« BACK  |  PRINT

RS

MEMBER DIARY

A Webactivist Initiative

By: Michael Harrington (Diary)  |  February 9th, 2012 at 02:38 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Greetings fellow webactivists.

I am seeking to catch up, and then pass the Democrats in high tech GOTV (Get Out The Vote) activities.

Believe it or not… Crowd Sourcing is a new (or repackaged) method to gather ideas.

So here is the Stated Goal:

To write a comprehensive technological plan with links, explanations, methods, and FAQ’s for Republican candidates to use.

To get to this goal we need to talk bar code readers, mobile credit card readers, smart phones, data banks, new map services, social networking, auto texting, mailing lists, forums, and more.

So your mission, if you accept, is to help put together our collective knowledge.

Obama has the lead in this arena… let’s work to reverse this. He has smart phones with drawn up maps of previous donors and credit card readers. He has a huge twitter following, and updates people with text’s sent to their phones.

I am a forward thinker… I know I can do a smaller version on my own… but our collective knowledge easily can make this effort… The most effective tool for Republicans ever

Tags: , , , , , ,

COMMENTS

POSTING RULES  |  LOGIN TO COMMENT  |  REGISTER TODAY
  • http://www.800cart.com Ron Robinson

    Forget plans. No plan survives contact with the enemy.

    Be aware of what’s already out there: we used NationBuilder.com to build Newt’s activist web site for the NH primary at NewtHampshire.com. Everything mentioned in the main post above and all the comments (and a lot more) is already in NationBuilder except for the credit card swiper and the bar code wand. (And you can easily add those *if* you get enough volunteers to really need them.)

    Mass emails and texts; voter database with mapping and turf cutting; volunteer recruitment and management; social media engagement and social streams, etc.; plus a lot, lot more.

    But with NatrionBuilder (NB) we engaged and recruited over 1,000 active volunteers in less than 5 weeks for Newt’s primary in NH. NationBuilder has a 14 day free trial. I have it deployed here in SoCal for tiny village city council candidate web sites to US Senate web sites. NB is very inexpensive; as I’ve noted before, the prices for good campaign tech are in free-fall right now.

    It’s even better if you combine it with a real voter database like rVotes.

    With NationBuilder you can even do the really advanced stuff like create QR codes that harvest the cellphone number of the scanning phone for your campaign database – you still send them to your web site, but you get something in return: another cell phone number in your database that you can (judiciously) text later on in the campaign. With the mass text tool that’s built-in to NB.

    But you don’t need mapping databases and credit card swipers and bar code wands at all unless you have volunteers. Bar code wands assume you are going to be processing over 50-100 precinct walk sheets per day. How are you going to get that many bar coded precinct sheets coming back to you? That’s walking 5-8 precincts a day – do you really have enough volunteers/activists to walk that many precincts per day?

    When was the last time you worked on a campaign that had enough volunteers to walk that many precincts? My bet is that it was in a year divisible by four and you were working on a national campaign. Or perhaps a US Senate or Gubernatorial race. And many precinct walks are not looking to bring information back from the precincts at all, so putting info back ‘into the database’ is not a consideration, and you sure don’t need bar code wands for those precinct walks. Don’t get set up for bar codes only to learn that you are just doing lit drops and not bringing answers back from your precinct walks!

    More important even than making sure you can recruit large numbers of activists is making sure you have the buy-in for tech from the candidate, the campaign manager, the campaign consultant, and the volunteer coordinator.

    I can tell you from first-hand, contracted, well-paid experience that you can get the formal buy-in from all these people, equip them with a superb database, complete comprehensive training, then when you slide by HQ a week later, they are using pencils and index cards again. They have to understand what the buy-in actually means, and obviously, that’s a tough job to accomplish credibly.

