EchoDitto blogs

Following Gustav Online - posted by Meaghan Lamarre

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 14:22:23 -0700

As you may remember from Gisele's or Tom's posts earlier this year, EchoDitto spent a few days in February in New Orleans. Specifically, we spent one day cleaning out a church destroyed by Katrina. Because of that experience, I am especially saddened to hear that there's another hurricane, similar in size and strength to Katrina, headed that direction again. Nearly three years to the day that Katrina landed on the shores of the Gulf Coast, Gustav is expected to make landfall in the coming days. Like all of us, I am hoping for the best for New Orleans; in any case, it will be interesting to see how things turn out differently this time.

One thing that's different is the way technology is being used to track the storm. I'm not talking about meteorologists -- although I'd be interested to know what new technologies they may be using -- no, I mean the technologies that you and I are using to track the effects of the storm. Here are just a couple of ways I've discovered to stay up-to-date on the storm and the people being affected.

Watch conversations about Gustav on Twitter. If you're new to this blog, or to Twitter, it's a microblogging service that allows people to update their status in 140-character messages. In this case, Twitter is useful in several ways:

Follow @GustavAlerts for the latest updates on the hurricane.
Follow conversations by everyone about Gustav. Many people who use twitter use a hashtag (a word preceded by the # character) to indicate that their post is related to a specific topic. In this case, the hashtag #gustav is being used by those reporting about the hurricane. You can track conversations marked by this hashtag at the site hashtags.org, or by searching for #gustav on search.twitter.com.

Join the community at Ning. Ning is an online site where users can join (or set up) an number of niche social networks. Created by Andy Carvin, the Gustav Information Center is a site where concerned folks can read and share the latest information on Gustav and also participate in online discussions.

GustavWiki. I hear a wiki on Gustav is in the works. Updates on that as available. UPDATE: GustavWiki is up!

It is my earnest hope that this hurricane plays out much differently than the one that hit three years ago but however it should turn out, we are certain to have more information available to more people far more quickly.

New Orleans, you're in our thoughts and prayers.

UPDATE: Andy Carvin, creator of the Gustav Wiki, has a great post on the subject at NPR's blog.

Links for 2008-09-05 [del.icio.us]

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Election ‘08 for iPhone Offers Up-to-the-minute Political Info
After so long in gestation, the 2008 election season has actually kind of snuck up on me. And what with the App store being released, I thought there would be a ton of politically-orientated apps out there. Incredibly, there are virtually none, and certainly none this cool.

Links for 2008-09-03 [del.icio.us]

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Greenseng: A Green Search Engine That Actually Conserves Energy
"While you use Greenseng, the carbon emissions of your electricity consumption are neutralized by CO2Stats."

Links for 2008-08-28 [del.icio.us]

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Drupal Knitting Charts

Links for 2008-08-27 [del.icio.us]

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500

MP3 of Author of Daemon Talking About Data Mining and Society
Daniel Suarez (aka author Leinad Zeraus) talks about how data mining changes society, botnets, futurism, etc etc. It's neat. And ultimately positive. From the Long Now Foundation.

Links for 2008-08-25 [del.icio.us]

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500

A social internet

Links for 2008-08-24 [del.icio.us]

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Ning's Infinite Ambition: model of how to create perpetual growth machine
Ning's Infinite Ambition -- Viral Networks -- Viral Expansion Loop -- Social Networking Start-Ups | Fast Company

The Obama Txt: Lessons for Campaigners - posted by Michael Silberman

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 19:36:22 -0700

The Obama campaign's plan to announce their V.P. pick via SMS was a brilliant stroke, and the sheer number of people engaged with the campaign via text has already earned the campaign a place in political history (not that there was any question).

Unfortunately, the announcement didn't go as planned. Both the campaign as well as their most connected supporters have reason to be frustrated, and there are lessons here for all of us in the worlds of online politics, campaigning, organizing, and communications (keep reading!).

