New Media Democrats

Keeping the Internet Free

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Wixson) — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 18:46:23 PDT

Keeping the Internet free is not something we can leave up to governments or the free market. In this video, by Rebecca MacKinnon titled "Let's take back the Internet!" she gives an overview. The key point is that this technology, whose heritage is one of freedom and expression, is increasingly mediated not only by governments but by private enterprise. In short, there are a lot of forces at work against the public interest, and always will be. She argues that the only legitimate purpose of technology is to make the lives of individuals better, not to "manipulate and enslave us" as she says, so such intervention is unacceptable. She thinks there are ways to reform the Internet, influence governments and corporations, and keep it free.

Increasingly I think we are well past the point where we can reverse the trend toward control powerful forces like overly sensitive governments (like ours in the US), the entertainment industry and ISP-cum-media companies (i.e., cable TV giant Comcast/NBC) have over the Internet. Consider the recent case of a Comcast customer whose Internet access was suspended for a year for simply using the Internet too much. Canadian ISP's have even more draconian data cap policies. Clearly, we don't need to go to China to see how the Internet may be corrupted. We have plenty of it going on in our own back yards.

Unless someone like Google steps in and rebuilds the infrastructure of the Internet with fiber to every home, as they recently undertook in the two Oklahoma cities (and has the benevolence to keep it free, as in speech not beer, and open) AND we can turn back the tide on RIAA, MPAA and the like, who have so far succeeded convincing lawmakers and courts that copyright violations are tantamount to terrorism, AND governments like the US continue to react as they have to WikiLeaks, then we have small chance of a digital future on this Internet that is much different than our analog past. This era of the Internet where I can post these words online for all the world to see will have been a small, bright blip on the trail of personal freedom and grassroots action.

However, I think there's hope for us yet. In fact, I'm entirely confident we have a digital future that remains open and free, and from this point forward will ever be so. This era has been long enough, the number of those who've experienced it's wonder large enough, and technology advanced enough, that we can assume that even if the current Internet becomes just so many more channels for consuming commercial messages devoid of content from the unwashed masses, we have the will and the means to find a way.

"You can't stop the signal," says the rogue data collector, Mr. Universe, in the SciFi hit movie Serenity. The idea expressed in this fiction, that there are always means to bypass mediation and control, is universally true. Our history is replete with examples of how secrets have always been hard to keep. Our personal experience with rumors has taught us all this is not particular to government conspiracies and terrorist plots. As long as people have been able to speak and to write, there have been signals, and those signals have spilled out beyond control.

The history of digital technology, which is the history of information that can be propagated endlessly without degradation, is the history of the triumph of innovation over control. Copy protection on VHS tapes begot signal boosting boxes. DVD encryption begot a cracked encryption key. DRM on music files begot stream rippers and/or "the analog hole." Shutting down Napster resulted in the rise of The Pirate Bay (which is an example of "can't stop the signal" all unto itself.) China's Great Firewall springs leaks at every turn. Iranian dissidents use cell phones and satellite Internet links get out video of government crackdowns on protesters. As technology increases, so does the volume of "signals" which become increasingly hard to stop.

We are vulnerable to manipulation and intervention because of our reliance on digital infrastructure. We need wires from our homes to ISP's. We need cell phone towers and satellites to provide wireless data services, and at some point all of it needs to hook into the "backbone" of the Internet, a top-tier data network that is, essentially, a major gatekeeper. Shut down a handful of facilities and you shut down the Internet. There's a closet in a San Francisco AT&T building where US security and intelligence agencies effectively intercept and surveil all of the data going through that major section of the backbone.

So, to liberate ourselves from the controls being placed on the Internet, we have to have a new infrastructure. We need to build another Internet. Peer-to-peer networks that people used to share movies and music over the Internet were notoriously difficult to stop. If we built the entire Internet on a peer-to-peer model, if we get rid of the ISP, what's to stop any of us, anywhere? As long as it doesn't take wires, we can build an independent free Internet, or many Internets. In the near future this means radio (like WiFi) forming a mesh network.

It's not an idea without complication. Governments might step up regulation of radio frequencies, but enforcement would be exceedingly difficult as the mesh becomes more dense and the radio signal range decreases. Think about a mesh network so thick that radios with the range no greater than that of Bluetooth, but embedded everywhere, including in our clothing. With sufficient density the network would function with speed and resilience. Authorities could jam the signals across a broad range of frequencies, but to do so would be so disruptive to the use of wireless technologies that they may collapse under pressure to stop. Jamming facilities with any scale would be vulnerable to physical attack. There may be technological countermeasures to jamming. It's complicated, but a mesh network is feasible and would probably withstand concerted efforts to bring it down.

Within this network there will be chaos, certainly, but the early Internet was similarly wild. There will be the backlash to the wired Internet, with rampant piracy, and maybe even an underground economy, such as was envisioned in the SciFi thriller Daemon, by Daniel Suarez. BitCoins could be the currency of the MeshNet. Governments and industries will wage war there, with us, and there's no predicting the permutations of that scenario, but I think it would be safe to think that there, too, the signal will not be stopped.

In the somewhat more distant future we can anticipate other wireless technologies, such as quantum entanglement devices, or something we haven't even heard of yet. The cycle of innovation and constraint will continue. There will be a constant wax and wane of freedom, but I believe it will always be two steps forward for every one step back.

Let's get to building the MeshNet!

Facebook Lists

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Wixson) — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 23:24:17 PDT

When working in the political arena you have cause for managing your personal image. On the surface some social media services seem to offer little opportunity to share in a genuine way while still maintaining a public persona that doesn't invite controversy. Everyone has interests and passions that may seem strange to those who aren't very close friends or family. I would argue that in most cases such personal touches have quite a bit of value to the public persona, but even I can't insist that being entirely open all the time is the best policy.