    A perfect example: I was speaking at the Northern Conference of the CA GOP on New Media a couple of weeks ago, and it was only 30 minutes from the largest political consultancy in CA. So I got an appointment to swing by and give them a presentation. They were nice, but clueless. You can click thru to every web site they’ve done on their client list and confirm for yourself that they’ve made the same fundamental social media (tech) mistake on every one of their client web sites.

    Until the campaigns stop writing checks for shoddy, sub-standard work, why should the campaign consultants learn what new media is about? They are getting their payday anyway. They just put a twitter and facebook button on your page and declare themselves savvy new media experts.

    The vaunted new ‘Communications Director’ for the CA GOP does not have any more of a clue, either. The CA GOP spent tens of thousands of $$ putting up the following ‘abandoned properties’ that have not been updated since July – check each of these sites’ ratings on Alexa…

    http://www.cagopcares.com/
    http://www.wherearethejobsjerry.com/
    http://www.costofcagov.com/
    http://www.caspeaksout.com/

    …oh, but don’t try to comment on these web sites (that ‘engagement’ part) – most of these sites have comments turned off… because the CA GOP can’t be bothered…

    My point here is that there are many within the GOP claim to want good tech, but they have no clue as to how to develop it. They are easily fooled by simulated tech like card swipers, wands, and abandoned WordPress sites – but no way to get these instruments out in the field.

    We need to get the leaders demanding real tech, not just a cheap simulation of real tech.

    Right now when you are claiming to want to orient toward engaging high tech, I have only one question for you.

    How many new volunteers did your engaging new media ‘solution’ recruit for me in the last 14 days?

    Without volunteers and activists, all the high tech in the world is useless, and I’m a tech advocate! Ask around for the good tech and you will find. But always, always, always be recruiting more activists or the tech will be useless.

    • http://MichaelHarrington.org creinstein

      Yes I know there is tech out there.

      But I also know tech advances.

      I am also a man who believes try all you can, in every direction you can.

      And look… a volunteer. The effort was worthwhile.

      Even failed efforts educate.

      And yes I know the… problems… my own State has… problems.. as mentioned.

      I want 100% of the population to be educated on the issues, and to run for office for that day forward we will have 0% of the problems!

      So I act bold, I step out of the box, I do not use just pastels, but I dig a trench to hold the line.

      So while it only has one (or a few, mattering on perspective… after all you participated in the conversation, on topic at first, and pushed the idea forward in more knowledge) volunteer I think you were harsh in the assessment.

      • http://www.800cart.com Ron Robinson

        Not personal, creinstein, nor really aimed at your post at all.

        We need to remember and perform on the fundamentals before we look to tech for solutions.

        Recruiting volunteers and activists is first – that’s why nationbulder calls itself nationbuilder – they excel at helping you recruit your volunteer/activist base, then you can use it to manage them and their work effectively too. If you are on a very limited budget, then their voter/volunteer database excels and you can just go with one solution for everything.

        Who would guess that you could get your entire volunteer recruiting and voter database solution for $19/month? That’s what most folks pay just for a web site host alone.

        But if you have a popular candidate who is likely to get elected, then you will have the treasury to pop for rVotes. Or use NationBuilder wisely and you will be able to builder the campaign treasury to be able to afford rVotes.

        But absolutely fricking nothing happens if you cannot assemble enough volunteers to get some precincts walked or at least put together a strong phone bank.

        Everything needs volunteers, so how do you get those efficiently?

        I rest my case.

    • http://redmerrimack.blogspot.com/ charliebravoNH

      It allowed the Gingrich campaign to do some serious catch up here in NH during the primary.For most of 2011 I did not see one Gingrich field rep in any of the County or Town Committee meetings I attended. That site with the regular emails and event postings was exactly what Newt needed. One of the other great things was it was local, people knew where to go to see Newt.

      • http://www.800cart.com Ron Robinson

        Actually, it’s still there, but looking more and more like one of those abandoned properties I complained about above – about 16 days since the last post, I think!

