The Course of Some Human Events - blogging on webtech and politics Featured Content

Hillary Launches Facebook Call Center

Angela Trigg angela@campaignwindow.com — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 17:55:09 PST

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.

Since I hadn't used Obama's application in awhile, I cruised back by there to see if they were doing anything more interactive than posting news stories and rating them. I really liked the "Ask Your Friends to Vote Early" addition-- it pulls up friends of yours in battleground states and asks you to remind them to vote early. Cool. He also had a "Call Center" link, but it wasn't integrated with Facebook; it was just a link to his online call center.

Whereas, it could be argued that both accomplish the same thing, I like that I don't have to do the extra step of logging in to a website. Quicker access to tools is key. It could also be argued that the Hillary Sent Me Facebook Call Center isn't harnessing Facebook's social networking (other than being an app on there), there's not much more it could do, since phone numbers are not exposed to developers in APIs.

Google Maps Debuts Polling Place Maps!

Angela Trigg angela@campaignwindow.com — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 10:50:37 PST

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

Angela Trigg angela@campaignwindow.com — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 20:22:12 PST

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

2. Now click on the cell in the first row just to the right of the email address column (i.e. first row, second column)

3. Type a comma in it.

4. Now select that cell and hit Copy

5. Now click on the column top so that it selects the whole column and hit Paste. If you did this right, you should now have a comma in the second column all the way down.

6. Now click in the first cell, first row (which would be the first email address); hold down your Shift Key on your keyboard and then scroll down to the last email address and click on the comma just after it. If you did this right, you should now have 2 columns highlighted.

7. Hit Copy.

8. Now go to CampaignWindow's Add Users in Bulk area (or wherever you are wanting to input comma-separated emails) and hit Paste. Voila!

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

Angela Trigg angela@campaignwindow.com — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 11:06:46 PST

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

DNC Convention - Day One

Angela Trigg angela@campaignwindow.com — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 21:11:00 PST

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.

We found our section and had a few minutes before the the gavel was to drop, and thinking it would operate on Democratic Standard Time, we went to a kiosk to get some pizza. But alas, we found that we were not allowed to go on the floor with food or drink, so we scarfed it down, but then heard the gavel drop and we left our food on the table and ran in... We then went back out shortly after to finish scarfing it down...

Walking onto the floor was breathtaking-- the lights and stage backdrop literally made my jaw drop. There were not a lot of folks around, so it gave us time to wander around and explore.

As a floor whip, things were pretty hectic handing out signs that sometimes wouldn't get there until the last minute. The appearance of Ted Kennedy literally electrified the crowd as we didn't expect him to appear. I was crying. The strength it must have taken for him to appear was awe inspiring and emotional for me.

I didn't get a chance to really enjoy Michelle's speech because we were running around trying to find the signs that were supposed to go up when she said "And that's why we love America" and then we heard that line, and we threw up our hands and I said "and that's when we were supposed to do our signs."

Everyone exited very enthused and energized and as we filed out one of the side exits, it got quite crowded and I worked my way through, only to find out the congestion was due to the fact that Joe Biden was filing out with us right there!

We were loaded down with signs, and were exhausted, so instead of heading straight to the parties (which we'd dressed for), we went back to the hotel to unload, freshen up, and eat dinner. We then headed to the Planned Parenthood party, which was off the chain!

See photos!