NPR's All Things Considered had an interesting piece yesterday afternoon about what happens with Obama's network now that the election is over. One of the people interviewed was Micah Sifry who talked about people in Connecticut who've moved their group onto a platform that will remain active regardless of what happens to mybarackobama.com and allow them to continue organizing.
So knowing that Micah had undoubtedly had more to say about it at techpresident.com, I went searching and found this post: What Happens to the Obama Network After the Election?
Take this email exchange that I have had in the last 24 hours with some of the core activists in Connecticut for Obama. Monday, Stephen Wilmarth, the site owner of a Ning social network group called ctobama.org wrote techPresident the following note:
Thought you'd want to keep your eye on this....
As we approach election day, our Connecticut for Obama (Ning) grassroots organizing network Web site will undergo a profound change. Unlike traditional campaign Web sites that will shut down as the activities associated with the election process draw to a close, our netroots organizers will convene and discuss how we turn our registered network users from the task of electing Barack Obama to the office of President, to a network of organizers who can participate in the governing process. Having found our voice, we intend to keep it alive and flourishing and growing long after the campaign has ended, and turn our energies toward the challenges of governing. Our mission is to continue in our role as a group motivated community organizers, to advocate for the issues that brought us into the process in the beginning. We will continue to make use of the rich social media tools and online resources to keep our group of over 1,000 grassroots organizers and campaign workers, many of us new to the political process, highly engaged. So, watch this space! [...]
Do other people share Wilmarth's vision? We're going to find out just how many pretty soon. Jennifer Just, the Obama for America Connecticut field organizer, wrote a quick note affirming Wilmarth's messages to me, saying, "[Obama] wouldn't be here, nor would we, w/out new media...I especially love the book 'here comes everybody' & am v. excited about the future of grassroots organizing after this." I asked her if she thought many of the volunteers working on the campaign now were in it for the longer haul. She wrote back, taking a break from entering data, "MORE than up for it...we can't stand the idea of not working together so we've already talked about ways of working together...likely that we won't all stay together but at least use these tools etc. to move forward on those things that compel each of us."
Micah links to a dkos post that Al Giordano wrote about a panel that he did in Madison on the topic. The diary includes a cautionary tale from the 2004 Kerry-Edwards blog experience:
On Election Night in 2004, the official Kerry-Edwards blog - which had hundreds of fresh comments and news rolling in about problems with the right to vote all day long - was suddenly taken offline at 2 a.m.
One source that was there, staffing the blog, provides this account:
"...at 2 am, without any indication at all, the blog disappeared. No one answered phone calls. It was clear they had all turned out the lights and left. I went into the MT program and saw that Ari had shut it down. I could have turned it back on, but by then I was so pissed--truly, a sense that they never got it, never saw the people who worked so hard on it as the incredibly smart informed and hardworking folks they were, never really understood the relationship between changing hearts and minds through dialogue to the ATM that was feeding them. I left it down.
"People were massively hurt. There was a forum that was on a separate server which was run entirely by volunteers and the campaign did not turn that off; they had forgotten it was there. There was an IRC chat room and most of the bloggers went there; the chat room was run by another volunteer and existed on a server in Kansas, I think. I spent almost 48 hours without sleep in the IRC, helping people cope with their sense of outrage and disappointment, most of which became directed at John Kerry himself, despite my constant efforts to help people separate the issues out."
As one of the people who managed the IRC channel and helped out on the K-E blog, I can attest to that experience. The anger and rage at being shut down so abruptly and relationships severed, coming on top of the shock of Kerry's loss, was phenomenal.
Some of the moderators from the Kerry-Edwards blog and the IRC channel went on to form the Democracy Cell Project. Our logo was "Educate Activate Empower". Unfortunately technology tools such as Ning weren't around yet and we didn't have the funding to create a platform that would work nationally.
That was then. This is now.
And now we do have tools that allow us to expand on the network built by Obama for America. It's exciting to see that Connecticut is leading in this ongoing experiment with their site, newly renamed GroundUp. Interestingly the logo is surprisingly (or not so surprisingly if you think about it) similar to the DCP's. It's "Recruit Empower Multiply".
Speaking of multiplying, there's a number of house-parties and get-togethers scheduled for Dec. 11-14 across the state at which people will be gathering to talk about what they'd like to tackle next. Locations include Stamford, Mystic, New Haven, Windsor, Bloomfield, Middletown, Branford, Glastonbury, Meriden, and East Haddam as of today.
To check further details, use both the GroundUp event list and the mybo search to locate the events.
I'd propose that part of what's next is to see how we connect with activities and groups already organizing and build a highly effective grassroots-netroots organization.
Cross-posted at Reality Window