Full Circle Associates

(25 women in room of 69)

Note to all conference presenters and panelists. Please design your slides so they can be seen by more than the first third of the room.

Too tired to live blog, but here are some snippets. Kathy Mitchell is facilitating the panel

Shabbir Safdar, Mindshare Interactive
Things to avoid.

• Don’t mistake domain name registration for campaign strategy. Focus on message and audience.
  
• It is easier to talk about technology than your position. You need to talk about your position.
  
• If a client takes more than half the meeting talking about technology
  
• Best nearly free deals
  
• CafePress.com for t-shirts. No set up fee, not inventory. Books, CDs, t-shirts, hats, jackets, etc.
  
• Constant Contact – turn key email database, $15/mo for 500 people. The service is whitelisted for all the major ISPs. That is the key value
  
• Typepad, the hosted version of Moveable type. $15/month –unlimited blogs, authors
  
• Budget expectations for mature products - $500-$2500 year in IT for basic communications with not a lot of targeting.
  
• $2500-$7500 – media and legislative targeting
  
• $7,500-20K – Convio, etc. User segmentation, fundraising slice and dice

Erin Rogers – Grassroots environmental activist for 12 years, now with the Union of Concerned Scientists

• Use a sophisticated email program
  
• She is not very tech savvy
  
• Her three main ways to win political battles
  
• Action Alert system – use extensively – there used to be some thought that legislators didn’t take these seriously, but she thinks this is shifting. Politicians are taking emails a lot more seriously than before, perhaps post-Dean effect. It lays a foundation.
  
• Using action alert system as a weeding tool, weeding out those who aren’t going to take action and hone in on those who are interested and who will take action – online or offline.
  
• Blend online and offline

Henri Poole – Civic Actions – Metrics

• How do we measure the results of online activism? Number of people signing up for meetups?
  
• Airplane oxygen mask. Put on your own before you meet others. Discovering others’ needs. What do they care about? Really need? If you can describe what people want and you can measure it, you have a metric.
  
• Look into edge posts. David Reed, Reed’s law,
  
• I must be tired, but I’m not following Henry’s comments

Amalia Anderson – community organizer and cultural activist (Note: SHE ROCKED!)

• Not a technologist
  
• What are the values associated with technology and activism. They are a system. Be cautious of the dynamics because they can further disenfranchise people. What power dynamics are at play in the system. When technology enters in the community and you can’t communicate with those who make the technology or the people can’t control the technology it further adds to the divide and oppression.
  
• Everyone does not speak English as a first language
  
• Power dynamics limit people’s access to technology
  
• The technology is rooted in Western traditional values and for those not familiar with these, they can marginalize and make people feel even more invisible
  
• What would it look like if technology and activism came together in a way that it is dictated by the communities
  
• Look at timelines – technology can allow us to communicate quickly but that may not be important to all communities. For some it is the length of the conversation
  
• Look at communicating in a linear way – we organize often around idea action which is a linear perspective. For communities that don’t place exclusive premium on forward, linear motion with a premium on how far you move.
  
• Translation is not issue, but translating values and world views. You can translate your website. But you have to capture the spirit of the language and the value in which communication takes place in order to be valuable.
  
• As we work to increase access to and application of technology in activism it is about challenging power dynamics. Make sure we make the community central to that process. What we are doing is bringing them into a mysterious, foreign process that as seen as something white, English, and money dominated. We need to invite people into the process, not impose it upon them.

Ren Bucholz – EFF - a law firm that works on civil liberties issues

• Great story of file sharing law suit (I got distracted and did not write the details). Copyright policy issue.
  
• Offer a positive solution so advocates don’t feel like “click monkeys”
  
• Shared action builds a sense of community and creates results – pay attention to your goals

Q: Behemoth tools – what do you think about the currently available technology? Are they open enough and flexible?

A: Ren: We used a behemoth that merged with a behemoth. There is nothing out there that is going to meet all of our needs. Sometimes you need a paring knife when you only have a chef’s knife. You need both. Accept or build into your budget that is it not one set fee/tool.

A: Kathy: I require a lot of support (I had a good laugh because that is so right on.) Our organization has two separate CMS and an online email system. We bring in different people. It is confusing for me. They are incredible tools, but not a universal tool.

A: Shabbir: There is no Swiss Army knife. There will always be a niche market.

Henry: Civic space labs is developing tools, out of Deanspace, originally content management for blogs, adding modules, 19 languages, been around several years, tool of choice of geeks, difficult to use but work going on to make it easier. Clark’s Event finder – something like meetup, Get Local from Dean campaign. House party local organizing tool. Advocate/Get Out the Vote module. You have to be an engineer to integrate it. He named more modules being built in.

Kathy: We have to learn how to use these tools. And sometimes the simplest solutions are best. We put up a plain ole form where people could copy and paste legislator’s responses to their emails – at some levels the legislators respond to their own emails and want to know more. This gives key intelligence to the campaign. Allow a very sophisticated interaction with their legislators that helped pass legislation with a very simple tool.

Q: Two wishes and a question. Would like more panels on how programmatic and strategic decisions would work. How you develop not just tools but organizations. The gender mix of this conference was the same as the gender mix of this panel ((3:3). Are there (missed some while I counted the room)

Other issues:

How to use volunteers - longevity, trust, communication

Shift our perception about how technology can play a role. On Pine Ridge, little connectivity, little cell phone coverage, but a real desire to use technology where useful -- in this case a digital storytelling project, putting camera's in people's hands to help preserve the culture.

Central Valley asthma project - bridging

SXSW
Activism

(Note: some name spellings fixed March 18)