Fortunately Facebook is one place where you can be both open and personal with those whom you keep close relationships while still keeping up a more carefully groomed public image. The key feature to learn about on Facebook is lists.

Here is an excellent tutorial about Facebook lists. You'll have to keep on your toes, though, since Facebook's interface has changed a little since the tutorial was made, and you'll have to look around a little to make the material relate.

Intro to New Media

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Wixson) — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 17:21:32 PST

I frequently hear people say they'd like to learn more about what it is I do. If your curiosity endures, I invite you to this initiation (above), provided by Clay Shirky, who is in my view the preeminent academic voice on the subject.

Anyone who wants to say they understand anything about New Media must watch and understand everything in video video above, so watch it twice. Seriously. You don't need to know anything about computers to get what he's driving at, so fear not. When you're done with that, go forth and order his book.

Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations

While you wait for that to come in the mail, drop in and check out his other TED talks. But, wait, there's more! To give you a sense of urgency and scope, watch this series of "Did You Know/Shift Happens" videos:

...and those are both hopelessly outdated now (proving the point made in the videos.) MySpace is no longer a player in the market and Facebook vaulted over 500 million users months ago...the 5th largest community on earth (counting countries) all by itself.

Still haven't received your copy of Shirky's book? Okay, well to pass the time how about some Social Media in Plain English?

If you're hanging in there with me so far, let me extend the guided introduction through one more stop. Originally made for people in the private space industry, this community manager for Google's Lunar X-Prize produced a valuable guide to New Media for the initiate. Just substitute the word "space" with the word "politics" and you'll get the point.

Lunar Exploration in 140 Characters or Less

There's a lot more I could share, but I'm straining your attention and I need to edit some video to go on Facebook tomorrow.

I'm going to develop a reading list, but here's quick partial list of my go-to dead-tree artifacts of collected wisdom:

Cybersociety 2.0
Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business by Jeff Howe
The Chaos Scenario by Bob Garfield
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom by Yochai Benkler
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell
Predictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions by Dan Ariely
Long Tail, The, Revised and Updated Edition: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More by Chris Anderson
Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity by Lawrence Lessig

Questions welcome.

Online Promotion

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Wixson) — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 23:02:40 PST

A member of our local party reached out to me to discuss ideas for promoting an upcoming golf outing fundraiser. He wanted to kick around ideas about promotion through social media and on our web site. I essentially told him he needed to forget about "promotion" through social media and focus on putting on a better event.

I admit that I don't know a whole lot about golf or golf outings, they're not my thing, but I do know a thing or two about promotion and social media. In particular I know that traditional models of promotion don't work in social media like people think they should. Social media is not a broadcast promotional channel. It's just not.

The key to success in social media is the "social" part. Now our county party can put up an announcement about the golf outing on the Facebook page and on Twitter--and we certainly will--but we probably won't get even one person to show up who learned about it through either of those channels. What we need are actual people talking about our event, sharing things about it with their friends. On Facebook people listen to their friends not to faceless, impersonal organizations. Of course there are always exceptions, but our organization is not one of the exceptions.

One mechanism for doing it the right way is to provide an opportunity for sharing through the registration system for the event itself. If the online tools available for golf outings include a way for people who register to attend to easily and automatically share that with their social graph, then that certainly would be worth money. People will respond to an opportunity if they personally know someone who is already going to be there. Ideally, as part of the page they land on right after they hit the "submit" button with their registration info there will be some button or form they can use to post, "Hey, I'm going to play 18 holes with Sheriff Fuller!" While that is on the wish list for capabilities of our county party web site, such wishes remained unfulfilled.

Another way to earn social media success in promotion is to improve your offering This is what the best in the business will tell you. Laura Fitton, aka @pistachio, in particular, whom I heard give this advice in a keynote address at a social media conference, makes this point.

You need to make what you are offering so good that people have to talk about it, that they are genuinely excited about it. It really does come down to that. We have such highly developed filters online that you can't hype things the way you used to do in traditional promotional channels. People know when you're trying to sell them something, when you're just trying to get money out of them. We've just become hyper sensitive to it. You have to make what you're selling really, really, unbelievably good and then you will naturally reap the rewards of being buzzworthy. It has to be entirely legit, too. You can't just say something is awesome, it has to be really, objectively awesome.

So the question I have for any promoter, be it for a cause or a product it makes no difference: what is so totally, genuinely, unbelievably unique and exciting about what you're offering that people will want to buzz about it with their friends online? What can you give them that they can't get anywhere else? In this case, what can you do for them that no other golf outing can do, and is that worthy of people's attention?

Bottom line: online promotion is first about having something truly great to offer, and then putting in front of your audience opportunities to share that experience with their friends.

EDITORIAL: Dissapointed?

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Wixson) — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 15:59:30 PST

The results from the 2010 mid-term election are disappointing for Democrats, no doubt.

So, what happened? One take is that the whole thing was out of the hands of the Democrats on every level. We did our best but the mood of the country and the narrative of angry, disaffected, voters seeking change were too much for mere mortals to withstand. I think that's a cop-out, though.

Nothing is well served by reducing complex subjects to single causes, but perhaps there is one contributing factor that ought be considered with an eye toward taking immediate steps to turn things around for next time.

I think that there's a problem in the fact that in large part campaigns were run the way they've always been run. They followed an old script, used traditional techniques, and walked familiar neighborhoods. Maybe, whether the pendulum is swinging left or right at any given moment, the same ol'-same 'ol style of political campaigns is vulnerable to the slings and arrows of outrageous Angles (as in Sharron Angle, who thankfully lost, but only narrowly!)

