CitizenSpeak blogs

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!

RingTones08.com

Tue, 17 Jul 2007 11:08:54 -0700

We’re proud to announce RingTones08.com - the first site where people can create and share ringtones about the 2008 election. Ringtones can reflect any political persuasion and be about candidates, issues, “get out the vote”… Anything you desire as long as it in some remote way references the big 08. So, have some fun this summer. Flip a burger, down a beer and roll your own ringtone at RingTones08.com.

BTW: RingTones08.com is a joint Green Machine PR and Mobile Active production. So how is RingTones08 related to CitizenSpeak? Through me. In addition to being your humble CitizenSpeak servant, I’m also a partner at Green Machine PR. We specialize in growing clean-tech and hi-tech companies and on occasion launch new websites simply for the hell of it.

CitizenSpeak Campaign on MySpace

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 20:46:16 -0700

Hey Everyone: Check out the new CitizenSpeak case study. It’s about a CitizenSpeak campaign waged by the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles against the now infamous anti-immigration legislation HR4437. Some young staffers posted a link to the CitizenSpeak campaign on their MySpace pages and created a new wave of young supporters for the organizaiton. The case study is posted above under case studies (where else?)

CitizenSpeak at Tech Nonprofit Conference in DC April 3-5

Sun, 01 Apr 2007 19:33:27 -0700

If you’ve ever thought about going to a technology conference for nonprofits, this is the conference that you shouldn’t miss. It’s called the National Technology Conference and it’s organized by NTEN.org (don’t know what the acronym stands.) I totally recommend going if you can muster up the airfare. NTEN has always been a great membership organization for IT professionals in the nonprofit sector. Now it’s run by Katrin Verclas who gets better than anyone I know how to help nonprofits talk to and learn from one another’s IT experiences. I’ll be speaking at a panel on social networking and e-advocacy on April 4. I’ll also be accepting the $10K Pizzigati award for George Hotelling for his CitizenSpeak open source development work. If you’re around, please look me up. It would be great to meet you and hear about your campaigns.

Thanks, Jo

CitizenSpeak in the Providence Phoenix

Thu, 01 Feb 2007 06:14:19 -0800

Thanks to Erica Sargrans for her great article, “The new armies of the ‘net - Can pop technology ramp up public interest in politics?” It’s an extremely well researched article that provides a great overview of the past, present and future of net politics. We’re thrilled that CitizenSpeak is part of it. To read this article, please visit http://thephoenix.com/Article.aspx?id=32823&page=1

And thanks to Frank Mullin for taking a great picture of me, quite a coup since I am not what you’d call photogenic.

Seven Ways to Find Local Political Blogs

Mon, 08 Jan 2007 06:45:20 -0800

Check out this great blog post by Micah Sifry, co-founder of Personal Democracy Forum, to find out how to inform local political bloggers about your causes: http://www.personaldemocracy.com/node/1140
Enjoy!

Wall Street Journal Online Lists CitizenSpeak as Recommended Online Tool for Social Change

Wed, 29 Nov 2006 06:36:49 -0800

This week’s WSJ onlne column, “Recommended Reading” inludes a selection of resources, Web sites, books and online tools for leveraging technology for social change. CitizenSpeak is the second item on the list. Whoo hoo!!!! Who knew that the Wall Street Journal cared about social change?

The Providence Business News also ran an article on CitizenSpeak in this week’s edition. Thanks Natalie Myers for writing such a great article!

To see the entire WSJ article and other recommended tools, please go to http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB116370734687625444-lMyQjAxMDE2NjIzNzcyMDc3Wj.html

First MobileActive Strategy Guide Now Available

Mon, 16 Oct 2006 06:36:02 -0700

Mobile Active, a global network of organizations and individuals using mobile phones for activism and civic engagement, announced today the release of the MobileActive Strategy Guide - the first in a series investigating the use of mobiles in civil society. The guide is designed to equip organizations around the world with the know-how to deploy effective mobile campaigns for a variety of types of activism and advocacy. Other guides in the series will focus on issue advocacy, fundraising, humanitarian and disaster relief, and mobile organizing. You can download this strategy and pass it on to a friend at www.mobileactive.org.

Momentum - awesome book for using 21st tools for organizing and connecting people

Wed, 04 Oct 2006 11:25:55 -0700

I’d like to highly recommend a new book out called “Momentum - Igniting Social Change in the Connected Age.” Written by Alison Fine, founder of InnoNet, and with a forward by Joan Blades, co-founder of MoveOn, this book is a great tool for any organizer interested in developing a Web 2.0 communications strategy to get their voices heard. I’m proud to announce that the book includes a case study that I wrote about how the Schuylkill River used CitizenSpeak to take on a multinational railroad company. For those of you who have read the book - this group eventually won over this company.

TIDES FOUNDATION NAMES CITIZENSPEAK DEVELOPER WINNER OF NATION’S TOP PUBLIC INTEREST COMPUTING AWARD

Mon, 25 Sep 2006 08:22:57 -0700

Awesome news today: George Hotelling was named the first winner of the new annual $10,000 Pizzigati Prize. We were one of the 6 finalists. I figured we didn’t have a chance. The other finalists included:

1) the main developer for the CivicSpace (formerly DeanSpace) project which powers thousands of campaign and nonprofit sites
2) a developer for the Martus project, an open source human rights reporting software used worldwide and developed by Jim Fruchterman who just won a MacArthur Genius Award in large part for his Martus work

But, guess what???? CitizenSpeak WON!!!!! Whoohooooo!!!!! We’re soooo thrilled.

The award is for $10,000. $5,000 goes to George and $5,000 goes to CitizenSpeak.

Thanks to everyone that contributed to this development work and for your awesome campaigns!!!!

Kudos to Yearly Kos

Wed, 14 Jun 2006 07:19:23 -0700

There’s a great ope/ed in the New York Times today by Adam Cohen, called “Could a 15-Year-Old With a Laptop Be the New Campaign Media Guru?” about the Yealy Kos - the first annual convention for the Daily Kos blogosphere. The article talks about the importance of blogs in the shaping and dissemination of political news and messaging, the popularization of political advertising, and the 2004 proven effectiveness of netroots fundraising.

As a principal at Green Machine PR, I found the article to offer an interesting angle for one of my new PR clients, Mobile Voter. Cohen writes, “On Election Day 2008, voters could get video clipes on their laptops and cellphones from Beyonce, Springstein… targeted by geography or demographics… urging them to vote and telling them where to do it.” Mobile Active offers the first mobile phone based Get Out The Vote platform. The service is aimed at increasing the youth vote. I’m very interested to see what promotional advice I can glean from The Participatory Culture Foundation, a non profit group that presented on how ordinary people can make political videos and distribute them over the Internet.

CitizenSpeak - PoliticsOnline's Hot Site of the Week

Thu, 04 May 2006 11:20:39 -0700

CitizenSpeak was just named the Hot Site of the Week for PolitcsOnline. For those who don’t know this organization, you should. It’s great. They have by far and away the best weekly newsletter about online politics. It’s informative, well written and a quick read. What more could you ask for.

Check out the “hot site” blurb at http://www.politicsonline.com/content/main/hotsite/hotsite_display.asp?id=320