I'm quoted in two AP stories yesterday (here and here) about Obama's Biden pick as saying, "This is like finding out from your neighbor instead of your sister that she's engaged: not how you want or expect the news to be delivered."

There's a bit more to the overall story that didn't make its way into the coverage (surprise!), so i'll elaborate below. But for those still bitter about not receiving their text message, I think we'll need to give the campaign a pass on this one, after what was surely a long and bumpy night largely outside of their control.

What Happened
In short, the campaign got scooped on its own announcement by a clearly proud John King on CNN. The much-heralded and long-awaited text message started arriving from the campaign at 3 am ET, several hours after the rest of the major news outlets had confirmed Biden as Obama's pick.

During those two hours, Obama's most die-hard supporters, obsessive political news junkies, and others who worked themselves into a frenzy in anticipation of the announcement (like me) were left wondering why they had been left in the dark. Our date for the dance never showed, but the party was clearly starting. Countless people posted "where's the text?" and "still nothing from Obama" messages to their twitter accounts, left notes on Obama's facebook page, and some even emailed the campaign.

The "twitterverse" does not exactly represent a cross-section of America, but they do represent an influential constituency of engaged citizens and pundits. That said, there's a strong argument to be made that a majority of Obama supporters received the message as planned: they woke up Saturday morning to a text message or email directly from Obama and then saw it in print or on TV later on.

What it Means
Obama took an important and laudable risk by promising first-to-know information to supporters and friends. For most any online campaign, the name of the game is to use the new digital mediums to establish an ultra-personal connection between candidate and supporter, in a way that was nearly impossible less than a decade ago. Obama's team has done incredible work on this front, and deciding to send the announcement over text is a case in point. Hats off to Joe Rospars, Scott Goodstein, and the rest of the crew who probably haven't slept in weeks.

Having worked on a presidential campaign myself (Dean 2004), I can imagine a million possible reasons why the campaign's hands were tied from sending the text message earlier, as soon as the news began leaking out -- such as secret service security protocols or technical limitations of the bulk SMS provider.

But i also know that both in politics and in the real world, the "who" and the "when" of delivering news matters. So here are my take-aways, followed by some lessons:

Yes, Obama gained lots of phone numbers for later use during GOTV (see EchoDitto co-founder Garrett Graff's explanation in his NYT op-ed), but from an online engagement perspective, sending a text message with first-to-know information to such an intimate device only furthers our love affair and affirms our growing personal trust and connection with Obama.

We were not the first to know, as promised. And the campaign was not first in telling us. Therefore, some love was lost. But only momentarily. The campaign recovers instantly because it should be clear to most people that we were not stood-up on purpose. The story was not broken to the news media by the campaign itself, so there was no betrayal. At least the savvy supporters can logically assume that the campaign was still intending to make good on its promise.
Second, as we witnessed from the Howard Dean campaign, one of the primary reasons a campaign invests so heavily in a new media team is to create its own campaign news channel -- through the blog, website, email, text messages, video, online social networks, etc. The goal: sidestep the media who are prone to distorting or repackaging your message. Cut out the middlemen; deliver it directly to your supporters, to the world.
So, Obama for America took a slight hit in its function as a go-to news source for all things Obama, but easily recovers for the reasons above.

Lessons for campaigners:

(The most obvious:) We're now in an instantaneous news cycle. Do whatever it takes to get out ahead of the story, or, better yet, break the story yourself. This could mean sacrificing quality. As we sometimes echo around here, release early and often. If you're sitting on something good, there's a good chance that the mainstream media is preparing to beat you to the punch -- after all, that's their job.
Setup to jump and be nimble, because the best laid plans... Setup an organizational structure that allows you to move at the speed of the internet. Fri night / Sat morning was a big (and likely unexpected) test for the campaign team -- to see how tightly the new media team and press shop and campaign leadership could work together given the rapidly changing landscape following CNN's announcement. The campaign needed to move faster than ever to try and close the gap between the news breaking externally and getting their own announcement out to supporters, and that means lots of rapid internal coordination in the dead of the night.
Have a Plan B, assuming that technology won't cooperate. If you've ever tried to give a powerpoint/keynote presentation, there's a good chance that you know what I mean. We don't know if the decision to wait to send the txt was political or technical (it may have been queued in advance, for example). But for at least two hours after the news broke, the campaign website was still telling supporters that they could "be the first to know" about VP pick. For every additional minute and hour that passed, more and more supporters were hearing the big news from everyone other than the trusted source that was supposed to deliver it. A possible plan B in this case could have involved posting a message to the campaign blog (which they ultimately did at 2:45a as the SMS was going out) or having the candidate record a quick, unedited web video making the announcement right after the story broke.
Take the risk! The Obama campaign still comes out ahead on this one. The campaign stuck its neck out there with a bold proposition, by doing something bold and nontraditional which fit perfectly with their notion of an open and inclusive campaign, and it paid off in spades. Stay tuned for what I hope will be the single largest simultaneous use of political text messaging during Obama's speech on Thursday in Denver.

Links for 2008-08-22 [del.icio.us]

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Firebug Lite 1.2 Released
Firebug Lite is a subset of Firebug that can be used in IE, Opera, and Safari...Firebug Lite 1.2...added the ability to inspect DOM elements, track XHRs, and navigate HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
6 Lessons We Can Learn From Barack Obama’s Online Marketing Strategy

Following online media at the DNC - posted by Brian Sykora

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 09:52:09 -0700

At the Democratic National Convention next week, 125 bloggers will hold press credentials and hundreds more will be reporting from The Big Tent. You're probably wondering - how do I follow hundreds of blogs? Well, there's always Memeorandum or Newsjunk where you can watch the river of news flow but you run the risk of missing the more nuanced observations from smaller online media outlets. Try OMPL-a simple XML markup originally designed for outlining that was recently adopted to package RSS feeds. You can download the full OPML file of DNC credentialed bloggers here. Once you have the file, re-upload the file to your RSS reader and you will have the 125 credentialed bloggers loaded into a folder. It's that easy.

If your more of a Twitter fanatic, you can a)watch the hash tag #DNC08 on Twitter search or b)follow a group of users found in this Twitter pack.

SUMMIZE (now Twitter search) queries after launch

If you have other ways to follow online media at the conventions please leave us a comment.

The Latest Insight from Google - posted by Meaghan Lamarre

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 07:35:57 -0700

Last week, Google launched the newest tool in its arsenal for web marketers, Google Insights for Search. A take-off on Google Trends, you can now easily compare search traffic across a variety of keywords, categories and regions. Although Google Insights doesn't really give you access to any new data (you could find all this info previously through a combination of Google Trends and AdWords), the new interface to the data -- and ability to chart and export numbers -- makes it an invaluable new tool for understanding the world we live in online.

The benefits of this data are endless. Of course, it's super-useful for planning and tweaking your AdWords campaigns. You'll easily be able to see if the keyword you're targeting is losing popularity over the past few months and you can test other keywords to see if they're gaining in popularity.

More importantly, though, I think it helps us understand the needs and motivations of our customers and constituents. With the ability to chart search volume back to 2004, we can get a (recent) historical view of search trends. We could trace, for example, the popularity of the search term "global warming" since 2004 and we'd see that the term peaked in April 2007 and remained fairly high throughout 2007 but appears to be returning to 2005 levels in summer '08.

Google Insights lets us narrow by geography as well, so we can dig deeper on those searches for "global warming" and focus just on searches in California. We can even pinpoint which cities account for the most searches. Of course this is a gold mine for marketers, but it's also useful for governments and advocacy organizations as something of a proxy for local public opinion.

Insights also helps us to understand how our constituents understand the issues we care about, and how best to speak to them. For example, charting the volume of "global warming" vs. "climate change" over the past 12 months should tell us that "global warming" has more resonance than "climate change".