In my area, the Democrats did all the things they always do: they raised money, they recruited volunteers, they made phone calls, they walked neighborhoods, they mailed literature. They started some certain number of months before the election and then ramped up and became more and more active as election day got nearer.

They lost, but that's not the point. Win or loose, the process has a diminishing impact on the outcome. If the mood is pro-Democratic, the Democrats have an easier time of it and the stuff they do seems to work. If the mood is anti-Democratic, then no matter how many doors the candidates knock, the turnout for Democrats is still low. So, the age-old question comes to mind. How can you keep doing the same thing and expect a different result?

Now that the election is over, the local party will go into stasis for about a year, and then slowly wake up in time for the 2012 election. I won't pretend to know any certain answers here, but perhaps this is one thing that can and should change. Perhaps the local party apparatus should stay on alert and active, and do something now, today, to elect Democrats in the future. I refuse to say what we should do to elect Democrats in 2012, because this focus on just the next election is clearly part of the old way of thinking and should be banished from our minds. We should work today to elect Democrats in 2014, 2016, and 2018.

Instead of going by the old playbook, maybe we should consider something else entirely. How would we get Democrats elected if we didn't have fundraisers, or send fundraising letters? What would we do if we didn't send mass emails, or direct mail, or call lists, or buy TV time, or knock doors? It's time to get some heads together and ask that question, at least.

Although I can't imagine all of what we might do instead of those old standbys, I have one notion worth considering, which may steer such discussions in a productive direction. The idea is "engagement". It's an idea that comes out of the new media field, where it is the byword of success. In new media we spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to get people to interact with what we're promoting besides just clicking on the "buy it now" button.

It's a philosophy that says that if you can get people to react to your product or your brand, if as a brand you can engage them in some sort of back and forth or give and take outside just "you give me money and I give you a product or service," then you are more likely to have the opportunity to make the sale. You promote a community around your product, you give people a reason to identify with your brand, and ultimately they will reward you not only with the purchase, but with free promotion. New media presents lots of ways to go at this business, and we're far from figuring it all out, but it is definitely a method that works, and more importantly, is sustainable.

There's reason to believe it is a mindset that would work in the modern political arena.

The Obama campaign used engagement, particularly in new media, to great success in 2008
The Tea Party, as bad as they are, teach us that people want engagement -- one of their chief complaints is that politicians don't listen to people. That's basically a cry for engagement.
Voters are so overwhelmed by the fierce campaigning near an election that it depresses the turnout at that and all future elections as people become disillusioned with the process and cynical about politics.
In the media there is a new term, "low-information voter" to describe people who have been engaged on a very limited basis. People are generally poorly educated about politics and government, particularly on the local level. This is an opportunity to do something different!
The high volume of political discourse among conservatives indicates they have been taking advantage of engagement in ways that liberals have not.

My basic problem with the old way of running campaigns is that they use people and then abandon them. The philosophy seems to be that it's okay to milk donors, use and abuse volunteers, and impose on people in their mailbox, inbox, and on their porches because if your side wins their lives will be made better by the politicians. Put another way, we seem to think that it's okay to lower your quality of life and make you miserable for a while, so that you can have a little better quality of life for a little while after the election is over. It's time for us to realize that the old way of campaigning takes a toll on people and they do not love us for it.

We need to be brave and invent new ways to communicate with voters, and in this modern era it means finding creative ways of soliciting and responding to feedback and enticing masses of individuals to spread information organically among their friends and associates.

How NOT to Write Scripts for Web Video

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Wixson) — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 00:55:49 PDT

I'm editing this video I shot for Bobby Hopewell this morning (technically, yesterday morning) and I am reminded of a "Don't" for writing scripts for candidates to say into a camera.

Don't thank the viewer for visiting your web site.

The viewer may not be on your web site when they watch the video. In fact, chances are they won't be. Most campaign videos for the web site are uploaded to video hosting services, like YouTube, and chances are good that your viewer will be there. But you can't count on that either. Through YouTube, people may embed the video in any other page. So you really have no idea how the viewer will come across your video, or in what context. You want your video to make sense no matter where people see it, and by assuming the viewer is at the candidate's site you limit the ability of the video to be shared and spread across the Internet. For that matter, don't refer to other areas of the page, like a button or link that you imagine will be near by the video player, for instance. Don't box yourself into any one page, device or frame. Make sure the script you write for the candidate will allow the video to stand on its own. On a separate, but related note, don't mention the web site address, either. Leave that to the video editors to put in as a title over the video later. People sound silly saying URL's and they don't really register to the listener unless you talk very slowly or repeat yourself a lot.

Remember, the web is for sharing. Do everything you can to facilitate the natural tendency of a powerful message to spread.

Change-Congress.Org

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Wixson) — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 09:51:42 PST

Larry Lessig, one of the world's pre-eminent experts in copyright law and founder of the Creative Commons, has for the past few years changed his focus to an even more weighty cause, restoring trust in Congress by removing the perception of moneyed influence. He wants for us to trust our Congress again, and for that to happen, we have to believe Joe Lieberman is motivated by the interests of his constituents, not the interests of the insurance lobbyists from Connecticut.

