you to send a message, the harder it is for you to get my attention. We even have automatic methods on the net – spam filters – to help us bypass messages. I probably don’t even realize that I am ignoring you! Again, the easier it is for you to send it the easier it is for me to ignore it. Old fashioned media – face-to-face (F2F) chats – are difficult to organize and arrange, but easy to communicate a rich message that will influence Did you know? Common wisdom in networks is “the more connections, the better.” This is not always true. What is always true is “the better connections, the better.” What to read more? Check out Orgnet’s white paper on Managing the Connected Organization at www.orgnet.com. PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | cHaPter ten PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | Page 49
Slide 56: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet others. The richer the media, the richer the message; the richer the message, the more it grabs my attention. It is difficult for me to ignore you when we are sitting by side. So what about chatting online? The best of both worlds? Nope. Again, it is easy for me to ignore you and side step your attempts to engage me. You are typing away in the chat window, I am opening e-mails, listening to a conference call on Skype, reading a blog, and watching a clip from last night’s Daily Show. What was that you wanted to say? On the other hand, if you and I sit and talk in a café, on a front porch, or at the supermarket, it’s much easier for me to get and maintain your attention. First, I am physically present with you. I am looking at you, and you are looking at me, and I can tell immediately whether or not my message is getting across. Non-verbals count for much of the feedback and much of the influence we have with each other. Again, the richer the message the greater the opportunity for me to have an affect on you. I receive a lot of feedback from our face-to-face meeting that cannot be duplicated online. For example, if I send you an e-mail and don’t hear back from you right away, then I assume that you are uninterested, when in fact your non-response may be a result of the fact that you are out of town at a conference for three days. So, what do I do? I don’t have enough feedback to act. Do I follow up with another e-mail, or do I wait for your response. Online I don’t know. F2F I know immediately whether I am coming across well or whether my message is not registering with you. The Internet leaves us guessing about whether our messages resonate because we cannot accumulate physical cues. There are no cues – not even smiley faces and LOLs. When it comes to getting people to listen to your message and share it with others, nuance and intensity count. How can I get you excited about my message when I don’t even know you are there? tant part of the persuasion process: face-to-face. The campaign really didn’t understand the dynamics of elections as well as they thought they did, or as well as people gave them credit for. They thought everything and everyone was online, that that was all you needed. One of the big mistakes the Dean campaign made was that they didn’t understand that friends influence friends, family members influence family members, and strangers don’t influence anybody. The campaign did a tremendous job of signing people up and getting them to take action, but they seemed to forget what they started. When it came time for the Iowa caucuses, rather than organizing locally with local people, they flew in a bunch of people from out of state. They gave them these crazy orange caps that basically screamed to the locals, “We are strangers and we don’t belong there!” Then they tried to get people to vote for Dean, and slowly discovered that strangers, especially weirdly dressed strangers, don’t influence anyone! The Dean story is the story of how the Deaniacs screwed up. They had some great ideas, but they didn’t realize how those ideas all fit together. Strangers, especially weirdly dressed strangers, don’t influence anyone! Non-verbals count for much of the feedback and much of the influence we have with each other. The richer the message the greater the opportunity for me to have an affect on you. Meet Me in Iowa F2F also has problems. Unless they are famous, strangers do not influence. The Howard Dean campaign in 2004 was extremely successful at online organizing, but they screwed up the most impor- Contrast this with how the Republicans organized in 2004. They used the Internet. But they also used naturally-formed social clusters, such as church groups. They assembled people face-toface to talk about the issues and the candidates they were supporting. These volunteers tried to get their fellow parishioners and citizens to listen to them and hopefully agree with what they had to say. They created networks of people who saw each other on a regular basis, and they got them talking to each other about what was important to them. The way the Republicans leveraged offline networks allowed them to spread their message, and their message enabled people to take action. They combined the best of F2F and online. They used the right media in the right place for the right reason. When push came to shove the Democrats forgot about the sociology of how people function. They walked off the cliff to the tune of the technology piper. They forgot that technology without sociology is absolutely worthless. If you combine those two effectively, then you can accomplish a lot – including becoming president. By using the technology when it fits and sociology when it is appropriate, the Dean campaign could have organized Page 50 | cHaPter ten | PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON
Slide 57: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet themselves to a much better outcome. They were blinded by the bright gleam of technology and ignored everything else. Lesson 1: Don’t Forget What You Know About People The important thing is to not get enamored of technology and forget everything else you know about human behavior. Mix them together. The Internet crowd may be enamored of technology and think that electronic connectivity trumps all, but the best use of technology comes when it recognizes and supports human behavior. Take Google as the perfect example. Google utilizes what people normally do – choose between alternatives based on some factors of evaluation – and amplifies it using technology. Many people think that Google’s very effective Page Rank algorithm was a discovery of the 1990s. Actually, the link analysis portion of Page Rank is an evolution of social network metrics that sociologists were using in the 1960s to gauge who were the most influential people in a community. Maybe the Google guys were not aware of this well-known work in sociology, but it is basically the same algorithm – looking at both direct and indirect choices [incoming links] and adjusting the chooser’s power by looking at who chooses the chooser. Given the computer power of today such algorithms are much easier to calculate and can be refined and improved from previous experience. Don’t substitute one for the other, use them as complements to each other, and end up with 1+ 1 > 2! The computer network is great for administration and organizing. Influence requires a people network. Influence requires emotion, intensity, opinion, evaluation – best accomplished through a rich media such as F2F or V2V communication. Use the Internet to assist and organize your faceto-face activities, not as a replacement for it. Use the Internet to create networks of people based on location. Match people up online. If someone from Westlake, Ohio, signs up to be an activist for your issue or candidate, then link them with 15 other people from the same zip code who have also signed up. Give them online tools to meet each other and do something for your organization. Find a “network weaver” – a person skilled at connecting others and building community – to be a catalyst for creating clusters for your cause. Use computer networks to discover possible clusters, then use your human networks to build the clusters. This process can be repeated in a fractal-like manner by joining local clusters into more global groups. Lesson 3: Strangers Don’t Make Good Messengers Unless the stranger is someone famous, people do not extend their trust. Imagine how you feel when a stranger shows up on your doorstep. Who is this person? What do they really want? What are they really after? People don’t usually react well to strangers. Our first inclination is that maybe this stranger isn’t a good person. With something as personal as “our vote” we will never listen to those we don’t trust. The most effective skill a political activist or campaign staffer can have is the ability to not be a stranger. The best way to do that is to reach out to people who you already know – your neighbors, friends, colleagues and congregation. If you’re the only person on the block that has a big snow blower and you do everybody’s sidewalk, then you’ve gained a lot of positive points that you could utilize later on. The same is true if you are the family that lets others swim in your pool, or use your extension ladder: people will grow to respect you and listen to you. During campaign season, you will be more effective than the guy down the street who only talks to his neighbors every two years during politi- The important thing is to not get enamored of technology and forget everything else you know about human behavior. Mix them together. Lesson 2: Use the Right Tool for the Job When I was learning computer science one of the memes we heard was that “computers are high speed idiots.” That is still true today. Of course, the Artificial Intelligence crowd disagreed, but they could not build an alternative to prove that rule wrong. The evolution of computers has been to complement the human mind effectively. Computers are good at storage, retrieval, hierarchy, and calculation – things the human mind sometimes struggles with. On the other hand, the human mind is great at pattern matching, meaning, serendipity, and creativity – things that computers have not yet begun to do. Don’t substitute one for the other, use them as complements to each other, and end up with 1+ 1 > 2! PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | cHaPter ten | Page 51
Slide 58: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet cal season. When the helpful neighbor rings someone’s doorbell, they are invited in and the channels for the flow of information and influence are wide open. Trying to extend the reach of your organization? Close your triangles! An open triangle exists when there is an opportunity to introduce two people by the third person who knows them both. Often, closing those triangles can lead to benefits, like productive new relationships or a more expansive geographical reach. What’s more, anyone can do it. Close triangles around you wherever and whenever you see an opportunity. You and your community will benefit. To read more, see my Networking Weaving blog at http://www.networkweaving. com/blog/. With human beings, birds of a feather flock together. Even though the Internet allows us to access and talk to a diverse population of people all over the world, we still look for people with similar backgrounds. With human beings, birds of a feather flock together. Even though the Internet allows us to access and talk to a diverse population of people all over the world, we still look for people with similar backgrounds. We feel comfortable with people who are somehow similar to us. They don’t have to be exactly like us, but there has to be enough similarity to allow us to open up to them. People we have shared experiences with, who have helped us, who have taken an interest in us, are those we consider “one of us.” It is these folks, who we have included in our social circle, that have the greatest influence on us – on the things we do and the choices we make. The new mantra for political activism – be a good neighbor! Page 52 | cHaPter ten | PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON
Slide 59: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet IDENTITY FORMATION IN ONLINE SOCIAL NETWORKING WEB SITES by Mara Johanna Veraar Democracy in Action “The difference between spam and constituent communication rests on one’s ability to confirm the identity behind the online persona taking action.” Introduction: Identity Formation on Online Dating Web Sites Ten years ago, the idea of online dating conjured up images of pedophiles, pathetic old men and lonely housewives looking for love. That specter has given way to a more realistic landscape. “No longer the icky, desperate realm of those who are looking for love and can’t find it elsewhere, today’s over-friendly sites feature postings from young urban professionals all over the continent,” a recent scholar noted. 15 Similarly, until recently, online political activists were depicted as a mob of basement-dwelling, pimply-faced social misfits – which does not reflect the results of academic research from groups like the Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet. The world of online dating, however, provides an instructive look at building trust online and offers important lessons for political groups. The task of truthfully creating an identity within cyberspace is increasingly becoming an important aspect of a person’s online interactions. When individuals create profiles on dating Web sites, for example, they are in effect constructing online versions of themselves. Dating sites that have come to the forefront are those that have succeeded in creating believable profiles of their members. The importance of truthfulness is also evident when individuals participate in social networks based on their online identity. Individuals can use these networks not only to date, but also to learn about advocacy issues that are important to them, align themselves with a political party, and subsequently take action, while at the same time rallying like-minded peers to effect social change. Without a network of supporters to validate the individual’s call to action, his or her advocacy attempts can become lost or overlooked. For that Democracy in Action (www.democracyinaction.org) develops online advocacy tools for nonprofits. 15 Jonathan Durbin, “Internet Sex Unzipped” Maclean’s Magazine (http://www.macleans.ca/topstories/life/article. jsp?content=20031006_66602_66602), October 6, 2003. PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | cHaPter eleven PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | cHaPter ten | Page 53
Slide 60: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet What is Web 2.0? The term was coined by O’Reilly Media and MediaLive International. In short, Web 2.0 refers to second-generation Internet services that will provide users with more interactive social networking tools. So, for example, while online publishing is Web 1.0, participation is Web 2.0. For more information, visit the many resources of O’Reilly Media at http:/ /www.oreilly.com/. phenomenon not squarely but exponentially. The best example of this, called Reed’s law, is seen in the huge success of eBay, an early adopter of this idea.16 On eBay, the social capital of receiving positive feedback from other users makes a seller more trustworthy and desirable, thereby allowing him or her to sell more items. Sellers who do not participate in the rating system, are new to eBay, or have negative feedback do not ‘belong’ according to Reed’s law and are therefore not able to sell many items. Online Identity and Accountability reason, the difference between spam and constituent communication rests on one’s ability to confirm the identity behind the online persona taking action through online advocacy tools. Therefore, increased ability to confirm the validity of and strengthen online networks increases the effect that such online political and social action has. This chapter explains identity formation and how this process changes in online spaces, drawing examples from Match.com and Friendster. How does lack of physical embodiment change the ability to truthfully participate in identity construction? What is online identity anyway? Answers to these questions become increasingly important as much of politics, non-profit space, popular culture, and postmodern identity as a whole continues to be defined by computer mediated communication. Offline, people are able to display their social connections in various ways. Parties are places where they introduce their friends to potential employers, attempt to climb socially by chatting up a high status guest and arrange friends who they think would be a good match. Meeting new people within a social setting where mutual friends are present provides a context and information about the new individual. Online, accountability is lost and therefore, different mechanisms have been created out of a desire to mimic offline social connections. By displaying their social network, an individual is verifying their identity through their social and political connections. This is useful in combating the identity deception, which is rampant among online users. The ease with which users can create false accounts and pseudonyms makes identity verification problematic. Identity Construction and Social Networks Each time individuals interact, the potential exists for them to exchange information about people whom they both know. The way in which each individual is linked to his or her friends, acquaintances, co-workers, and family is a Web of social networks that can be charted. Individuals find community and reinforce their identity through these networks. Social networks function as sources of emotional support, information about jobs, avenues for advocacy, and allegiance with politically like-minded friends. Currently, we are experiencing the explosion of social networks in cyberspace due to the increase of user-driven, or Web 2.0 sites. Through these sites, the users help create the content of the Web site. The individual’s ability to use these sites as an outlet for their creativity, political leanings, and search for people who share their interests is what drives the success of the Web 2.0 movement. The ubiquity of communications technology and the growth of social networking sites are on a positive feedback loop. The ability for individuals in the network to form groups and gain the social capital of belonging drives growth of the Web 2.0 Meeting new people within a social setting where mutual friends are present provides a context and information about the new individual. In political action, the validity of advocacy groups and their supporters can be questioned without evidence of validity. In political action, the validity of advocacy groups and their supporters is open to question, absent evidence of their trustworthiness. For this reason, displaying connections helps to ensure the cooperation of the individual creating the profile. By linking a profile to their friends, individuals are risking their reputation. They are much less likely to act unacceptably if socially sanctioned by their personal network. Lastly, displaying social networks 16 Howard Rheingold, Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution (Cambridge: Basic Books, 2002). Page 54 | cHaPter eleven | PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON
Slide 61: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet Friendster (www.friendster.com) is an online social network with more than 30 million members. But it’s not all dating. The site also has more than 150 government and politics groups. is a risky proposition. With Friendster, you meet people through people that you already know and trust. So it’s like having an infinite social network” (www.friendster.com). Users build trust through a combination of factors: • Demographic information – The bulk of the Friendster’s profile. This includes the member’s screen name, gender and status (which asks the user to select whether they are single/divorced/separated/in a relationship/married/in an open marriage). Members then choose who they would like to meet out of men, women, or men and women. Age, occupation, location and hometown complete the demographic information. Besides creating the foundation of their identity, this information allows users to search throughout the Web site for other members who fit their criteria. • Descriptive prose – This includes a person’s interests, and who they want to meet on Friendster. • Friends and testimonials –The Friendster Web site identifies the benefits of publicly articulating one’s social network as being able to “stay in touch with your friends, find and reconnect with old friends, see how your friends are connected, be reminded about friends’ birthdays, meet new people through your friends, have fun browsing people who share similar interests” (www.friendster.com). helps to create common ground among users of the site. Individuals can find clues about the user’s social position, political interests, schooling, and economic standing from the social network being displayed. Friendster and Identity Construction Online, identity cues are sparse but they do exist. People become attuned to the nuances of email addresses and signature styles. New phrases evolve that mark their users as members of a chosen subculture. Virtual reputations are established and impugned. By looking closely at these cues, at how they work and when they fail, we can learn a great deal about how to build vibrant online environments.17 The Evolution of Online Dating Sites Ten years ago, online dating, which began as an alternative to the personal ads found in newspaper and magazine columns, revolutionized matchmaking because it allows the individual to supply volumes more information than the standard four line print personal. Online dating services require their members to create profiles which showcase their personality by including their favorite movie, their most embarrassing moment, sexual preference and occupation. When individuals create profiles on dating Web sites, they are constructing their identity by utilizing the tools provided by the online space. Friendster.com started out as a dating site and has evolved into a phenomenon somewhere between the social networking game The Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon and an extremely lucrative social architecture system that has investors panting. The site was built to compete with Match.com (the economic giant of the online dating world) and various other dating sites. While it is no longer accurate to say that users log on to Friendster simply to find romance, however, the site still operates under the same profile software and users often still use the site as a dating service. Friendster was created on the assumption that friends-of-friends are most likely to be safer, more accountable dates than total strangers. “We all know that meeting people out in the wild 17 Danah Boyd and Judith Donath, “Public Displays of Connection,” BT Technology Journal, 2004, 22(4), pg. 1. Fakester Politicians It could happen to you. If you, your candidate, or your organization has been in the public eye for anything longer than a split second, you could be a victim of unauthorized profiles. People may have logged onto a site and created a profile without either your knowledge or your permission. It’s not a rare occurrence. In August 2005, the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune reported that at least 14 governors have fake profiles.1 1 Brady Averill, “Fake MySpace profiles pose a dilemma for politicians,” StarTribune.com (http:/ / www.startribune.com/587/story/612223.html), August 14, 2006. PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | cHaPter eleven | Page 55
