K Street Cafe

In case you missed it, the Hill ran my column “Promoting a Cause Through YouTube,” about the State Department’s use of social media as a powerful diplomacy tool used to promote democracy around the world.

Much can be learned by studying State’s Democracy Video Challenge user generated content campaign.  Launched last year, the Video Challenge invites citizens worldwide to submit videos completing the phrase “Democracy is…”  The campaign had more than 900 video submissions and was successful in engaging the public through social media.

The Democracy Video Challenge provides many good lessons for advocacy organizations trying to recruit and mobilize supporters both here and around the world.

Today YouTube announced the official launch of YouTube DIRECT, a tool that allows organizations to collect, moderate and then display videos from users directly on their organization’s web site or an associated YouTube channel. The stated intention of the tool is to allow news organizations to develop an array of user-generated stringers who can upload video reports and commentary to a news web site while maintaining the news site’s editorial control. (At the time of writing it was not 100% clear whether the tool was limited to official news services only – let’s hope not).

But let’s think outside of the box here. Why limit this to news organizations? Could you image what a forward thinking non-profit or advocacy group could do with this kind of technology? (more…)

There is a great discussion going on about whether Twitter is a strategy, or not, on the Progress Exchange Listserv. It was launched by Jon Pincus’s blog post on Tales from the Net and rejoined by Colin Delany on ePolitics.

Jon’s post

Colin’s response to Jon

Here is my response:

At the risk of being inflammatory (no offense meant Jon)… come on folks… aren’t we past the days when we refer to a tool (or a communication channel) as a strategy? The internet is not a strategy. A blog is not a strategy. And neither is Twitter.

These are channels for communication and we develop strategies for using them.

I am a big fan of Twitter. And I am always developing strategies for using it. But that is fundamentally different from saying Twitter is a strategy. Twitter can be used to inform people about ideas, promote events, engage conversations, and mobilize actions. And for each of these you can adopt a variety of strategies and tactics (using hashtags to engage different groups, linking groups together, etc.).

I also believe, as McLuhan wrote, that technology is not ideologically neutral. Tools are not just tools that can be used for any purpose. Each communication tool has its own ideology. For example, socially dynamic tools like Twitter are inherently more democratic than broadcast tools like TV. Thus, strategies for Twitter that exploit the democratic nature of the channel will work better than command and control strategies. And vice versa for TV.

What makes Twitter inherently democratic? Well, 1) generally anyone can follow anyone else and 2) no one can restrict who uses a hashtag or how they use it. What makes TV inherently undemocratic? 1) only the producers of the content control the content, 2) access to the channel is restricted, and 3) no feedback loop.

OK… so the ideology of Twitter constrains what strategies work on it (or at least work better), but the bottom line is still: Twitter is not a strategy, but a channel that allows us to pursue a variety of strategies for how we use it.

Here at HSUS, our email file is largely skewed to older women. We’ve been in the social media space for 2+ years now, trying to broaden our audience. But we haven’t done much integration of our email file and website to our social media presence because of the fear that the demographic of the two don’t match.

So, when it was time for our annual Spay Day Online Pet Photo Contest, and there was the question of whether or not to invest money in an accompanying Facebook application, there were some skeptics.

Being the social media person at the organization, I was all for it. I knew that as long as the application took advantage of Facebook’s viral features, it would take off. In my mind, this meant:

1 – all functions had to stay within the Facebook platform (instead of taking you to the external site)

2 – the Facebook app had to be a mirror of the external site and not a separate entity

3 – there had to be some function to post a “box” to your profile to show off your pet

4 – there had to be some function to post a “story” to your newsfeed, both when you installed the app and when you entered your pet

Of course, that’s overly-simplified. It took a long time to get it to where it is now. But the time and money were both worth it, as it essentially paid for itself. (more…)

Last week, The Cato Institute placed a full page ad in many major newspapers with a statement that showed there is not full agreement among economists about Obama’s stimulus plan.

But long before the ink was ever set to paper, thousands of people across the country had already seen the ad, and were commenting on it and sharing it with friends online.

By making the ad available to bloggers before it ran in the papers, Cato was able to generate a media buzz long before our main product even existed. Most of all, we gave bloggers the opportunity to scoop old media giants like The New York Times. (more…)

I didn’t know I was running for president until I saw this new video from AARP.  The truth is, AARP is launching a new election campaign that lets you put anyone’s name into their video as the candidate for president. Why? Because this election is all about YOU.

AARP’s new campaign is really about connecting with voters.  The very essence of this video campaign is to give the people a chance to insert themselves into the message, and then insert their friends.  Very personal touch, indeed.

While not the first to do something like this (Job Jab lets you put your face on an animated character), this light-hearted campaign really gets to the heart of electoral politics–YOU.

Want to send the ad to your friends with their name in it? Click here and have some fun.

It seems like everyone in Washington is focused on one thing: the financial bailout. Over the course of the past week, conservatives and liberals have done battle to shape the message. Think tanks, non-profits and other interest groups have debated policy proposals in hopes of finding a solution — or preventing one.

Then yesterday came a 10-minute YouTube video called “What Caused Our Economic Crisis?” posted by TheMouthPeace. It quickly found its way onto right-leaning blogs, including the popular Hot Air and Power Line. Even the Drudge Report linked to it yesterday. (more…)

It all started with a conversation.

A few months ago I was chatting with some colleagues about the lack of a comprehensive resource online for public affairs professionals to keep up to speed on with the latest trends, tactics and strategies in our industry. There are certainly plenty of resources for political pros on how technology is shaping campaigns and elections, but relatively few on how the Internet and social media is changing the way public policy is formed and shaped.

We called on some of the best and the brightest – practitioners and observers in the public affairs realm —  who are known for staying on top of the major transformations taking place in our industry to engage in an ongoing dialogue about how the nature of advocacy is changing. It is essential that all of the stakeholder groups in the issue advocacy world are involved – so we invited representatives from associations, think tanks, corporate goverment affairs offices, interest groups, the media, and from some of the key industry organizations in Washington DC including the Congressional Management Foundation and the Sunlight Foundation.

The result is K Street Cafe – a collaborative blog made up of expert contributors who can provide context and analysis of the changing nature of advocacy, and the difference these changes make in the formation of public policy.

So you might ask – why the name K Street Cafe? Doesn’t K Street conjure up some of the negative images we have about how public policy is formed? Yes. But we intend this blog to be conversation about how K Street is changing – away from images of fat cats, smoke filled rooms and back room deals toward a K Street that is open, transparent and with a much broader participation from the public.

Of course, cafes have long been centers of spirited dialogue. We trust this blog will host vigorous conversations on a variety of subjects. And we hope you will join us in the conversation.