More Thoughts on FutureCampaigns

Apologies that this blog has been dormant so long. I've been writing about tech and politics at The Huffington Post, the Personal Democracy Forum and techPresident (links go directly to my columns) as well as occasionally other publications.

The easiest way to keep track of what I've written is to follow me on Twitter. I'm @sairy for tech & politics (that's the busy feed), @sarahgranger for all articles including other topics, and @publicedge for new media, some relating back to new media uses in government and politics.

I'll try to be better about updating this blog, but I make no promises. See also sairy.com for my general blog and PublicEdge for new media strategy consulting & training.

Fem 2.0

The question of where to go in terms of the feminist movement in the future with new media and the new millennium is a big one, and several people got together to plan a conference and brainstorming session around this concept. Feminism encompasses a broad range of ideals including gender equity, equal rights, pay equity, reproductive choice, and much more. The challenge of the original feminist organizations as well as some of the newer ones is: where do we go now? The Fem 2.0 conference and online dialogue will hopefully provide some direction in this area.

Sarah Granger of FutureCampaigns will be speaking on one of the panels about feminism in the media and how to help women's organizations expand their outreach online. The conference is being held Monday, February 2nd at George Washington University in Washington, D.C..

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!