For anyone unfamiliar with Larry Lessig, he's famous for his presentation style. Al Gore could take lessons from this guy in how to do a slide show talk. He's brought the passion and reason honed in the fight in defense of the commons and channeled it into a largely web-based campaign to fix financing for elections. When news of the recent Supreme Court decision regarding the role of corporate money in political elections came out, I just imagined professor Lessig's reaction. I thought that he'd have blown a gasket. I'm often surprised by his calm and collected demeanor, which he in exhibits in this video reaction to the news:

What's interesting to me in the context of this blog is that Mr. Lessig used the net to IMMEDIATELY shift the focus of his organization to this issue. From the airport, in the midst of travel, he paused, sat down and recorded a video, and it was up in a matter of hours after the decision was released. He had it on the front page of his web site, seamlessly integrating it into the online campaign. This immediacy, he must know, is essential to the success of online campaigns.

I was aware of the group before this news. I had even visited the site. Then this thing out in the world happened motivated me to take action. I recalled the campaign, the web site, largely because of the compelling personal brand of Larry Lessig. I looked for video of him reacting to this important news, and because I found it, because he acted immediately, in near real time (something only possible on the web), my interest was converted into action. I went back to the site and I signed up for the pledge, which is the big focus of the site, and now I'm locked in to the community of Change-Congress.org and will no doubt receive email from them recruiting me to even more action in the future. This is the way online activism works.

After you sign up with them, they go on to ask you to tap your personal network to recruit even more people to the cause. They very helpfully provide a sample email and invite you to copy and paste it into message to friends and family in your address book. For grins and giggles, here's their proxy pitch.

I just took an important pledge to help end the influence of big money in politics. Can you join me?

Every election cycle, special interests pump millions of dollars into congressional campaigns. This allows them to have more influence over our political system than regular folks, and to block real change on issue after issue.

That's why a reform group called Change Congress recently announced a "donor strike." Thousands of people are pledging not to donate to any congressional candidate unless they publicly support legislation to make congressional elections citizen-funded, not special-interest funded.

Rule #9

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Wixson) — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 21:34:41 PST

Rule #9, a.k.a "The Only Rule" is content, Content, CONTENT!

Put all of your energy into content. Nothing else really matters. Illustrate the importance of your work with compelling content about it. Set up a schedule and do it regularly, like clockwork. Get serious about it. Commit to it. This applies to every venue on the web, be it a web site, a blog, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, any of it; compelling, consistently produced content wins, everything else fails. The web audience is a fickle bunch. Clever content, not clever promotion, is the way to go.

How NOT to Send Email

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Wixson) — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 21:27:19 PST

A message came in from the office of my state congressional district yesterday. The "To:" field of this email contained my email address and that of 85 other people. In case you don't see the harm there, consider that now some 85 strangers have my email address that didn't before. How many people do you know that still forward every stupid joke and hoax they get to every person in their address book?

Worse, this person may very well have exposed the political affiliation of 85 people who could be harmed by having their politics known. What business opportunities might a liberal lose should the community's conservatives come to find out their political leanings? Maybe such discrimination shouldn't have a place in our society, but you can't say it doesn't, and it's not up to the sender of an email to take that risk on someone else's behalf. Putting your email into a mailing list does not constitute a political act and does not constitute a public declaration of association. This aid at the congressional district office violated people's privacy because she made the simple mistake of cutting and pasting some email addresses into the "To:" field of her email program.

So, add that to the "Dont's" list for online activism:

Don't put mailing list recipients' email addresses in the "To:" or "Cc:" fields of an email.

The proper way to send individual email to a group is to put your own email address in the "To;" field and put the email addresses in the "Bcc:" field instead.

Do use a mailing list service, like Constant Contact or My Emma, or use mailing list software, like PHPList.

Mailing list services like My Emma and Constant Contact ensure you comply with mass mailing best practices, such as providing a mechanism for people to automatically opt-out of your email list. It also lets you send email to a large number of people without having to get around your email provider's anti-spam efforts and without the risk that you will end up being flagged as a spammer.

PHPList is a mailing list program you can install on your web server which pretty much does the same thing, and it's free. The problem is that not all web hosts are compatible with this program and you will need an expert to set it up.

Don't send email from a free email account like GMail or Yahoo.

If you're representing a candidate or political party or government office, using a private email service like GMail or Yahoo (or even your ISP, like @sbcglobal.net) is unprofessional and a security risk.

Say I get an email address like "kcdpoffice@gmail.com". With that email I send out a fundraising newsletter, asking you for donations. How do you, as a recipient of this email, know that I am who I say that I am? Anyone at all can create an @gmail.com email address. You have no reason to trust anyone who says anything in an email that comes from a free email service like GMail unless you have previously established a trust relationship with the sender of that email.

Furthermore, it's easy to fool people. Say I really do work for the KCDP and you trust email that came from "kcdpoffice@gmail.com". How about email that came from "kcbpoffice@gamil.com"? If it looked like email I sent from kcdpoffice@gmail.com, would you even realize that your actually getting an email from kcbpoffice@gmail.com instead, and that any link you click on could take you to a web site in Indonesia where they take your credit card information and throw a party or fund a terrorist attack or something.

Instead, create a domain (the part that comes after the @ symbol) and then people can trust any email address that comes from that domain. There are practical legal remedies for anyone trying to defraud on the basis of creating a similar domain. With kcbpoffice@gmail.com you're pretty much SOL if someone tries to steal from your constituents.

Do follow an opt-in only policy for your mailing lists.

People really resent when their email addresses, which they entrust to one organization, is shared with another organization. If I give you my phone number, I expect you won't give it to Jim, because I think Jim is kind of creepy and I don't want to talk to him. Email is the same way. Every person on your mailing list should have asked to be on it. Trust is especially hard to come by on the Internet, and you shouldn't undermine it by using someone else's mailing list or sharing your mailing list with others.

For more about email do's and don'ts, check out this helpful guide:

"Best Practices" and Guidelines for Bulk Email Senders

Correction: it was the State House District Service Office, not Congressional, and the person who sent the email is not accurately described as an "aid". Her title is probably a lot more impressive.