Slide 62: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet Match.com is one of 30 online dating sites worldwide. It claims to have more than 20 million members. In a 2004 survey of 1,001 American singles, Match.com found that single voters favored Kerry and opposed both same-sex marriage and the war in Iraq. For more information, visit http://corp.match.com/index/newscenter_main.asp. Often users attempt to collect as many testimonials as possible as a form of social capital, a process which, like Ebay, demonstrates Reed’s Law. The actual usability of the testimonials as solid character assessments is minimal, and most users view them as a fun addition to the Web site. However, when asked about the importance of friends and testimonials, one interviewee stated that testimonials gave “insight into the person,” and she “would trust someone more if they had some friends and testimonials as opposed to just having a profile. It shows involvement and that they want to be a part of the system (Anonymous).” Thus, an articulated social network is very important to identity creation for Friendster users. Encompassed in this are links to friends, the searchable aspect of the network and friend testimonials. The social network allows users to verify their identity, ensures cooperation and helps create a common ground among users. Without the inclusion of the social network, Friendster’s profile creation system would lack depth. The system more accurately mimics offline social relations and public performance discussed by Goffman. the personality test is a set of questions designed to assess the personality of individuals. “The test. . . is the most scientifically grounded and customized personality assessment on the Internet” (www.match.com). The test takes approximately 10 minutes and asks questions ranging from how you act when you are stressed to how friends perceive you. Once the test is complete, it is included on the profile and users are able to search for other profiles that match their personality according to the tests results. By supplying witty answers for users to choose from, Match.com makes it more difficult for one’s true personality to come through. Subsequently, the profile created is considerably less personal than face-to-face encounters. A Winning Strategy: Building Accountability On Match.com, the accountability of the profiles that individuals create remains questionable and the blurred line between canned responses and original comments is still problematic on Match.com. How can a Match.com user have any assurance that the profiles he or she is contacting for potential dates are not to some degree fraudulent? The subtleties of face-to-face interaction that Goffman attributes to identity formation are not being accommodated in online form through Match.com. There is no real solution, and more specifically there are no articulated social networks. Friendster, on the other hand, which is a much less comprehensive site in terms of profile construction, has achieved the ability to checkpoint the profiles that are created within the system publicly through the social network. It has achieved this by using these factors: • Profiles resemble real-life identity. – Users are able to use their social networks to help create their identity, which more closely matches real life identity construction. • Friends and testimonials help verify identity. – They also combat identity deception, the hallmark problem of online dating. Furthermore, they ensure the cooperation of individuals who participate on the Web site. Individuals who are linked to friends through their social network are less likely to abuse other users through spam and inappropriate e-mail messages, thereby helping to ensure online safety. Also, if two users decide to meet, they are less likely to behave badly for fear of social sanctioning. Match.com: The Static Giant The second Web site highlighted for this article is at the head of countless competitor sites. The Web site is bright and inviting, filled with various quizzes to assess your personality, Match.com trips to go on and special features for contacting other users. Match.com claims to have more than 910,000 subscribers and more than 20 million members. Online dating has profoundly changed since Match began in 1995. Early on there was a clear stigma, and people would lie about meeting online. Now the company is seeing people order Match. com T-shirts and even put its logo on wedding cakes.18 Instead of relying on friends and testimonials, Match.com has three identity construction services that help make it so successful in its matches. First, 18 Scarlet Pruit, “It’s Valentine’s Day Every Day,” PC World, Febrauary 14, 2003. Page 56 | cHaPter eleven | PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON
Slide 63: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet • The social network builds common ground. – Users feel a sense of community, and this allows them to search through the network for allies, shared friends and common hangouts. • Users develop accountability. – Being accountable for one’s Internet actions empowers the individual and allows them to better comprehend the effects that their online actions bring. They are able to use the system more effectively to meet their own needs. Furthermore, they remain in control of their personal space and identity within the largely unregulated territory of cyberspace. Ultimately, the two Web sites display differing approaches to identity formation and are both successful in their niche. What sets Friendster apart is the unprecedented ways that its users have altered the original intentions of the system to make it more usable. Through this, Friendster and the social networking system have become better avenues for identity construction than on a profile that, while detailed, lacks the accountability and public performance this concept allows. Friendster and similar articulated social networking Web sites set the bar for the future of computer mediated communication. Simply mimicking offline environments when presenting social interaction spaces online is not enough and often fall short because, as we have seen, interactions online are vastly different. Friendster is an example of how an online space provides users with a platform for creating usable interactive social software that is built on the foundation of offline identity formation theory but encompasses the boundless, indescribable aspects of the Internet. ate identity on online dating Web sites helps to make Internet software more functional, as with articulated social networks that have transcended online dating and are being used in all facets of online communication. The landscape of e-activism is changing, and its forefront is the social network. More than ever before, the lines between social action and political action are disappearing as online profiles become centers of identity that encompass more and more aspects of an individual’s daily life. Further Reading Boyd, Danah. 2002 Faceted Identity: managing Representation in a Digital World. Masters Thesis, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, Brown University Boyd, Danah. 2004 Friendster and Publicly Articulated Social Networking. Paper presented at The Conference on Human Factors and Computing Systems, Vienna, April 2004. Donath, Judith. 1998 Identity and Deception in the Virtual Community. In Communities in Cyberspace. Kollock P., Smith M., eds. London: Routledge Donath, Judith and Danah Boyd. 2004 Public Displays of Connection. BT Technology Journal 22(4): 71-82 Lawley, Elizabeth. 1993 Computers and the Communication of Gender. (http:/ / www.itcs.com/elawley/gender.html) Miller, Hugh. 1995 The Presentation of Self in Electronic life: Goffman on the Internet. Paper presented at Embodied Knowledge and Virtual Space Conference, University of London, 1995. Rheingold, Howard. 2002 Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution. Cambridge: Basic Books Turkle, Sherry. 1995 Life on the Screen. New York: Simon & Schuster What sets Friendster apart is the unprecedented ways that its users have altered the original intentions of the system to make it more usable. Through this, Friendster and the social networking system have become better avenues for identity construction. From Online Dating to E-activism Online dating Web sites act as a beneficial cultural checkpoint for the changing popular conceptions of self in an increasingly computer mediated world, a checkpoint that political activists would do well to take into consideration. An understanding of the interrelated aspects of how individuals cre- PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | cHaPter eleven | Page 57
Slide 64: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet Conclusion The repurposing of Web 2.0 sites for political action and advocacy is possible through the social networks they help create. Just as with Fakesters on Friendster, these networks are building links between like-minded individuals while verifying their identity. With the influx of online political action, having avenues for this type of user-verification is crucial to differentiating between constituent communication and spam. Knowing who your activists are and what they like, for non-profits, is invaluable. Through the online network, they’re able to listbuild while reading about the interests of their ac- tivists, seeing whom they associate with and what motivates them. Indeed, many non-profits have created their own nodes on social networks by participating in Web sites traditionally geared for online dating such as Friendster and more recently, MySpace. The landscape of e-activism is changing, and its forefront is the social network. More than ever before, the lines between social action and political action are disappearing as online profiles become centers of identity that encompass more and more aspects of an individual’s daily life. Page 58 | cHaPter eleven | PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON
Slide 65: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet TAKE ACTION, GET ACTION Using the Power of Love to Drive Activism Grassroots Enterprise by John Hlinko For most of the period from 1995 to 2002, my work consisted of trying to get people to take action using the Internet. As time went on, I couldn’t help but notice that for every one person online in search of activism, there were literally hundreds online in search of dates. It’s understandable, of course. Let’s face it: animal attraction is a powerful force. And no matter how far we’ve advanced in the fields of science, philosophy, and the arts, when it comes down to it – human beings are basically just well-dressed monkeys. Animal attraction still reigns supreme. Finally, in early 2003, I had an epiphany: why fight the tide? Why not combine the attraction of an online dating site with the power of an online activist network? Why not give people the opportunity to “take action” and “get action” in the same place? Why not try to engage activists – using the world’s oldest form of engagement? “Activists of the World, Unite! Literally.” Thus was born ActForLove.org, an online dating community geared specifically towards progressive activists. The recipe was simple: 1. Use an online matchmaking component as the heart of the site, and gear it specifically towards progressive activists. 2. Feature progressive actions on the site. 3. Use the site infrastructure and revenues to generate support for worthy causes and organizations, and even to set up new cause-oriented efforts altogether. 4. Use incredibly cheesy (but viral) puns to make up for the lack of a marketing budget. We weren’t naïve – we knew full well that number one would be the biggest draw by far. But we also knew that if we could use that draw to bring in legions of potential activists, some of them would stay for a while longer, look through the causes – and become actual activists. Since ActForLove’s founding, nearly 40,000 people have registered, taken the plunge, and gone looking for love. The site regularly receives over 100,000 page views a week – and often several times that. Welcome to the Era of the “Dot-Orgasm” Since its founding, nearly 40,000 people have registered, taken the plunge, and gone looking for love. The site regularly receives over 100,000 page views a week – and often several times that. On the romantic side, there have indeed been a number of matches. And the common thread of shared activism has proven a nice ice breaker for otherwise awkward first dates. Equally interesting, PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON || cHaPter twelve PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON cHaPter eleven | Page 59
Slide 66: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet however, have been the non-romantic connections. On a number of occasions, couples who had no romantic spark whatsoever still found shared passion on the activism front. What otherwise would’ve been a bad first (and last) date instead morphed into an activism inspired friendship. Of course, connecting activists is but one of the ways that ActForLove.org has spurred the “take action” part of the equation. The site has also featured actions from a range of progressive groups, from the National Breast Cancer Coalition to the ACLU to the Sierra Club to a slew of other, much smaller grassroots groups. ActForLove.org has also provided direct financial support to a range of worthy entities. Initially, we directed this support towards much larger organizations, such as Oxfam and Disabled American Veterans. For the most part, however, we have targeted support towards much smaller organizations, and in particular – progressive blogs. Why progressive blogs? Very simple – we don’t have a lot of money to spend, and we want it to go as far as possible. Giving a few hundred dollars or even a few thousand to a huge organization might be a drop in the bucket. However, giving that same money to a progressive blogger might be the difference between “rent” and “no rent.” Accordingly, we’ve been proud to sponsor (generally via Blog ads) close to 100 progressive blogs, ranging from mega-blogs such Daily Kos and America Blog, to ones that are far smaller (at least for now). The most notable of these thus far was DraftWesleyClark.com. Launched in the spring of 2003 – just as ActForLove.org was getting started – DraftWesleyClark.com was initially supported on the same back-end system – and virally spread via the initial pool of ActForLove.org members. Six months later, this “spin-off” effort had grown into a national campaign, with 50,000 volunteers, $2 million raised in pledges, and an unbelievable amount of media coverage. Another example is StemPAC, launched in 2005 to fight back against elected officials holding up the promise of stem cell research. By that time, ActForLove.org was receiving far more traffic, and a few prominent links on the site were able to jump start StemPAC almost immediately. Within just the first few weeks, StemPAC had grown to one of the most heavily trafficked sites in support of stem cell research. Oh Yes – the Puns Throughout all of our work, we have tried to keep the same spirit of fun and lightheartedness, even when the issue was quite serious. For example, in 2004, when a liberal Canadian magazine joked that Canadians should offer to marry Americans to rescue them from a second Bush administration, we joined together to form just such an effort – the “Oh, oh, OH, CANADA!” campaign. On another occasion, when we offered grants to small, start-up progressive organizations, they were known as “SHAGG” awards (i.e., “Spectacularly Helpful ActForLove.org Grassroots Grants”). And of course, there’s the ActForLove.org blog – “Bloggie Style.” Yes, they’ve been painful, but they’ve been painful for a reason – they work. They’re what our target audience was clamoring for. After years of being beaten over the head with political messages, many progressive activists are simply suffering from “outrage fatigue.” There’s nothing like humor – even painful humor – to overcome that, pierce the veneer of cynicism, and yes – spur some real nice viral spreading. It’s been a wild ride, it’s been a fun ride, and it’s a ride that’s just getting started. But ActForLove. org has already taught us one key lesson – if you want to reach someone’s brain, you might want to try aiming for the heart. Or maybe even a few feet lower. Giving a few hundred dollars or even a few thousand to a huge organization might be a drop in the bucket. However, giving that same money to a progressive blogger might be the difference between “rent” and “no rent.” Further, sponsoring these blogs via blog ads has been a fantastic way to grow the ActForLove.org community at the same time. Consistently, we are told that our blog ads have received click through rates that are far above average. (See? We told you animal attraction was a powerful thing.) The “Act for Love Child” – Home Grown Campaigns Through the ActForLove.org backend infrastructure, and through the revenue generated by the site, we have been able to launch new activist efforts altogether. Page 60 | cHaPter twelve | PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON
Slide 67: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet HOW AN E-MAIL CAMPAIGN CAN TAP INTO SOCIAL NETWORKS Founder and President, Rightmarch.com by William Greene, Ph.D. “E-mail is a more immediate medium than paper.” – Rick Levine, The Cluetrain Manifesto Over the past few years, the political left has been extremely successful at using online tools to create virtual communities, and these online social networks have garnered an enormous amount of media attention. Conservatives on the political right have begun to catch up. Rightmarch.com, for example, has learned to use e-mail to cultivate influencers, who share our messages with others by forwarding our e-mail or talking to people in their communities and churches. This was particularly true of one of the most galvanizing issues of 2005: the Terri Schiavo case. You may recall that after several years of legal wrangling, Terri’s husband, Michael, won the right to remove a feeding tube from his wife, who had spent more than 15 years in what the media described as a “persistent vegetative state.” Rightmarch.com worked on behalf of Terri’s family and the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation to raise money to cover lawyer bills and travel costs. Then, when events took a political turn, we transitioned from online fundraising to a large scale, around the clock battle in order to create a network of supporters, win public opinion, and change legislation. Terri died on March 31, 2005, but not before our combination of online fundraising and grassroots activism ensured that hundreds of thousands of conservatives and pro-life Americans were able to come together with a single, very loud voice in support of saving Terri’s life. Over the course of the months-long campaign, we sent our members over five million e-mails. Hundreds of thousands of those e-mails were forwarded to friends, and over 250,000 recipients took an action on the Web site, www.RescueTerri. com, such as downloading flyers to print and distribute at church or in the neighborhood, or contacting the Florida governor’s office or the state legislature. These figures do not begin to measure the viral impact our network had on media coverage or on the public. Why E-mail? First, we found that we have higher response rates when we engage people through e-mail, and Rightmarch.com was founded in 2003 as the conservative response to Moveon. org. PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | | cHaPter tHirteen PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON cHaPter twelve | Page 61
Slide 68: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet e-mail has such a strong viral effect. When people receive our e-mails, they often forward them on to their entire contact lists. We even see those e-mails coming back to our personal e-mail inbox after they have made the rounds online. Second, we know our audience, and we know how to use written communications that appeal to their backgrounds and ideologies. Most of our members are older with more work experience. They are politically conservative, and they are opinion makers in their communities. In fact, a large concentration of conservative influencers is online. When these conservative influencers share emails, very quickly name recognition of a candidate – or an issue, as in the case of Terri Schiavo – shoots up. Our Terri Schiavo campaign spread to hundreds of thousands of people quickly, building like a snowball. 2. Quick response to news and current events. – Influencers pride themselves on being the first to hear about news. We used e-mail to respond to events in the Florida legislature and governor’s office quickly, with an element of urgency that drove people to take action. This had a strong viral affect because the entire country was tapped into the Terri Schiavo case every night on the news. 3. Easy online actions. – Each of our emails drove recipients to our Web site to take actions: a. Contact the Governor, Speaker of the Florida House, and the President of the Florida Senate. b. For Florida residents, contact your state senator and state representative. c. Travel to Florida to protest the moment Terri’s feeding tube was removed. d. Donate now. 4. Shareable information. – We gave our supporters talking points and shareable information, including an e-mail tool on the Web site to invite others to join the network and information about hotel reservations in Florida. By using our Web site and e-mail to engage our audience, placing the situation in the larger context of the culture of life, creating a sense of urgency with language that spoke to the values of our supporters, and making it easy for them to take direct and meaningful actions, we helped keep the national spotlight – and public attention – focused on a tragic situation that might otherwise have been a one-day story. How We Built Our Network: 1. A larger-than-life cause that touched our constituents. – In the case of Terri Schiavo, the cause was greater than the moment, and it tied into the greater culture of life. We built a community around these shared values, and we used our e-mail communications to reiterate these common beliefs. In our e-mails, we called our actions an “important battle plan.” Thus, the death of Terri Schiavo was more than just one event: it was an attack on the values of the pro-life community. We used language that our supporters found compelling, including an impending darkness, an emphasis on pro-life values, and battle imagery. We also had a visible pro-life spokesman, Randall Terry. Page 62 | cHaPter tHirteen | PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON
Slide 69: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet TAKE IT OFFLINE How One Person Can Reach One Thousand The Keller Fay Group, LLC by Brad Fay “Consumers today are less responsive to traditional media. They are embracing new technologies that empower them with more control over how and when they are marketed to. They are making purchase decisions in environments where marketers have less direct influence (in store, word-of-mouth, professional recommendations, etc.)…. We need new channels to reach consumers. Brands that rely too heavily on mainstream media, or are not exploring new technologies and connections, will lose touch.” - Jim Stengel, CMO, Procter & Gamble Companies are trying to connect with you. They know you probably work at a computer terminal all day. They know that when you watch television, you probably tune in to cable or perhaps even watch your favorite shows online. They also know The Keller Fay Group (www.kellerfay. com) is a marketing research and consulting company dedicated to word of mouth marketing. that those 30-second television spots they’ve been pushing on you for the past few decades just are not working as well as they used to. Instead of talking at you through the television, major advertisers are trying to connect with you in a new way: by engaging with your friends and family, and by talking with rather than at you. This tactic is called word-of-mouth marketing, and it based on personal relationships, one of the most valuable currencies in the market today. Yes, advertisers are turning to the oldest form of marketing known to humans: personal recom- Word-of-mouth marketing is based on the concept that personal recommendations are a form of advertising because it gives a brand, company, or in this case, a candidate’s credibility. The point is to get other people to generate as much buzz as possible. PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON || cHaPter foUrteen PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON cHaPter tHirteen | Page 63
Slide 70: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet Did you know? Relationship capital, or the ability to influence people in your social network, is the result of emotional bonding over time.1 1 Constance Porter, “Commercializing Social Networks of Consumers via Paid Word-of-Mouth Marketing Programs: Opportunities for Value Creation or Value Destruction,” Centrality Journal (http://www. centralityjournal.com), May 29, 2006. • • • • sites, such as MeetUp and LinkedIn. The overuse of intrusive advertising techniques, such as television and radio commercials, pop-up Internet ads, and billboards. Competition for consumers’ time and attention. Fragmentation of audiences and constituencies. Distrust of traditional advertising and marketing. mendations from one trusted friend or associate to another. Word-of-mouth marketing is all about sharing messages within a social network. It’s a method that political organizers and grassroots door-to-door volunteers have been using for ages, perhaps without even knowing it. And it’s effective: about a half-century ago, Columbia University professors Elihu Katz & Paul Lazarsfeld discovered that word-of-mouth is seven times more powerful at convincing people to switch brands than advertising in newspapers and magazines. That’s why you don’t want to leave your wordof-mouth marketing campaign, political or otherwise, to chance. In fact, word-of-mouth marketing has become a manageable, measurable tool. It ranks second only to e-mail as the most popular online marketing technique, and it packs a powerful marketing punch. As recently as February 2006, Procter and Gamble reported that when one mother recommends a product to another mother, that advice reaches up to 1,000 other moms19 through other conversations in their social networks. Roper Reports has been following these trends and surveying consumers for the past three decades. They have found the average number of people citing word-of-mouth as an important source of ideas and information has grown tremendously from 67 percent in 1977 to 92 today. That’s right – 92 percent! In addition to these factors, the political world has undergone a number of other changes. These include voter backlash against negative campaigns, declining trust in politics and elected officials, the cost of television advertising and the rise of single issue voters, who require extra attention and cultivation through microtargeting. Roper Reports found the average number of people citing word-of-mouth as an important source of ideas and information has grown tremendously from 67% in 1977 to 92% today. The Marketplace of Ideas Has Changed In an article I recently wrote for New Politics Institute, titled “Word-of-Mouth Politics 2.0: Now Powered by the Internet,” I highlighted some major trends in social society and business that are changing the way that ideas spread. Many of these trends have profound implications for politics: • The power of the Internet to efficiently transmit opinions from one person to many another people. • The rise of “social networking” Internet 19 Financial Times, February 18, 2006. In order to meet your goals – from fundraising and volunteer drives to get-out-the-vote efforts – you need to adapt to the new marketplace. Think about the marketing activities that your organization runs on a regular basis. If you’re a political campaign, then you probably focus on grassroots marketing. If you run an advocacy group or locallybased non-profit, then you might focus on marketing within your local community. You might even have a plan to reach the influencers in your community – people who share their opinions about a brand, political candidate or idea with their vast social networks. Political word-of-mouth marketing targets and cultivates these influencers as messengers, mouthpieces and even evangelists for your campaign, organization or issue. Note, however, this word of caution: you cannot buy word-of-mouth support. Shill marketing or stealth tactics will cause backlash against your organization. The only true way to build a sustained word-of-mouth campaign is by engaging people with true affinity for your candidate or cause. Being authentic and transparent is not just the right thing to do – it’s also the most effective strategy.20 20 The Word of Mouth Marketing Association has published a code of ethics that strongly condemns both stealth and shill marketing, among other unethical tactics. Page 64 | cHaPter foUrteen | PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON
Slide 71: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet You cannot buy word-of-mouth support. Shill marketing or stealth tactics will cause backlash against your organization. The only true way to build a sustained word-of-mouth campaign is by engaging people with true affinity for your candidate or cause. Word-of-mouth marketing can also be a good fundraising tool. IPDI’s latest study, Small Donors and Online Giving, found that 90 percent of large donors (people who gave more than $500) to the 2004 presidential candidates were asked to give by an e-mail, phone, or in person. For more information, visit www.ipdi.org/publications. The Secrets to Successful Social Networks Fast forward a few months from now, when you have taken the advice of many of the authors in this primer and are developing a strategy to leveraging online social networks. One of the most important lessons to remember is to target influencers online and then put them to work in the offline world. Political campaigns all look for the same kinds of people: the influencers, the leaders, the networkers. However, people with true influence aren’t necessarily the ones who have big jobs or reputations. They are the everyday people who build sets for the elementary school play, coach tennis, organize the annual church carnival, or help the local arm of the Red Cross. Your target is anyone with a network of people friends and colleagues, the kind of influencer who changes minds or keeps people informed about public affairs. You can find at least one influencer on every street, in every town across the country. That’s the first big lesson: you don’t have to search far and wide for influencers. They will come to you. In fact, chances are good that every visitor to your Web site is an influencer. If you want to engage influencers and tap into their vast social networks, then make it easy for them to sign up with your organization. And, make it easy for them to share your message with others – from e-mail to Web videos to content on your Web site. Another key lesson is to look beyond the traditional political world for influencers. Many of your most effective potential influencers are leaders in fields such as youth sports, fraternal organizations, hobby clubs, school, work associations, and neighborhood programs. These social networks have a profound implication for your campaign: once you engage influencers in your campaign, you can depend on them to share your message and a personal endorsement with the many people in their social circles. To leverage these networks, make sure that your online (and offline) communications with influencers are not overtly partisan or offensive to people from another political ideology. Your goal is to cre- ate messages that will cascade out to their social networks. Finally, the third key to successful word-ofmouth politics is to use your online efforts to encourage offline activity. Offer your supporters a tool box of other ways to advocate on your candidate’s behalf: tips for writing letters to the editor, talking points, events to bring their friends to, links to other groups supporting the campaign, and conference calls they can attend as individuals or in groups. Take Online Word-of-Mouth Offline The Keller Fay Group recently found that Americans talk with each other about politics and public affairs eight times a week, per average – and this is outside the campaign season. Among the group of influencers we call Conversation Catalysts™ that number goes up to 25 times per week. Believe it or not, most of those conversations happen face to face, not online. We found that more than 70 percent of word-of-mouth marketing occurs the “old fashioned” way: face-to-face. The most powerful method for utilizing wordof-mouth techniques over the Internet comes in the form of e-mails written between friends and even includes commercial or political content that is forwarded by one friend to another, particularly when it is accompanied by a personal endorsement or comment. In other words, the Internet has the ability to accelerate peer-to-peer communications, both in terms of speed and reach. But power to influence is decidedly old fashioned – a message to you, from a person you know and trust. The Internet has the ability to accelerate peer-to-peer communications, both in terms of speed and reach. Thus, it follows that the best word-of-mouth strategy integrates public and private Internet tools with offline communication. The best strategy is simply to listen and pay attention, then make it PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | cHaPter foUrteen | Page 65
Slide 72: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet no-brainer easy for influencers to do what they do best: advocate. • Know what makes influencers tick. – Listen to their conversations. Monitor “public spaces online, such as blogs and discussion boards. • Talk to them. – Every time you communicate with your influencers – whether online or offline – ask them to share the message, and make it easy for them to do so. Finally, create a two-way conversation with them by having volunteers or staff respond to their e-mails. • Know what they do. – Most of the conversations that influencers have with their friends and family take place offline. Give them online tools, such as email or Web site content, that they can take offline. Remember, word-of-mouth does not begin and end on the Internet. A good word-of-mouth campaign harnesses the power of an influencer’s offline relationships and behavior. Savvy campaigners know how to use the Internet as a tool to initiate offline, face-to-face activity and conversations. Further Reading Ed Keller and John Berry. The Influentials. The Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet. Political Influentials Online in the 2004 Campaign. (www.ipdi.org/publications) Page 66 | cHaPter foUrteen | PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON
Slide 73: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet MOVING IDEAS A Higher Order Social Network Internet Advocacy Center and MovingIdeas.org by Alan Rosenblatt, Ph.D. While most examples of social networks involve communities of individuals networking with each other, the Moving Ideas Network (www.MovingIdeas.org) is a social network of progressive nonprofit organizations, many of which are themselves social networks of activists. Like individual-level social networks, Moving Ideas provides a platform for its members to share their ideas with other members through a variety of channels. The difference is that the ideas and resources shared are the collective products of an organization, and they are shared with other organizations, as well as individuals visiting the Web site. And like some social networks, Moving Ideas provides opportunities for its members to connect online and offline. Think of the Moving Ideas Network as a progressive hub of networks. To some degree, each member organization is its own social network, albeit with varying social networking opportunities and tools for their individual members. Moving Ideas is the hub that connects these networks to each other. This allows member organizations to share intellectual capital – policy research and advocacy campaigns – with other members, as well as with the activists who want to stay connected the progressive, non-profit community. Moving Ideas members can post research papers, policy briefs, and action alerts. Members can contribute guest blog articles. As the community grows, members will get more opportunities to create profiles, contribute more content, and make connections with each other and with individual activists who visit the site and subscribe to the site’s newsletter and RSS feeds. Members can also participate in special discussion forums featuring guest discussants from member organizations. Networking Online and Offline Moving Ideas also organizes offline events for members to meet each other face to face. Every other month, members are invited to gather for offline events, ranging from brown bag discussion lunches to networking happy hours. Events with speakers will occasionally be Webcasted, so members outside the DC metro area can participate. Giving Moving Ideas members online and offline opportunities to connect with each other is an essential part of our community. Ideas exchanged online lead to deeper conversations and connections when members meet offline. And offline meetings spur a frenzy of online follow up. These Did you know? The Moving Ideas Network has over 180 member organizations that participate in discussion boards, post issue papers, attend events, and take actions that will help other member organizations. PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | |cHaPter foUrteen PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON cHaPter fifteen | Page 67
Slide 74: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet connections are bound to increase coordination and collaboration between and among members in future campaigns. Why a Hub of Networks? In the long run, a hub of networks like Moving Ideas has the potential to create greater social capital among progressive non-profit organizations and their leaders, as well as linking the activists and the leaders to each other. Social capital may be the most powerful resource for the people to use in the pursuit of public interests. Because the free market inevitably under-produces public goods, like clean air, and to some extent affordable housing, these policy interests must be championed by the people and executed by the government. Rather than try to outspend the opposing private interests, the people can mobilize to act for change: in other words, to use their social capital. This can take many forms. The people can spend their social capital by demonstrating, writing letters to policymakers and editors, signing petitions, spreading the word to their friends and family, participating in boycotts and boycotts, and recruiting more activists. In the 1960s, E. E. Schattschneider wrote that the masses will always be underrepresented because they lack organization and financial capital. Network technologies now place organizing tools in the hands of the masses, even if not every single person, addressing his concern about organization and finances in one swoop. Where Putnam would say we were bowling alone, we are now virtually bowling together in the ether with our friends and fellow activists. Then we play soccer offline. Then we organize e-mail campaigns. Then we e-mail our friends and tell them they should do it, too. Thus, social capital is converted to political capital. In this way, the hub can increase the synergy of progressive communities to transition from being a collection of separate organizations to a progressive movement; a movement that can more effectively affect social change than single issue communities acting alone. A hub of networks devoted to public interest issues can create interlocking memberships of activists that provide the vast amounts of social capital necessary to counteract the interlocking directorates and vast amounts of financial capital often used by private interest groups. Regardless of how much progressive organizations collaborate, their members will share interests with many advocacy groups and are likely to belong to many of them. By exposing these activists to many organizations pursuing progressive policy goals, Moving Ideas helps organizations recruit more activists, while sharing more intellectual capital with each other. A network hub allows any organization’s activists, as well as its staff, to connect with many other organizations and activists with related and reinforcing agendas. Out of this multi-layered network comes a deeper sense of connection among the broader advocacy community and more opportunities to generate local, as well as national actions. Further, the deeper our cross-organizational connections, the more likely a collective of organizations and activists will transform into a social movement, which must occur if progressive officials who implement progressive policies that can effect real social change are to be elected. A network hub allows any organization’s activists, as well as staff, to connect with many organizations and activists with related and reinforcing agendas. From a Hub of Networks to a Movement A quick look at the recent political history on the right shows that a conservative movement emerged in the 1980s and steadily took over the Republican Party. Using direct mail, talk radio, and now the Internet, according to Richard Viguerie in America’s Right Turn, conservative advocacy groups captured the hearts of a large chunk of the American people and turned them into a movement. These movement conservatives captured the Republican Party, first electing Ronald Reagan to the presidency and then gaining a majority in the House and Senate. In order to compete, progressives must transition from a collection of separate and occasionally cooperative issue advocacy networks into a synergistic community of communities, a hub of networks that can match the conservative movement with a progressive movement. The Moving Ideas Network has the potential to help achieve this type of collaboration across organizational boundaries. Moving Ideas was adopted recently by Care2. com, a Web community of about 6 million grassroots activists, Cultural Creatives (individuals who care about sustainable lifestyles and social justice), non-profits, and socially responsible businesses. As Care2 and Moving Ideas integrate in the coming years, the potential for solidifying the connection between non-profits and constituencies with social networking tools Care2 offers is strong. Page 68 | cHaPter seventeen | PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON
Slide 75: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet BUILDING A NETWORK OF POLITICAL ALLIES How the Environmental Movement is Learning to Leverage its Network of Allies by Gideon Rosenblatt ONE/Northwest “By working in harmony, a network raises the effectiveness of each individual node while raising the collective effectiveness and value of the entire network.” The environmental movement is at a critical juncture in its history. While it can lay claim to numerous and important achievements over the last four decades, recent setbacks in the United States show that its hard-fought accomplishments are still all too vulnerable to changes in the political winds caused by pressures from special interests. Immunizing society for the long-term against such harmful influences means integrating a new set of values into our social fabric on a scale not seen since the shifts that accompanied universal suffrage and the broadening of civil rights. Environmental security requires a similar shift in society’s behavioral patterns by harnessing the broad-based social and political forces capable of applying both political and economic pressure. This is the task facing the environmental movement at the outset of the new century and it is likely to require a very different environmental movement from what exists today. In 2004, I wrote an essay called “Movement as Network: Connecting People and Organizations in the Environmental Movement” that outlined a new framework for thinking about the environmental movement. It envisioned the environmental movement not as a vague concept but as an actual entity – a vast network made up of interconnections between people and organizations whose whole is greater than the sum of its parts. To reduce competition and improve coordination between organizations within the network, the model proposed three primary organizational types. The essay then examined new possibilities for cooperation and collaboration between these different organizational types. The concepts outlined in that essay have a wide applicability to other kinds of social and political networks. In particular, the connected-yet-independent actions of individual parts of any movement can accomplish extraordinarily complex and wonderful actions, just as a beautiful symphony emerges from the synchronous playing of violins, flutes, horns, and percussion. And by working in harmony, a network raises the effectiveness of each individual node while raising the collective ef- ONE/Northwest is a non-profit supporting the environment and grass roots organizations through the use of technology. PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | cHaPter siXteen cHaPter seventeen | Page 69
