My wishlist for the Obama Campaign Dashboard

I spent some time this evening getting reacquainted with the Obama Campaign’s Dashboard this evening, and I have to say it is loaded with features and seems much more robust than when I originally signed up.

With only three weeks to the election, now is the time to sign up, help spread the word, explore the features, start making calls, and help make sure we re-elect President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.

With that said, of course, there were also some functionalities that I’d love to see added to help increase sign-ups, add new features, and/or improve the user experience. While many of these requests are just something to put a pin in and work on for the next campaign, others seem like fairly minimal lifts that could be worth the effort.

These are just one obnoxious critic’s opinions, but check it out and let me know what you think.

1. Groups enhancements:
   • I had to hit “Load more items” four times to get to the Young Americans for Obama group. Dashboard should feature 3-4 of the most relevant Official Groups before going into the regional and other suggested groups based on perceived relevance. And since I’m a young American who had to go past many demographic-based groups that were not relevant to me, whatever algorithm determines relevance should be enhanced.
   • There should be a more clear call to action besides “Invite Friends” to show what the point of being in groups is (e.g. attend an event, share a resource, start a conversation, etc.). Maybe there could some integration to the Best Practices section.
   • If you’re going to tell me two people on my team are in a group, can’t you tell me who they are? And do you tell me if my friends are?
   • I don’t think I’ve seen the Young Democrats of America invite me to the Young Americans for Obama group, but it seems like asking labor, Young and College Dems, demographic-based groups, and other related organizations to encourage their members to join a Dashboard group would be a great way to increase Dashboard utilization.
2. Feature request: voter registration – Given the elaborate amount of information that the presidential campaigns have and how they’re already planning to use it to allow supporters to do targeted outreach to contacts who might not be registered to vote, there should be a way to see which of my friends might not yet be registered to vote. Friends in swing states should be prioritized first, but I should get to see and contact them all to help Democrats up and down the ticket.
3. Team enhancements: As someone who might be more likely to attend an evening phonebank downtown near where I work than a phonebank somewhere less convenient in the neighborhood Team for where I live — but likely to potentially participate in some events in both teams — I really think we should be able to join at least two teams. However, to prevent diluting messages by allowing Dashboard users to take on more than they can keep up with, I do think Teams should be capped at two or three.
4. Resources enhancements: To be more useful, resources should be more easily filtered and more thoroughly segmented. While as a campaign geek I found the 2012 IT Tech Tips interesting, they really seemed geared toward people running field offices (sorry Team Obama, but most of your volunteers don’t have VoteBuilder log-ins and I don’t own a Xerox Phaser 4620 Network Printer…).
   • It would be great to have some Tech Tips geared toward volunteer canvassers and phonebankers that are accessible to everyone, but for people identified as regional office leaders to get the more elaborate documents.
   • A wordcloud of tags on the top or sidebar of the page would go a long way to helping users find the type of resources they are looking for.
5. Feature request: empower more organizing by building on what Gov. Deval Patrick’s campaign started in 2010 (start at slide 38 of this great presentation and scope out apebble) – let supporters report non-phone voter ID information — and provide the resources to empower it:
   • Allow Dashboard users to send Tweets, Facebook posts, and emails that ask contacts to click a link and commit to voting for Barack Obama.
   • Enable Dashboard users to report voter IDs based on other interactions they’ve had.
   • Allow Dashboard users to cut turf in their neighborhood and report the results.
6. Feature request: make real-time events more social and push impact over the Dashboard brand – The first creative online engagement activity I’ve seen from the Mitt Romney campaign was an invite to be part of their debate Rapid Response team. It appeared users on their platform were given real-time fact checks from the campaign to share across their social networks. Maybe the Obama campaign has offered this too and I missed it, but were we to be invited to watch, share, and respond to the debates via Dashboard, that could also help get more people signed up and increase utilization. I’d also like to see more Obama campaign emails highlighting specific functionalities of Dashboard and their value to the campaign; it feels like too many of their messages are all about Dashboard, Dashboard, Dashboard. Maybe that works — just emphasize the broad message that Dashboard = helping and drive people to log-on. But I think one reason that Romney campaign email caught my attention was because it offered a specific, tangible way to help out online.
7. And finally, it would be nice to have a way to share this feedback through the Dashboard.

Despite this lofty wishlist, there’s a lot you can do to make an impact on Dashboard right now. Every organizer knows that what you do with the tools you have is way more important than waxing about the tools you want — but I invite you to do both and report back!

Quick Thoughts on Listening from the #MAPoli Elections

Today one of my enjoyable chores significantly streamlined my Tweetdeck client as I shed many list and search columns that were dedicated to listening to the Twitter chatter about the 2010 Massachusetts elections.

Filtering is one of the most important ways of efficiently finding the information you want to see on Twitter and using Tweetdeck columns to keep tabs on lists and searches is one of the easiest ways to keep an eye on the Twittersphere.  Paying attention to what all sides are saying is a great way to find messaging, events, & commentary to share and/or respond to, so I thought I’d quickly share what I listened to and why in case it can be helpful for you during future elections, or as you plan for other types of campaigns.