Make the Pitch

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Wixson) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:20:27 PDT

Since I've been politically active I've not ceased at amazement when sent yet another email, letter or Facebook message inviting me to attend something, do something, or give something in the name of the cause. My amazement stems from the inevitable lack of attention paid to effective, even basic, marketing in these earnest appeals. In the interest of at least commenting on considered observation, I here convey a few easy guidelines any political activist could take to heart and use to effect when composting their communications.

1.) Make the sales pitch, make it early.

Many of the messages I receive never bother to try to sell me on the product. When I'm being asked to come join a canvas, nobody ever tries to tell me why it's something worthwhile or even what a canvas is. In case the person on the other end doesn't know, however obvious and old hat it is to you, you should always tell people what canvasing, or phone banking, or whatever it is you're pushing actually entails. At the least you should give people a reason, even a lame one, why they should have a personal investment in the action it is you're trying to motivate them to take. Make the pitch early on in your message. Attention wanes and you want to sell them before they drop off.

2.) Be brief.

On the web especially, brevity is currency. Twitter is popular in large part because it's limited to 140 characters. The previous section is 130 words, and it was getting a bit wordy. Write in sections of 125 words or less with bold, break-out headlines in between to catch people who are scanning longer content for interesting information.

3.) Step away from the toolbar.

Anyone who hasn't earned their degree in graphic design needs to take a step back, let the words provide emphasis, and keep their mouses away from the bold, underline, italic and centering controls of their word processor. Pry the caps lock key off your keyboard and throw it away. Centered text is hard to read. If you really must have white space around your text in order for it to look important, try indenting instead. Beyond that, the only line breaks should be after headlines, at the end of complete paragraphs of two or more sentences long, to break down an address into standard formatting, or where the margins of the document cause the application to naturally wrap the text -- that's it. No excuses. No more bold, underlined, italic, all capital text. When it comes to formatting, you're not qualified and it shows.

[ image courtesy of: mike@bensalem ]

My KCDP Newsletter Article

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Wixson) — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 21:19:29 PDT

I'm composing a draft of an article for the KCDP print newsletter and I'd like some feedback or pointers. It's hitting the highlights but doesn't really have any craft in it yet. Please comment. Deadline is the 8th.

In the run up to the 2008 election, the KCDP web site got an upgrade. There was a complete list of all the candidates linked to profiles and pictures of many. There were podcast (audio) interivews, an event calendar and a photo gallery.

Since the election the web site has been maintained with new news stories and media. Videos from the Inauguration celebration and photos from the Vice President Joe Biden's visit can be found in the web site's archives. Recently a few new features have been added, including a form where KCDP members may submit their own announcements for inclusion on the web site, and a survey asking the question, "What is a Democrat?" In October, the web site will again be getting another upgrade as the new version of the site's software is installed.

Post-election, online efforts of the KCDP includes the formation of an ad-hoc, New Media Committee. The purpose of the New Media Committee is to promote the KCDP online and to educate political activists and candidates about how to use new media to reach voters. All KCDP members are encouraged to join the committee, and anyone can participate by blogging, or taking and posting photos or video at politically interesting events, and then letting the KCDP webmaster know where to find your content.

Beyond the web site, KCDP has a presence on every popular, social media web site. On Twitter users can search for #kcdp to find member's relevant updates. YouTube users can find relevant videos with the tag "kcdp". The KCDP Chairperson, David Pawloski, is posting information directly to the KCDP Facebook group. Several KCDP members, like Mike Seals, have met with new media committee chairperson Kevin Wixson and started their own blogs, and learned how to use thei blogs in conjunction with Twitter and Facebook as an effective tool for campaigns.

Wixson says, "Recent developments in social media technology, like Twitter, have made it so that regular people no longer need any technical skills to take advantage of the most powerful means of communication and outreach. You can now start and build an entire campaign in the matter of a couple days, with no money."

Kevin has offered to meet with any KCDP member who is politically active or planning a run for public office to provide one-on-one, hands-on training in new media. To make an appointment, send an email to webmaster@kzoodems.com.

Visit www.kzoodems.com to see recent KCDP news, sign up to receive the KCDP newsletter via email, or submit your own announcement or news for the KCDP web site.

Twitter Service for Political Action

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Wixson) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:05:29 PDT

UPDATE 10/6/09: The encrypted link to enter my information and sign up for the service just came through. So, it works, but they've got a backlog. Don't expect this to go quickly

UPDATE 9/3/09: This service is not as easily signed up for as advertised. I have tried to follow the directions and first follow @cxs and then reply to @cxs with an issue tag. I expected to receive a DM with the encrypted link to the web site where I would enter my name and address. I just keep getting a reply that says "outgoing_ONLY @kwixson Glad u r speaking out. To use the To Congress message gateway you need 2 be a cxs follower at http://twitter.com/cxs" Not sure how to get a hold of them or how to proceed.

Karen Wellman who is taking to new media with a passion, perhaps, passed on this to me today:

Titter to Congress

This is your gateway to easily message all your members of Congress through Twitter. It is totally free, and we will NEVER have to ask for your Twitter password! All we ask is that you follow cxs on Twitter, so we can send you privately the encrypted link you will need to activate this page, to set up the contact info for delivery of your messages. If you aren't already following us, you will get a message in your own replies section asking you to do so for this purpose,

The site looks like it is a short cut to finding out what your congress-critter's Twitter account is and relays messages to them on your behalf. It also seems to do a basic level of authentication, which is probably helpful to the offices of the legislators that receive the tweets, as they are given an assurance that these messages are from legitimate voters and not random netizens. Lastly, it offers a measure of convention so that efforts can be filtered and focused for effect. There's a fair bit of hoops to jump through, but comprehensive instructions to help you through it.

