Last week, I perused a D.C. liberal event at which about three dozen organizations geared on social change sought the names and e-mail addresses of all who showed happened by. As a test, I signed up to about a dozen, freely giving my real information away. I expected a barrage of e-mail this week, asking me to volunteer or give money or check out their website.
How many did I receive?
One. One e-mail all week.
For organizations that require people power to push change, how can they just sit on my information and not hit me up while their friendly faces and causes are still in my head. If 11 of 12 organizations failed to follow up with me in a timely fashion, does that reflect the web savvy of local grassroots organizations? God knows that Amnesty, MoveOn.org, and the ACLU don't forget that I gave them my e-mail address.
I'm very disappointed.
Saturday, June 11, 2005
Friday, June 10, 2005
Virals Just Sound Bad to Being With
I was first confronted with viral messaging on the campaign I worked on last year. The judge I worked for was running a statewide campaign with self-imposed contribution limits ($10 an individual...not kidding. He said, "Money and judges don't mix"). Our web consultant thought: OK, so there's this new tool people are using to spread the word about something. It's all done with e-mail. We film a video. They attach it to an e-mail and off it goes to infect the state full of Judge O'Neill lovin'.
Needless to say, we were super-excited about any idea that would convey the message to voters without having any money for TV. It excited us even more that we could take advantage of permission-based marketing and fuel the grassroots end of our campaign. So we dreamed our dream of an Ohio infected with Judge O'Neill. Sadly, we didn't even have the money to carry out the viral (the judge opted to pay his employees first, which is not how you win campaigns), but I wonder now whether it would have made much of a difference.
My intuition tells me that it couldn't have made up for all of the TV time our opponent had (we were outspent 30-to-1). At least not in 2004. And not in a supreme court race. But, then again, I guess that's the idea: You never know what will happen with a viral.
Needless to say, we were super-excited about any idea that would convey the message to voters without having any money for TV. It excited us even more that we could take advantage of permission-based marketing and fuel the grassroots end of our campaign. So we dreamed our dream of an Ohio infected with Judge O'Neill. Sadly, we didn't even have the money to carry out the viral (the judge opted to pay his employees first, which is not how you win campaigns), but I wonder now whether it would have made much of a difference.
My intuition tells me that it couldn't have made up for all of the TV time our opponent had (we were outspent 30-to-1). At least not in 2004. And not in a supreme court race. But, then again, I guess that's the idea: You never know what will happen with a viral.
Thursday, June 09, 2005
Unrelated Fun Pt. 1: Fashion à la Bob Jones
Oh my...
A morally errant friend of mine unearthed (i.e., saw on a blog somewhere) this wardrobe protocol for Bob Jones University students, which most notably bans the wearing, carrying or displaying of all articles of clothing that bear the logo of Abercrombie & Fitch or any of its subsidiaries "even if covered or masked in some way"!
I'm sure this will turn into quite the effective boycott, and it won't spur more A&F sales among our degenerate youth.
A morally errant friend of mine unearthed (i.e., saw on a blog somewhere) this wardrobe protocol for Bob Jones University students, which most notably bans the wearing, carrying or displaying of all articles of clothing that bear the logo of Abercrombie & Fitch or any of its subsidiaries "even if covered or masked in some way"!
I'm sure this will turn into quite the effective boycott, and it won't spur more A&F sales among our degenerate youth.
Rheingold Pt. 1: The Silence of Text Messaging
Until I read the April 2003 Reason interview with "cyberculture chronicler" Howard Rheingold, I must admit that the appeal of text messaging remained a mystery to me. The reason: If I can't enter the words in as fast as I think, I lose interest in the message. I always thought to myself, isn't this why we have keyboards? So we don't have to slow our brains down just to etch out a sentence? Combined with the rates Sprint wants to charge me per text message, the only reason I could imagine text messaging's appeal was if I was organizing the types of revolutionary protests and riots that would free me and my brethren from the likes of a tyrannical government.
Well, as it turns out, I'm a little off-base. Rheingold makes a simple, but important, observation: This kind of communication is not just fast, it's silent. "Your parents and teachers can't hear you," he explains.
No wonder my friends carry out conversations with me while their eyes glued to their cell-phone screens and their thumbs around the keypad like it was a Nintendo controller. It's sleek. It's silent. It's mobile. It's fast, like a phone call but less invasive and with a wider reach.
For this reason, the phone tree, which was the epitome of organized communication in my middle-school days, has quickly been replaced among the younger generations. Sorry, Mr. Phone Tree, you were just too darn slow and loud.
The only question remains: when can we replace phone banks?
Well, as it turns out, I'm a little off-base. Rheingold makes a simple, but important, observation: This kind of communication is not just fast, it's silent. "Your parents and teachers can't hear you," he explains.
No wonder my friends carry out conversations with me while their eyes glued to their cell-phone screens and their thumbs around the keypad like it was a Nintendo controller. It's sleek. It's silent. It's mobile. It's fast, like a phone call but less invasive and with a wider reach.
For this reason, the phone tree, which was the epitome of organized communication in my middle-school days, has quickly been replaced among the younger generations. Sorry, Mr. Phone Tree, you were just too darn slow and loud.
The only question remains: when can we replace phone banks?
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