For me, there are a few important considerations on how to think about what you should listen to:

1. To state the obvious: hashtags that supporters and opponents are using to talk about the election (BONUS TIP: when setting up searches, leave out the “#” as long as it won’t flood the search stream too much by searching just for the word.  Occasionally, people forget the pound-sign, use a “@” instead, or in some instances you’ll want to hear when people are using a word outside of the hashtag.)
2. Candidate names (the ones you support and the ones you don’t) so you can hear the good and bad said about the candidates and help amplify whichever you might want to share by retweeting them (BONUS TIP: Retweet the old fashion way so you can add the hashtag and get the tweet more visibility.)
3. Media outlets give you a quick glimpse at the headlines of the day (BONUS TIP: You can use Tweetdeck’s Filter Button to quickly see if there are any stories about the candidates that have been tweeted recently)
4. Supporters to see what they’re saying and respond/retweet accordingly
5. Campaign tweeps can give you a view of what the candidates are doing on a daily basis and a window into what they’re doing outside the popular hashtags (if anything)
6. Relevant issues and keywords like the big dig, race to the top, tolls, yobgolins, loscocco, bakerbots, cape wind and other topics that might come up in the course of the campaign so you can respond/retweet accordingly

Lists

• Michael Durant’s Twitter list of #MAGov candidates
• Young Democrats of Massachusetts’ media list
• YDM’s Board member list
• My mongrel list of Massachusetts politics and Young Dems tweeps (which is admittedly in need of a little curating)
• If I were trying to pay closer attention to what the campaigns were doing and saying off-hashtag, I’d probably create or use an existing list of campaign staff (here’s @VoteDeval’s and @BakerforGov’s – @timforgovernor never made one)

Searches (note: some of these columns lasted longer in Tweetdeck than others, but for posterity & nostalgia’s sake, here’s as many as I can recall)

• magov
• mapoli OR masspoli
• malegis
• bospoli
• ma2010
• votedeval
• massgovernor
• devalpatrick OR “Deval Patrick” OR “Gov. Patrick” OR “Governor Patrick”
• timforgovernor OR “Tim Cahill”
• bakerforgov OR “Charlie Baker”
• bigdigbaker
• mahadenough
• hadenough
• bakerbot OR bakerbots
• timsteam
• ivotedeval
• got50

If you keep an ear out for Twitter chatter about campaigns or nonprofits, how do you decide what to search for?

Have other good tips for effective listening?

What was your favorite hashtag from the campaign trail?

Get this App and Get Out The Vote

With all this talk of an enthusiasm gap fueled by the fervent Tea Party and frustration over the slowness of progress thanks to GOP obstructionism throughout President Obama’s term, Democrats, Liberals, Progressives, and other like-minded voters can take nothing for granted.  It is more important than ever that people who want to keep America moving forward need to reach out to every friend, family member, and co-worker who might be interested in a reminder to vote.

That’s why I was so pleased to get wall posts this weekend from Hartford City Councilor Luis Coto and my friend John from the Young Democrats asking me to commit to vote.  The ask didn’t end there, however, and that’s the really innovative piece of the newest GOTV social media tactic available from Organizing for America: The Commit to Vote Challenge.

The design of this Facebook app lets you share your reason for voting, and then invite your friends to commit to voting and share their reason too – plus, it even wraps in a little competition to make getting out the vote that much more fun.

Tech President sums it up well:

Hop on over to My.BarackObama.com/CommitChallenge, type in your reason for voting, and the app published your intentions to your Facebook Wall. But it also sets you up to tweak your Facebook friends, one by one, about similarly committing to vote this election (even if the whole tone of the effort is more dutiful performance of civic obligation than the electric fervor that powered things in 2008). For a dollop of competition, the site tracks how you rank compared to the number of commitments your Facebook friends have managed to pull in, awarding titles like “Committer” and “Grassroots Recruiter.”

The spirit of this app fits well with the strategy that Governor Patrick and the Massachusetts Democrats have brought to this election: people talking to people they know.  This is the strategy behind their powerful online organizing tool, their Friend Banks, and so much other outreach that’s being done.  Gov. Patrick sums it up well:

(If you’re curious, here are the first and third things you can do).

Voters screen their calls (if they even have a land line) and are tired of robocalls and negative ads – and organizers have known throughout history that the way to build a movement is through person-to-person contact.

The Commit to Vote Challenge gives you an easy way to make it personal right now by sharing why you’re going to vote and encouraging the people you know to do the same.  I hope you’ll take a few minutes to get this app and get out the vote too!

