Liminal states

Ask the President‘s site is up and running!  The idea’s simple: people can submit questions and vote on which ones they’d like to see answered at a White House press conference.  Ari Melber’s The People’s Press Conference in The Nation has details; other partners include the Washington Times and Personal Democracy Forum.

If you think it’s a good idea, here are a few ways you can hep get the word out on Twitter.

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Original draft March 16.  Revised March 19.

“Net movement” journalist/activist Ari Melber’s latest brainstorm, Ask the President, is launching on March 19 at http://www.communitycounts.com/Obama.   The basic idea is to provide a followon to Change.gov’s short-lived Open for Questions series [1, 2]: a way for people to submit potential questions and vote on what they think the best ones are.  It’s an intriguing idea, with the possibility of providing a path around the media gatekeepers who have historically controlled access.

Here are some thoughts about how Tweeple (people on Twitter) who support the idea can help with Ask the President‘s launch.

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The great thing about the #digg it experiment (trying to use Twitter to increase visibility for progressives, feminists, and women of color on Digg), is that it’s so easy to explain to people*:

1. if you’ve got a story you’re trying to promote on Digg, include the #digg hashtag when you tweet it, and at least one of #p2, #rebelleft, #topprog, #fem2, or #woc
2. if you see something with the #digg hashtag, digg it if you think it’s interesting — and retweet it as well

The first round of experiments a few weeks ago went very well.  So last Friday we decided to try again, sending mail to a couple of progressive mailing lists encouraging people to digg and retweet.  Once again, the results were great.

Over 20 people have participated so far, and a total of 15 stories got tweeted with #digg and at least one of the progressive hashtags — most aggressively by Twitter user @diggleft.  Of these, give got at least one retweet.

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In a comment on What does it mean to “get FISA right”?, Ben Masel wrote:

I caught up with Senator Feingold last Sunday, at his Birthday Party/Re-election fundraiser.

He’s going to give the Administration “a few more weeks” to come up with a bill to roll back the FISA amendments, introduce his own bill if they don’t.

One more reason why Get FISA Right ♡ Senator Feingold!

— me, on the Get FISA Right blog

First of all, I haven’t seen this reported elsewhere, so it may well be a scoop for Get FISA Right.  Digg it!*  Please retweet!**  And please help Get FISA Right get the word out about this news on Facebook!

What do we think should be in the legislation?  Good question!  See Jim Burrows’ What does it mean to “get FISA right”? for some initial opinions — and please share your perspectives!

And from an activism perspective, now’s the time to be thinking about how we can help. There are already some initial ideas on the Get FISA Right blog … feedback and other suggestions welcome!

jon

* if you’re not familiar with digg,  we’ve got a handy intro on the Get FISA Right wiki!

** new to Twitter?  check out Deanna Zandt’s Why Twitter, anyways? and A non-fanatical beginner’s guide to Twitter and the other great resources on the #p2 (“progressives 2.0”) Twitter page.

I wanted to expand on my remark in yesterday’s post about the gender ratio on #p2 staying “relatively well-balanced” with some statistics from the 24 hours ending at noon (Pacific time) today.  While this is only one data point — and over a weekend, too — it’s roughly in line with the other measurements I’ve been makingover the last week.

For about 80-90% of the people participating, it’s possible to able to infer the like gender of the tweeter based on self-descriptions (“mom” or “dad” for example), visual information, name, and so on.  Of course there’s room for error here,* so don’t treat this as gospel; and my apologies to anybody I inadvertently misclassified. Still, it’s enough to get some useful information.

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#p2 Twitterchat Monday (2/23), 6:30 PM Pacific/9:30 PM Eastern.  Tentative agenda here.  Feedback, please … and hope to see you then!

It’s been an encouraging first week for the new #p2 Twitter hashtag that Tracy Viselli and I proposed in The Exception last Friday.  Usage has steadily increased (more people, more tweets), especially after Sarah Granger’s #p2 Takes on the Progressive Twitter Challenge in techPresident on Monday.  The quality of information is generally very high, the gender ratio has stayed fairly well-balanced, and their have been lots of posts on race, lgbtq, an women’s issues.

We even have two of the candidates in the Democratic primary for Rahm Emmanuel IL-05 Congressional seat using it, with both @Quigley_Campaign and @Tom_Geoghan highlighting their progressive credentials.  A promising start!