Newbies Guide to Twitter

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Wixson) — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 21:34:21 PDT

This CNET web site is a good place to start for the Twitter-curious:

http://news.cnet.com/newbies-guide-to-twitter/

I found it while I was looking for the command I heard about for new people who want to join Twitter from their phone.

If you do not have a Twitter account already, and it's important that you DON'T DO THIS IF YOU DO already have a Twitter account, you can send a text message to 40404 with the word "join" and then follow the directions in the reply text message to assign a username and create your account.

If you try to do this when you already have a Twitter account, all you'll do is create a new account on Twitter and bind your phone number to it. To make it so you can post tweets from your phone when you already have a Twitter account, you have to go to the Twitter web site and adjust your settings.

This and other things I'm finding out as I ruminate on a pair of talks I plan to give in the not-too-distant future. One will be at the Portage Senior Center, where I volunteer to teach classes on digital photography, and another will be in January at the Kalamazoo County Democratic Party monthly member meeting. The KCDP talk specifically will involve a section where I pause and get people in the audience with SMS capable phones to sign up for Twitter and follow me on the spot.

YouTube Now Has Over 120 Million U.S. Viewers

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Wixson) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:08:29 PDT

The news from Mashable: "YouTube Now Has Over 120 Million U.S. Viewers" -link

The significance to this is that with 120 Million viewers in a country of roughly 300 million people, just about 1/2 of the people you meet on the campaign trail will already be primed to go to and see your videos if you put them up on YouTube. You don't have to educate or entice people to try YouTube, they're already there. If you are campaigning for a cause or for office, you want people to follow what you do, putting videos up on YouTube is worth your time.

So, you have homework: due in two weeks (because like the president says, if you don't put a deadline on it, it won't get done) you will record and post to YouTube a short video (15-45 seconds) supporting the cause or candidate you are most passionate about. If you are a candidate, that should certainly be a video about yourself. Then you're to come here and add a comment with a link to your YouTube video.

Cybersociety 2.0 -- Thought Leaders

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Wixson) — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 21:36:23 PDT

The thought leader's role is to get on top of an issue: see it coming, gather positions and arguments about it, network with pepole who are relevant to it in varous ways, and articulate it in terms that supply useful raw materials for individual community members' own thinking in their own situations.

"CyberSociety 2.0: revisiting computer-mediated communication and community" by Steve Jones

I think this is basically the role of the politician and the political candidate. Candidates aspire to be thought leaders, and by dint of election, politicians are thought leaders. The campaign is the process by which a candidate either is transformed by the process into a thought leader, and is elected, or who fails. A campaign is a test to measure the capacity of an individual to "get on top of an issue" and "to see it coming" and "articulate it". The political campaign online is one aspect of the test where new media is increasingly the "terms", the context, for the "individual community members' own thinking".

Live Blogging

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Wixson) — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 21:36:56 PDT

Live Blogging is the art of blogging while it's happening. This is not at all like television news with a live shot from the important school board meeting. The difference is that a live shot is not selective about what's presented. Live Blogging has the immediacy of in-the-moment coverage, but with a touch of the editorial control of actual reporting. When you are blogging from the event, you shouldn't necessarily go for the blow by blow, rather, you're watching and preparing for the moment news is made and publishing in the the immediate thereafter.

Tonight I did live blogging from the Kalamazoo County Democratic Party Officer's Meeting for August. As you can see, I made just one post, and on just one bit of news. Obviously other things happened at the meeting, but this was what I thought would be the most important thing. It was also handy that I had read the agenda and knew we had this speaker, and that we were going to make a decision one way or another about her endorsement. I took the pictures and had them on my computer, cropped and uploaded before she finished talking. I typed out some notes and thought about what I would say in the event of either outcome. When the officers voted I had only to make a couple quick edits and click "publish". The post was probably up before she got home.

The immediacy is important. Workflow for amateurs is best served in the here-and-now. In my post about being sure you contribute something every time you go to a meeting (a principal I tonight upheld) I mentioned Mark Miller had also videoed the presenter. Because Mark didn't do something with it immediately, and because Mark is already stretched pretty thin, the video remains to be published. We get busy and it's terribly easy to let the publishing part slide if you don't do it right away.

Your audience is best served with publishing right away, and so are you.

By the way, the computer I used to blog, live, from the meeting, is a lot like this newer model: Acer Aspire One AOD250-1924 10.1-Inch Black Netbook - 7.5 Hour Battery Life

Contribute at Every Event

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Wixson) — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 21:37:38 PDT

Every time you go to an event you have an opportunity to contribute to the documentation of that event, to be an active witness.

Above is a short video from our monthly meeting. The 2010 candidate for Michigan Secretary of state Jocelyn Benson came to speak at the meeting. I got a couple pictures and this video. The pictures went to the Flickr group for the KCDP. I cut this excerpt out from the longer video of Ms. Benson's speach which I particularly liked and posted it to YouTube and to our Facebook group. Now I'm sure at some point Benson's campaign will search for her name and see what other people have put out there.

Maybe my video or pictures will be added to a video project for her campaign, like for a commercial for TV or the web. Mark Miller took video from the speech too, and maybe his will be spliced together with mine to create a two-shot, or he might pick a different selection and together we will show more of her speech than either of us are posting individually. Other people will take video of Benson at other events. When it comes time to vote, a lot of people looking for information about the candidates will see my video, and the video shot by other people. If she has a good case for being elected, then her message will come through in in the totality of avaialble video. It's not important to know how our contributions will be used. What's important is that Mark and I each took responsiblity for contributing something from this KCDP event to the public record.