That being said, the rollout of this app and my over enthusiasm for it did provide a few valuable lessons and critiques to keep in mind as you do your outreach:

1. Actually make it personal. When I was asked my reason to vote, I wrote a somewhat long reason tied to what’s at stake in Massachusetts and in Washington.  My hope being that it would resonate with people wherever they lived and get them thinking about what’s at stake for them.  However, I received more than a few people who reminded me they weren’t in Mass, so I’m thinking that wasn’t the best strategy.  Instead of taking my approach of copying and pasting my reason for voting into every Wall Post I sent out, consider tailoring your message to each person you talk to – or at least having one national or values-based message, and one for your state and sending them accordingly.
2. Stream clutter. Unsurprisingly, many of my friends are the political type – and so are many of their friends – which means that as this rolled out, a number of people felt like the app was cluttering up their feeds.  Frankly, I’ve seen many causes that take up the feed for the day with people all updating their statuses on behalf of ah issue, and I can’t think of any cause more important to raise awareness for than voting.  I’d say there’s too much at stake not to use this opportunity to remind everyone you can to get out the vote, but it might be worthwhile for future developers to consider a private message or event invitation instead for future iterations.  That said, I know the app developers did add a mechanism to filter out everyone who already committed so they won’t get repeated invitations and hopefully that will reduce some redundancy.  But really, it’s election time and we only elect good candidates if we get people to the polls, so don’t be bashful about sharing why you’re going to vote and then making personal invitations for others to do the.
3. People are protective of their walls. I didn’t realize this, but a number of people just don’t like the idea of having this automatically sent to their wall – even if you are really there selecting them to send it to.  As I said in number two, there’s too much at stake in this election not to reach out using this app, but do try to make it personal and perhaps a  suggestion for future iterations would be an invitation to one massive GOTV Facebook Event, which hold your friends’ walls harmless and have the added benefit of adding election day to their calendars.

Help create excited voters and start some good conversations like the ones above and the ones below (even with my Massachusetts-oriented message) by getting this app and getting out the vote now!

Was your Facebook stream flooded?  If so, are you excited there’s such energy among your friends to vote, or do you think there are other ways an app could turn voters on without turning others off?

I’ve included my reasons for voting below the screenshots – check them out and leave the reason you shared on Facebook in a comment – but, really, make sure you invite your family and friends to GOTV first!

I’m voting…

• because we need more progress,
• because I don’t want our country or Massachusetts moving backwards,
• because the Bush admin was kind of a drag,
• because so many candidates like Charle Baker promise more of the same failed policies,
• because Democrats in Congress & Mass have been fighting for and helping us recover (did you know MA is #2 in recovery & 5th best for doing business?),
• because Democrats like Gov. Patrick and our Congresspeople have values that put people first and support equality (which is even more important when things are tough and Republicans would add $700bil to our deficit for a tax cut for rich people in Congress and put our safety net and schools in danger with an untimely sales tax cut in MA),
• because there are infinitely more reasons I could go on with,
• because there are real choices in this election and I’m not going to be wondering if there’s more I could have done if Republicans win and set us back decades on financial regs, civil rights, and health care reform,
• because there’s more work to do,
• because there’s too much at stake.

Content Still King

A recent post from NTEN provides some great guidance on writing and editing for the web, and offers a useful reminder that content is still the most important part.

Specifically, Brett Meyer at NTEN points out how “Gerald Marzorati, Editor of The New York Times Magazine, has revealed that “‘contrary to conventional wisdom, it’s our longest pieces that attract the most online traffic'” and also that “NTEN’s own web analytics show that, by and large, our carefully considered, better written, longer blog posts yield much longer time-on-page.”

The main takeaway, I think, for nonprofits is that when you shouldn’t be afraid to tell a full story when it’s compelling; Meyer aptly sums it up:

“We read what interests us, even if it happens to be on the Web. The problem, as I see it, is that conventional wisdom is leaving us with less of interest to read. The more it becomes accepted that we need to write for people to scan, the more we strip things down to facts and figures, bullet points and sub-heads, the more we may be moving further away from what our audiences actually want.”

He goes on to lay out some good considerations for when you want to take your time in telling your story and how to do so effectively.  And he also notes the important caveat that still “there’s a lot of value in knowing how to use white space and paragraph breaks and subheadings to capture people’s attention.”  I think the layout of his own post on the topic illustrates that point pretty clearly.

An important thing to consider is what the purpose of your content is, and what the easiest way is for that to be achieved.  For example, I wrote recently that I’d like to see Governor Patrick’s campaign use more of those cliche writing-for-the-web tactics of bullets, bolding, and short content.  The goal of sharing that content is to inform supporters and request their support.  The easiest way for supporters to complete that goal is to be one-click away from contributing.

There’s certainly an argument to be made that the (long) content of their fundraising appeal was compelling enough to hold the reader’s attention and compel the reader to click the contribute link when they finally get to it.  However, some bold headings would help guide the skimming reader through the text, and putting the link to contribute farther up in the email would make it easier for contributors to give and accomplish that goal.  If the email were a short summary with a good teaser, the content could drive the reader to the website where the reader could read the full post with a contribute box and links to sign-up for volunteering readily accessible.

There’s no need to cut out good content, but it’s important to consider the most effective way to use it to maximize your conversion goals.