Slide 76: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet fectiveness and value of the entire network. In this sense, the Movement as Network model reminds all of us working on individual issues that we belong to something greater and far more powerful than we could ever amount to by ourselves. With this goal in mind, let me describe the three distinct organizational archetypes within the Movement as Network model. Three Organizational Roles The 1990s were a time of economic upheaval as U.S. financial markets pressured industry after industry to restructure itself to become more efficient. Specialization is one of evolution’s key tricks for eking out efficiencies and profitability is the private sector’s natural selector. Over the last decade corporations have invested heavily in outsourcing as a means of allowing them to specialize in what they do best and increasing their profitability. In contrast, mission-driven organizations, because they are not driven by profits, lack the market signals encouraging them to specialize in what they do best. The closest thing to this type of pressure within the non-profit sector comes from foundations and other supporters trying to avoid redundancies and program overlaps between their grantees. When organizations succeed in developing unique missions, they differentiate their strategies from other organizations in ways that reduce competition and improve the potential for cooperation. One of the primary tenets of this paper is that the movement as a whole becomes far more connected and powerful when organizations specialize in one of the following three strategy archetypes. People Organizations define themselves by serving distinct audiences. Some focus on specific demographic segments, while others focus on geographically-defined communities. These organizations come in two varieties: small grassroots organizers and large environmental brands. Their role in the network is to reach out to various segments of society and help them build appropriate connections with environmental causes. The keys to suc- cess for these organizations are carefully defining audiences and listening closely to their needs. Because these groups define themselves by constituents whose interests are rarely one dimensional, they tend to span issue areas and occasionally expand beyond a strict focus on the environmental. Solution Organizations define themselves not only by the issue they focus on, but also by their particular approach to solving it. Some may solve problems with hands-on field research; some by playing watchdog to a particular government agency. The range of issues and solutions is extremely varied, which goes a long way toward explaining the incredible diversity of the environmental movement. Collectively, these organizations define the mission of the network by identifying the problems that need attention and by developing the broad range of approaches to solving them. Solution Organizations house the movement’s issue-related technical and policy expertise. They also play a critical role in ensuring that ecologically important issues receive attention even if they lack the kind of mass appeal to draw large constituent bases. Resource Organizations define themselves by the particular expertise or resources that they bring to the rest of the network. These organizations specialize in developing unique resources and expertise and in deploying these resources throughout the network to raise its collective effectiveness. Examples of expertise include fundraising, technology, campaign strategy, legal strategy, and marketing and communications. Examples of resources include providing financial support and particular types of infrastructure such as meeting places or communications infrastructure. Collaborations with Solution Organizations Solution Organizations collectively define the purpose of the network in that they identify the environmental problems that need attention and the specific means of solving them. Solution Organizations are extremely diverse due to the variety of approaches that can be adopted to solve a particular problem in a particular place. A group that protects orca whales off the Puget Sound, for instance, might specialize in field research, in playing watch dog to whale watching tours, or in developing marine regulatory policies. The tight issue focus of Solution Organizations narrows their appeal to niche audiences of people with passion for their issue. Some issues appeal to broader audiences than others, but rarely do Solution groups at the local, state or regional level build active constituent bases larger than five thousand people. What these constituent bases lack in size, however, they can make up for in passion. Well run People Organizations work with the population and build social support for a cause. Solution Organizations develop projects that address an aspect of the problem. Resource Organizations provide expertise and research. In order to be affective, a political or issue-based movement must harness the power of all three. Page 70 | cHaPter siXteen | PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON
Slide 77: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet Solution Organizations can have very strong followings of loyal financial supporters and volunteers and extremely involved activists. Solution Organizations thus are most effective when they work on problems that are smaller in scale and concentrate on mobilizing the most civically engaged citizens. Solution groups become the network’s “solution catalysts” by fluidly marshaling the expertise, resources, people, and organizations best suited to solving a particular problem. When this kind of coordination of resources and expertise happens it forms a “Solution Network.” In a solution-sharing network, organizations share knowledge and resources around a particular solution or approach to environmental problems. In many case, the organizations participating in solution sharing networks are geographically distributed and collaborate relatively easily because there are obvious benefits from having a dedicated local presence in a particular place. Examples include habitat restoration work, watchdog roles, land acquisition, and field research. If these local points of presence remain isolated from each other, then investments are duplicated, and it is difficult to build the critical mass of expertise needed to develop the solution to its fullest potential. In some cases, the network is hub-like, with the bulk of expertise and innovation occurring in one centralized location. In others, the network is more peer-like with expertise shared in a more distributed fashion across organizations. In a solution-coordinating network, organizations with different solutions collaborate and target their different approaches at a common problem. Forest groups, for example, might connect their legal strategies with public outreach and land acquisi- tion work in a coordinated push for protection for a particular area. These types of solution networks typically take the form of short term collaborations and account for the bulk of multi-organization campaigns in the environmental movement today. Solution coordinating networks are very important because they can bring together fairly passionate constituent bases. Solution coordinating networks are tremendously powerful for bringing about deep forms of engagement on small-to-medium-scale solutions. However, solution-coordinating networks can be difficult to maintain because of competitive friction between groups, arising from a scarcity of resources, with money being one of the biggest sources of division. Organizations participating in solution coordinating networks can have a lot of overlap in their pools of prospective financial supporters. This is because these supporters are more likely to connect with these organizations through an affinity with an issue than through the particular programmatic approach a group takes. The environmental movement is full of organizations working to protect a particular swath of forest or some specific species – important niche issues from an ecological perspective, but ones that lack the broad appeal needed to attract large audiences. Working Online for a Solution In 2005, ONE/Northwest created “Clear Voices,” a collaborative bill-tracking system for environmental groups in Oregon. Members can • Search through a database of thousands of bills and pending legislation updated daily. • Create hot lists of critical bills that they could share with their donors and members. • Communicate with each other and build allies. • Alert supporters of fast-breaking news around the world. The focus on narrowly defined issues that most Solution groups have limits their appeal to niche audiences. When Solution groups face problems requiring participation form large segments of the public, many are tempted to try to build these connections themselves. The environmental movement is full of organizations working to protect a particular swath of forest or some specific species – important niche issues from an ecological perspective, but ones that lack the broad appeal needed to attract large audiences. People Organizations as Environmental Intermediaries For larger scale decisions, the Movement as Network model suggests a powerful collaboration between People Organizations as a channel through which Solution Organizations reach larger segments of the public. Because a large part of what Solution Organizations do is develop policy around specific issues, this model suggests they focus on PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | cHaPter siXteen | Page 71
Slide 78: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet Bringing People Organizations Online Grist Magazine (http:/ /www.grist.org/) is a blog and online community that allows people to submit their own stories and photographs. The site will even pursue tips submitted by readers who have neither the time nor inclination to write. It receives 650,000 hits per month. developing and packaging “policy products” that can be easily marketed and distributed by People Organizations. The networks that form between these types of relationships are called solution distribution networks. “The truly important role networks play is in helping existing organizations adapt to rapidly changing market conditions.” – Albert-László Barabási People organizations define themselves by their audience. Where Solution organizations start with issues and use power maps to identify the decision makers and influencer they need to engage to solve that issue, People Organizations start with clearly defined audiences, work to build their power, and then apply that power to a variety of issues. Further, People Organizations can become environmental intermediaries. That is, they can focus on building relationships with a clearly defined audience, listening to their needs and translating those needs into services. Intermediaries play a special role in connecting audiences with a range of suppliers who can meet those needs. Rather than build these goods and services themselves, they specialize in listening to what customers need and solving their needs through a variety of sources. The environmental movement is nearly devoid of this kind of intermediary. People organizations help by becoming publishers of “infomediaries” – organizations focused on interpreting the most interesting, most relevant news from a broad range of environmental issues affecting a specific community. As an intermediary, this environmental publisher would concentrate on listening to the needs and interests of its audience and make heavy use of outside sources, such as local Solution groups, for their stories. For example, Grist Magazine (www.gristmagazine.org) is an online news and editorial service aimed squarely at the budding next generation of 18-34-year-old environmentalists. Its tagline, “doom and gloom with a sense of humor” highlights its unique and keenly insightful approach to serving this audience. If a People organization does a good job of listening to its audience’s needs, it will likely find that being of service to them does not stop with aggregating interpreting environmental news. If it truly understands the values and lifestyle of its audience, it will uncover all kinds of unmet needs that fall within its environmental mission. Examples include organizing outdoor recreation activities (hiking, biking, and kayaking outings), providing avenues for people to exercise civic responsibilities (voter guides, online advocacy campaigns), offering new types of consumer services (information on healthy eating choices and energy conservation, connections and discounts with green business), and providing education opportunities (nature walks, lectures). The People group does not have to build and operate these services itself. Just as they source subject matter expertise from local Solution groups for news stories, they can also outsource specific service opportunities like organizing nature walks and other education opportunities, running targeted campaigns, or managing volunteer beach cleanups. This is the concept of solution distributing network, ONE/Northwest (www.onenw.org) is a non-profit consulting firm founded in 1995 that helps environmental groups apply new strategies and technologies. In 2005, One/Northwest used an e-mail support system, Web site, and e-mail list to create a network of environmental groups in Washington state, called “Priorities for a Healthy Washington.” By January 2006, the network of organizations worked together to pass three out of four bills. Page 72 | cHaPter siXteen | PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON
Slide 79: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet and through it, People organizations play the role of intermediary, or broker, in connecting local audiences with Solution partners in order to offer the broad range of services needed to appeal to larger segments of sympathetic citizens. These organizations are first and foremost social change institutions. Whether they bring about this change by aggregating political power like Moveon. org or focus on broader types of personal behavioral change, the services they provide to their audiences are always clearly understood as a means to these social change ends. velop. The Movement as Network model suggests that duplicating these investments across thousands of small organizations is a bad use of network resources and runs counter to the outsourcing model that has been used so effectively by the private sector. Capacity builders need to reassess the universal applicability of the “teach them to fish” emphasis on training and in-house capacity building. There are times when organizations just need to buy the fish. Capacity builders need to help organizations focus on what they do best so they can outsource the rest. Resource Organizations: The Specialists Resource Organizations develop and distribute resources and specialized expertise needed by the rest of the movement. These organizations are some of the easiest to identify today because they map directly to the movement’s capacity builders, consultants and foundations. Though small in number, these organizations play a critical role in ensuring a healthy and effective movement. One of the key conclusions of the Movement as Network model is that organizations need to concentrate on what they do best and outsource the rest. This concept is particularly important to Resource Organizations, for they are most often the providers of this outsourcing activity, in the form of technology support, media consulting, fundraising assistance, as well as marketing and campaign advice. This expertise takes time and money to de- Conclusion The kinds of shifts in organizational behavior outlined in Movement as Network will not be easy. Entrenched ways of thinking and the sheer scale of the changes will lead many to conclude it is unrealistic and cannot be done. And yet, deep down inside we know that something is not right. We see that despite all its advances over the past quarter century, environmental protection is still dangerously dependent on short-term shifts in the political and economic climate. True and lasting environmental protection depends upon building a society that thrives in harmony with the natural world and this level of impact requires integrating environmental concerns into the fabric of society at a much deeper level than exists today. Working harder doesn’t get us there by itself. We need new models and new approaches. PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | cHaPter siXteen | Page 73
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Slide 81: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet ESSEMBLY by Joe Green essembly.com People use social networks to meet other people. But how can you use them to gain valuable contacts and drive grassroots organizing? In this chapter, the founder of essembly shares his advice on building an active and diverse online community. Introduction When I founded essembly last year, my overall vision was to empower people to be heard and change their community, nation, or world. I believe that the time-tested principles of grassroots organizing provide the most effective way to change the world, while simultaneously involving and empowering the largest number of stakeholders. The idea for essembly emerged from my experience on political campaigns. I found recruiting to be the easy part. Keeping volunteers motivated for the long months of a campaign was the real challenge. In 2004, volunteers were willing to show up at campaign headquarters once because they liked Kerry or hated Bush, or because a friend asked them. But they only returned if they felt socially connected to the other volunteers. The countless hours of unpaid labor and late nights required of successful campaigns necessarily come from personal loyalty of volunteers to one another, not from an abstract sense of support for a candidate. I found that one of the most effective factors for keeping people connected involved giving them the time and opportunity to discus their political opinions. Although there was no way to funnel these volunteer conversations back to the candidate, I noticed that people still valued being heard and appreciated. The Secrets to Successful Social Sites These experiences with traditional grassroots campaigns led me to develop two overarching requirements for a Web site – like essembly – devoted to empowering political organizing: • Help people find each other. – A politically-driven, social networking site should act as a directory of politically interested people, most importantly con- Essembly (www.essembly.com) was founded in 2005 as a non-partisan social network that allows politically interested individuals to connect with one another, engage in constructive discussion, and organize to take action PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | cHaPter seventeen PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | Page 75
Slide 82: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet taining information about how people are connected socially, geographically, and ideologically. That way, organizers can locate ideologically and geographically proximate supporters and use social connections to reach out to them. • Encourage people to talk and talk some more. – While a directory function is useful, to grow and inspire people to political action, you must engage users in a social exchange of ideas. Thus, the second requirement for a Web site with essembly’s goals is to be a place that allows users to exchange ideas in a social context, understand the opinions of friends and strangers, and feel appreciated for their own opinions. We call this an “idea social network,” and it is the first of its kind. We have always believed that in order for political organization (a long term goal) to occur, there has to be a gut-level appeal to get people to return to the site. In other words, if you invite people into your virtual “house,” make sure you know how to keep a good party going. In other words, if you invite people into your virtual “house,” make sure you know how to keep a good party going. Engaging Users in Idea Exchange Existing social networks, especially Facebook. com, act as very effective directories. Users create profiles about themselves, which contain information about their interests, location, e-mail, schools attended, and anything else they choose to include. These profiles are linked to the profiles of their friends through mutually agreed upon connections. The only type of connection missing from the Facebook model is an ideological connection – a necessary component of political networking. That’s one of the problems I addressed while developing essembly. I knew that the site had to allow for ideological comparison. I addressed the problem through the combination of two unique ideas: resolves and ideological similarity. Resolves get the conversation going. They are short statements of opinion that any essembly user can create, and which other users can vote in favor of or against. Resolves act like topic sentences in an essay, summarizing the argument, which is explained and debated by users in the comments and discussions attached to each resolve. Users enjoy resolves. They are a great way to see what your friends are thinking on the issues of the day, and how you compare to other people. Resolves also give users a way to express themselves, from a simple discussion post or comment to creating their own resolves. This means that the vast majority of essembly members are active users, creating their own content. The bigger a social network grows, the more valuable it is. You have to build a catchy tool or idea into your social network that keeps people coming back and entices new people to sign up. Our resolve system fills this purpose, and it keeps people coming back for more. Why log onto a static, single-issue site everyday when you can log onto a dynamic site, and become actively engaged with the political world, communicate with friends, and debate the issues? The bigger a social network grows, the more valuable it is. You have to build a gimmick or idea into your social network that keeps people coming back and entices new people to sign up. What’s a directory? Online social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn and Essembly function as online directories. You can use them to find information about colleagues and friends, and you can see who they are connected to. Met someone at a fundraising event but didn’t get his business card? Look him up on LinkedIn. Forget your neighbor’s e-mail address, phone number, or instant messaging name? Log onto essembly and contact her. See a cute girl in class and want to find out more about her? Find her on Facebook or Friendster. The only type of connection missing from the Facebook model is an ideological connection – a necessary component of political networking. Page 76 | cHaPter seventeen | PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON
Slide 83: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet Calculating Similarity We calculate ideological similarity by looking at each user’s answers to resolves. Then, when a user views the profile of any other user, essembly’s algorithm compares all of the resolves they have answered in common to determine their ideological similarity on a scale of 0 to 100, with 100 being exactly the same, and 0 completely different. Ideological similarity is completely relational, meaning that User A can be a 65 to User B, while User C is a 94 to the same User B. This relational method allows essembly to avoid the traditional (and limiting) “liberal” and “conservative” labels. We also break down ideological similarity by topic, meaning that two people on opposite sides of the political spectrum can be a 30 on the Iraq War and 22 on abortion, but they find they are a 95 on the environment. This encourages people to find areas of similarity – something our users often highlight as a favorite feature of essembly. People can also compare their ideological similarity to essembly groups, such as campaigns or local grassroots organizations. This allows activists to join groups of interest, and it allows groups to find individuals based upon ideological, geographic, and social connections – just as in a traditional house meeting. Did You Know? Two of the hottest topics on essembly during the summer months of 2006 were the Israel-Hezbollah conflict and the formation of a group called the “essembly parliamentary congress.” The congress is a group of essembly users who decided on their own to form a government for the site, and they held elections for different positions. If you access a social networking site in which politically inclined people communicate with each other, then all it takes is grabbing just one person to engage and organize a hundred. Engage one person in your cause, connect on a personal level – not just on a policy level – and ask him or her to bring some friends to an event or house party. Congratulations, you’ve tapped into a first-degree social network. Maybe a few of those attendees will even hold their own meetings next month. That is how you build an organization with longevity. Conclusion This idea social network, along with its directory capabilities, creates an environment ripe for political organizing. People can organize from the bottom-up, by starting a popular resolve, building support around it, and recruiting supporters through the social network. Over the long term, this has the potential to equalize the playing field between new grassroots efforts and entrenched organizations. Before you begin, however, remember the following pieces of advice: • It’s not about racking up friends. – The power of social networks is the ability for people to pass ideas from peer to peer, with great speed and legitimacy. In other words, don’t jeopardize quality for quantity. • Use the tried and true principles of grassroots organizing. – Cultivate your early, enthusiastic supporters and empower them to spread your message. You will end up with a richer community and a larger organization of volunteers. Social networks aren’t all pixie dust and magic. You need a little common sense and elbow grease! PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON Engage one person in your cause, connect on a personal level – not just on a policy level – and ask him or her to bring some friends to an event or house party. Congratulations, you’ve tapped into a first-degree social network. | cHaPter seventeen | Page 77
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Slide 85: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet THINK LIKE A ROCK BAND How to Use Social Networking Sites for Political Campaigns by Justin Perkins and Heather Holdridge Care2 Unless you already have the name recognition of Bono or a sizable digital rolodex of MySpacing 18-year-olds, you’ve got some work ahead. It would be so convenient if launching a viral message campaign, political or otherwise, on a social networking platform were easy. But, the truth is that as with any grassroots campaign, it takes persistence, lots of online and offline effort, and the right tools and the right message in the hands of the right people at the right time. Oh, and a little luck, too. Basically, you need to be scrappy, flexible, and think like a rock band. As odd as it may sound, successful independent musicians are the masters of grassroots organizing and provide one of the best examples for non-profit or political organizers to follow – especially when it comes to the use of the Web and social networking sites. Although the rock bands’ messages are obviously different, their objectives, and the formula for reaching them are strikingly similar. When it comes down to it, musicians want people to listen to their “message,” sign up for their mailing list, buy their albums and t-shirts, attend their concerts, and tell their friends – who then in turn repeat the same cycle. This is accomplished most effectively through a mix of online and offline strategies facilitated by the mailing list. Sound familiar? network, and the medium is already in a form that can easily go viral: e-mail. That’s not to say it hasn’t been done, or you shouldn’t take a calculated crack at using so- Can E-mail Do It All? Before you even think about joining the pioneers in the social networking gold rush, make sure you have already maximized your own e-mail list or email lists from other organizations that are complimentary to your campaign strategy. This is a much easier and proven strategy than trying to mobilize a Care2 (www.care2.com) is a progressive online community founded in 1998. It has more than 6 million individual members and 200 non-profit organizations. In May 2004, Care2 launched Care2Connect (http:/ /www.care2.com/c2c), the first online social network for progressive organizations. In June 2006, Care2 launched the Distributed Discussion Board Network (http://www.movingideas.org/boards/), which syndicates Care2 discussions to other non-profit sites and enables conversations from multiple entry points across the web. Care2 donates five percent of its net Web site revenue to non-profits. PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | cHaPter eigHteen | Page 79
Slide 86: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet cial networking tools. Just look at the success of some recent examples, which include the Dean campaign’s phenomenon of self-organizing Meetup.com groups and the recent mass immigration walkouts staged by high school students who used MySpace and cell phones to spread the word. Or on a non-national level, non-profits have been formed and city candidates have been created from connections made on more active-oriented social networking sites like Care2.com and Tribe.net. While social networking platforms can accelerate the organizing process and eliminate geographical barriers, tapping into these social networks takes time. Unless you already have the name recognition of Bono or a sizable digital rolodex of MySpacing 18-year-olds, then you’ve got some work ahead. And there are a few questions worth answering before attempting to head down this new path of social network organizing: • Can you give up some message control? • Do you have sufficient staff or volunteer resources to cultivate and nurture a presence in multiple online social networks? • Do you already have a large network, perhaps including some supporters who already have established an online presence that might help you spread your message? Don’t have a lot of money or a “destination” Web site? Maybe a top-down media strategy isn’t right for you. You might get more bang for your (limited) bucks with a distributed media strategy. Distributed work grows virally. So, ask your supporters to post online news stories on your site and vote for which issues get the most play. Or, ask them to host discussion board chats on their Web sites. Remember, when someone else, like a supporter, posts your content elsewhere, it creates another entry point to your own site. For more examples of distributed media, check out the Care2 News Network (http:/ /www.Care2.com/news) and the Care2 Distributed Discussion Board Network on MovingIdeas.org (http:/ / www.movingideas.org/boards/). Tool Talk Let’s talk about tools, and how to devise a strategy for tapping into existing networks of people through social networking platforms, just as rock bands do on MySpace and other sites. First, get an overview of the playing field. Take a look at the list of social networking sites listed on Wikipedia by searching for “social networking sites.” While the list is daunting and some of the membership numbers sound tempting, ask yourself the following questions, for they will help you prioritize which tools are worth your time. Look for these crucial elements for effective messaging in an online social network: 1. Does it provide demographic and geographic information available in the member profiles on the site (at least age and state)? 2. Are there enough people in your demographic and geographic targets to be worth your time? 3. Can you create a personal profile? 4. Can you search for people on the site? 5. Can you contact anyone on the site with a public profile, at least to invite them to be a “friend” in your network? 6. Can you view other members’ networks, ideally as a network map? 7. Can you directly contact “friends of friends”? 8. Can you directly contact “friends of friends” en masse through the social networking platform, or ideally, via a message that’s pushed to their e-mail? 9. Are there existing and active groups or forums relevant to your cause or campaign? 10. Is there a place to post content that has potential to go viral and be visible to the entire network, and beyond, either through tagging or a community voting system? If these basic tools aren’t available, you may as well just throw the dice and run some banner ads. These tools are crucial prerequisites for a message to go viral – in other words, passed through word of mouth at an exponential rate within a network. That said, even with all of the elements above in place, you’ve got some work to do and some dice to throw. Tools are a commodity. Fish where the fish are. First, build your network. Get friendly with the community’s “yellow pages.” Target your searches for people within the social network based on geography and keywords related to your cause. Invite Page 80 | cHaPter eigHteen | PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON
Slide 87: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet people to join your friend network. Post interesting content in your profile and community areas. Approach your new “friends” as human beings, and build relationships. But also prioritize your efforts by seeking out the “mavens” and “connectors” who are constantly online and posting quality information, leading discussion boards, and amassing large numbers of friends. Pay attention to content, however, that makes it to the “front page” and note how and why it gets there. Be transparent and honest with your objectives, and invite people, especially those with wellconnected network nodes in the social network, to help you with your campaigns. A sense of urgency and the willingness to share ownership of your cause and message are important. Though one needs to balance the need for controlling message with speed of dissemination, which is no doubt more art than science, approaching people as an impersonal organization with a tightly-controlled message will fall short. The message needs to be malleable, and you need to allow people to communicate with their own networks on their own terms. This is what enabled the Dean Meetup campaign to take off at an exponential rate, whereas an attempt to control the message surely would have destroyed the grassroots energy. And most importantly, recognize that trust is the currency of success with any social network. Trust is why word of mouth marketing is more powerful than any other medium for selling an idea or a product. In an age of information overload, advertising overload, and spin from all sides, an authentic message is valuable. Human beings make decisions based on information from sources they trust, and their most trusted sources are usually people they respect as experts or with whom they share close relationships. Finally, keep in mind that one advantage of social networking platforms over e-mail is the ability for people to self-organize based on interests. From an organizer’s point of view, this is the key – especially when you can see and tap into these networks. Social networking platforms also meet people’s need to express their opinions and be creative, and to receive social recognition in return. People also want to be part of an important cause or event, and feel ownership in the message – this is a phenomenon observed time and again with fans of the most popular rock bands, and a potential leverage point for political organizers as well. You should be aware of these human needs that social networking sites tap into as you come up with ways to engage people in your campaign. This can be done through creative photo or video contests, as MoveOn and other non-profits have demonstrated, or even by running a compelling petition or a virtual march or rally. People want to be part of an important cause or event, and feel ownership in the message – this is a phenomenon observed time and again with fans of the most popular rock bands, and a potential leverage point for political organizers as well. Conclusion As you rock your way through your social networking initiative, don’t forget to do the obvious things that are tried and true: call your friends and family, hold fish fries, post fliers, send direct mail, get on TV and the radio, hold rallies, write letters to the editor. Though social networking tools are an exciting new opportunity, especially for tapping a younger audience, as well as a targeted, more activist audience, it should be considered part of a broader, multi-faceted strategy. If you can be patient and persistent, dedicate the resources to develop a strong and trusted presence within the right community, and are willing to be flexible with ownership of your message, you have a good shot at putting together a winning network-centric campaign. PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | cHaPter eigHteen | Page 81
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Slide 89: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet VIDEOGAMES ARE POLITICAL TOOLS by Nicco Mele EchoDitto and Caldwader, Wickersham & Taft LLP David K. Cohen Based on the sheer size and influence of the market, political interests cannot afford to ignore videogames – or the online social communities that sometimes accompany them. Videogames Are Big Business More than half of Americans, or about 145 million people, play videogames for an average of 13 hours a week. This is more time than people spend with print media and equal to the amount of time people spend watching television.21 In fact, the American videogame industry is bigger than the movie and music industries combined. Last year, Adrants reported that more than half of all U.S. households played videogames. Twenty-six percent of these households report a decrease in television viewing.22 Worldwide, the videogame industry is now a $24 billion per year industry – twice as large as the movie industry and three times as large as the music industry.23 And the industry is growing. In the United States alone, video games account for $9.9 billion, and Americans purchase an average of eight videogames every second.24 The average gamer is not what you’d expect: pimply-faced, teenage boys who should be studying after school, who aren’t old enough to vote, and who have no reason to be interested in politics. In fact, the average gamer is 30 years old, and female 21 Nielson//NetRatings. 22 Adrants (http://www.adrants.com/2004/08/video-gamesthreaten-television.php), August 2004. 23 DFC Intelligence Report, November 2003. 24 The Entertainment Software Association home page (http:/ / www.theusa.com/1_26_2005.html). gamers outnumber male gamers in the 25-34 age bracket.25 ComScore Network found that almost half of all gamers are in two advertising sweetspots: not quite middle aged and with lots of disposable income. Twenty-three percent of gamers are 35-44 years old, and 17 percent are 18-24 years old. Twenty percent of gamers have annual incomes over $75,000.26 Politicos take note. Based on the sheer size and influence of the market, political interests cannot afford to ignore videogames – or the online social communities that sometimes accompany them. In fact, people are building vast social networks and playing with (and against) them in online games. Both online and offline videogames are filling up with advertisements and marketing messages – just like the offline world. And, people who play video games are strategizing, exploring choices, and learning more about the world. Tapping into Online Gaming Communities The online gaming industry is growing. The DFC Intelligence Online Game Market Forecasts says that subscription revenue from online games was $2 billion in 2005 and will grow to $6.8 bil25 “Study: Women Gamers Outnumber Men in 25-34 Age Group,” Game Daily Biz (http:/ /biz.gamedaily.com/industry/ feature/?id=12424), April 17, 2006. 26 “In-Game Advertising Not a Deterrent to Most Gamers,” Center for Media Research, June 1, 2006. PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | cHaPter nineteen PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | Page 83
Slide 90: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet lion by 2011.27 Corporations are paying attention to the online gaming community and the relationships among players, which are becoming another type of social network. People often play online games in groups, and the games they play increasingly echo their interests and volunteer activities in the real world. Even business occurs in the world of online gaming. Last February, on the technology site Slashdot, one member wrote that some online games are becoming places where friends and business partners “talk shop” and swap stories – akin to the water cooler culture of offices in the offline world. People often play online games in groups, and the games they play increasingly echo their interests and volunteer activities in the real world. For example, one online game called Second Life includes networks of “avatars” (users) who are interested in non-profits, politics, technology and who hold regular meetings and connect in the virtual world. Harvard’s Berkman Center has hosted a series of events on video gaming, including a June 2006 event on “Avatar-Based Marketing.” Finally, consider the offline components, whether or not people are gathered at computer terminals in the same house, coffee shop, Internet café or set of office cubicles, they are playing together – interacting with each other online in new ways, even if they do not physically meet each other in the real world. Developing Interactive Political Marketing and Messaging Strategies The use of videogames as advertising vehicles is experiencing a meteoric rise. Companies can buy advertising space and product-placement opportunities within videogames, where players see and interact with their products over and over again. For example, in some games, a player might drink a specific brand of soda, drive a particular brand of car, and wear a certain brand of clothes. This is called “in-game advertising.” Players interact over and over again with brands that they will encounter in the offline world, and companies pay a bundle for this form of publicity. This is quickly becoming a very lucrative business: the gaming industry expects companies to spend $750 million a year on in-game product placement.28 Mitch Davis, CEO of Massive, Inc., estimates that “We’ve passed the tipping point, to use a cliché, where [in-game advertising] is less about experimenting and more about building it into business.”29 Investment in “adver-games” – videogames built specifically to promote a product, service or organization – will reach $1 billion by 200830 and $2 billion by the end of the decade.31 In-game advertising works. Last year, Nielson Entertainment studied in-game advertising within American Wasteland, a Tony Hawk-inspired skateboarding game in which players interact with Jeep vehicles. The study found the average player interacts with a Jeep vehicle 23 times in 20 minutes. Of those players, product recall was high: 96 percent recalled seeing Jeep vehicles in the game. Further, over half the players (51 percent) said they would recommend Jeep to a friend, and 65 percent said they would consider buying a Jeep.32 For the political group, movement, or non-profit, videogames offer more than just brand advertising. Adver-games allow your audience to interact directly with your message, hone its political savvy, and practice real-world scenarios. Some non-profit organizations, including UNICEF, the American Cancer Society, and Greenpeace, have already begun experimenting with adver-games, and they have achieved success on a small scale. As political groups turn to videogames, their efforts become more elaborate and more focused on message. To date, most political games are relatively small productions. Only a few political videogame projects have created robust, commercially-distributed, consumer-oriented videogames. However, those political projects that have broken through have been shockingly successful. Almost all of the American successes have been produced by politically conservative groups, and many of the successes outside the United States have been used for militaristic purposes. Finally, look at how successful games have combined message with strategy. Some recent ex28 Massive Incorporated (http:/ /massiveincorporated.com/ site_network_home.htm). 29 Mike Shields, “In-Game Ads Could Reach $2 Bil.,” Adweek (http://www.adweek.com/aw/national/article_display. jsp?vnu_content_id=1002343563), April 12, 2006. 30 Matt Richtel, “Is Instructional Videogame an Oxymoron,” New York Times (http:/ /www.nytimes.com/2005/02/04/ business/04games.html?ei=5088&en=c9060787481d31c& ex=1265259600&partner=rssnyt&pagewanted=print&positi on=), February 4, 2005. 31 Shields. 32 David Kiley, “Rated M for Ad Ave,” Business Week (http:/ /www. businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_09/b3973105. htm?chan=innovation_game+room_game+room+lead), February 27, 2006. 27 David Cole, “Online Games Boom: Who Benefits?” Business Week (http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/ mar2006/id20060308_705784.htm?chan=tc&chan=techn ology+index+page_consumer+electronics), March 8, 2006. Page 84 | cHaPter nineteen | PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON
Slide 91: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet amples of popular, politically-charged videogames include: • Sim City (http:/ /simcity.ea.com) – An ultra-popular game that incorporates Reagan economic advisor Arthur Laffer’s tax model into the game. Sim City also includes wealthy citizens’ strong preference for private schooling and transportation, low-income citizens’ lack of interest in higher education, and many laissez-faire economic assumptions, such as the perfect mobility of labor. • Darfur is Dying (http:/ /www.darfurisdying.com) – Allows players to take on the role of a Sudanese refugee. They must avoid being killed while they search for water and live in a refugee camp. The game was downloaded more than 750,000 times in May and June 2006.33 • Peacemaker (http:/ /www.peacemakergame.com) – A videogame simulation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict designed to promote peace. Players can become either the Israeli prime minister or the Palestinian president. • UnderAsh (http:/ /www.underash.net) – A game in Arabic presenting the War on Terrorism from a Palestinian’s perspective. The game describes itself as a world in which “a nation in Palestine is being uprooted: their houses are being devastated, their establishments are being destroyed, their lands are being occupied . . . The whole world is plotting to ignore them. None hears them moan. None sees the trains of their martyrs. None says a word of support to their rights. This is the tale of the game of UnderAsh.” • Peace Bomb – A multiplayer online game in which groups of players try to plan peaceful insurgency projects that undermine a corporate, militaristic government. • September 12 (http:/ /newsgaming. com/games/index12.htm) – A small game designed to provoke political and ethical discussions about the War on Terrorism. • Tax Invaders – A GOP-funded version of space invaders released on the GOP Web site during the 2004 campaign. The game is no longer on their site, but it can be played at http:/ /www.kerrysucks.com. • Take Back Illinois (http:/ /www.takebackillinoisgame.com) – Developed for the Republican PAC Citizens to Elect Tom Cross during the 2004 election. The game was nominated for the best independent videogame of the year at the Slamdance Festival, the videogame counterpart to the Sundance Film Festival. • Activism: The Public Policy Game (http:/ /www.activismgame.com) – A game sponsored by the DCCC during the 2004 election. • The Anti-Bush Online Videogame (http://www.emogame.com/bushgame.html) – Developed with the intent of using the videogame to reach out to people who did not have the time or interest to learn about Bush’s policies during his first term. • The Howard Dean for Iowa Game (http://www.deanforamericagame. com) – Educated voters about the 2004 Iowa Caucus. • America’s Army (http:/ /www.americasarmy.com/) – A major recruiting tool used by the U.S. Army. • Full Spectrum Warrior (http:/ /www. fullspectrumwarrior.com/) – Developed in conjunction with the U.S. Military, this game promotes the Bush administration’s War on Terrorism by directing players to topple the terrorist plots of a fictitious Zekistan’s Muslim dictator. • Victory at Hebron (http:/ /www.brethren-et.com) – Designed for the $200 million a year Christian videogame market. • Special Force (http:/ /www.special force.net/english/indexeng.htm) – Developed by Hezbollah. One of the most popular games in Beirut. Players can connect with one another over the Internet to simulate attacks on the Israeli military. 33 “Videogame designers try to help save the world,” CNN.com, June 28, 2006. PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | cHaPter nineteen | Page 85
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Slide 93: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet CREATING AN ONLINE VOTER SPACE ElectionMall Technologies by Ravi Singh Community sites such as MySpace and YouTube have over 50 million unique users and are growing at accelerated rates. The Internet’s traditional portals and search engines are beginning to face competition in terms of multi-media capability, reach, and popularity from community sites that supply their own content. Many of these community sites rely on proprietary technology to compete with the big guys. Democracy is about the debate, the exchange of ideas, and engagement. Historically, town hall meetings provided a forum for these exchanges, but as villages have grown into towns, and towns into cities, the intimate face-to-face exchanges facilitated by local civic gatherings have fallen by the wayside. Local cable channels have achieved some suc- ElectionMall Technologies (www.electionmall.com) provides online technology products and services to campaigns and elections. cess in bringing these meetings into the living rooms of those unable to attend in person. But the advent of a maturing Internet promises a quantum leap in engaging citizens in the decision-making processes of elected officials and in the public debate that occurs in political campaigns. What is being called Web 2.0, or interactive online media, has changed how political dialogue is being conducted, both nationally and locally. This phenomenon is most apparent in social networking Web sites that make it easy for people to share ideas and opinions. These sites, in turn, are changing the way that political campaigns are. As voters begin to find their “space” and become increasingly comfortable in joining in the conversation, political campaigns must, of necessity, become more accountable to voters. There is no mistaking what has begun to happen in politics today: voters are writing themselves in to the process. With increasing ease, voters and potential voters are now able to maneuver around the three giants of our civic space: political campaigns, the actual elections, and government creating an impact on democracy that is now electroni- Did you know? There is no mistaking what has begun to happen in politics today: voters are writing themselves in to the process. With increasing ease, voters and potential voters are now able to maneuver around the three giants of our civic space: political campaigns, the actual elections, and government. PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | cHaPter twentY PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | Page 87
Slide 94: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet cally influenced. Ideally, an online space will intersect all three aspects — e-campaign, e-elections, and e-government that comprise the three pillars of e-democracy. In this way, a successful civic cyberspace community expands the political dialogue beyond kitchens and water coolers and moves it to people’s personal computers and from there to coffee shops around the world. How to Create a Successful Social Voter Space To actively engage e-citizens and e-voters (those who use the Internet to participate in government and political activities) and particularly e-leaders (those who use the Internet to actively engage by becoming donors or volunteers), a well-functioning online civic Web site should keep these points in mind: • A community space must be welcoming. – A space that draws people in with fresh content and relevant news and information works not only for political campaigns but also for social issues. • It needs to be easy for people to use. – People should not have to buy technology or software to use a system. All necessary software should download automatically upon registration, and at the expense of the site, not the users. • Campaigns must be able to reach supporters. – Campaigns are too busy to fuss with many disparate parts. They need a cohesive, comprehensive system. For this reason a good program must accomplishes two goals: easy access to people and measureable campaign progress. Pay particular attention to proprietary programs that are preloaded with donor and volunteer lists, and automatically collect information about open rates and response rates. • It must have the hottest new tools. – Video is hot right now, and it’s also a good way to personalize the face of a political campaign and engage supporters, especially by using personalized video e-mails. Video conferencing software is also a good idea because it enables campaigns to talk directly with volunteer coordinators, house party hosts, precinct leaders, or major donors, which keeps campaigns on track. In addition, video footage can be automatically added to an individual or campaign’s blog. • Campaigns want some control. – With this in mind, campaigns should stay in close contact with their supporters so that they can quickly change their message if need be, based on feedback. Campaigns should be able to delete messages or videos, blacklist certain users, and choose not to approve a member, video, or post. • People need to be able to take action. – Make it as easy as possible for people to donate, so be sure to include donation links, and respond quickly and individually to each donor. Consider a program that sends contribution thank you messages with the click of a button. Best Practices for User-Generated Political Content Still hesitant about whether or not a media strategy that includes user-generated content will work for your campaign? Keep the following two tips in mind: • Computers don’t win elections. – Experienced campaigners know that technology cannot win an election for you. It’s not an easy way out. You have to strategize. The campaigns that use technology most effectively and go on to win elections are those that have internalized the ability to execute. • Standard 30-second TV spots look horrible online. – Web 2.0 is about engaging people, not sending them canned, impersonal, cheesy messages. Even though it sounds scary, consider opening the political messaging process up to everyone. Conclusion To truly compete, political candidates must now respond to their constituents though multimedia messaging. Even e-mails can now be video e-mails sent directly to voters or other interested parties from the candidates own computer. With highly powered technology tools and this new way of conducting business, campaigns save money since traditional campaign advertising such as television ads and direct mail are a campaign’s largest cross to bear. Technology is changing the world we live in and impacting on democracy. The time is ripe to decide whether you will rule the space or be ruled by it. Page 88 | cHaPter twentY | PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON
Slide 95: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet POLITICAL ORGANIZING THROUGH SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES The Fred Gooltz Story CivicSpace Foundation by Zack Rosen Can one person start a political movement? Fred Gooltz did. His Parks1 social network made New York City’s Parks a campaign issue. He later adapted social networking tools for use as a volunteer hub in local political campaigns. Background Fred Gooltz is a 28 year-old former actor. He made the leap to politics during his involvement in the 2004 election cycle as a Democratic Party activist. Now a communications consultant for political technology firm Advomatic LLC, he specializes in community based marketing practices and assists clients in leveraging community tools, such as social networking sites like MySpace.com. In 2002, Fred started paying close to attention to press coverage during the weeks leading up to the invasion of Iraq. The images stirred him, bud- ding into political awareness and eventually, direct involvement in political campaigns. But first, Fred connected to politics through one of the biggest online, political-driven social networks – the liberal blogosphere. As Fred describes it, “I grew obsessed with reading stories that weren’t covered in any newspaper. To do this I had to learn to navigate online worlds of information and communities. In my obsession, I embedded myself into scores of messageboards, ListServs, chatrooms, and personal Web sites where those ‘others’ were gathering and ‘contending.’ It was the emerging progressive netroots.” From blogs, Fred joined Drinking Liberally, a CivicSpace Foundation is the non-profit arm of CivicSpace, LLC (http:/ /civicspacelabs.com/). It fosters the CivicSpace community of users, developers, and service providers. Drinking Liberally (http:/ /drinkingliberally.org/) is an online, progressive, social group that helps like-minded people meet at bars to discuss politics. Founded in 2003, it now includes 160 chapters in 42 states plus the District of Columbia. The site includes a blog and tools to help users locate their nearest group or start one of their own. PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | cHaPter twentY-one PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | cHaPter twentY | Page 89
Slide 96: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet low-key Democratic club, to meet other politicos. His new network at Drinking Liberally events then turned him on to local campaigns. Soon Fred found himself deeply involved in campaigns as a political neophyte – with a license to experiment on the frontiers of politics and online communities. Fred was one of the first professional campaign consultants to dive feet first into social networks, experimenting with real world grassroots organizing and political communications. While his forays so far have been on a granular scale, the techniques he is pioneering provide one of our first looks at what happens when political campaign organizing establishes itself directly inside social networking communities. council members, and candidates to writing letters to participating in media rapid response. Fred opted to find these “hobbyist” groups and communicate directly with their members through MySpace.com. The search capabilities on the site made it easy for Fred to find people based on specific demographics and interests. He used MySpace to: • Identify people in every council district based on their zip codes as a search parameter. • Find potential issue allies by gleaning information from member profiles, including their interests and hobbies, as well as the groups and associations they belonged to. • Locate the connectors – the people who were active in different kinds of groups that coalesced around, for example, environmental issues. • Join their friend lists and work his way up as one of their top 8 friends – a very enviable position on MySpace. • Target people by demographics and interests. For example, this meant sending comments to mothers under the age of 35 about the toddler playground in their local neighborhood park and its need for renovation. • Gain trust as a source of information and earn a reputation for talking to individuals about their lifestyle. These weren’t broadcast messages. These were comments about concerts in a nearby park or other events. Comments were tailored to their recipient. As Fred put it, “People don’t vote on issues, they vote on lifestyles.” New York for Parks In 2005 Fred became the online communications director for the Parks1 campaign, a city-wide parks advocacy group run by New Yorkers for Parks (www.ny4p.org) as an offshoot of the New York mayoral election campaign. The goal was to inject parks issues into the political dialogue through two separate efforts: a direct government relations campaign and an activist base focused on “raising the issue to the point where it couldn’t be ignored.” Fred’s duty was to seek out groups of New Yorkers who cared about park issues such as fishermen, dogwalkers, Ultimate Frisbee players, softball and soccer leagues, wine lovers, local produce shoppers (park picnics), birdwatchers, and amateur landscape artists, and coax them to join an activist base that the campaign then asked to take actions. These actions included everything from showing up for events to calling the mayor’s office, What’s on a MySpace Profile? Each MySpace profile is unique. It consists of “blurbs” about the MySpace user and lists of his or her interests, schools, and companies. Users can upload pictures and video on their profiles, send instant messages to other users, and write a blog. Each profile also includes a box of friends – pictures of people (with links to their profiles) whom you know or who share similar interests or who just look good. Friends leave each other comments – the most widespread form of communication on MySpace. For some, MySpace comments have taken the place of e-mail, and people use them to say hi, forward videos or pictures, talk about an issue, and make plans for the weekend. Page 90 People don’t vote on issues, they vote on lifestyles. The Parks1 campaign results were impressive. They built an e-mail list of 30,000 members and a coalition of 380 organizations. Eighty out of 100 candidates for office in New York City endorsed their positions, and 40 of 51 New York City Council members pledged to work towards Parks1’s declared policies. This has led to the first increase in parks budget in generations. The money will be used to hire Parks Enforcement Police and full-time gardeners in 30 of NYC’s most neglected parks. | cHaPter twentY-one | PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON
Slide 97: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet Chuck Lesnick’s City Council Race For his next campaign, Fred signed on with Chuck Lesnick, who was running for City Council President in Yonkers, NY. The campaign faced a problem: its workhorse volunteers were no longer checking their e-mail accounts. Instead, they were communicating with each other, as well as with their family and friends by sending MySpace messages. Almost immediately Fred began developing a MySpace strategy to solve the problem and coordinate campaign teenage volunteers more effectively. He focused on these strategies: • Appointed MySpace captains. – Fred asked six volunteers to act as MySpace captains. They created MySpace Groups to recruit other members through word-of-mouth messaging, communicate with other volunteers, and get them involved in campaign events and get-out-the-vote activities. • Used viral marketing. – Once Fred built trust with his MySpace community of supporters, he engaged them in viral action. He launched a “earn respect from our parents” campaign that sent messages and bulletins to the MySpace community with an “assignment” to shame parents about not voting. The campaign provided a few stats about voter turnout and the state of political affairs. Another assignment was to click a link in the message and print a voter registration form. The members asked their MySpace network of friends to give the forms to their parents, and they followed up with each other, to make sure everyone did it. • Asked people to take another action. – In the last 3 days of the campaign, the MySpace captains asked their network of friends to print out letters, downloaded via links in the messages, personalize the letters, sign them, and use them to urge people to vote for Chuck Lesnick – the man who vowed to make college more affordable (a tune that echoed in the student MySpace community). • Let MySpace captains take (some) control. – Fred gave his MySpace captains a little message training. Once he felt that they were disciplined, he let them do most of the work. They figured out what to say to different people in order to create the biggest effect. And they sent their own MySpace messages to the network. What’s a MySpace Group? MySpace allows a user or users to create a group around an issue, hobby, school, club, television show, or interest. Groups can be set to open (all MySpace users can join) or private. Group members can discuss forum topics and send bulletins to each other. Groups also give members a sense of social validation, like belonging to a professional group or club. • Connected them offline. – Fred encouraged his MySpace volunteers to bring their friends with them to campaign headquarters and participate in the final GOTV push of the campaign. Chuck Lesnick, the underdog, won the race. Fred kept in touch with his MySpace captains after the campaign and consulted with them through the site as they became office interns in City Hall. When Chuck visited local high schools to discuss government or economics as an elected official, students already knew him from MySpace, and they posted pictures of his visit later that night on their profiles. Tips for Developing a MySpace Volunteer Network Fred told me that “people are sick of broadcast politicians, but they are craving community and empowerment. A community-building and empowering politician or campaign is the way to grow – and this model works perfectly online and in social networks, where most folks are trying also to build a sense of community. They appreciate effort and will help.” With this in mind, try incorporating some of Fred’s personal best practices for creating a MySpace volunteer network: People are sick of broadcast politicians, but they are craving community and empowerment. A communitybuilding and empowering politician or campaign is the way to grow – and this model works perfectly online and in social networks, where most folks are trying also to build a sense of community. PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | cHaPter twentY-one | Page 91
