Hillary Launches Facebook Call Center

This time it's Hillary's team that has been innovative online. Unless I missed it, there's not an equivalent for Obama or McCain/Palin. HillPAC today sent out an update to their list on how their Hillary Sent Me program is doing and also announced this new Facebook application.

I added the app and I liked how easy it was to use. Extra points for making the interface similar in layout to the one on her website that I was familiar with using during the primary. You just click a link to start making calls, and like the online version, you are presented with a tailored script for the person you are calling. My main quibble is that I can't pick the state for which to make calls. It had me calling Maine, whose politics I'm not familiar with. I'd rather be making calls to help Jim Martin here in Georgia, who has a decent shot at ousting Sen. Saxby Chambliss.

Google Maps Debuts Polling Place Maps!

Very cool! This can really help Get Out The Vote! Google, always looking to push technology further, has released today a Poll Location Map! You just type in your polling location, and presto, it shows your polling location, along with election appropriate graphics. You can also plop this handy widget into your CampaignWindow website:

I can see this as a must-add widget to any political website.

How to Extract a Comma-Separated List of Emails from an Excel Spreadsheet

For those non-Excel gurus out there, I thought I'd post this handy tip. Have you ever wanted to get a list of emails separated by commas, i.e. john@yahoo.com,joe@yahoo.com,sue@yahoo.com, from an Excel spreadsheet? This comes in handy if you are wanting to import just emails using Option 2 in Add Users in Bulk in CampaignWindow but have a big mailing list file with full names, addresses, etc in an Excel file. Well, here's how you do it.

1. Open up your Excel spreadsheet and delete every column except the email column

A Delegate in Denver - A Video Recap of my week in Denver

Thought I'd encapsulate my week in Denver via video!

DNC Convention - Day One

Yesterday was amazing! I can't do justice to the myriad of feelings, emotions and events that happened yesterday. We had our state delegation breakfast, which ended up taking waaaay too long to get our credentials. Most folks missed the morning caucuses and it meant I found no time to contact everyone who wanted to get campaignwindow training. My fellow Clinton Floor Whip, Will Fowlkes, and I caught the shuttle to the convention center, rushing to make the Clinton Floor Whip meeting at 11 a.m. Since we had no time to go back to our room, we had to lug the two huge heavy convention bags we just received with us...

On the way we saw Terry McAuliffe signing his book, so we snagged one, along with a signature and a pic. The floor whip meeting was informative and helped us understand how things would play out on Wednesday. We then took a shuttle back to drop off all our new goodies. We had just enough time to do this before we had to catch the next shuttle back to the Pepsi Center where the actual convention proceedings would be taking place. We heard that the security was pretty strict, but we didn't run into much of a crowd, so it went smoothly. We had quite a hike from the bus to the entrance but it was cool having the anticipation build as we approached.

CampaignWindow Training at the Democratic National Convention, plus I might be in your city next week!

CAMPAIGNWINDOW TRAINING IN DENVER!

Many of you may have already had contact with me as your main tech support contact for CampaignWindow. You might also already know that I'm a delegate to the Democratic National Convention! Since I'll be there already, and figured that many/some of you might also be there we thought we'd have a training early in the week! I'm still trying to work out the location (worse comes to worse we can always just have the training in my hotel room!), but if you think you might be able to do this, please email me back and I'll make sure you're on the notification list. I'm shooting for Monday early afternoon of that week at convention...

I MIGHT BE STOPPING IN YOUR TOWN ON THE WAY TO DENVER!

I am a member of the RV crew aboard The Unity Express, which is a literal voter registration drive across parts of the SE and SW on the way to Denver. We're taking a week to get to Denver, and are meandering around on our way there to see relatives and historic stops. We're also having Happy Hour stops in 3 places in Texas, so I'd love it if I could meet you!

Happy Hour stops:

Tuesday, August 19 - Dallas, TX
Wednesday, August 20 - San Antonio, TX
Thursday, August 21 - El Paso, TX.

We'd like to meet at a Democratic-friendly watering hole, so if you know of any in these places, let me know! Also if you'd like to join us when we're visiting some of the museums/places of interest, let me know. We'll be going to the National Voting Rights Musem in Selma, AL, the William J. Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, AR and the Houston Space Center, among others. See our full itinerary here: http://www.theunityexpress.com/more/index.cfm?Fuseaction=By_Day&section=more_48162

Hope to see you soon!

