While my live blogging efforts focussed on the more formal sessions at ecampaigning forum, most of the event’s time and content was spent in groups following the Open Space methodology. The gatherings for people to suggest sessions were instructive in themselves as they gave considerable hints as to the key concerns of ecampaigning practitioners.

How to engage with the big social networking sites, whether to create your own, organising around big events (such as G8 summits and climate conferences) and ways of managing decentralised/coalition campaigns were some of the big themes, but the sessions covered a wide range beyond that such as engaging with young supporters, or older supporters, choosing content management systems, operating on a tight budget, pooling resources/tools and one hastily agreed discussion of twitter. What follows are a few notes on things that struck me.

The twitter session drew a mixture of existing users, aware onlookers, and newcomers. A lot of time was spent exploring existing uses of the site with examples such as teamtibet’s usage to co-ordinate protests around the olympic flame and Downing Street’s account. Most people seemed taken with its potential for short term co-ordination, but many questions arose about its potential for long term campaigning beyond informing core supporters of news updates. Being seemingly the longest-serving twitter user there, it was interesting to hear responses to a tool I’ve quickly come to take for granted

A recurring theme was the adoption of drupal by a number of the big agencies. Most seem keen to contribute code back to the community, along the lines of AI and CivicActions‘ assets module. I’ve mentioned my mixed feelings about drupal before but am hopeful that through events like this we might be able to resolve some of the issues that frustrate me.

I brought up Russell Davies’ 2008 - the year of peak advertising in conversation over breakfast on the first day and that phrase recurred a few times. There’s a general awareness that the last few years have brought lots of opportunities to attract attention by simply being quick to adopt some new “web 2.0″ tool, but that won’t last. It didn’t seem like there was a sustained discussion or much sense of where to go next, but working hard to attain attention has been the life of campaigners for a long time and so perhaps this is just another step in that journey?

There’s clearly a growing sense of how hard it is to influence big summits where the final communique is often planned months in advance. Gatherings of world leaders are a great opportunity for media coverage and to present the “actionable moments” that Ben Brandzel spoke of, but they’re now when the real chance for change occur. It’s vital to find ways to turn the energy around these summits into sustained, directed action after the final communique is published, planning the next steps before the events themselves take place.

In the session on pooling resources and tools a number of questions came up about the ethics of collaborating with big players like google (who have just been on a big outreach programme for their new Google Earth offering for NGOs). The data provided and the tools offered by the likes of Google can be a great boon to charities operating on tight budgets, but at the expense of ceding a lot of control and a lot of attention data (and with providers like facebook there are concerns about things like this). It was obvious that there is some desire to develop open source tools that provide similar tools, but it’s not clear whether the resources are there. Mention was made of open street map and I brought up the theyworkforyou api, and it definitely would have been interesting to have had people who could present on the usage of that; some concerns remain as to how ready those tools are for non-geeky end-users, which would be easy to resolve if someone were to direct the right resources.

I’m looking forward to seeing what other people bring up in their notes on the event, and what themes come out in the ongoing discussion. You can see my photos on flickr, find some content on technorati and check out the conference wiki for more. All my posts on the topic are gathered under the ecf08 tag.

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For the next couple of days I’m at the ecampaigning forum in Oxford and am going to attempt to live blog the main sessions as far as possible. These notes are largely unedited, so they’re likely to be a bit sketchy. For context, feel free to post a comment and I’ll catch up with them when I can.

MyActionAid Launched about a year ago. Built on plone which let them use out of the box tricks like forums, photo sharing, RSS, plus is open source so actionaid can re-invest in community.

Why bother building own online community?

More project goes on, the clearer the reasons become.

• Build closer relationship with supporters. Not UK-based service delivery org, this helps us get closer to them and add value for them
• More control of features/development
• To make money! Double the giving rate compared to presence on other sites. Wonder if that’s because of sense of closeness/more qualified relationship
• Cut out middle man, reduce fees paid to other services

What trying to achieve?