  • avgjo

    mobile credit card reader – mophie is your best bet. I’ve personally used them. They’re inexpensive, easy to use and work everywhere your smart phone does. You can even use them with (now) inexpensive iphone 3gs.

    http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Credit-Card-Solution-iPhone/dp/tech-data/B0042FZ1LC

    I have a close relative who repairs smart phones for a living, and I’ve helped do so in that business. The 3gs is still a fine phone, stable and affordable. The 4 had a lot of problems, and the 4s is out of reach, pricewise, for a lot of people. If you need to ‘arm*’ a lot of people on a budget, consider that phone.

    I can do a fair amount of programming, including web applications. My design skills are limited to information architecture (how to make the site flow easily and user-friendly). My art skills are limited to classical art, and that’s not suitable for web sites. If you’ve got an artist, I can help implement it, time allowing. Let me know.

    this practical, active stuff is what I love. Keep it up, please.

  • avgjo

    and to be clear, that’s volunteer time. As in free of charge.

    [I have noted with some sadness that too many conservatives are not willing to give up time for free towards causes like this. That's why (sadly) I feel it necessary to clarify. ]

  • http://MichaelHarrington.org creinstein

    This is what I am talking about.

    A PCP member in my county also reccomended trying to use QR Droid and creating tags on all different materials as a way to ‘expand’ the materials without taking up to much space.

    Sort of an additional reading plug.

    Given your skills… would you know how to set up a master table of information… say like a voters list, with phone numbers, addresses, names, demographic info, and such, have a way to assign a portion to a volunteer… where they can edit only their specific portion, only see their specific portion, but their edits effect the master file (so a changed phone number can be entered with ease).

    This is something I have been made aware of in the last two days that could help many candidates in Oregon.

  • avgjo

    like a database?

  • avgjo

    I went and researched/consulted with my brother, who knows a whole lot about databases. We could set up a database with the info you mentioned, with special privileges for certain users.

    For instance, suppose you have 100 ‘tables’ (100 voter profiles with the info you mentioned.) And suppose you have 10 volunteers. You could give each volunteer access to 10 tables only. the updates they make go into the database and you (or trusted person) could have access to the whole database. You can even limit access to parts of each table, if you wish (for instance, block phone numbers from certain users.)

    I imagine you’d want to save as much money as possible. I’ll see what I can find out about any good, free database software.

    Please let me know if this sounds good.

  • http://MichaelHarrington.org creinstein

    One which works with Smartphones

  • avgjo

    Sorry about the post below. It was before I saw this response. I’ll look into it.

  • http://MichaelHarrington.org creinstein

    That is exactly what we can use. The PCPs out here will do wonders if we can set this up :)

  • avgjo

    update for today.

    I went and found a free software that allows a database on a computer to be updated from a Smartphone (as in the actual ‘smartphone’ brand/os), as long as the database is of a certain kind (ODBC).

    I also know of free and good ODBC database software, which I’ve used in the past. now called OpenOffice’s BASE. As I understand, it can be used on enterprise projects, like the one you want. As I understand this, it requires a little more software, the cost of which I’ll have to research.

    So here’s what I’m going to do as I can in the next coupla days:

    1. Find out exactly what software is needed to do everything you want.

    2. Find out what kind of phones it will work on. Then we can figure out what to do if it’s not sufficient.

    3. Find out what technical demands it makes on the users. Try to figure out how to simplify it for quick training and implementation.

    I’m sorry I can’t devote full time to this, as I think actually DOING something and getting momentum is key to success for our country. BUT, I will do all I can to at least start it a good ways for someone else to take up. I’ll also help along the way as I can.

    If you don’t mind, I’d like to make my bit contribution to this full concept you mentioned so it can be a ready-to-go apparatus for other grassroots conservatives who are running for office or helping someone else who is.