CampaignWindow: How to Get Rid of the Ugly Blue Border on your Images!

Just thought I'd put up a quick note as I see this happen a lot, and it's a really easy fix-- do you have images uploaded in your sidebar linked to something, but it has an ugly blue border around it? You can avoid it by giving your image a border of 0. So, to do this, when you upload an image and insert it using the content editor, in the little popup box that shows you a preview of the image there's a field called "border" and just put a 0 in it and you're good to go!

If you already have images uploaded and need to get rid of the border, do a right-click on the image in the content editor and select "image properties" -- you'll then see the same popup described above and can give the border a value of 0.

Mondays at Manuels: CampaignWindow Training With a Twist

Last month's training went well, so we're doing it again! I've booked the North Avenue Room (that's the back room to the right from the main entrance) for July 21st, 7-9PM, for us to hang out, have a beer, and peer into laptops and get some one-on-several training with me. If you'd like to come, please RSVP.

I will give a basic training, but also to allow you to ask questions and get more in depth with specific areas you'd like to know more about. I'll share tips and tricks I've used in past campaigns, etc. and I encourage others to share what they've learned.

New CampaignWindow Template Available

Just wanted to let everyone know that a new "Add Your Banner" style template has been added. It's called "Add Your Banner XV" and it's a rounded corner-style template and available in lots of colors.

Rolling out with this new template is also a new functionality we'll be phasing in with other templates soon-- choice of browser size! Now that 1024x768 monitors are more common, we've created this template in two sizes, the old 800x600 size and also in 1024x768. We'll be converting other templates to have the larger size available as well.

Announcing the Hillary Rapid Express - Road Tripping to Denver in an RV!

August 25 through August 28, Democrats from across the country will come together in Denver for the 2008 Democratic Convention. Tens of thousands Democrats are expected in Denver. Some are going as official delegates of the Presidential candidates and many are coming because they are Democratic activists.

Well, 6 Georgia Democrats, including myself, that are going to Denver have decided to make the journey in an RV, to make this historical convention even more memorable. 4 are Hillary delegates to the convention as well. The crew members are: Bernita Smith, Angela Trigg, Nikema Williams, Jeffrey Marc Meeks, Leslie Small and Gunner Hall.

Mondays at Manuels: CampaignWindow Training With a Twist

I've been wanting to hold more local trainings, and thought I'd formalize what I've done for a few clients in the past: meet at Manuels and show you the ropes! I've booked the North Avenue Room (that's the back room to the right from the main entrance) for June 30th, 7-9PM, for us to hang out, have a beer, and peer into laptops and get some one-on-several training with me. If you'd like to come, please RSVP.

I envision this as a way for me to give a basic training, but also to allow you to ask questions and get more in depth with specific areas you'd like to know more about. I'll share tips and tricks I've used in past campaigns, etc. and I encourage others to share what they've learned.

This is What It's All About Folks, Part Two

Originally posted at blogfordemocracy.org

These last couple of days have been painful for me on several levels and I have some various thoughts that I just feel compelled to share, some of which were aired with some sympathetic friends recently and so their contributions to this "thesis" are also included (but am leaving out names to protect the innocent). While Catherine was right in posting what it's all about, I have an addition:

It's also about choice.

Sometimes Inside Baseball is Only Understood by Insiders

We're pleased to have Michael Connery, the blogger at Future Majority, here at the YDA National Conference covering youth and politics. What the young people are trying to achieve is truly amazing and humbling. It's also a training ground for regular party politics. Connery correctly characterized this interplay in his post "Nashville YDA Conference Day 1: Bureaucracy, Politicking and Transparency", however the reality is actually more subtle than what he gleaned.

What was reported revolved around the Judicial Council's meeting yesterday to determine the fate of two of YDA's superdelegates, National Committeewoman Crystal Strait and National Committeeman Francisco Domenech, who have pledged their support for Senator Obama and Senator Clinton respectively. Connery mischaracterized the machinations behind the scenes for this -- The initial call to impeach was indeed put forth by former president Chris Gallaway as a way to "fuck" with Crystal Strait. However, Gallaway, a member of the National Association of Parliamentarians, failed to properly follow procedures to put his case to the Judicial Council, so instead the council deliberated on getting clarification on whether or not rules were broken. The council unanimously decided that they did not break the rules, but that ambiguity existed and so the Rules and By Laws Committee would need to take it up in Denver and would not affect Strait and Domenech this term. The rules in question, that YDA as an organization cannot endorse candidates in a contested primary, predates the YDA being allowed to have representatives on the DNC.