• Not competition with other social networks. Want supporters to be wherever they want to be (and link back to myactionaid!)
• People are proud of their profiles and link back to them
• Build interest groups.
• Fundraising helped them bootstrap/make case, but it pays for itself and they can diversify focus
• Going forward - empower supporters, build event-related networks

Photo sharing very popular feature. Offer unlimited public photo sharing, wonder if that will be scalable. Status updates (”twitter-esque”)

500 active supporters, meaning they are raising money. Most activities raise ~£1000 but some up to £10,000.

Cons of setting up own network/Advice

Really they are risks. Haven’t solved them all, but they are mostly opportunities too. Make sure resource well.

Question about how deep it goes. How much content is put in? What is supporters’ journey?

First website ever launched empty! They put very little in: event listings, news from actionaid homepage RSS feed (low maintenance). People seem to gain from the experience. Some go and visit projects. Does work a little as recruitment, but haven’t really marketed site yet. Communication strategy about to kick in.

Cost?

Undisclosed! Most of the investment was time getting people on board, making sure infrastructure in place, developing response mechanisms for users’ contributions. Money it’s brought in made business case for more sophisticated hosting platform, so revolutionised their IT infrastructure.

How do staff interact with it?

Community Fundraising Group work very closely with site. Thrilled with deepening relationship with supporters.

How reached critical mass?

It is vital. Site doesn’t behave like normal website. (ed: not sure this answered the question…?)

Did it pay for itself?

Yes. Pretty quickly.

There’s a facebook logo on screen?

There’s a facebook app that shows info from your myactionaid profile. it’s just launching.

What’s the rate of growth like?

Went up at the beginning! Grew rapidly. Levelled out for a while. Now growing steadily.

Now wondering what other ecampaigning tools they can provide to members.

Recommend this post:

For the next couple of days I’m at the ecampaigning forum in Oxford and am going to attempt to live blog the main sessions as far as possible. These notes are largely unedited, so they’re likely to be a bit sketchy. For context, feel free to post a comment and I’ll catch up with them when I can.

Using flickr for some stories http://flickr.com/photos/actionbabybook/352587940 + using facebook to let supporters share stories

taken quick wins from facebook and built www.standupfortinylives.org

• lots of usual stuff with contact your mp which sends message and directs them to a page
• use (google) map to show which MPs have signed up to support campaign
• MPs can respond and get themselves on the map
• Then keep visible record of what each MP has done for them
• Use youtube, flickr, etc. to gather stories then embed them in this site
• Asking people to share stories effective to get content and to increase the sharers’ activism

Site built on wordpress. had to make sure it could be managed without putting more burden on organisation’s IT staff.

No asks for money yet, but £140 raised so far. £23 average donation value.

Recommend this post:

For the next couple of days I’m at the ecampaigning forum in Oxford and am going to attempt to live blog the main sessions as far as possible. These notes are largely unedited, so they’re likely to be a bit sketchy. For context, feel free to post a comment and I’ll catch up with them when I can.

Karina Brisby - Interactive Campaigns Manager - Oxfam

She’s the Campaigning Manager at Oxfam UK. The past 12 months have been “a whirlwind of change”. Gone from team of 1 to team of 4 working on “interactive campaigning”. You know a change when senior managers ask to be your friend on facebook. Second Life stories generated a real buzz because of the media coverage.

Going to talk about two projects from the past 12 months.

UN Climate Change Conference

Few supporters saw Oxfam as a climate change organisation. Why is someone who works on poverty working on this? Also already a very crowded space, how to get message in there.

Not about getting people to the blog or bring in lots of people. It’s about setting out Oxfam’s cart and getting Oxfam into the debate. Tried to write a blog not focussed on supporters, talking to general public about why Oxfam were there. Trying to get video stories out there about what they’re doing. Two videos a day looking at what was going on, other organisations, Oxfam staff and partners. Approached other orgs and agreed to link to each other. Want people to trust us and respect that we link to other good sources. If you offer good links people will keep coming back to you. RSS feeds “worked amazingly” for syndication to affiliates. Connecting blog with other content built legitimacy.

Beth Kanter at Netsquared.org wrote about the blog. Wired.com picked it up and wrote a story on it. From wired it was picked up in US newspapers.

Facebook/MySpace

Fairtrade Woman. Eats nothing but fairtrade food for a fortnight. Set up space on facebook, myspace and corporate site. Most traffic on facebook. Emailed supporters and found 2/3rds went to facebook vs. myspace. About 2000 people followed this. Oxfam facebook group took a long time to hit 2000 people. This got there in two weeks.