  • http://MichaelHarrington.org creinstein

    I plan to research subscriber based text alerts and identify potential sources of cheap smart phones (maybe OEM surplus stocks, auction sites, or the likes).

    I will also work on identifying good premade web designs, free servers, and such.

    I will also help the less websavy by including codes for linking myspace, twitter, and such into your site.

    I will make a website dedicated to this when the effort of information gathering ends :)

    If 100% of Conservatives can fight on the web, and with new technologies as strong, or stronger than Obama did… “Game Over”

    Now an area I am less skilled in is maps for smart phones.

    It would be nice if we could usd a database of addresses to create a ‘walking’ map for volunteers and candidates. Half GPS like and half detail orientated about voter information around.

  • http://www.theprecinctproject.wordpress.com ColdWarrior

    www.rvotes.com

    It’s what the other side has been using against us since about 2004.

    Read everything on the web site. Watch all the tutorial videos (they are a little fast; I recommend you watch them at least twice).

    Then call Steve Adler.

    I just learned last night that the PCs of one of our Party legislative district committees have just licensed it. I’m going to try to get my LD’s committee to license it. Cost would be about $3/PC for a year.

    Thank you.

    CW

  • avgjo

    I’ve not heard of the software mentioned by these guys. They’re more experienced with this sort of thing than I. Check it out. If you determine for whatever reason, you want something else, I’ll help with whatever I can.

    It is interesting to note that the same tools available to the left are to us, and yet we can’t nearly reproduce their results. However, they DO have the media in their pocket. That’s why (as I’ve said elsewhere) my main focus for activism is media.

  • avgjo

    I hope you’ll realize that technology alone, no matter how advanced, will not get us ‘Game Over’.

    As important as GOTV obviously is, you will, in the end, be limited by how many people there are to get out. The libs have control of the media, the schools and pop culture. The word ‘conservative’ is coming to have as negative a connotation as ‘liberal’. Sure, twice as many people identify as conservative as liberal. But consider two things. First, ‘conservatives’ (self-identified) constitute 40% of the voting public. Secondly, young people vote much more liberally than conservatively. You don’t need me to put 2 and 2 together for you. As time goes on, liberal control of these hugely powerful institutions is taking its toll. California’s GOP is very nearly completely impotent. California’s institutions are thoroughly liberal; I’ve noticed many, many people on the right have given up on that state. They say, ‘as goes California, so goes the USA’.

    We have to work towards a new crop of conservative voters or there won’t be any to get out after a while…

  • http://www.theprecinctproject.wordpress.com ColdWarrior

    using these tools.

    You may recall that back when Michael Steele was running for RNC chairman, he promised, if elected, he’d have an online system installed nationwide for all PCs and volunteers so that we would be able to network for GOTV, etc. And then kept promising and promising and promising to deliver it. I was told by our then AZ state chairman that the AZ GOP was going to be a beta site. Never happened. All lies. In the end, all the money they spent was squandered on “studies.” Steve Adler pitched the RNC on rVotes in 2010 and they never followed through — probably because by then Steele and his buddies had essentially bankrupted the RNC.

    The “establishment” Republicans are terrified that conservative PCs will get their hands on these kinds of tools that allow conservative PCs to identify potential Republican voters to be recruited to fill up all the empty PC slots. For example, some Republican county chairmen don’t allow PCs to access VoterVault. Here in AZ, all PCs get access to VoterVault. Few use it. I do. With it, I can analyze my precinct and find out who the “perfect voters” are — the ones who always vote. Then I can go knock on their door, ask a few “voter attitude” conservative litmus test questions to determine that they are conservative, and then invite them to attend a committee meeting and, then, recruit them to become a PC if they sound like they’ll actually help with GOTV.

    This becomes even easier with rVotes.

    If the current officers of a legislative district committee or county committee or state committee are not conservatives, the last thing they want in the hands of the conservative PCs is a tool that allows them to recruit additional conservative PCs. Because then their chances of getting re-elected are reduced.

