Join Me at South By Southwest Interactive

March 13-17, Austin will be buzzing with web and new media professionals and enthusiasts for the South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive conference, part of the entire SXSW festival which includes music and film and spans over a week of events.

I found out a couple of days ago that I will be leading a Core Conversation that I proposed a few months ago. It's entitled "Whitehouse.gov 2.0: Upgrading to Open Source Government." What that means is I'll be primarily operating in the role of facilitator for a discussion about how the new national administration can provide more open dialogue through new media and use of the Internet.

Here's how I described the session in my proposal: "The 2004 and 2008 campaigns' use of collaborative tools, blogs and social networking have shown citizen activism and online communities can wield powerful influence. In 2009, our challenge becomes how to harness these tools in order to reopen the policy-making process."

I hope to produce a report of the recommendations that come out of the discussion to submit to the new administration and I'm looking forward to getting as many people involved with this as possible. Please join me at SXSW in Austin!

The Internet President

Since Howard Dean's unprecedented fundraising success online in 2003, a lot of speculation has gone into how the technology of the Internet might transform politics and when we might have our first "Internet President." Over the course of the 2008 election, we witnessed a phenomenon that could never have occurred in the past as a little known senator harnessed the tools of technology to reach out to the masses, engaging us and giving us shared ownership of his national campaign. The Obama campaign was the likes of which we've never seen before, and because of their decisive mastery of the Internet, he not only won the presidency, but he won by a substantial margin.

In this election it was very clear that the Internet was a major force in helping Barack Obama win. Without it, he likely would not have secured the nomination or the presidency. His inspiring message of change resonated perfectly with the openness of the Internet and instead of just talking to one person in a small town who then used word of mouth to transport his message on the ground, he presented his message online as well, letting word ripple out across the country, building a huge wave.

Obama was able to do this via social networking tools and the most interactive political website built to date, along with online outreach through e-mail and and the blogosphere. Most importantly, the campaign was able to bridge the gap between online and ground level activism, fundraising through small donations and leveraging that money for expensive TV ad buys required to reach across the country to win big. It may never be possible to win a campaign entirely online, but Obama utilized a combination of traditional grassroots organizing and netroots tactics for success.

To understand why this was possible, it helps to understand the numbers - according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project report released early in the summer, we have nearly reached a point where the majority of American adults are using the Internet to learn about candidates and participate in elections. Merging that with Democratic voter demographics including a majority of youth and urban voters, we had an ideal online environment for a Democratic campaign to take the lead.

The McCain campaign in comparison, took more advantage of advanced Internet tools later in their campaign, admitting they were not targeting voters as actively that way because e-mail was still more successful in reaching their base online. In the Democratic primary race, the Clinton campaign held tightly onto traditional organizing methods rather than allowing for increased online techniques, which contributed to the campaign's demise. They did some impressive things through the Internet and new media, but without an infrastructure that embraced it in the way Obama's did, they were unable to sustain the same level of fundraising success or volunteer mobilization.

In an earlier article, I addressed what all of this means to the future of modern democracy in terms of open government by Obama, noting that our level of participation should expand drastically. Expect whitehouse.gov to look more like mybarackobama.com than the static website we've seen in the past, including a public comment area where the new president will invite feedback online for five days on any non-emergency legislation before he signs it into law. It signals the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Congratulations, Internet President Obama.

Originally posted at The Huffington Post, Off the Bus, November 5, 2008.

Seeking Votes for Proposed SXSW Panels

I have proposed the following panel for the South by Southwest Interactive conference in March...

Title:
Whitehouse.gov 2.0: Upgrading to Open Source Government

Summary:
The 2004 and 2008 campaigns' use of collaborative tools, blogs and social networking have shown citizen activism and online communities can wield powerful influence. In 2009, our challenge becomes how to harness these tools in order to reopen the policy-making process. Panel presentation followed by brainstorming session.

If you like the idea, please VOTE for it by Friday!

I really hope we can take the brainstorming session and turn it into a report to submit to the next presidential administration.

Please see also TechMama's recommendations for panels, including Joanne's on building political influence online and Beth's on moms using tech, where hopefully I'll have a chance to participate as well.

New Data Reported on Internet Use in Political Campaigns

The Pew Internet and American Life Project released their latest report yesterday. It's chock full of stat nuggets in terms of percentages of adult Americans who are online, politicking online, watching videos online, and using social networking online all for the purposes of finding and choosing candidates to vote for in the election.