Level of conversations on facebook was good. Lots of supporters helping supporters without much facilitation. They set up some discussion, but lots were started by others. Detailed conversation on topics like fair trade clothing.

Videos, etc.

Videos are really good way to engage people on issues, to warm them up for actions. More people watched climate change conference videos than read blog.

Mashups are the way to go. “It’s all about the mashup and the widget.” Can be hard to convince people to accept user generated content or content from other peoples’ sites. Keep trying new things, be that radical new ideas or simple shifts of tone. By trying six types of messaging for emails and tracking that they were able to massively improve returns.

Talked about ushahidi.com mashup to show violence in Kenya. Tried to make sure information getting out there was accurate. Was happening inside Kenya during the crisis. Those working on human rights and crisis support can learn a lot from sites like that. Audience member says it’s connected with people like White African.

“Support the Monks’ Protests” Burma Facebook group a good example of something happening very quickly. Rapidly picked up hundreds of thousands of people. Avaaz picked up on it and helped turn it into actions. Brought new audience to actions of groups like avaaz. “The Swarm” (people congregated around groups like this) very powerful. Don’t be afraid to reach out to groups like this.

http://ilovemountains.org/ example of Google Earth app to let users enter their zip code and work out if their power was coming from mountaintop removal “mining”. Gave people a reason to care. (ed: still not sure what would drive people there?)

Custom social networks: http://www.guardianweekly.co.uk/mygw interesting attempt to connect readers with news gathering/discussion. http://www.myactionaid.org.uk/Tension about whether we build our own or go to the existing social networking sites. Don’t reinvent the wheel. Let people do what they want to do.

Seven (five?) Things I’ve Learned

1. Always focus on audience. If they don’t want to use podcasts, don’t make them. Don’t just use technology because you’ve invested in it.
2. Test and trial things. Won’t know what works unless you give them different options
3. spent 20% time looing at what other people are doing. talk to people in othe orgs
4. don’t feel pushed into doing something unless you’re ready to do it. need to be able to support what you build or risk disappointing supporters
5. make use of existing resources in organisation

Recommend this post:

For the next couple of days I’m at the ecampaigning forum in Oxford and am going to attempt to live blog the main sessions as far as possible. These notes are largely unedited, so they’re likely to be a bit sketchy. For context, feel free to post a comment and I’ll catch up with them when I can.

The first keynote is from Ben Brandzel

Offered four options for his talk:

• anatomy of an email
• fundraising
• politics of online organising in large, pre-internet organisation
• growth

Fundraising least popular. Joked about how the pound is so strong we don’t need to raise much money.

“In the spirit of online organising, you find out what everyone wants and then make an executive decision” — wants to talk about 3 and 4. Has 1 pre-written and can email it to us.

Growth

MoveOn has to replenish 700,000 new members a year because of rate of bounces.

• Started in 1998. Told story of Wes and Joan founding MoveOn during the impeachment process. Half a million within a few months.
• Right after 9/11 “punk kid” Eli Pariser worried that the response may be disproportionate. Put up a petition for a peaceful response.
• “let the inspections work” - 2003 - petition to security council. 700,000 people
• Save NPR. Threat to cut funding to PBS, NPR, etc.

Avaaz started just over a year ago

• petition for ceasefire, israel/lebanon
• petition for china to pressure burma
• tibet campaign

GetUp

• David Hicks
• other examples I didn’t catch

Growth in giant spurts rare. few and far between. MoveOn - 4 in 10 years.

When he looks at all of these moments, what common denominators?