With all this data at our fingertips, it's easier than ever to actually know what your constituents want and need to hear from you. So I encourage you to play around with Google Insights today and see what it can teach you!

Signs You Have Been In The Airport Too Long... - posted by Brian Reich

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 21:09:19 -0700

I travel quite a bit for work. For the most part, I enjoy it. But travel also comes with its challenges -- of late, the airlines have cut back on the amenities in response to rising fuel costs, there are fewer direct flights making even simple trips a lengthy endeavor, and other travelers are on edge about security and cranky about poor service.

The biggest challenges when you travel, of course, come in the form of delays and cancellations. Sometimes delays and cancellations result from bad weather. Other times mechanical issues keep an aircraft from getting off the ground. Most of the time, I feel the airline can't (or won't) explain what the cause of the delay is, but they keep you from getting to your destination in a timely fashion nonetheless.

My goal today was simply to go home - to fly back to Boston after a successful two-day visit to Denver and Colorado Springs (for meetings about the Democratic Convention, Big Tent, a brainstorm with my client, the Wilderness Society, a new business pitch and a speech to Goodwill Industries' Summer Marketing Conference). Instead, what I got was a cancellation and a delay, and more than 11 hours in the airport.

(NOTE: As I write this, I am sitting at DIA with at least three hours until my JetBlue flight lifts off - assuming there are no further hold-ups).

How do you know when you have been in the airport too long? Here are some tips from my personal experience today:

- Your laptop battery fully drains, is recharged, and fully drains again.

- You start to practice your accent so you can relate to what the character Tom Hanks played in "Terminal" went through.

- You listen to all of the podcasts that you have downloaded in the past two weeks, in their entirety.

- You are present when a passenger, who you saw when he (seemingly) first arrived for his flight, is hauled off by police after becoming intoxicated and verbally assaulting a gate agent.

- Every single game on the Major League Baseball schedule was played in its entirety.

- You have seen two separate, completely unrelated brother-sister pairs playing (what appears to be) the exact same imaginary game in two completely different terminals.

- The people who boarded their flight for London when you arrived are now sitting for tea on the other side of the pond.

- You satisfy your billable hour requirement for the week - just today!

- You read Tweets from people overseas who sign off to go to bed, signing back on again to say good morning.

- You read updated posts in 191 of the 289 blogs you track in your Bloglines account, only to have another 204 post updates again.

- The cleaning crew at the airport vacuums the area near your gate twice.

- A 15-year old flying unaccompanied minor 'mis-connected' (i.e. flew to the wrong place by accident), flew back, and boarded another flight to wherever he was going.

- Roughly 5,000 babies were born (not in the airport, of course, in the United States generally).

Some of these are clearly hyperbolized (ok, only the billable hours one) but for anyone who travels regularly and have experienced some kind of epic delay, I suspect the basic statements ring true. Good thing I was paying close enough attention to what everyone else was doing here in the terminal, allowing time to simply fly by!

Wanna save gas? Quick, turn right! - posted by Tina Romero

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 09:16:44 -0700

So I am just back from my annual family vacation. Oxymoron? Nah! It was great, really. We made big strides this year to be as ecofriendly as possible on our road trip. My very favorite tip is the bit about taking fewer left turns! It's true. UPS has used this quirky fuel conserving trick for years. Stopping to take left turns takes longer and wastes more gas (and at more than $4.00 per gallon who doesn't want to save gas?) than turning right. In 2007 UPS estimates it saved more than three million gallons of gas and reduced its trucks' CO2 emissions by the equivalent of taking 5,300 cars off the road just by route planning with right turns in mind!

Some other great travel tips include packing lightly (huh? impossible!), parking in the shade, making pit stops in college towns (shop at local farmers' markets) and tuning up your car before you hit the road.

Finally, we joined the Better World Club. Its like AAA for folks concerned about the environment. We got a free map for our route that we customized taking the most energy-efficient and scenic by-ways. We even got a gas rebate!

