jolee's blog

Personal Democracy Forum - Meet the Masters of Politics and the Internet

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 22:34:41 -0800

I’ve been to this conference for a number of years and I can not recommend it highly enough. It was at this conference that I developed an amazing network of talented folks in this industry that continue to inspire me and provide support and guidance for CitizenSpeak.

The conference will take place June 3-4 in NYC. Speakers will include: Craig Newmark of craigslist.org, Ariana Huffington, Eli Pariser from Moveon.org, Howard Rheingold - the author of Smart Mobs, Virtual Communities, Jimmy Wales - the founder of Wikipedia and many more.

For more info: http://bit.ly/4PaCh7

CitizenSpeak Goes Pecha Kucha

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 15:52:43 -0700

Looking forward to presenting CitizenSpeak at the upcoming Pecha Kucha in Providence this Wednesday at Bravo Brasserie Restaurant. If your a CitizenSpeak user and a Rhodie, please come. It would be great to meet you.

Viva the Green

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 07:47:55 -0700

Hi Everyone:

For those of you who are following and supporting the Green resistance movement in Iran, feel free to participate in the CitizenSpeak campaign, “Call for immediate response to the crisis in Iran,” by Concerned Citizens of the World at http://citizenspeak.org/node/1650

Also, I highly recommend Daily Kos coverage of the protests. In addition to covering the role that the Internet and social media is playing, it is also providing insight into the players in the protest, i.e. unions, civic organizations…

Feel free to post your thoughts!

Thanks, Jo

Sorry about the inconvenience

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 21:13:09 -0700

Hi Everyone:

Sorry that the site went down. For some reason I had to repoint the domain name servers. All is now well.

Despite the fact that this is a free site, this is the only time that CitizenSpeak has been down for a over a day.

Once again, sorry about the inconvenience. Let the campaigning resume!

Thanks, Jo

GiveList -

Sat, 27 Dec 2008 12:08:14 -0800

Hi Everyone:

You may not have the $$ to make that end of year donation but you can still make the world a better place without opening your wallet.

Givelist (http://givelist.wordpress.com/) is a great site that aggregates ideas of ways that people can give to causes this holiday season that don’t require a donation. Here are some examples:

Donate your frequent flier miles to families of soldiers so they can visit them during the holidays.
Adopt a senior to shovel their walk this winter.
Send a note to someone who works for a nonprofit and thank them for what they do.
Record a video about a cause that’s meaningful to you and post it on YouTube.

Join the GiveList party, send your favorite ideas, vote on them, share them with your friends and family. It’s a great way to end the year.

GiveList -

Sat, 27 Dec 2008 12:08:14 -0800

Hi Everyone:

You may not have the $$ to make that end of year donation but you can still make the world a better place without opening your wallet.

Givelist (http://givelist.wordpress.com/) is a great site that aggregates ideas of ways that people can give to causes this holiday season that don’t require a donation. Here are some examples:

Donate your frequent flier miles to families of soldiers so they can visit them during the holidays.
Adopt a senior to shovel their walk this winter.
Send a note to someone who works for a nonprofit and thank them for what they do.
Record a video about a cause that’s meaningful to you and post it on YouTube.

Join the GiveList party, send your favorite ideas, vote on them, share them with your friends and family. It’s a great way to end the year.

GiveList -

Sat, 27 Dec 2008 12:08:14 -0800

Hi Everyone:

You may not have the $$ to make that end of year donation but you can still make the world a better place without opening your wallet.

Givelist (http://givelist.wordpress.com/) is a great site that aggregates ideas of ways that people can give to causes this holiday season that don’t require a donation. Here are some examples:

Donate your frequent flier miles to families of soldiers so they can visit them during the holidays.
Adopt a senior to shovel their walk this winter.
Send a note to someone who works for a nonprofit and thank them for what they do.
Record a video about a cause that’s meaningful to you and post it on YouTube.

Join the GiveList party, send your favorite ideas, vote on them, share them with your friends and family. It’s a great way to end the year.

GiveList - end the year on a feel good note

Sat, 27 Dec 2008 12:08:14 -0800

Hi Everyone:

You may not have the $$ to make that end of year donation but you can still make the world a better place without opening your wallet.

Givelist (http://givelist.wordpress.com/) is a great site that aggregates ideas of ways that people can give to causes this holiday season that don’t require a donation. Here are some examples:

Donate your frequent flier miles to families of soldiers so they can visit them during the holidays.
Adopt a senior to shovel their walk this winter.
Send a note to someone who works for a nonprofit and thank them for what they do.
Record a video about a cause that’s meaningful to you and post it on YouTube.

Join the GiveList party, send your favorite ideas, vote on them, share them with your friends and family. It’s a great way to end the year.