Hello from Nashville!

Sitting now in the lobby of the Hilton hotel in downtown Nashville enjoying some down time during all the training and youth voter strategizing at the Young Democrats of America national conference.

Delegations from all over the country started arriving yesterday in the music city where we've been getting training in peer-to-peer outreach and learning how to become a youth voter bloc in the General Election. We just finished with our Young Voter Revolution Summit where each state committed to collecting pledge to vote cards through peer-to-peer activities, and the state of Georgia pledged 15,000. The overall total after adding up each state was over half a million! Watch out Republicans!

CANCELLED - CampaignWindow: Training Session this Saturday in Newton, NC

due to low-registration, this has been rescheduled

------------------------------

Hello from NC!

Left Atlanta at 5PM and somehow avoided rush hour traffic while hearing on the radio that Atlanta was voted #1 for traffic by Forbes magazine. Made pretty good time to Asheville until I got pulled over for speeding, just prior to heading up a mountain where speeding would have been impossible! $150 smackers, ouch! Arrived in Ashveille around 8:15 just in time to make the tail end of a Cinco de Mayo party that was being held for Rep. Susan Fisher.

So You'd Like to Send an Email Newsletter - Top 10 Tips

Email is a great way to communicate with your constituents/members, so I thought I'd offer ten tips on how to communicate effectively using email, most of which are applicable even if you don't use our product campaignwindow.com

1. Get to know your audience - What would they be most interested in reading and how often? Your average politician or political organization would probably not want to email their users more than once a week. However, this is not always the case, so make sure you know your "universe". For instance, I subscribe to a rapid responder e-list for my presidential candidate of choice, and they send out 3-4 emails a day and I don't mind at all because they are each about something that is useful and need immediate attention. Also, I was aware up front what I was signing up for. In this instance, it works, whereas I've unsubscribed from other advocacy organizations because they emailed me too much. For the latter, it could also be because they were national organizations and the subject matter just didn't engage me enough to not mind having my inbox fill up.

I won! I'm the female Hillary Delegate for the 5th!

I was overwhelmed by the support and dedication of my friends and supporters! A week before the election, Kien Lee, a Hillary supporter I met on Facebook (but have not met in person) volunteered to pay out of his own pocket for ads to run all week on Facebook to advertise my election! Wednesday my friend Paula volunteered to make goody bags to pass out. Thursday, another friend called and said, "how many t-shirts do you want? Send me your logo!" and another woke up at the crack of dawn on Friday to make 96 brownies to hand out! The friend who made the t-shirts? When I went to pick them up, she'd also made signs and stickers!

Hillary Caucus This Saturday - I Need Your Vote!

I'm running as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention as a Hillary delegate for the 5th Congressional District (John Lewis' District) and our caucus is this Saturday, April 19. If you live in the 5th can you come out and caucus for me? If you don't but know anyone who does, can you let them know? I will be competing for ONE spot against a half dozen others, some of whom may be able to bus in their church group or law firm associates, but yet never volunteered for her as far as I can tell...

At this caucus, we will be electing district-level delegates to go to convention and it should be fun and exciting, though I also will be up-front and let you know it could take a good part of the afternoon. I advise you to bring some food, and a book! It's going to be VERY COMPETITIVE, so if you do support me, it would be awesome if you could be there. 

CampaignWindow: Calendar View Change

We recently changed the default Events/Calendar view to a listing of upcoming events. The main reason being that a lot of sites might not necessarily have an event in the current month and so it looked like they didn't have anything going on. It also is more immediately readable. But for folks who liked the old view, you can just go to Event Settings in the Control Panel and check the box that says "Show events in grid-style/monthly format".

CampaignWindow Enhancements: Major Enhancements to Custom Form Creator; Payment Fields Now Available!

We're pleased to announce some major upgrades to the custom form creator! One thing that has been restrictive was the Contribute page, especially if you were wanting to use it for something other than campaign contributions. So, what we've done is retool the custom form creator to allow you to add payment fields!