Happy trails!

I love the smell of Woot in the morning - posted by Madeleine Perry

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 06:37:58 -0700

I have to admit - I don't check w00t.com on a daily basis. Most of the time I'll check it on a whim, or if my coworkers or friends point me to the site for a cool product. So, it's for this reason that I point your attention, right now, to w00t.com! We've recently been working with a very cool company - Neuton Mowers. Of course all of the people we work with are very cool, but I don't have a lawn, and never before have I wanted something so badly that I personally have no use for. Neuton sells battery powered lawnmowers, and they're selling them on woot right now. Now, you might be skeptical - skeptical of the power, the actual ability to cut grass effectively, or even the claim that it's great for our environment (why would you jump to such drastic conclusions though?). I assure you having used it (and lifted it) myself that it is, simply put, an awesome machine. Click here for a tour of the 6.2 mower.

Let's skip ahead for a moment. The Neuton lawnmowers releases no carbon emissions - unlike those old gas mowers. All it takes is a charge of the battery and you're good to go. But what about that battery? Aren't batteries terrible for the environment too? I'm glad you asked. Neuton has partnered with East Penn Manufacturing to take care of those old batteries and make sure they don't end up in a landfill never to decompose. They also do some great work in local communities, letting folks exchange their dirty gas mowers for a Neuton.

There are so many reasons why a Neuton is better than a gas mower, even putting aside the immense environmental benefit. Ever feel like screaming at a neighbor who decides they want to mow their lawn at 6am on Sunday? Don't you just love the smell of gasoline in the morning? Not only does the Neuton only emit the smell of fresh grass clippings, it sounds great too. It's hard to describe how quiet it is, but I'll say this - you can carry on a conversation while mowing your lawn. No earplugs necessary, and no angry neighbor (or angry you, depending on the day).

Take a peek at the woots per capita map to see if your neighbors are wooting today. One day we won't ever wake up to the grinding of gas-powered machines. Woot up!

Jerry Lewis Would Be So Proud - posted by Gisele Toueg

Sat, 26 Jul 2008 08:34:35 -0700

Growing up, I remember watching Jerry Lewis telethons every Labor Day. For 24 hours, Lewis and celebrity co-hosts like Ed McMahon and Casey Kasem would host a live, televised fundraising event for Muscular Dystrophy, panning the room to a sea of volunteers answering calls from donors across the country. Names of donors would flash across a scrollbar on the screen, and if you were really lucky, Jerry Lewis would announce your name and your donation live on the air.

That was the 80s, when Commadore 64s were cutting edge, and I had a stack of rubber bracelets that went from my wrist to my elbow. Today, telethons are being replaced by "Blogathons" and rubber bracelets are trendy again. According to Blogging for Kids, a blogathon "is a Fundraising Event where bloggers from around the world stay up for 24 hours, blogging every 1/2 hour for pledges to their favorite charity or cause." Niki, a blogger from Ohio is doing a 24 hour blogathon today to raise money to benefit kids with Neuroblastoma, a rare and deadly form of childhood cancer.

Every half hour, Niki is featuring a different kid with neuroblastoma on her website. She is using change.org to accept donations to benefit Band of Parents, which is an NY-based organization that is committed to finding a cure for this deadly disease.

I love the idea of a blogathon, for many reasons. One, it's much more interesting than watching a bunch of people sitting at a phone bank, answering calls. Two, it gives donors an opportunity to comment on any of the courageous stories posted by the blogger, and offers a personal connection to the people who are benefiting from the funds raised. Also, by doing this a blog, viewers can go back and read the posts whenever they want, rather than having a 24 hour window.

I love the internet. Now, if we could only bring back acid- washed jeans.

OneWebDay - posted by Brian Reich

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 12:58:51 -0700

I am an Ambassador for OneWebDay, a global celebration of the web that takes place every year on September 22nd. There is more information at www.onewebday.org.

