Friday, February 15, 2008
Another Week in Recap -- Ron Paul, Potomac Primaries, & Misc Fodder
Two events of this week have stuck out for me. The first -- and most important -- was that I performed my civic duty and voted in the Washington, DC, primary. It was interesting getting to the pools and seeing more enthusiasm (by number of voters) than I've ever seen before in DC. The lines were stretched out the door 15 minutes after the polling location opened. After the numbers came in, it was obvious that I wasn't the only Obama supporter in the Washington, DC, metro area. Wow...I couldn't have imagined things to have gone better!
The second memorable activity this week was that Rep. Ron Paul visited Georgetown to speak to the student body. I organized an online advocacy effort to sway Prof. Rosenblatt from letting us out early. It worked and a few of us went to the event to hear Paul's comments. The audience included passionate Paul supporters and a mix of people that were just interested in hearing his radical remarks. He def. is a good orrator but after 20 minutes, he started to get a little too extreme for the liberal audience. I think the point he lost us was when he started to say that the U.S. should not have been involved in WWI. More info on his presentation can be found at http://explore.georgetown.edu/news/?ID=31291.
This week I was also invited to go to Ohio to be a volunteer for Obama. I really want to go but their primary is right after I am moving into a new apartment. Maybe I'll go to another state or help out in the general election (when my life will be a little less hectic).
Class was also good this week. Besides the fact that I was successful in my advocacy campaign, we had a spirited and interactive discussion about the reading. I certainly hope that the rest of the class will stay in that format.
Work was a whirlwind too this week. I launched a new homepage for the association's website, which includes some localization of content (a first for us). I've still got 300 other projects on my plate but as next week is our Board meeting and I'm not going, I should be able to get through a lot of it.
This weekend is going to be a three-dayer due to observance of Presidents Day. I'll be spending a lot of it working on a net neutrality paper, but I'm def looking forward to some R&R; family time; and preparation for my move at the end of the month.
The second memorable activity this week was that Rep. Ron Paul visited Georgetown to speak to the student body. I organized an online advocacy effort to sway Prof. Rosenblatt from letting us out early. It worked and a few of us went to the event to hear Paul's comments. The audience included passionate Paul supporters and a mix of people that were just interested in hearing his radical remarks. He def. is a good orrator but after 20 minutes, he started to get a little too extreme for the liberal audience. I think the point he lost us was when he started to say that the U.S. should not have been involved in WWI. More info on his presentation can be found at http://explore.georgetown.edu/news/?ID=31291.
This week I was also invited to go to Ohio to be a volunteer for Obama. I really want to go but their primary is right after I am moving into a new apartment. Maybe I'll go to another state or help out in the general election (when my life will be a little less hectic).
Class was also good this week. Besides the fact that I was successful in my advocacy campaign, we had a spirited and interactive discussion about the reading. I certainly hope that the rest of the class will stay in that format.
Work was a whirlwind too this week. I launched a new homepage for the association's website, which includes some localization of content (a first for us). I've still got 300 other projects on my plate but as next week is our Board meeting and I'm not going, I should be able to get through a lot of it.
This weekend is going to be a three-dayer due to observance of Presidents Day. I'll be spending a lot of it working on a net neutrality paper, but I'm def looking forward to some R&R; family time; and preparation for my move at the end of the month.
Labels: Barack Obama, internet advocacy, ron paul
Monday, February 11, 2008
My First Online Advocacy Campaign to End Class Early
Tonight I launched a petition to persuade Professor Rosenblatt to let us leave class early on Wednesday, February 13, so for those of us interested we can go to a lecture by Ron Paul. My strategy will be three fold to get out the vote:
1) Monday, February 11: I sent a blanket email to to my constinuents. My primary target were my peers in CCTP 697, who are directly affected by the conflict. My secondary audience were the Internet Politics students in our sister-class at American University.
2) Monday, February 11 - Wednesday, February 13: Using secondary networked communication tools, I will try to convince three of my friends to take action. First, I called Kristin Smith to ask her to support the cause through a direct one-to-one conversation. Secondly, I went onto Facebook and sent messages to Kristin, Sean, and Jenna. Since timeliness of action will be critical for this campaign to work, trying to reach these "influentials" will be critical for my campaign. I targeted these three people as I have prior relationships with all three and I know that they can bring in 1-2 more votes each.
3) Wednesday, February 13: I will bring a laptop into class on Wednesday and set up a sign outside of the class before it starts to canvas students who have not taken action yet. I will create a sign and have hard copies of my petition to hand out.
I am not sure but I also think that I have a friend in the AU class. If so, I will try to reach her offline to make her into a "connector" so I can get access to the rest of the AU students.
I set a goal of ten students, which will be a consensus. Our ask isn't very large, so I am confident that with support we can get Professor Rosenblatt to cut the class short. Lastly, I also provided an incentive for the constinuents to take action as I offered to buy the first pitcher of beer at The Tombs for anyone interested in grabbing a drink after the Ron Paul event.
In-case you missed my email or received this in your RSS feed first, please take action to request that class ends 15 minutes early on Wednesday at:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/petition/819781831
Stay tuned, to hear more about the success of this campaign later in the week and my comments about the Ron Paul event!
1) Monday, February 11: I sent a blanket email to to my constinuents. My primary target were my peers in CCTP 697, who are directly affected by the conflict. My secondary audience were the Internet Politics students in our sister-class at American University.
2) Monday, February 11 - Wednesday, February 13: Using secondary networked communication tools, I will try to convince three of my friends to take action. First, I called Kristin Smith to ask her to support the cause through a direct one-to-one conversation. Secondly, I went onto Facebook and sent messages to Kristin, Sean, and Jenna. Since timeliness of action will be critical for this campaign to work, trying to reach these "influentials" will be critical for my campaign. I targeted these three people as I have prior relationships with all three and I know that they can bring in 1-2 more votes each.
3) Wednesday, February 13: I will bring a laptop into class on Wednesday and set up a sign outside of the class before it starts to canvas students who have not taken action yet. I will create a sign and have hard copies of my petition to hand out.
I am not sure but I also think that I have a friend in the AU class. If so, I will try to reach her offline to make her into a "connector" so I can get access to the rest of the AU students.
I set a goal of ten students, which will be a consensus. Our ask isn't very large, so I am confident that with support we can get Professor Rosenblatt to cut the class short. Lastly, I also provided an incentive for the constinuents to take action as I offered to buy the first pitcher of beer at The Tombs for anyone interested in grabbing a drink after the Ron Paul event.
In-case you missed my email or received this in your RSS feed first, please take action to request that class ends 15 minutes early on Wednesday at:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/petition/819781831
Stay tuned, to hear more about the success of this campaign later in the week and my comments about the Ron Paul event!
Labels: internet advocacy, ron paul
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