Most of the numbers aren't surprising. That 46% of Americans of voting age are doing something online related to politics is, however, a big deal in terms of providing data supporting that candidates in future elections need to take advantage of online technologies more and more in order to increase their chances of winning. It's also important in terms of people working on tech related to politics: it means we're here to stay.

Convincing candidates and potential candidates to use online technologies for their campaigns when money is tight is always a challenge and is sometimes a gamble. In more rural areas where the majority of voters are not necessarily online, tried and true field and direct mail methods still work best. But these numbers show a shift in terms of who's online and they show that nearly 75% of Americans have access to campaign communications via the Internet or cell phones. Even for those campaigns, not having an Internet presence at all could be dangerous.

So for everyone out there working on campaigns, here's the story: incorporate online methodology within your campaign, and for Democrats seeking a younger voter base in particular, integrating technology-based strategies within the entire framework of the campaign organization, as Obama has, will make your field organization stronger. Build the best web site you can, get people working on smart email communications, put up a blog, and find ways to make the campaign have two-way traffic, receiving information back from potential voters, not just sending out the usual sound bytes to them. Create a dialogue with potential constituents. Learn about their needs. Utilize social networks. Make the campaign engaging and interesting.

There are a lot of lessons within the data, but I encourage anyone interested to look at the reports yourselves and take what you will from them. The campaigns of the future will only build on what we have now, so learning about what worked in '08 will only improve chances your candidate will win in '10 or '12.

Welcome

Welcome to the FutureCampaigns blog. This online publication focuses on the intersection between technology, politics, advocacy and government.

Most of the posts published on this blog before today were cross-posted from sairy.com, my personal site that covers a wide range of topics including technology and culture, and a few posts come from the Silicon Valley Moms Blog from the last election. It became clear to me that it was time to focus a bit more for the benefit of this site, clients, colleagues, friends in the space, etc. And I thought it made sense to include some legacy posts here to reference as time passes and we look back at what was the future of campaigning in the past.

If you have feedback about the site and/or blog, please send it to sarah(at)futurecampaigns(dot)com.

Two Great Bay Area Politics & Technology Events This Week

Event #1 - Tomorrow (Tuesday) in Menlo Park -

Panel and meeting, no charge, where some interesting local innovators will be discussing the use of technology in politics and how we can utilize it to help elect Democrats in California in 2008. Based on the panelists and host committee, it should be a really good discussion.

Details:
When: Tuesday, September 18th from 7 to 9 p.m.
Where: Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, 1100 Marsh Road, Menlo Park in the Olympic Room. (*Note new room.)
This is a free event, however you are encouraged to RSVP to contact[at]sanmateodemocrats[dot]org. Food will be provided.

Panelists:
Josh Becker, Founder of New Cycle Capital
David Chiu, Founder of Grassroots Enterprises
Joseph Green, Founder of Project Agape
Michelle Kraus, CEO of Digital Campaigns
Peter Leyden, Director of the New Politics Institute
David Pine, Former General Counsel for Handspring
Perla Ni, Founder of Greatnonprofits.org

Event #2 - Sunday in Berkeley -

September 23. "Politics 101 Meets Web 2.0: Democracy or Demagoguery?" 4 to 6 p.m., Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St., $15 at door for food, drink, and open mike discussion for digital and analog political activists. Political candidates of all stripes now have web sites, participate in social networks, and can respond to folks via YouTube. So are we closer to democracy?

See also: more information on the Hillside Club site.

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Originally posted at sairy.com, the personal blog of FutureCampaigns founder, Sarah Granger.

Mother Jones on Digital Democracy

Thanks to Farber's IP list, I learned of this collection of articles and interviews on "Digital Democracy" in Mother Jones magazine, online. It takes into account where we were in the last election, what kind of progress we've made, and where we're really going now - arguing that MySpace isn't necessarily all it's cracked-up to be in terms of motivating communities to act in a political sense but also introducing other areas that are making waves online. (And I have to say I love some of the article titles like "10,000 Deaniacs: Where are they now?")

I haven't had time to read it all yet, but the one comment I have so far is they only mention two women from what I've seen - Esther Dyson and Morra Aarons. Both worthy of noting, to be sure, but there are more of us in this space - consultants, bloggers, techies, entrepreneurs, lawyers - with expertise, like Joan Blades, co-founder of MoveOn and MomsRising.org, Jennifer Granick & Lauren Gelman at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society, and Madeline Stanionis of Watershed just to name a few here in the Bay Area. See also: Shesource.org for other resources. I'd like to see more women interviewed in general on this topic.

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Originally posted at sairy.com, the personal blog of FutureCampaigns founder, Sarah Granger.