While we were in there retooling, we thought we'd also tackle another usability issue: rearranging the display order of fields. Interested? Read more to find out about the new functionality.

Integrating CampaignWindow and Democracy in Action/Salsa/DEMopolis

Originally published at democracyinaction.org on Mon, 2007-08-20

CampaignWindow: The Right Way to Paste

This comes up pretty often so I thought I'd make a quick note about it here. Have you ever wondered why sometimes funny code appears on your page, or all of a sudden your controls in the content editor pane are not working like they should? Chances are 100% that you pasted from Word or some other source straight into your editor.

What happens is that Word and other places content might reside carries hidden code you can't see when you do a copy/paste. This hidden code wreaks havoc on your page. So how do you avoid it? After you copy your content and are now at your content editor page ready to paste, instead of doing CTRL+V click on the little icon that looks like a clipboard with a Yellow T on it. This will strip your content of all formatting junk and paste in nice clean code. Then you can use the bold and italicize icons to format your content.

CampaignWindow Enhancements: Week of 3/17 - Do you know who has access to your site?

Just have a couple of enhancements to let you know about:

Filter by Site Access Level: Have you had CampaignWindow now for awhile so that it's gone through several admins? Are you curious who might have Super User access? Worried that another Super User might have added others? Now you can quickly see who does! Go to Users in the Control Panel and then click on Advanced Display/Filter Options (if you don't already have it showing) and you'll see a new filter drop-down option called "View by site access level". Choose which one you're curious about and voila, you'll see!

Facebook Spotlight: How a local candidate is using it

Manuel's being what Manuel's is, I ran into City Councilman Kwanza Hall Monday night and was able to ask him some questions on how he uses Facebook. For those not in Atlanta, Manuel's is our local Democratic watering hole, a real institution here. Portraits of past politicians adorn the walls and you can very easily be there for a meeting any given night of the week, and run into other political friends who are there for another meeting.

Anyway, as noted at the end of an earlier post, Engage your Constituents - A Facebook Primer, I had planned on writing about Councilman Hall, but just hadn't gotten around to calling him. So running into him Monday night made it a tad easier.

Event and Blog Enhancements to CampaignWindow

Just wanted to let CampaignWindow folks know that I've made some enhancements to the blogging and event features...

I guess a natural side effect of using CampaignWindow to blog was that I would find things that needed to be added or tweaked! I've added a field for adding keyword tags, and also added "tag clouds" once a blogger has more than 20 different tags.

Using YouTube on CampaignWindow

A frequently asked question is whether you can embed YouTube into your CampaignWindow site. The answer is YES! And here's how:

Every YouTube video has an area that supplies "embed" code. Copy it and go to the page in your Control Panel where you'd like to place it. Click on the "Source" button in your editing/icon tray and paste in your code! For most templates, you'll be fine without anymore tweaking, but for 3-column layouts (like this one) you'll need to adjust the code just a tad. Here's some code I'm going to paste in:

Campaigning in Houston!

This past weekend, I decided to fly to Houston to volunteer for my candidate of choice. I had a great and invigorating time; I even ran into Atlanta folks I knew at HQ!

See my photos of the trip!

Engage your Constituents - A Facebook Primer

So what is this Facebook thing you keep hearing about? If you're not on there, and have dismissed it as "just for college students", you're missing out on a vital way to interact with your constituents. In the United States alone, 1.5 million are over the age of 25. This number is only growing since it opened up registration in September of 2007 to anyone with a valid email address. Besides, considering that young people are engaged in the political process more than ever, shouldn't you try and reach out to them on their turf?

Being in the "older age bracket" (I won't say which), I admit when I first joined Facebook over a year ago, I felt a little strange, like I was entering an arena that was not meant for me. I dived in anyway, and learned that the strangeness I felt was of my own making. There's nothing inherent in its framework that makes you feel like an outsider. So really, there's nothing to lose by joining, and there's potential support to gain. So, convinced? Okay, here's what you need to do.

Gettin' the ball rolling

I guess it's appropriate to start by doing a general welcome, what's in store, kind of post.

This blog is going to focus on politics (hearing the 'well duhs' now), but more specifically, on politics as it relates to the web and social media, with tips and trainings for using campaignwindow.com, and sprinklings of personal stories of my muddling through politics locally.