Philly Mayor Nutter to attend victory event for campaign CitizenSpeak helped kick-off

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 20:55:30 -0800

Hi Everyone:

If you’re in the Philly area this Wednesday, come enjoy holiday refreshments and live music by “The Great Unknown” as Mayor Michael Nutter screens the short film “Free the River Park at City Hall.”

Produced by Evolve, the movie tells the inspiring story of how Philadelphia neighbors won over CSX Railroad to gain at grade access to Schuykill River Park.

And like a number of successful community struggles, the Schuykill River Park hard-won victory began with a CitizenSpeak campaign. Click on the case study link at the top of this page to learn how these neighborhood activists used CitizenSpeak to build awareness and grow their lists.

Here are the party details:
Date: Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Time: 5:30pm - 7:00pm
Location: Mayor’s Conversation Hall 2nd Floor of City Hall, Philadelphia, PA

It will also be the premier of the short film, “Know Your City Hall.”

Enjoy!

Fired Up and Ready to Go

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 06:56:42 -0800

Here’s to a new day in America! Viva Obama!

Help Make Every Vote Count with Twitter Vote Report

Mon, 03 Nov 2008 13:33:47 -0800

On November 4th 2008, millions of Americans will go to over 200,000 distinct voting locations. Some voters will have a terrific experience, and others will experience the same problems we have been hearing about for years - long lines, broken machines, inaccurate voting rolls, and others will experience problems that we haven’t heard about before.

That’s why a new citizen-driven election monitoring system called Twitter Vote Report (www.twittervotereport.com) was just launched. Using either Twitter.com, iPhone, direct SMS, or our telephone hotlines, voters will have a new way to share their experiences with one another and ensure that the media and watchdog groups are aware of any problems.

And YOU can help! Be a citizen journalist! Easily submit a report about conditions at your polling place. To learn how, go to www.twittervotereport.com. And please help to spread the word — send this to everyone you know!

Happy voting!
Jo

Bowling with My.BarackObama.com

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 19:45:48 -0700

I just got back from the Personal Democracy Forum - a conference on politics and the Internet. Much of the conference was spent swooning over My.BarackObama.com - Obama's social networking site extrordinaire. However, many criticized the site for perpetuating a traditional power relationship where policy ideas flow down but not up the food chain.Few saw it as a vehicle for citizens to actually shape Obama's political platform.

No doubt this assumption is right. But perhaps the real value of My.BarackObama is the fact that citizens are using the site to engage with one another often face-to-face - interactions that could trigger future organizing efforts around local issues and a more civic-minded citizenry.

In Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam warns that civic disengagement threatens democracy by weakening the bonds that tie us together. Detached from our communities, increasingly fearful of others, we've become a nation that cares more about protecting our personal possessions rather than our collective rights and aspirations.

CauseCaller.com - Cool New Activist Tool

Tue, 06 May 2008 09:14:35 -0700

If you love voice over the Internet and activist tools than you are going to LOVE CauseCaller.com - a free and easy way to empower supporters to call representatives on behalf of a cause.

Like CitizenSpeak, CauseCaller users create an account, and a campaign that generates a URL specific to their cause. At this page, supporters are asked to enter their own numbers where upon the application immediately calls them and then places the call through to the targeted representative.

Supporters are able to speak to reps with a script right in front of them. Pretty darn ingenious.

The only downfall is that as far as I can tell, users aren’t able to capture names and phone numbers of supporters to build their lists. Maybe that will be available in a subsequent version.

In any event, CauseCaller makes for a great supplemental tool to CitizenSpeak. Now your supporters can choose to call or email targeted reps. What could be better?

Democracy is on the move!

Ring it ON at RingTones08.com - free site for posting and sharing ringtones about the 2008 election

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 07:32:09 -0700

Hi Everyone - for those of you who don’t know, I also run RingTones08.com - a free site for posting and sharing ringtones about the 2008 election. Given the huge youth voter turnout, ringtones are poised to be the bumper stickers of 2008.

Today we announced the new RingTones08 site. Please check her out. She’s a beauty at RingTone08.com

To learn more about the site, the logic behind it, and it’s origin story, please go to RINexus.com

Superdelegate Email Strategy

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 22:49:58 -0800

Check out what NBC’s political director said on last Sunday’s Meet the Press regarding superdelegates (the potential - missing chads of 08):

“(T)here’s going to be a weird role the Internet will play here. (People) will get their hands on … the superdelegate list. And you watch, there will be people in the DNC that have never gotten e-mail campaigns before against them, and they will get deluged… (Y)ou will start seeing crazy campaigns being organized by supporters of both Clinton and Obama that will just bombard these DNC members. And I think they’re going to get overwhelmed, and a lot of them are going to be, like Donna Brazile, “Stop. I don’t want to be a part of this.”

If you’re feeling a little crazy about making your vote count, feel free to use CitizenSpeak to let superdelegates know how you feel.

Happy Voting!