This year’s theme is participation in democracy online. As far as I am concerned, there is no more important subject. The functioning of our society - here in the United States and increasingly around the world - requires that people are able to participate and contribute openly and freely. The internet, and all forms of technology, expand those opportunities and open the democratic process to all. The more people participate, the more we all benefit.

Technology has the potential to bring people together in ways never before imagined, both online and offline. It can support dialogue and participation, allowing deeper understanding and problem solving. It can promote informaton and support experiences that engage, teach, and motivate people to action. Most importantly, and in the theme of OneWebDay, technology also allows people with few resources to have equal opportunities for debate and involvement, in their community, in politics, and everything else.

In my work, we are using technology and the communications opportunities that technology creates to help tackle some of the greatest challenges facing our society. We are working to eliminate nuclear weapons, end hunger, promote an independent media and bring about major changes in the way individuals and businesses operate with respect to the environment. We aren't building websites or widgets, we are helping to change the world.

I wrote my book (Media Rules!) about how organizations can use the unique and transformational opportunities that technology creates to have a meaningful, measurable impact on our society. And I can't imagine these issues could be solved if access and information about them was not free, open, and available to all. I can't imagine a society in which our democracy could not function. And those thingss go hand in hand.

That is why I support OneWebDay. I hope you will take a look at www.onewebday.org and find your own reasons to support it as well. See you on September 22nd.

Zero Bars - posted by Gisele Toueg

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 09:27:53 -0700

This past weekend, my husband took me on his annual camping trip to the Catskill mountains. For those of you who know me, you know that I am not one to rough it. In fact, last week was the first time I have ever even been to the "Outdoor" aisle of any large department store.

As we drove up the mountain, the bars on my iphone slowly started to decrease. As they went from four, to three, to a sad dotted line, I started to panic. You see, it didn't even occur to me that there would be no cell reception in the woods. I used my phone in Argentina, my husband sent me text messages from Chennai, how could my phone not work in New York's Hudson Valley?

The first night, I made him drive to the lake so I could check my messages. If you stood in one spot, on one foot, you could get a weak signal. It tided me over for the evening, but by the next day, I was itching to get online. What was happening on twitter? Had anyone updated their relationship status on Facebook? What about all the blogs I follow? These were things I needed to know.

I'd like to say that my need to check email and voicemail decreased over the weekend, and that my trips to the lake decreased. Sadly, that's just not me. Every time we got high enough on a mountain, I pulled out the phone. While others were scaling waterfalls and spying shooting stars, I was refreshing my gmail (and dreaming about dinner).

As we were packing up to go home, everyone was talking about how relaxing the vacation was, not having cell reception, eating food off the grill, hiking through scenic trails. I was dreaming about my charger and the fudge stand on the New York State Thruway. Still, I did have a breakthrough moment. This morning, as I was coming out of the subway on Canal Street, it occurred to me that I should check my email to see if anything came in while I was on the train. And then, for a moment, I dreamed of the woods, where there was nothing to do but read Marie Claire and eat Chips Ahoy. Maybe there's a little bit of camper in me after all? Nah...

Strangers in the Living Room at BlogHer08 - posted by Anne Keenan

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 08:43:30 -0700

This weekend at BlogHer08 I kept thinking that maybe I was going to the wrong panels. They were interesting, and had a few new tidbits, but none of them were giving me the “wow” that you want to leave a conference with. So I decided that I must be doing something wrong, and I should go to something completely different. I went to “Can we take back naked blogging?”

And then, as these things usually are: it was great. I closed my laptop and focused, and wrote notes that I knew would be a blog post.

The premise was this: a panel of three women who had stepped back from the intimacy of their lifeblogs after intimidating or scary experiences when that intimacy was abused. Several of the women on stage and in the audience spoke of their blogs as their “living rooms,” and that when these incidents occurred, they lost their sense of security on the internet, with their blogs. I was captivated.