The ease of doing things removes barriers to contributing. Easy sharing allows us to combine our efforts, or allows our consumers to combine our respective individual efforts for us. With a bunch of people contributing, because it's easy, you wind up with a surprisingly complete and high quality record. New media is what lets us work together without any effort to organize or coordinate our activities. We don't have to have a manager. Because of the power of networks to passively organize work, you don't even have to do very much, so long as everyone is encouraged to contribute something. The outcome is determined by the number of contributors, not the talent of any one contributor. This is how Wikipedia works.

So, in the new media world we are each responsible for taking notes, because other people are counting on you to add your bit to theirs. You don't have to try to capture just what other people don't. You can just contribute what was most important to you, or what caught your attention the most. You contribute in a way that is most comfortable for you. If you have a video camera and putting up video on YouTube is easy for you, do that. If you can snap a couple of digital pictures and post them to Flickr, do that. If all you can do is write up what one person said at one point in the meeting and post that to your blog or in a comment on a page about the meeting, then that's fine. Just do something, contribute at every event.

Cory Booker, Twitterer

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Wixson) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 10:28:50 PDT

Ledger Live: Newark Mayor Cory Booker and Twitter

Cory Booker really gets it. Since I started following him on Twitter I've been looking to him as a model specifically for how local government can use new media. Even though I'm always interested to read Booker's tweets, a lot of it isn't for me, it isn't relevant to me, because he really is addressing local issues and talking to his constituents rather than to the world at large. You might wonder how it is that Booker can rely on his constituents being the ones who send him tweets in response. I think the answer is that he doesn't know that each and every tweet he gets is from a constituent, some probably aren't, and there's no way to tell a Newark resident from a Spokane resident. Networks like this, though, tend to be self-selecting. First, you have to be pretty special as a mayor for people who don't live in your city to even bother following you. Then, the people following you who are not residents know they are not residents, and I think tend to refrain. Finally, like Booker says in the video, he doesn't address most twitter messages individually, he scans a list of them and derives an aggregated sense of what the community is saying and responds to that. Assuming even just that most of the people responding to him are from Newark he can have some confidence that in general the take-away from reading his responses will accurately reflect the sentiments of his voters.

Social Media in Plain English

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Wixson) — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 21:35:18 PDT

You might guess that this blog is written for people all over, but that I use the people in my local community as the model for my audience. My local community is struggling to understand what it is that I'm really talking about when it comes to this new media stuff. Although it might be a tad basic for some, this video is perfect for many in my community with whom I struggle to convince that the "New Media Way" involves free-form, unmoderated feedback systems. It has been interesting to see how, like at the officers' meeting, members of the party practically gasp at the suggestion we'd allow unvetted material sully our tightly controlled web sanctum. It is an anathema to their way of thinking that the party would not exert its dominion over everything it touches. It's not a right-left thing, not an old-new thing, it's an institution thing. They're having a hard time letting go.

NPR's Bob Garfield Says Radio, Television, Advertising Doomed

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Wixson) — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 21:42:51 PDT

A couple of weeks ago I went to our local party officers' meeting and during my report for the New Media Committee we had a brief discussion about the role of media in the next presidential election. I made a prediction to a disbelieving group that by 2012 the AP (Associated Press) will have gone out of business, which our local paper the Kalamazoo Gazette could not survive, and so we will be virtually on our own in getting the word out to voters. I also suggested that the local news, Channel 3 especially, will either be gone entirely or utterly impotent when it comes to delivering our message to voters.

Today I caught an interview on NPR with Bob Garfield, host of that network's On The Media, during which he basically spelled out why I could very well be on target with my predictions about the impending demise of mass media, a subject to which he's dedicated four years of globe-trotting research. Thank you to Bob Garfield for getting my back on this one, and I hope my party's movers and shakers are listening. As Garfield says in the subtitle to his new book The Chaos Scenario, "listen, or perish."

Text Embed Button

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Wixson) — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 13:30:21 PDT

Copying a portion of an article from another web site or publication without permission is illegal. It probably won't get you sent to jail, but it likely will get you a "cease and desist" letter from their legal department, and opens you up to civil litigation which may mean you have to pay a bunch of money. Some web sites risk this infringement just as some originating web sites tolerate having their content republished without their consent. There is a better way, however.

I propose that web sites with original content, especially news web sites, provide "embed" buttons for their articles. Already a lot of web sites offer mechanisms for embedding pictures or video from their web site, but so far I have not seen an embed option for text. I would like to see a button on a text article that would provide code that when pasted into a web site would display the first few paragraphs of an article and then a properly credited and formatted link back to the original article. This would provide a mechanism whereby originators could reinforce the idea that their content is protected, but also allow re-publishers to do what they're going to do anyway, but in a legal way.

I just wrapped up an email exchange with someone at The Nation magazine in which I proposed just such idea and it looks like its going to get run up flag pole. I'll be looking for something along those lines becoming a feature on the site in the next few months.

If I get a chance I'll also be crafting a button and publishing the code here.

southcountydems.com

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Wixson) — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 23:04:41 PDT

South County Democratic Club

http://www.southcountydems.com/

They get a couple things right, but a couple of things very wrong.

The Right

They get it that it's all about content. Their front page is loaded with content. It's been updated recently and it looks like regularly.

This web site posts original content about local issues and stories that are relevant to their community and cause. This post is a good exapmle:

Our good friend and Democrat Rudi Neumann passed away the end of May. He was unique, an individual unto himself -- one of a kind. We will remember his generosity and his congenial nature. We will remember how eager he was to help. Rudi was married to Pauline, the wonderful quilter who has donated so many beautiful, handmade quilts to our club.

