What Technologies are most needed and useful?

[N. Mercier]

Clearly there are thousands of ways we can bring the GOP kicking and screaming into the online age. However I think it would be extremely beneficial to prioritize so that our focus does not become overly diverse. With the existence of Facebook, MySpace, LiveJournal, Twitter, cell phone texting, email lists, stand alone web-sites, viral videos, YouTube comments, PodCasts, Iphone applications and who knows what else it would be easy to overwhelm many of the technophobic members of the grass roots GOP.

What do you think would make the biggest difference in the shortest amount of time? Personally I feel that we need to establish even a basic presence on the web. My own Republican Town Committee is just now playing with the idea of developing a website. I hope to encourage them to use a blog based medium such as WordPress so that they can make a website that can stay current and relevant rather than a static page that will soon fall out of date. Imagine how much more internet buzz we could generate if we just were able to convince some of our leadership to take steps similar to this on the local level.

What other technologies do you think are easy enough to use so that all our members could be comfortable with them, but at the same time are relevant and effective enough to spend the time developing? I leave this as an open question to the community because I am sure some of you are far more educated on this matter than I am.

[Matthew P. Block]

You're right about the blog (and I personally agree that Wordpress is a great platform, it makes a pretty good CMS even beyond blogging with the right themes). Someone at Temple University actually ran a study during the presidential primaries and found that blogs were the only medium studies that correlated with better vote tallies.
I personally think using facebook (and some specialized networking communities like this one) and using blogs are the two biggest steps we should all be taking to improve our connections, visibility, and message in the world. All the things like Youtube, podcasts, twitter, etc. can help to amplify the effects as well.

RSS readers should be encouraged as well. They make it so much easier to keep up with multiple conversations around the web and something like Google Reader is pretty simple to use.

[Marla]

I am a Secretary to our Central Committee, we currently have a website that was started by our Chairman. He was not good at all about keeping it up to date.In fact the opening page had " I will keep this up to date and current as often as I can" Really sad! He has placed it on windows live.....And he has stated that it "cost" him $5.00 dollars to start. Last month at our meeting I requested to have access so I could update it. I will admit that our chairman loves the heading but is no leader and does not like to put forth an affort for anything. www.humboldtcogop.org I updated, placed pics, had fun doing it. Have no clue if I did any of it right but had a good time. Would not mind any one's opinion or anything better that I can do.I am open to any and all suggestions. I would love to have something different one with a blog and have the ability for people to donate online. I joined this group for 2 reason's (1) I know enough about computers/tech stuff to get me somewhere and hopefully not in trouble (2) I love all the tech stuff and if I can learn something new great for me. IF I can pass something on, well than I have done the right thing. So tell me about wordpress....this I am curious about

[MichaelBurns]

I think you really have to gauge this based on objectives. I don't think there's one solutions for everything--at least not yet.

[Mark Framness]

Michael Burns is correct.

DO NOT THINK PRIMARILY IN TERMS OF TECHNOLOGY! Think in terms of what you want to do and then think in terms of using technology to accomplish business/organization objectives.

Most of the stuff you talk about are PR tools. Think in terms of PR develop a comprehensive PR strategy and then use the appropriate tech tools from your list to accomplish your PR goals. Don't use them because they are "cool" because if you do, the use will fade with time.

[Adam Shun]

I think one of the most important things at least in my area is a decent CRM and Marketing tool. A blog and social networking tools are fantastic but we should be able to track those in the area that can support us and our candidates. I know many people in my area who are not republicans but blue dogs and we should have the tools to reach out to them.

I do mostly work with Siebel and Salesforce.com but that would let us know who the people we want to keep in touch with are and even develop email campaigns with links back to this site, blogs, or other sites. I am a huge proponent of CRM done right and when you cobine CRM and Web 2.0 concepts there is a great deal we can do to move the party into not only this century but get a head start on the next.

