searching out my roots and ancestry
my mothers' family was a picture of early Canada
metis - in my family - a blend of the french Canadian voyageur and a native tribe
in my family's case - that would be the Ojibwe

My grandmothers' maiden name was Chevalier
I believe I finally found some information on my great grandmother.... Marionette Chevalier.
Apparently the Chevalier women were all quite independent.

Digerati talking about twitter at Convergence 09.

I've never understood the draw to twitter.  I tweet, I twit and am still looking for the compelling reason to  let people know what I am thinking in 140 characters or less.
I can't help but wonder whether it's just navel gazing or - if there is something here.  Still looking for a case study that shows an excellent tactical use of twitter.

I watched/listened the details of the ashton kutcher race to a million - yeah - interesting stunt.
But - I'm still looking for the usefulness, and I'm attending this seminar hoping that someone will answer this

sorry to report I did not get an answer...

I'm at the Convergence semiar today....listening to David Ploufffe* talk about the Obama campaign.  Here are some unedited notes from his speech today......enjoy!


At the beginning of the campaign we were the biggest underdogs - up- against the biggest front runner in American politics - Hillary Clinton. We knew we had to run a grassroots campaign and that we would need to utilize technology to build a campaign.  We had no foothold outside of Illinois.  We had three tactics - fund raising, build volunteers, build awareness. Our path was very narrow in the primary.

We were up against the biggest fund raising machine in US politics. John McCain was the pioneer in online fund raising. We met our goals - a surprising goal.  We built the biggest grassroots fund raising campaign in the history of US politics.  We built a social media site that allowed people to not an individual to raise money - but allowed them to 'own' a campaign.  They could raise money by running their own email campaign, fundraiser through a houseparty and track all of the subsequent donations from friends.

Politics in the US is like chess -  states are stratefcally won and you hope to determine the playing field of your camapign. We spent most of our time in Iowa, Ohio  We believed that a huge number of people in the USA live their lives online. In states like Colorado, Washington, Virginia, Maryland, Minnesota and Califormia were organizing themselves during the primarys - all on their own.  This had never been done before.  Because we had a grassroots support.  We were able to marry with momentum.  It wasn't a tactic - it was people with technology - self motivated getting the grassroots established.

We had to change the electorate in IOWA.  We did months and months of internet advertising.  Barak Obama went to high school and colleges.  Technology was the way they communicates.  The only way we could get them was out to participate in the caucus was to mold the electorate - making it younger, more african american.  We did radio ads, text ads and online ads - to ensure peole knew where to caucus and vote.  We established a tool on the site that allowed you to look up where to vote or caucus.  It needed to be easy at the last minute to find where to go.  We spent millions of dollars getting the information out to first time voters.
We tried to get this group out to the early poles.  We won new voters 72/27 over McCain.  We used technology to inform people.  We had an iphone app for voters to find out how and where to vote. Our volunteers did all the work - it cost us very little. We registered millions of voters - without this technology we would not have won North Carolina or Florida.

Time and time again - we heard that people wanted to talk to family, and friends about who to vote with.  We had to get people consuming our message (13M email messages domestically/day).  Increasingly we did video to move message.  People we more prone to opening and passing it along.  We sent updates about strategy, recruitment.  Our supporters felt connected to the campaign. We sent out our Florida gameplan - budget and strategy with an explantion.  The campaign was successful because fo the engagement of the voluteers. We put pressure on our voluteers - we let them know we appreciated their support - but we also said - 'if you don't do more - we won;t win'.  We believed in them and built a strategy based on them.  Lots of times - we decided to announce strategy directly to the supporters before it was announced publically.
We still send out messages to supporters.  Millions of watercooler communications are being informaed by supporters ....still.  It isn't sexy - but it's what gives people ownership of politics.  It isn't as sexy as 'joe the plumber' - but it;s effective and what won the campaign.

All of the messages need to co-ordinated and sync'd.  It isb't possible without technology.  We ensured that all of our supporters got regular updates for policy to ensure the message was 'convergent'
We primarily used the internet andemail.   We used mobile primarily to get the message out.  But our core tactic was the internet (facbook, twitter came later) and email - with mobile supporting messages - driving to the internet. The president and message inspired millions of people to get involved (6 M donated) half had never been involved before.  These people had credibility because they had never been involved in politics before - they had credibility with their family and friends. 

The 2 biggest demographics for us were students and retirees.  They spent the most amount of time online doing research, moving messages and volunteering.
We believed every state mattered and every delegate mattered.  We spent money, but we mobilized earlier and we had intense and magical support on the ground with volunteers despite what our supporters were hearing on cable tv news.




David Plouffe was the campaign manager for Obama's successful 2008 presidential campaign. He is credited with the campaign's successful overall strategy in the race (primarily against Senator Hillary Clinton) for the Democratic Party presidential nomination, to focus on the first caucus in Iowa and on maximizing the number of pledged delegates, as opposed to focusing on states with primaries and the overall popular vote. He is also credited by The New Republic for Obama's success in the Iowa Caucus and for crafting an overall strategy to prolong the primary past Super Tuesday. The Chicago Tribune writes, "Plouffe was the mastermind behind a winning strategy that looked well past Super Tuesday's contests on Feb. 5 and placed value on large and small states."^[6] Plouffe also maintained discipline over communications in the campaign, including controlling leaks and releasing information about the campaign on its terms.