• urgent and rapid. sometimes obvious, sometimes “we can’t frickin’ take it any more” (impeachment). so can be a vote in parliament tomorrow, can be a feeling. always think about the sense of urgency.
• “visceralness” - clear visceral imagery. PBS is Big Bird. NPR is you listening and being happy. Hans Blix going around Iraq. David Hicks in Guantanamo. Monks being beaten.
• all of these are a way to get at a larger problem about which there’s a great deal of passion but not a great deal of ways to get into it. Let The Inspections work tapped into a general frustration, but managed to crystallise it for a lot of people. Tibet — “negotiate with the Dalai Lama” — feels actionable. “Free Tibet” doesn’t. FInd things people don’t have an entree into.
• Clear impact - if avaaz reached 100,000 signatures they would sky-write “vote no”. How do you connect passion, visceralness, urgency, with “crucial last step” of “how will this affect decision makers” also in a visceral way.
• High energy/high information. Ratio of energy/passion and the information your supporters have about it. Best campaigns combine high energy with high information; often from media — it’s in the news, they know about it. inspections was. NPR was not in the news, so it was low information/high energy. You need at least one element. If you don’t have information, you need to signal “the time is now” to your audience. “High passion” means “high pre-existing passion” — they already care about it.
• All part of a sustained campaign. Multiple emails, multiple attempts, carefully timed.

How do we do incremental/sustained growth?

Constantly trying to get to big moments. For every one that worked, there are dozens that were failures, or minor successes. MoveOn started spin-off called “mothers rising” — great idea, no-one joined. Need campaignable moment — people unlikely to just join. Always action focussed.

He likes splash pages (’go to a web site and first page is one big page with simple action’). Obama/Edwards done really well with them. They communicate “joining, being part of this thing, is fundamental”. Most advocacy groups don’t see that, they want to get lots of information out quickly. Ought to catch on

Question - doesn’t it annoy people who’ve already signed joined?
Answer - use cookies to make sure they don’t see it

• Focus on having “movement-centered grassroots storyline.”
• Have clear internal growth targets. Know how big you want to get. Have growth targets and organise around those
• Never think you’re too small to start. You’re never too small (online) to act as if you have 3 million people on your list.

Running out of time.

Working within large organisations

Few major stumbling blocks

Strategy - difference between “inside power strategy” and “outside power strategy”. Lots of organisations think that their route to change will be keeping doors open and providing information. “outside power” is that if you have enough people you can knock down doors that may have been closed. You may need to say things insiders won’t like.

• Long-term strategy. Insider strategy only works while you have insiders who want to listen to you. That changes with every election. If we build strong constituency then whoever is elected will be much more likely to have to listen.
• Necessary to have an authentic dialogue to help your supporters become an effective force.

Mission alignment. In the nature of grassroots organisations to go for outsider strategy.

• Nimbleness. Lots of decision making layers to work through.
• Vested interests. Coalitions, celebrity supporters.
• “Org chart issue”. Sees internet as an adjunct to communications or IT departments. Rarely works.

Practical arguments

• “Help me, help us”. Explain ways in which effective online organising adds values. In presidential campaign, and probably others, it leads to good fundraising.
• “opportunity fundraising”. Outsource things to large base that you’d normally pay for. SEIU normally has to pay lots to organise, make calls, etc. but now your supporters can do that for you. $1.50 per phone call - 10,000 calls = $15,000. Can outsource design, making ads (”Bush in 30 seconds”). When Harriet Miers was nominated to Supreme Court MoveOn had their list research her. Saved lots of money.
• “internet is not a technical thing” - no more a technical thing than traditional press work is a typewriter thing. Analogy usually works
• the people who are on your list are not the general public. they are your supporters. communications is about getting message out to as many as possible. this is about “organising”/”mobilising” people who are already convinced.
• efficiency argument.
• defuse the “nutcase fear”. people worry about “the nutcase” who will do something crazy and defuse your organisation. Those risks usually far outweighed by the opportunities gained.
• Sit down with the stakeholders and explain it all carefully. Work out who they are. Maybe talk to top donors directly. If management thinks stakeholders have qualms, you should talk directly to stakeholders.

Questions:

Q. What hasn’t worked?

A: 90% of what we’ve tried. Multiple asks in a single email. Asking people to just join. Watch out for the “paradox of choice”

Q: How communicate to a new audience

A: Focus on content that is funny/compelling regardless of issue, and then draw them into issue.

Q: You said joint ask doesn’t work but seemed to contradict that with splash page comment

A: If you email your current group and ask them to join a new group, or ask people to suggest their friends join, that rarely works. In terms of splash screens, they’re mostly tested in terms of presidential campaigns which are already highly energised. Probably works better in campaign than long-term progressive movements. Try them. “test, test, test, test, test”.

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