Adam

[Mark Framness]

Adam,

People have said otherwise, but not too long ago the GOP was famous for its ability to collect contacts and target marketing campaigns to people.

I was a part of the data gathering back in '02 or so. We'ld gather at a call center, dial and survey people. The survey was at most five questions long and hit on about three main issues. Guns, pro-life, and the President, there might have been an additional question but I forget what it was on.

From there, we passed those results to another group who would input the results and then they would be classified as friendly, neutral, or hostile. For sure, the friendlies passed into a database for GOTV, hostiles would be marked thusly, and I guess neutrals returned to the survey pool or to another survey pool.

GOTV candidates then would be placed on GOTV lists afterwards and then reminded to vote and if they did not vote by 4:00 pm or so they would get a reminder call.

The only suggestions I would have is more detail level, make sure they are able to update the voting database live rather than by paper list. Again, I have heard a lot of poll watchers are now armed with blackberrys. However, when I was somewhat close to all of this the blackberrys were not connecting directly to the voter database a floater would come around periodically and collect voting data and then upload.

I would also suggest they find someway to get a better feel of the feedback from volunteers. They made the same mistakes in one ward twice in a row - they did not combine voter lists where the municipality's list were combined (it was a huge pain to scan through two separate lists especially when it was busy). I told them to do this, but my suggestion got lost somewhere in the chain back to the list production staff. The person who watched that location the next time had the same complaints.

My experience is GOP e-mailing is fairly well targeted to my main interests as a vote.

I was fairly well impressed with the operation.

[Randy Covington]

search on Civicrm

[Jason Anderson]

1) Senators and Reps in touch with the citizenry. Sure Michelle Bachmann twitters, but what about other Reps. tweeting their disgust and action steps to constituents as they walk out of another committee meeting where "bi-partisanship" gets stomped?!? Reps and Senators should use blogging and micro-blogging to vent, rant and mobilize.

2) Bring on the widgets! Every blog, profile, online video and more should be shoved into widgets that can be easily added to Facebook profiles and sent via email to all concerned citizens. Widgets are the cheapest way to put a/v in the hands of the citizenry and can be deployed to rapidly raise funds. Widgets can also be used to sound the alarm and call on constituents to jam phone lines at the Capital, newspapers, TV stations and more.

3) GOP websites must be the hub of the wheel, not the entire wheel. Utilize every means possible including YouTube and friends as well as the above widgets and tweets to put out conservative truth. The GOP/NRSC/HRC websites and aparatus can produce and feature great content that is built to be spread virally, but it must not be the end of the line.

[Dean Allen]

A friend just e-mailed me a link to an online magazine. I was much more fascinated by the technology than by the content. I am not technical, so I don't know what you call it, but I will describe it.

Basically, when I clicked on the link, the magazine appeared sort of like a .pdf document. Except that by clicking a forward/back arrow on the left or right margins, I could scroll horizontally to the next two page layout. You are also able to click on the text with a little magnifying glass icon and expand the size of the text.

Does anyone know what this technology/software is called? Where to get it? What it costs? This was simply the most fascinating thing I have seen since Power Point about ten years ago. This can do for booklets and publishing what Power Point did for verbal presentations!

Also, there is a huge weakness of these "social networks" like this one. I find regular e-mail much more useful because I can attach .pdf files, forward messages and all sorts of useful things that I cannot do in this little text box. Thus some new technology may have its uses but also has severe limitations as well.

I am here to learn and improve myself. Therefore your input is welcome.

Dean Allen
[phone]
[e-mail]
www.roar-usa.ning.com
www.roar-usa.com

[Randy Covington]

If it was a hyperlink in your e-mail and you clicked on it it would have opened a browser and given you the live website.

[Randy Covington]

You can attach files and pictures here on your ning community page. The difference here is millions could potentially find it without your having to send it to them.

[Randy Covington]

go to your "mypage" you will find a host of tools to send messages to everyone in the community, far more powerful than e-mail.