Now here’s the thing. I worked at Planned Parenthood for eight years, and what I learned there was this: the Internet is a scary place. There are terrible awful people out there, and the minute you reveal one detail about yourself is the day you come home and open your apartment door to find a fundamentalist with a shotgun. No matter where you live, no matter how liberal your city, no matter how safe you think you are, if you tell the Internet anything about your life, we cannot protect you.

While part of this was a command and control attitude (“if you get a call from the press, immediately forward it to the communications manager. Under no circumstances should you talk to the press”), a lot of it was for our safety. I was working at Planned Parenthood when we went through Anthrax threats and all of the mail had to by x-rayed and opened by security guards in masks. I worked there when we had a bomb threat and went into lock down, so that snipers couldn’t kill us as we evacuated. I worked there when Clayton Wagner escaped from jail and threatened that “it doesn’t matter who you are, whether you’re a receptionist or a doctor, I will follow you home and kill you. I will not kill you at work, because at work you are safe; I will kill you at home, where you are more vulnerable.”

I took it seriously, because I worked in the LeAnn Nichols and Shannon Lowney building, because people would take my photo driving into the parking garage to post on a site with dripping blood, because our chief medical officer wore a bulletproof vest to work. In Boston. Yeah, right down the street from B.U. So I never had a sense of security on the web, or ever felt like the Internet was my living room.

Watching the panel, I guess I felt a little jealous. I only started blogging when I got to EchoDitto, and it’s always been professional, for a job. I’ve never posted anything personal about myself, really, and I wonder a little what it would be like to expose my most personal secrets to the public… and get feedback. It seems both liberating and terrifying.

But I don’t think I could ever get there, and it kind of makes me sad. Once, after the fake anthrax attacks to Congress, our CEO at Planned Parenthood said that she was sad because she’d always hoped that there would be a day when we’d get to roll back our security measures and be like other workplaces, but that that world seemed to be going the other way, and other workplaces were having to increase their security to match ours.

It feels a little bit like blogging. I wish the Internet could be a place where we could be our true, full selves all the time, without worrying about death threats, or attacks on our children, or harassing commenters. And I wonder what it will take to get us to that place. Maybe this is where we start, by saying out loud that that is where we want to go.

Idea Blobbing - posted by Brian Reich

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 07:25:54 -0700

I am guest posting over at Idea Blob this week. Its an interesting project from Advanta that allows people to promote ideas, share thoughts, and start projects.

Check out my first idea, about open source policy-making (and of course go vote for it): http://ideablob.com/ideas/2780-Open-Source-Policymaking

Its not an original idea, I know. Still, I don't think we are using technologly in all the ways possible, and tapping into the audience to have a serious and thoughtful discussion about issues is one of the ways we have more ground to cover. I would love an opportunity to experiment with all the ways to use technology to truly tap into the audience online (and offline for that matter) to start addressing some of the serious problems facing our country, and global society. That was the point of my points.

Again, here is my post.
http://ideablob.com/ideas/2780-Open-Source-Policymaking

Go read it, vote for it, and share it with your friends.

Empowering Nigerian Women Online - posted by Meaghan Lamarre

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 05:35:30 -0700

It's no secret, I think, that I have a particular interest in gender in technology -- I came to EchoDitto from the National Organization for Women, after all. I started my computer career with computer camp during my elementary school summers, where one of the women physicists in the building (thanks, Dr. Minichino) took all the girls to lunch one day each summer to give us a little extra encouragement about sticking with the tech stuff. Lucky for me, the lesson took.

So I'm really excited to be able to repay the favor this week as I'm participating in an online mentorship program called Networking for Success. Organized by the Women's Technology Empowerment Centre in Nigeria, the project is designed to encourage Nigerian women in technology to learn more about technology and to use online tools more effectively. Through the Networking for Success blog, I am part of a group of experts who are sharing our experiences and lessons learned about online technology with a really excellent group of participants. Thanks go to Beth Kanter, a fellow mentor, who introduced me to this project via her blog.