Slide 98: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet • Make community count. – Social networking practices should dovetail with an organization’s main Web site, which itself should be built to grow a community around it. As Fred puts it, “A good Web site is a living and growing organism.” Social networking sites like MySpace are just a part of the ecosystem. • Don’t take short cuts. – Don’t simply replicate content from your campaign or organization hubsite onto your profiles at MySpace, Friendster, Facebook, or MiGente. You’ll lose credibility, and your open and click-through rates will drop. • Taking breaks isn’t an option. – Don’t slack off on comment posting. Post a new comment every few days. Why? Because when it comes to MySpace, the comment is the common currency. Place personalized comments on your friends’ spaces. Target them by looking at their interests. • Personalize your interactions. – Make every message count by personalizing it. This takes time, but it also gives you a really good task to pass on to your MySpace campaigns. As Fred says, “Not sending personal messages is death.” • Look at the small picture. – Too much big picture talk kills momentum. Messages are most successful and have better rates of referral when their content speaks to as many different kinds of people as possible. In other words, take time to target the niche groups. Take time to calibrate your language and speak to people based on their demographics. People can smell it if you’re just selling something. Then they’ll shut you out. • Tailor your messages to suit the medium. – MySpace doesn’t follow the Oxford English Dictionary. It doesn’t even follow political speak. Rather, Fred is quick to note that “The lexicon spoken in each social network evolves.” Different abbreviations, acronyms, and graphics go in and out of style. It’s important to stay on top of the game – or ask your MySpace captains to do some of it for you. Page 92 | cHaPter twentY-one | PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON
Slide 99: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet IS THE HOT FACTOR WORTH THE TRIP? Why Some Groups are Forgoing the MySpace Experience Diener Consultants, Inc. by Phil Sheldon It used to be that if you did other things while talking to someone, you were not giving them proper respect – and it used to be that if you put tawdry facts about yourself out for the world to see you had mental problems. Now those behaviors are called multitasking and social networking. Introduction When you are a 47-year-old happily married man who wants to stay that way, you need a really good reason to be surfing on MySpace. I want to thank GW’s Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet at the Graduate School of Political Management for providing me that really good reason. Not that I can ignore such sites. These days every mainstream media publication contains an article about social networking Web sites. During about three decades as a political operative, I’ve learned that politics really is all about the network. Often when people ask me what I do, I have pretty much forever described myself as a networker. I do it daily – bringing people, ideas, and resources together for good. Today, the networking context is changing. Most of the big-name social networking sites attract a predominantly younger crowd. Twenty year-olds are three times as likely to use MySpace as 30 year-olds. Usage continues to drop off as the age increases. By now, I’ve read many MySpace Web pages. So many people say they join these sites for “networking” that I am becoming concerned. When I tell people I do networking, I don’t want them to think that I am doing the kinds of “other” things that visitors to sites like MySpace and Friendster have been known to do (think: drunken college parties, hooking up, and trying to get dates). As with much of our society, raw sex dominates the Web. I know personally that politics is a great place to meet a mate. I met my wife walking precincts for the GOP in 1982. Moreover, I know people do impulsive things in the real world, as well as the Internet. I proposed to her six days later. With that in mind, my guess is that the large, mainstream social networking sites are much more about making a connection personally than driving public opinion. Mainstream social networking sites are much more about making a connection personally than driving public opinion. But are social networking sites good for more than just trolling for dates? Will social networking sites replace the church picnics, school board meetings, and house parties that are the staple of the political operatives in my generation? More importantly, will a MySpace political strategy turn off conservative, family-values voters? PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON || cHaPter twentY-two PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON cHaPter twentY-one | Page 93
Slide 100: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet Did you know? Ad spending on social networking sites totaled $280 million in 2006. It is expected to grow to nearly $1.9 billion by 2010.1 1 Debra Aho Williamson, “How Google Could Change MySpace,” eMarketer (http://www.emarketer. com), August 10, 2006. 15! Social networking sites are quickly becoming the wildest West of the Internet. Many members of the public, particularly concerned parents, are tuning them out and asking their kids to do the same. What does this mean for politics? Size Matters Neilson/ /NetRatings reports that the ten largest social networking sites experienced a 47 percent increase last year. As other authors in this publication have pointed out, MySpace is now gigantic. And, it’s serving up a daily fix of interpersonal communications for millions of people. Americans are becoming addicted to it. Late in July 2006, a heat wave in Los Angeles caused rolling blackouts that shut down MySpace for what seemed like days. During that time, Google, Facebook, and various dating sites suddenly experienced an average ten percent traffic increase. Hitwise attributed that increase to MySpace’s lonesome users out looking for love. Traffic at “adult” Web sites also increased. As of this writing, there are 21,428 identified political groups at MySpace. That number changes, of course, almost every day. The largest Republican group is “MySpace Republicans” with 48,119 members, and it greets visitors with a genteel and gentle “Welcome to the party of ideas and our forum to discuss them! There’s plenty of room for civil debate under the big tent of the Republican party (sic).” Many of the other conservative groups have a more precise and aggressive basis for existence. Compared to the total universe of people on MySpace, the political junkie community seems rather small. But MySpace users are certainly more interested in politics than charity. The largest of the 13,097 Non-Profit & Philanthropic groups has just 12,397 members. Some candidates may find it difficult to have an official involvement with some social networking sites, but this doesn’t mean that social networking isn’t a worthwhile endeavor for politics. The dangers inherent in Internet activity mean that responsible candidates may find it difficult to have an official involvement with some social networking sites. This doesn’t mean that social networking isn’t a worthwhile endeavor for politics. It simply means that some groups may need to rethink their marketing and outreach strategies before they sign up for a MySpace or Friendster profile – or, for that matter, onsite advertising. Here’s my best advice before you take the plunge: • Should I buy advertising for my candidate on a social networking site? – Advertising broadly on a social networking site like MySpace could garner some embarrassing page images for political candidates or family-friendly organizations. This could result in some backlash and protests by people who should be your natural allies. Do some selfselection and categorization to make your brand safer. Have some pre-established statement that indicates the “evangelistic” nature of your advertising there. If you are not that brave, consider online communities like Free Republic and Townhall as a jumping off point because their content is geared toward (and acceptable to) a conservative audience. • Should I develop a profile for my organization or candidate on a social networking site? – Much of the actual marketing accomplished on these sites is not advertising at all: it is word-ofmouth interaction with other members. But to do this, you have to create a pro- So What Are They Good For? If you’ve paid attention to the news lately, then you’ve probably heard the terms “sexual predators” and “social networking sites” thrown together quite a bit. The combination of being known as a haven for teenage hookups and predatory behavior is giving many social networking sites – especially the biggest of them all, MySpace – a bad reputation. Public concern led to the passing of H.R. 5319 “Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA)” in the House of Representatives this summer by a vote of 410 to Page 94 | cHaPter twentY-two | PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON
Slide 101: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet file. Many issue groups and candidates are already using social networking sites. Check out Morton Blackwell on Friendster. Morton is a political conservative who runs the Leadership Institute. He’s been a Friendster member since December 2004! Ultimately, political efforts need activists and money, and social networking Web sites have the potential to help you find both. Ask yourself how a social networking outreach program can be an effective way to meet your goals. Make sure you schedule enough time to monitor the content! Find someone who meets some of the general demographics to help create and maintain the page. Promote it aggressively in your current online efforts. Even if your built-in constituency has not made the leap to online social networking sites you should consider it. Maybe they are still hanging out at church picnics and PTA meetings. If this is the case, then consider using online tools that enhance your offline efforts, such as printable talking points or maps to the nearest polling location. Did you know? As of this writing, the Right Brothers MySpace page (http:/ / www.MySpace.com/therightbrothers) received about 8,696 page views and had garnered 824 friends. While these seem like good numbers, compare them to the numbers of another band, the outspoken, left-leaning group Dixie Chicks, which has received over 1.5 million page views and 78,911 friends. This does not mean that MySpace users are unfriendly to conservative bands or causes. Rather, it shows how a relatively unknown group is gaining popularity. The Right Brothers are relatively new – on the music scene and on MySpace. It shows you what kind of numbers to expect with a start-up effort, compared to an older, internationally-known, and commercially successful group. Political efforts need activists and money, and social networking Web sites have the potential to help you find both. Ask yourself how a social networking outreach program can be an effective way to meet your goals. The Right Brothers: Making Music Political Again The question, then, is can political activists with ideas to sell – and campaigns and committees with candidates to elect – use sites like MySpace to accomplish those goals? The answer appears to be yes. This is perhaps more true for independent efforts, and it helps if you can play a guitar and sing. Music is one of the biggest parts of social networking Web sites. Why? Because many people on these sites describe themselves by listing their favorite bands and types of music. They play their favorite songs on their profiles for you to enjoy. If you’re surfing MySpace from your office cubicle, it might be wise to turn the volume down! However, conservative groups have already started to have some success on these sites combining political beliefs with entertainment. The best example is the Right Brothers, a Nashville, The Right Brothers’ MySpace page The Dixie Chicks’ MySpace page PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | cHaPter twentY-two | Page 95
Slide 102: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet TN music group that recorded an entire album of songs devoted to conservative views in 2004. But the story didn’t begin on MySpace. It started on another site, RightMarch.com. In January 2004, RightMarch posted a Right Brothers song, Hey Hollywood, on its Web site, and in 72 hours it received 15,000 downloads. It generated a tremendous amount of e-mail traffic to the Right Brothers. The band thought the timing was favorable for a rightwing album of political tunes. RightMarch continued to post songs from their album, and in February 2005 the Right Brothers released its second album. However, the Right Brothers movement didn’t break into the mainstream until September 2005 when the Right Brothers distributed Bush Was Right on its Web site (therightbrothers.com). Air America, Fox News, and talk shows across the country played the song. In March of 2006, the Right Brothers built their first MySpace profile. Bands like the Right Brothers use their profiles to enhance their online and offline presence, and to build their fan base. Here are some lessons you can incorporate from the Right Brothers profile: • Draw people to your Web site. – The Right Brothers put their official band Web site front and center, and they draw people to it through pictures of their album cover and requests to visit the Right Brothers store. Once on their official site, fans can take polls, read an expanded news section, and buy things. • Alert people to events. – The Right Brothers also display their concert schedule front and center on both their MySpace profile and their official band site. And they reinforce concert appearances by talking about them on their MySpace blog. Bands like the Right Brothers (or individuals like you and me, for that matter) can use MySpace to send bulletins announcing appearances to their network of friends. You can be like the band and do the same with political events, fundraisers, rallies, house parties, and even Election Day. • Set community rules. – The Right Brothers ask their friends not to use vulgarity when they post comments, which keeps the site family friendly. You can set the tone of dialogue on your social networking profile. And, remember that almost all sites give you control over comments, so if you don’t like something, you don’t have to post it. • Expand your e-mail list. – The Right Brothers ask people to sign up for their e-mail list, and they put a signup form on their profile. They also assure people that their e-mail addresses will not be shared with third parties. • Download songs. – Fans can download and listen to a selection of Right Brothers songs. Consider doing the same with podcasts and YouTube-style video footage. Conclusion Bottom line: social networking sites are hot this very minute, so if you can get there quickly and use them effectively, then your presence has the potential to inexpensively help your candidate or advocacy group identify and target potential supporters and activists. But remember: MySpace is just a big online Mardi Gras. Sometimes, if you expose yourself immodestly, you get some worthless baubles but nothing lasting. So use the tools to enhance what you already have – a community of supporters and donors – and not to become the kid with the most bead necklaces! MySpace is just a big online Mardi Gras. Sometimes, if you expose yourself immodestly, you get some worthless baubles but nothing lasting. Page 96 | cHaPter twentY-two | PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON
Slide 103: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet MEET THE AUTHORS eric d. alterman Founder, Chairman and CEO, KickApps Eric Alterman is a founder of numerous software, telecommunications and semiconductor technology ventures, including MeshNetworks (acquired by Motorola in 2005), Military Commercial Technologies, TeraNex, and SkyCross. In 1997 Eric founded and operated MILCOM, a venture accelerator company that formed a number of venturebacked companies based on technologies licensed from military contractors like Lockheed Martin, ITT, and Raytheon. Other companies include Quadfore, Centerpoint Broadband Technologies, Triton Network Systems, TelAsic and Theseus Logic. Eric was also the founder of JED Broadcasting, a Northwest radio broadcasting company, and New Brand Agency Group, a publishing company based in New York City. He began his career as an attorney, and he worked in a variety of areas, including licensing and securities, for Akin, Gump, Hauer and Strauss in Washington, DC. Eric graduated from Tufts University and the Washington College of Law as a member of the Law Review. developed the online strategy and managed Internet operations for President Bush’s re-election campaign. He served in a similar capacity with the Republican National Committee during the 2002 Election. The campaign has been widely recognized for its pioneering grassroots activism tools with Party for the President, organizing neighborhood walks online and e-mailing maps and directions to the polls to millions of supporters. DeFeo spent much of his career serving as a legislative and technology aide to Senator and Attorney General John Ashcroft, from creating the first online petition for a member of Congress in 1996 to working to set up the CIO’s office for the Department of Justice. He has also assisted numerous Congressional, Senate, State, and Presidential candidates with their online strategies. DeFeo currently serves as a contributing editor for Personal Democracy Forum and is a member of MeetUp. com’s Politics and Governance Advisory Council. colin delany Founder and Chief Editor, epolitics.com chuck defeo General Manager, Townhall.com Chuck DeFeo has been an innovator in using the Internet and new technologies to increase participation in the political process for over a decade. As general manager for Townhall.com, he works to move conservative talk radio listeners online and be a part of Townhall’s growing conservative online community. Prior to joining Salem, DeFeo served as e-campaign manager for Bush-Cheney ‘04, where he Colin Delany is founder and chief editor of epolitics.com, a site that focuses on the tools and tactics of Internet politics and online political advocacy. He cut his political teeth in the early ‘90s in the Texas Capitol (where politics is considered a contact sport), helped launch an e-mail-based legislative alert system in 1996, and co-founded PoliticalInformation.com, a targeted search engine for politics and policy, in 1999. After riding the initial round of ‘net-political startups into inevitable oblivion during the first Internet boom and bust, Delany worked as a designer and communications consultant to help dozens of PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | | cHaPter twentY-two PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON aUtHor BiograPHies | Page 97
Slide 104: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet advocacy campaigns promote themselves in the digital world. In 2003, he was brought in as online communications manager at the National Environmental Trust, where he runs a number of advocacy sites in addition to NET.org. He also plays bass in a rock and roll band. Brad fay Chief Operating Officer, Keller Fay Group Brad previously served as managing director at RoperASW and NOP World, where he supervised a variety of business units, including Roper Public Affairs, Starch Communications, Financial Services, Technology, Media and Omnibus Services. During his tenure at Roper and NOP World, Brad launched numerous market and opinion research products and methods, including the Fortune/Roper Reputation Index™; Green Gauge™; Cone/Roper Cause Branding Report™; Newsflow™, and PharmaNewsflow™. He also led the effort to introduce new “return on investment” tools into the Starch Ad Readership methodology. In 2005, Brad led the R&D effort for development of “Category Influentialism” for NOP World, co-led the company’s word of mouth marketing initiative and served as member of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association’s Research & Metrics Council. Quoted on NBC Nightly News and in publications including The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, Fortune, Advertising Age, PR Week, and PR News, Brad was formerly editor of Roper’s Public Pulse newsletter and a columnist in AMA’s Market Research magazine. His articles have appeared in publications including Public Perspectives and Pharmaceutical Executive, and in papers at industry conferences for the Advertising Research Foundation, Word of Mouth Marketing Association, and American Association of Public Opinion Research. Brad is a member of the Communications Council of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, and he lectures about survey research at the Rutger’s University Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy. program manager for international initiatives in Korea, Ukraine, Haiti, and the United States. Julie is a founding member of Young Champions, a nonprofit that works with youth health issues. She served as the principal author and editor of the Institute’s The Politics-to-Go Handbook: A Guide to Using Mobile Technology in Politics and The Political Consultants’ Online Fundraising Primer and co-authored Putting Online Influentials to Work for Your Campaign and Under the Radar and Over the Top: Independently Produced Political Web Videos in the 2004 Campaign. As an undergraduate, she studied Literature, Philosophy, and Classics at Messiah College. Julie also studied at Keble College, Oxford University, as well as in Edinburgh, Scotland. She was a Pew Younger Scholar of Literature at the University of Notre Dame. In 2003, she received an M.A. from The George Washington University, where she was a University Fellow. Joe green Founder and CEO, Essembly.com Julie Barko germany Deputy Director, Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet Julie Germany is the Deputy Director of the Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet. Before coming to the Institute, Julie served as the assistant to the president of Rome Foundation International, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing health care in emerging countries. She has previously worked as a writer, editor, and Joe Green is the founder and CEO of essembly. com, the first social networking site devoted to nonpartisan political discussion and action. Essembly hopes to become a platform for all types of political dialog and to provide the tools of political organization to every American. He is also currently completing his senior year at Harvard College, majoring in Social Studies. While at Harvard, Joe was an early collaborator on facebook.com, which was started by his roommate Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook is the dominant social networking site for college students, and the 7th most trafficked site on the Internet. Joe also served on the Curricular Review Committee while at Harvard and was featured in the book Harvard Rules. He was the chair of the Harvard Political Union, and wrote his honors thesis on the politics of white working class men, for which he conducted extensive interviews in Louisville, KY. Joe has worked on four political campaigns. He interned on L.A. United, the campaign to keep the San Fernando Valley from seceding his first summer of college, and for John Kerry in the primary in New Hampshire the next summer. He took a semester off from school in 2004 to work as a field organizer for John Kerry in Northwestern Arizona, including a precinct that went Bush 678, Kerry 1. He spent the last two weeks on the campaign managing GOTV for Southern Las Vegas and Henderson. While at school and in Santa Monica, Joe worked on the campaign to elect Julia Brownley to the California Assembly. Joe was born in 1983, was raised in Santa Mon- Page 98 | aUtHor BiograPHies | PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON
Slide 105: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet ica, CA, and attended the public schools. He first became interested in politics while serving on the Santa-Monica Malibu Board of Education. william greene, Ph.d. Founder and President, RightMarch.com Dr. William Greene is founder and president of RightMarch.com, an online conservative organization formed as a “rapid response force” to enable its members to take effective action against activities by online liberal groups like MoveOn.org. RightMarch has been responsible for over four million activist messages sent from conservatives to Congress, the President, and other leaders. He heads up the RightMarch.com PAC as well, which targets federal races where they can support staunch movement conservatives against liberal Republicans and Democrats. Greene is also president of Strategic Internet Campaign Management, Inc. (SICM.com - pronounced “sic ‘em”), an online political consulting firm that enables organizations and candidates to harness the power of the Internet for fundraising and grassroots activism. In 2004, Greene’s firm was instrumental in raising nearly half a million dollars online in less than three months for the upstart U.S. Senate candidacy of Dr. Alan Keyes in Illinois, and in 2005, his firm was responsible for raising over a quarter of a million dollars for the Terri Schindler-Schiavo Foundation. In its April, 2002 issue, Campaigns and Elections magazine, the trade publication for political professionals, featured Greene as one of its “Rising Stars In Politics,” and in 2005 SICM received a “Pollie Award” from the American Association of Political consultants; he is also listed in Who’s Who In America, and his organization has been a Politics Online “Golden Dot Award” nominee for several years running. The Washington Times called Greene a “conservative Internet guru.” dian,” “published economist,” and “activist agitator,” Hlinko specializes in speeches that entertain, inform and motivate at the same time. Hlinko has received numerous awards for his work and been covered by a range of media, including all the major broadcast TV networks, CNN, Fox, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and many others. He has also been featured as a grassroots expert in numerous books, including “Power Public Relations” and “Getting Your 15 Minutes of Fame and More.” Hlinko has appeared on television numerous times as a grassroots expert, including on CNN’s “Crossfire.” In recognition of his work, the American Association of Political Consultants awarded him its prestigious “Rookie of the Year” Pollie, an award for excellence in public affairs. Recently, he was named by PRWeek as one of five finalists for 2006 “PR Professional of the Year.” Heather Holdridge Director of Political Advocacy, Care2 John Hlinko VP of Marketing and Creative Engagement, Grassroots Enterprise Heather Holdridge serves as the director of political advocacy for Care2, the largest online progressive community with over 5 million members. She is working to connect Care2’s audience to nonprofits doing political work and campaigns in 2006. Care2’s members are interested in leading healthy lives and making a difference in the world, supporting progressive advocacy on issues as varied as women’s rights, environmental issues, human rights, animal rights, and consumer issues, among others. Prior to Care2, Heather was a partner and Online Organizing Director for the Carol/Trevelyan Strategy Group, working with clients across the progressive spectrum to develop online campaigns and communications strategies. She specialized in customizing content for the Web, and working to develop viral interactive media. Her work included the development and growth of the Creative Multimedia department at CTSG, including executive producer and co-writer for media that have won Pollie awards and the popular Republican Survivor series for the DCCC in 2004. Long recognized as an innovator on the grassroots engagement front, John Hlinko is the Vice President of Marketing and Creative Engagement with Grassroots Enterprise, a public affairs consulting firm in Washington, DC. He was the founder of “DraftWesleyClark.com,” the movement to draft General Clark for President, and is the leader of “ActForLove.org,” a dating site for activists. In recent years, Hlinko has become a highly sought-after speaker on the subjects of Internet activism and creative “buzz building.” Drawing on a diverse background that includes “stand-up come- valdis krebs Management Consultant and Developer, InFlow Valdis is a management consultant, researcher, trainer, author, and the developer of InFlow software for social and organizational network analysis [SNA/ONA]. InFlow maps and measures knowledge exchange, information flow, emergent communities, networks of alliances, and other connections within and between organizations and communities. Since 1988, Valdis has participated in over 400 SNA/ONA projects. PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | aUtHor BiograPHies | Page 99
Slide 106: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet Clients such as IBM Global Services, TRW, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, Aventis, Solvay, Cardinal Health, Annie E. Casey Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, Barr Foundation, Centers for Disease Control [CDC], ACENet, Scottish Enterprise, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, Jaakko Poyry, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Booz-Allen & Hamilton, KPMG, University of Michigan Business School, Naval Postgraduate School, CapitalOne, Target, Sempra Energy, Lucent Technologies, Hiram Walker, Shell, various government offices, and hundreds of independent consultants use his software and services to map and measure networks, flows, and relationships in organizations, communities, and other complex human systems. Valdis is an often quoted expert on network analysis and network weaving. His work has been covered in major media including Business Week, Discover Magazine, Business 2.0, New York Times Magazine, Fast Company, CNN, Entrepreneur, First Monday, Optimize Magazine, Training, PC, ZDNet, O’Reilly Network, Knowledge Management, Across the Board, HR Executive, Personnel Journal, Forbes, FORTUNE, CIO Magazine, MSNBC.com, HR.com, Release 1.0, several major newspapers around the world including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, Cleveland Plain Dealer, USA Today, Washington Post, and Associated Press. Krebs is also quoted in dozens of books, many of which have reprinted his network maps. Valdis has undergraduate degrees in Mathematics & Computer Science and a graduate degree in Organizational Behavior/Human Resources and has studied applied Artificial Intelligence. He has given invited talks on organizational networks at UCLA School of Public Policy and The Anderson School of Management, Michigan State University School of Labor and Industrial Relations, Weatherhead School of Management - Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland State University, University of Michigan Business School, Kellogg School of Management - Northwestern University, and the University of Latvia. Before starting his own business, Valdis held various HR management positions at Disney, TRW, Toyota, and Ford. Valdis works from his office in Cleveland, Ohio with a network of colleagues in the USA, Canada, and Europe. est corporation in the United States. Mike combines an expertise in blog communications and direct marketing with a background in grassroots political organizing. Before coming to Edelman, Mike was the Political Director of American Target Advertising, a full-service creative direct response marketing agency where he helped companies and organizations develop and use technology to enhance traditional fundraising and advocacy programs. Mike is the co-founder of RedState.org (http:/ / www.redstate.org), a Republican community blog. Mike is also a Director of the RedState.org Corporation, a political committee registered with the Federal Election Commission. He has been a blogger since 2001, and in that capacity testified before the FEC last year on the regulation of political speech on the Internet and became one of the first bloggers called to offer expert testimony before a Committee in the House of Representatives. He is the co-founder of The Online Coalition (http:/ /www.onlinecoalition.com), a bipartisan association of bloggers and online professionals formed earlier in 2005 to support freedom of speech and political participation online. Mike is a frequent lecturer at technology and Internet seminars. chris Macdonald EVP Business Development and Operations, Liberated Syndication (Libsyn), President, Loud Results, parent company of IndieFeed Networks, Co-Founder and General Counsel, Association of Music Podcasting Mike krempasky Vice President, Edelman Mike Krempasky joined Edelman in August 2005 as Vice President, focusing on Internet strategy and communications, marketing, and advocacy for Edelman clients. He was responsible for the development and launch of the first blog for the larg- Chris MacDonald has been deep in podcasting since releasing IndieFeed Networks in September 2004. A former rich media e-mail and streaming media executive, today Chris’ IndieFeed project boasts the highest collective download rate for music podcasts, with 750,000 unique downloads per month, and consistent rankings on the iTunes top 100 list. At Loud Results, Chris has advised corporate business executives, Washington-based politicians, and PR firms on effective ways to harness podcasting as a mix within communication initiatives. Chris recently joined the management team at Libsyn to help the premier podcast host and solutions provider become even more successful, with a focused emphasis toward new user services and enterprise solutions. nicco Mele CEO, EchoDitto Born in West Africa to Foreign Service parents, Page 100 | aUtHor BiograPHies | PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON
Slide 107: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet Nicco Mele, CEO of EchoDitto, was Governor Howard Dean’s presidential campaign webmaster and is a leading Internet strategist. Nicco has broad experience working with NGOs and non-profits, including as webmaster at Common Cause and at the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, in addition to his time as producer of the Shadow Conventions Web site and live streaming webcasts during the 2000 presidential election cycle. As part of Gov. Dean’s presidential campaign, Nicco managed all the technical, functional and design aspects of Gov. Dean’s national Web presence including online advertising and fundraising implementation. In December of 2003, he was named one of America’s “best and brightest” by Esquire magazine. Nicco has been a panelist at conferences for the Word of Mouth Marketing Association; the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet; and Harvard University’s Berkman Center and John F. Kennedy School of Government. support the issues. Prior to joining Care2, Justin worked at the Center for Technology and National Security Policy, a think tank at the National Defense University, where he led an assessment of over 40 government to private-sector technology transfer Web sites, developed a methodology for government science and technology research budget analysis combining text-mining of peer-reviewed Science & Technology article databases and the Delphi Method, and co-authored a book about leveraging the power of people and technological networks in high-stakes, high pressure environments. Justin was also involved in catalyzing the launch of several social ventures: WorldBlu, Afrique Profonde, InMomenta, and Abavuki, and holds a dual degree in History and World Perspectives with an emphasis on International Development, as well as an MBA from the University of Colorado with a focus on Marketing and Organizational Development. riki Parikh Researcher, Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet Zack rosen Co-founder and Executive Director, CivicSpace Foundation Riki Parikh is junior at the George Washington University, majoring in political science with a minor in international affairs. He is also editor-inchief of GW’s daily, online student newspaper, The Daily Colonial, which he helped create in 2004, and has worked with Mark Warner’s Forward Together PAC. Riki has an interest in both journalism and politics and specializes in online media. He has also worked with Stephen Hess from the Brookings Institution on his update to the 1981 book “Washington Reporters,” which was a comprehensive survey of the most elite beat in journalism. Zack created the “DeanSpace” project in 2003 during his summer break from the University of Illinois. He then took a job at the Howard Dean presidential campaign head-quarters to work as a webdeveloper and technical volunteer coordinator. He was responsible for servicing the web-technology needs of the state campaign offices, constituency groups, and grassroots Web developers. He is now the Co-Founder and Executive Director of the CivicSpace Foundation (civicspacelabs.org). alan J. rosenblatt, Ph.d Justin Perkins Executive Director, Internet Advocacy Center Business Development Manager, Care2 Justin Perkins, a social entrepreneur and former state water resources administrator for a major watershed in Colorado, joined Care2 in January 2006 as Business Development Manager, a role in which Justin supports Care2’s non-profit services team and non-profits with marketing strategy and project implementation. Care2’s 6 million members are interested in leading healthy lives and making a difference in the world, supporting progressive advocacy on issues as varied as women’s rights, environmental issues, human rights, animal rights, and consumer issues, among others. Among other things, Justin manages and edits the FrogLoop Web site and newsletter, as well as Care2’s new project, www.movingideas.org, a site for the public to gain in-depth exposure to progressive issues from the 190-plus Moving Ideas non-profit members that Alan J. Rosenblatt, Ph.D. is the Executive Director of the Internet Advocacy Center and a long-time veteran in the field of e-politics. He is a frequent lecturer and has published many articles on cyberpolitics. He provides strategic consulting, training, and research services related to politics, advocacy, and governance in the digital age. He is an Adjunct Professor at American University’s School of Communication, where he teaches a course called Internet Advocacy Communications. Prior to launching the Internet Advocacy Center, Dr. Rosenblatt served as Director of Training Programs at e-advocates, an Internet advocacy firm affiliated with Capitol Advantage, maker of Capwiz, from 2003 to 2005. As Director of Training Programs, he trained public affairs professionals how to use the Internet to achieve their public policy goals, provided e-advocacy strategy consulting and PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | aUtHor BiograPHies | Page 101
Slide 108: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet management services, as well as developed new business opportunities for the firm. From 2001 to 2003, Dr. Rosenblatt served as Vice President for Online Advocacy Services at Stateside Associates. He was responsible for creating and managing the first practice in the nation exclusively devoted to using the Internet as a tool to shape state and local public policy. He also wrote The Online Advocate, a monthly newsletter on Internet advocacy strategy. In 1997, Dr. Rosenblatt was part of the core team that founded Media Bureau Networks (MBN), a streaming media industry leader based in Philadelphia. Under his project management as Washington Bureau Chief, MBN Webcasted live coverage from the 2000 Republican and Democratic presidential nominating conventions. As part of MBN’s coverage, Dr. Rosenblatt wrote Questions You Should Ask, one of the first-ever Blogs from a Presidential Convention. With programming that included live interviews with the Reverend Jerry Falwell, George P. Bush, Steve Forbes, Jr., and Ted Nugent, MBN was featured in Time magazine, as well as on ABC’s Nightline, WashingtonPost.com, and in major newspapers around the nation. Dr. Rosenblatt served on the Government and Politics faculty at George Mason University for nine years, where he was one of the very first in the nation to introduce the study of Internet politics to university students. He started teaching The Politics of Cyberspace in the spring of 1995 – less than a year after Netscape first brought the World Wide Web to the masses – and taught the course for six years. Dr. Rosenblatt has a B.A. in Political Science and Philosophy from Tufts University, an M.A. in Political Science from Boston College, and a Ph.D. in Political Science from American University. He lives in Northern Virginia with his wife, Faith Connolly, Ph.D. founded CarPoint, one of Microsoft’s most successful consumer businesses. He received his MBA in marketing from the Wharton School in 1991 after spending several years doing business consulting work in china. Gideon is a partner in Seattle Social Venture Partners, where he is active in strengthening ties between Seattle-area venture philanthropists and the region’s environmental community. He and his wife, CJ, live in Seattle with their two sons, who were the primary motivation behind Gideon’s decision to leave the business world and focus his energies on ensuring a healthy natural world for future generations. carl rosendorf President and COO, Gather.com gideon rosenblatt Executive Director, ONE/Northwest Carl Rosendorf, President & COO of Gather. com, has been actively involved in the Internet space since 1994. At Gather, Carl’s responsibilities include marketing, business development, editorial, ad sales and customer service. Prior to Gather.com, Carl was CEO of SmartBargains.com from 2001-2005. SmartBargains is an online retailer of off-price merchandise. During Carl’s tenure, SmartBargains received industry recognition as one of the top 50-ecommerce sites. Prior to SmartBargains, Carl was Executive Vice President of Barnes & Noble.com from 1997-2001. Carl was instrumental in transforming Barnes & Noble from a bricks and mortar retailer into a multichannel retailer with a strong Web presence. While at Barnes & Noble.com, Carl was named by AdAge Magazine to the list of 1998 Digital Masters. It was in 1994 as one of the founders of Cybersmith, an Internet café company, that Carl first became an Internet entrepreneur. By bringing emerging Web and interactive technologies to the general public, Cybersmith received international attention. Prior to 1994, Carl was in the college bookstore industry for over 20 years. Carl lives in Weston, grew up in the Boston area and received a political science degree from American University, Washington D.C. Gideon Rosenblatt is executive director of ONE/Northwest, a Seattle-based non-profit that uses technology to connect and engage people and organizations in order to protect the environment of the Pacific Northwest. ONE/Northwest has just completed a strategic plan to guide its work over the next five years that draws heavily from conclusions of the Movement as Network model. Before joining ONE/Northwest, Gideon held a variety of senior management positions in marketing and product development over the course of ten years at Microsoft. While there he pioneered some of the company’s earliest work on the Internet and Phil sheldon President, Diener Consultants, Inc. Diener Consultants provides ideas and implementation to the conservative movement. Phil wants no politician’s seat but all of their ears hearts and minds. Phil crammed four years into six in getting his AB from Johns Hopkins University in 1983. Page 102 | aUtHor BiograPHies | PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON
Slide 109: institUte for Politics, deMocracY & tHe internet Michael silberman Director and Senior Strategist, Echo Ditto Michael Silberman is the Director and Senior Strategist at Echo Ditto. He managed the Dean campaign’s hugely successful Meetup operation in over 1,200 cities worldwide. He speaks frequently on the effective use of technology for converting online activity into real-world action. Michael managed grassroots field organizing and leadership development programs for Dean’s renowned activist base, and he implemented an innovative communication strategy that kept thousands of grassroots leaders engaged and directly connected to the national headquarters. Michael also gained valuable organizing and political experience at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and in the Clinton White House at the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). ravi singh CEO and Founder, ElectionMall Technologies Ravi Singh is CEO and founder of ElectionMall Technologies, Inc., a non-partisan technology solutions firm that provides citizens, candidates, and political parties with the necessary online tools, services, and products to help them win elections via the Internet. Ravi has a Bachelors of Science from Valparaiso University and a Masters in Political Science from Northwestern University. He is a member of the EAPC (European Association of Political Consultants), IAPC (International), and AAPC (American). Singh has authored two books: Leadership by Turban and 101 Secret Ways of Winning Campaigns Online. Singh currently resides in Washington, D.C and Los Angeles. Mara veraar Online Communication Manager, Democracyinaction.org. Mara received an M.A. from American University’s Anthropology department, where she studied emerging trends in online communication and advocacy. Her professional experience includes several years within the non-profit sector using eactivism for causes such as public health, electoral campaigns and the environment. Currently, she acts as Online Communication Manager for Democracyinaction.org. PERSON-TO-PERSON-TO-PERSON | aUtHor BiograPHies | Page 103
Slide 112: The Institute for Politics Democracy & the Internet The Graduate School of Political Management The George Washington University 805 21st St., NW, Suite 401 Washington, DC 20052 1.800.367.4776 toll free ipdi@ipdi.org InstItute for PolItIcs Democracy & the Internet www.IPDI.org T H E G E O R G E WA S H I N G T O N U N I V E R S I T Y THE OF G R A D UAT E S C H O O L POLITICAL MANAGEMENT