It's good because it's something that they know, and is not something likely to be represented in traditional media.

They also obviously make an effort to include a visual, usually a picture with every post. That's good policy.

The Wrong

Tragicly, this site is headed for trouble. They post entire stories, graphics and all, copied and pasted directly from other sites, big sites, like national newspapers and big web sites like the Huffington Post. These things are copyrighted, and copying and pasting them is illegal. They WILL get in trouble for this. Like a clerk at a convenience store, you can steal for a while, but sooner or later you WILL get caught. They obviously believe a couple of the myths about copyright (namely that you can't get busted if you're a non-profit or if you give credit and links -- the "free advertising" myth.) This is one pitfall everyone should avoid. Remember that everything, absolutely everything, on the web is copyrighted. Some people have given a kind of standing permission to use their content, such as with a Creative Commons licesnse, and some things you can use by dint of statute -- a lot of what the govenment produces is public use by law -- but everything has copyright and it is the copyright holder who can say who can use it and how.

A handy guide I've found is an article called 10 Big Myths About Copyright Explained.

While the "site map" at the top of the page is kind of a cool organizational document and I might be inspired by it to create something to show to my own community about how a site should be organized, it shouldn't actually appear on the site, especially not on the top of the page for the reader to get past before getting to the content. Plus, the intro paragraph seems more like something the site's creator put there to organize his/her own thoughts rather than to advise the viewer. Viewers of any level are more savvy than that text suggests.

The design is a problem too. I would organize the site with link list naviagation and if I wasn't competent to create a good design I would retreat to a more basic black text on white background. Design should get out of the way, not be a distraction by trying too hard.

Damned By the Medium

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Wixson) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 10:42:56 PDT

Reading Clay Shirkey's book, Here Comes Everybody, and I reached a passage that really struck a cord with me. In the book he tells of an incident where the Abbot of Sponheim was defending the scribe industry, the monks who hand-lettered copies of books, fifty years after the invention of movable type.

"If, in the year 1492, you'd written a treatise you wanted widely disseminated, what would you do? You'd have it printed, of course, which was exactly what the Abbot did. De Laude Scriptorum was not itself copied by scribes; it was set in movable type, in order to get a lot of copies our cheaply and quickly..."

-Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody, The Penguin Press, p68

Reminds me of Jack Valenti.

Gordon Brown: Wiring a web for global good

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Wixson) — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 21:41:10 PDT

I'm still not sure I'm a fan of Gordon Brown, but in this speech he's pretty compelling about the use of the web for developing a global community through new media for political action. He talks about historical instances of media used to mobilize forces around the world to effect change. His examples include the death of Neda Agha-Soltan in the aftermath of the Iranian election.

I especially like the quote he used in the end, except he flubbed it a bit. He apparently did it better at another speech around the same time to the one at TED:
"It was said in ancient Rome that when Cicero spoke people said, from the eloquence of his remarks, 'great speech'. But it was said in ancient Greece that when Demosthenes spoke, and he too was eloquent about what should be done, the public then said 'let’s march'."

-Gordon Brown

A commenter on the TED page had a good critique of the speech:

"Very inspiring speech indeed. However, lack specifications on 'how' should we head towards that direction instead of just saying 'why' we should... (well, i guess everyone does know about the [seriousness] of the situation). What are the important steps that should be taken to further the agenda? Who are vital parties? Gov, NGOs what are the roles? Ways to improve global [consciousness]? What are the major flaws/problems faced by global institutions (e.g UN) that should be address immediately? However, its a motivating start for TED."

-Lee zhi ren

Media Buddy System

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Wixson) — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 21:44:02 PDT

When I met with Michael Seals the other day he had a really good idea. Photos like the one above of Terri Mellinger talking to Vice President Joe Biden aren't just keepsakes, in politics they're currency. The problem is that unless someone's hired a photographer, these photo ops can go un-opted. Mike suggested that people with cameras buddy up when they attend political rallies and other events -- you take my picture, I'll take yours. If Terri and Mike had buddied up, then in addition to this picture of Terri with the Vice President there would be another with Mike in it. Terri had a camera.

Now, this buddy system is all well and good for getting the pictures taken, but it takes a new media component to really make it work for everybody. Terri and Mike could have simply emailed the pictures of eachother to eachother, I suppose, but the better way is if each of them uploaded all of their pictures to the web.

Flickr (www.flickr.com) is a free photo sharing web site owned by Yahoo where people can upload and share their photos. What makes Flickr especially great is that you can "tag" your photos. Tags are keywords or phrases you associate with your image. The picture above could have tags like "Terri Mellinger", "Joe Biden" and "Kalamazoo". People interested in finding pictures of Joe Biden can search for that tag and find this picture.

For our local party there are a couple special features I encourage all our members to use. The first is tagging. I ask all the Kalamazoo County Democratic Party members to tag their photos with the tag "kcdp" -- all the ones from political events anyway. But that has obvious drawbacks; anyone can use the tag kcdp. So, to be doubly sure we get a pool of pictures that everyone at the KCDP can see and enjoy I have created a Flickr group for the county party. Members of the KCDP can join the group and then share their photos with the group, which adds the pictures to a convenient picture pool.

With pictures on Flickr, not only can Mike share his pictures from the event with the people in them, like Terri, but he can also share them with the people who couldn't make it to the event but who would like to see what happened. Flickr is cool. It's so cool I've bought the "Pro" membership so I can have unlimited photos up there and also share my photos at their original size. The price at Flickr for a Pro account is a good deal.

Remember: Photo/video buddy system at events!