There are some really interesting conversations going on and I hope you'll check it out: http://www.w-teconline.org/nfsblog/

Be Gentle with Me (I’m not as young as I was) - posted by Anne Keenan

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 17:07:04 -0700

I’ve been listening to this song quite a bit recently. Not only is it the ideal mix of depressing lyrics/upbeat music that we all love so much, it echoes my thoughts on non-profit strategy.

Really? Really.

These days, I feel like too many non-profits are trying to rush me, and I really want them to take it easy, romance me, make me fall in love, aim for a long-term relationship.

How do I mean? This week, my friend, Jacque, sent me a MoveOn campaign to my gmail about Fox News and how they are being racist in their coverage of Obama. Okay. Because I love Jacque (+1 for leveraging social networks!), I went to the page, watched the video (+1 for interactive content that’s convincing!) and found it compelling enough to add my name (conversion—success!). So far, so good, right? Then, the minute I hit submit, a giant donate button appeared—-help MoveOn change media by giving us money.

Whoa—all of a sudden we’d skipped from flirting to something a little more intimate, and I felt icky and strangely violated in a similar way. I understand that there’s probably some research out there that says ‘as soon as someone signs on, ask them for a donation’ and probably they’ve made some money from it. But all it did for me was feel like they were rushing things.

Now, maybe it’s just that I’m getting older, and I don’t sign up to every email list that catches my eye. But now I’m on their email list again, kind of too lazy to unsubscribe, and also only marginally interested in the other current campaigns. Just not that satisfied with the way things are going, and thinking about breaking up.

So what’s my advice?

First, I think they did a great job creating compelling content—I love the video, and it was interesting enough in a few minutes to a) encourage my friend to send it to me, and b) for me to give up my gmail address, which I keep pretty close to the vest.
I also don’t necessarily think it was a bad idea to ask for a donation. I think it was just a bad to ask me for a donation *at that point in our relationship.* We’ve been on a few dates, sure, let’s split the check, I’ll even get the whole bill. On first meeting, why don’t you just spring for my ice cream cone?

One of the most amazing things about technology is that it allows such incredible personalization and segmentation.

Amazon recommends things based on my previous purchases—We think you like the wire. Maybe you want to pre-order Season 5? Yes, yes I would.
FreshDirect constantly asks for my feedback on everything from delivery time to product selection.
Doctors Without Borders usually remembers that I’m a monthly donor, and doesn’t hit me up for additional gifts via email.

I guess at this point I expect that organizations and companies are tracking my activity, and in exchange I want them to talk to me in a way that respects what I’ve already told them about myself. I know you can tell how I got to your website, where I live, if I've been on your list for a day or 5 years, so use that information to show me you care. Talk to me as an individual, not a list. Yes, I know it’s not easy. Yes, I know it takes time. Yes, I know it’s not really in anyone’s job description. But it makes a huge difference—probably the difference between my staying involved with your organization, or ignoring your emails, and pretending we’ve never met.

So, MoveOn, if you’re out there, I still think you’re pretty smart and good-looking, and I’d be interested in seeing where things go, but… be gentle with me, okay?

Netroots Nation - posted by Brian Reich

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 19:15:11 -0700

Are you going to Netroots Nation?

Netroots Nation is America's largest gathering of progressive bloggers -- now in its third year (it was originally known as YearlyKos). This year the convention will invade Austin, TX from July 17-20 and feature more than 100 sessions focusing on how technology intersects with and is changing democracy in America. Here is a short list of the speakers: Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi, Van Jones, Lawrence Lessig, Darcy Burner, Paul Krugman, Harold Ford Jr., James Rucker, John Dean, Brad Miller, Rick Noriega, and of course Kos.

Go to www.netrootsnation.org for more information, and if you want to register (which I hope you will), let me know because I have a code that will get you a nice little discount.

EchoDitto will be there. And we are bringing a few of our friends and clients. Its going to be one of the big gatherings of the year. Hope to see you there.