    That’s why you’ll never hear Reince Priebus or any other incumbent Party officer, nor even conservative incumbent Republican public officeholders, ever breathe a word about the need for conservative Republicans to become precinct committeemen. Because the status quo serves their self-interests. The status quo elected them, and they don’t want those conditions to change. And, knowing that about half of the PC slots are vacant, on average, in every locale, they know that if even just ten per cent of the vacant PC slots are filled with conservatives the political landscape could change dramatically.

    The “main thing” for elections, obviously, is GOTV. The candidate who gets the most votes wins. And those Republican candidates who have the greatest number of PCs getting out the vote for them in their precincts will have, in the primary, a huge advantage over the other candidates.

    The entire make-up of the Republican Party here in AZ has changed dramatically for the better because it has been infused with thousands of new, conservative PCs. And that infusion has changed the outcome of the party officer elections.

    For example, we’ll be having our election for our two RNC delegates at our state convention in a few months. Based on the results of our state GOP annual meeting a couple of weekends ago, it looks like our state committeemen are split about 60/40 between conservatives and moderates, with conservatives in the majority. That means if a conservative challenges one of our RNC delegates (I think one of them will not be challenged), we’ll be replacing that RNC delegate with a solid conservative. Which means we’ll have all three of our RNC national committee people (each state chairman is a national committeeman and then each state has one additional male and one additional female committee member).

    I hope this helps.

    Thank you.

    ColdWarrior

  • http://MichaelHarrington.org creinstein

    So keep the fight up.

    If liberals think Fox is right, wait for the screams of horror at a real Station covering our issues stealing all the viewers.

  • avgjo

    always, CW. Thanks a lot.

  • http://MichaelHarrington.org creinstein

    That your work, and Arizona serve as role models for us all!

    Keep the good fight up.

  • http://MichaelHarrington.org creinstein

    And that assumes they want to fight the Dems.

    Sometimes I wonder if a PAC in each State, Conservative of course, should be formed and advertise to each candidate how they can help the candidates as well as solicit funds as if they are the State Party (minus voting rights of course… but probably infinitely more skilled and active)

  • avgjo

    But we have structural problems, too. We need a focused effort to work on just schools. We need another to work on just media. One to file lawsuits everytime Obama/the dims/whoever oversteps its boudaries. Too much for one person or even a number of dedicated persons. A small number of people could do it over time, but I don’t know if we have that much.

    Whatever it’s worth to you, I admire your efforts and your fighting spirit. Good luck, and let me know if I can do anything. I made calls for Scott Walker from down here in the south. I’m game.

  • http://www.theprecinctproject.wordpress.com ColdWarrior

    CPAC:

    http://hotair.com/archives/2012/02/10/breitbart-tells-cpac-i-have-videos-of-obama-in-college-and-theyll-come-out-during-the-election/

    He hit some good notes: We all need to get involved. We need to unite. We need to get out the vote for whomever the nominee is. Because the choice is Occupy or America. (And, he said he’s got videos of Obama from his college years.)

    Now if we could only get someone with a big microphone, like Breitbart or West, or one of the candidates, to implore audiences like this to come into the Party as PCs and volunteers, pointing out that we’re going into the election war with our main “force structure” or “main army” at one-half operational strength because one-half of the PC slots are vacant and about a third of the precincts in America have not even one Republican precinct committeeman. (One of our counties here in AZ basically has no Republican county committee at all. Just zilch. There are other counties in other states like this.) It really has to be spelled out like this. I’ve never been to a CPAC, but I’ll bet if I had walked around and asked everyone I ran into, “Are you a precinct committeeman or ward captain?” most of them would have said, just like most tea partiers do when I ask, “What’s precinct committeeman or ward captain?” I hope I’m wrong about that.

    Thank you.

    ColdWarrior

  • avgjo

    VERY tired.

    Scott BROWN.

    I’m an idiot!