Also, we set up a Wetpaint wiki last weekend, and while much of which is still in skeletal form, several people have already told me they’ve found the page discussing Twitter useful.   It’s got getting started and accessibility information, including a link to Dennis Lembrée’s Accessible Twitter; and a list of hashtags that are potentially useful for progressives.  Check it out at http://p2pt0.wetpaint.com/page/Twitter — and as always, feedback welcome.

Of course, there are unsurprisingly some growing pains as well.

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Tracy Viselli and I are working on an article for The Exception on how progressives can use Twitter.  Here’s our current thinking on recommendations:

1. progressives should get good at Twitter best practices: insiders providing information regularly, backchannels at conferences and workshops, regular Twitter-based chats by organizations and bloggers, contact lists and skills pitching to journalists who prefer Twitter, etc.
2. activists need to refine techniques for Twitter-based “flash actions” (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6).  Social computing technologies are tools; we need to learn to use them effectively.
3. Twitter can be a medium for progressives to engage online with communities currently marginalized by the “progressive blogosphere”.  Shared vocabulary and hashtag structure, and respect for different norms in different hashtags, can help.
4. we should reach out to conservatives, libertarians, and greens to explore ways to engage more constructively

The full article will of course go into detail on the thinking and experiences that lead to the recommendations.

Any feedback?  Suggestions for improvements, related experiences, criticisms, ideas about how to make this happen — it’s all good.  Please don’t be shy!  We’ll do our best to incorporate the feedback in the final draft.

Thanks much!

jon

One of our topics Saturday’s conference call (notes here) was how to make contact with our allies in congress.  Jean from Green Bay mentioned that she and a couple of other people were going to go to one of Senator Russ Feingold’s upcoming Listening Meeting in Wisconsin.

The first opportunity is this Saturday on Valentine’s day (February 14) at a Listening Meeting in Chilton, events in Madison and potentially Milwaukee on March 1, a cable advertising opportunity in Green Bay on March 4, and more.  To keep track of it all, we’re going to use a wiki page as the planning hub for this.

Here’s the current versions of our goals for the project:

• get a better understanding of the situation in Congress and Senator Feingold’s strategy
• get Sen Feingold to make a video on “what it means to get FISA right”
• introduce ourselves to Senator Feingold and get a working relationship in place
• pilot techniques that we can use as part of a 50-state strategy
• get blog and media attention, at least at the local and state level, and hopefully nationally as well

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please digg, retweet, and follow on twitter

Update, 2:30 PM: please also digg and retweet the Nordstrom action alert

Update 4:30 PM: Jen Nedeau’s Can social media save the day? has more

Last Friday’s #Digg it! A proposal for women of color, feminists, and progressives on Twitter experiment went remarkably well for a first attempt.  Here’s the data.

Two of the for posts sent to Twitter with a #digg tag got significant retweeting.  While it’s hard to know for sure, looking at the names of the diggers it seems that we were also getting some additional diggs via Twitter.  The table below also includes the total number of diggs as of 3 PM Pacific time on Friday

Eight retweets may not sound like a lot, But looking at it differently, those 8 retweets reached over 700 followers plus however many people are following the #topprog, #lgbt, and #jti* channels — and had a measurable impact on digg results.  According to retweetist popular URLs get retweeted by over 100 people in a 24 hour period so there’s clearly significant upside here.  And of course there are lessons about how to do it better.

Like I say, great results for a first attempt.

So let’s try it again!  Please digg and retweet.

And please also digg at least one of the first posts (1, 2, 3, 4).  While it’s too late to get any of them on to digg’s front page, this is still a very useful way of tracking how far this discussion has spread.  Thanks!

To follow along on Twitter, using the new improved magic incantation.*

Additional discussion, and a little more data, below the fold.

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DRAFT, CURRENTLY BEING REVISED SUBSTANTIALLY.   New recommendations here.  Thanks all for the feedback!

Final version to appear in The Exception.

Collaboratively authored with Tracy Viselli.

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DRAFT!  Revised version published on Reno and its Discontents.

Thanks all for the feedback.

And please, digg it!

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Draft.  Work in progress — feedback welcome!

The revised version will (hopefully) be posted on The Seminal

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