CrisisCamp Haiti

Guest today on the Digital Politics podcast was Gordon Thomas, a software engineer at Qualcomm in San Diego talking about the work of CrisisCamp Haiti in the recovery efforts in Haiti.  Gordon worked last weekend with a group that gathered at USC to figure out ways to find practical solutions to challenges created by the earthquake.  Of particular interest was getting satellite data to update maps and setting up data bases to include the geo-spatial data to assist the NGOs and others on the ground.

This group continues their work and other groups of techies are forming around the world to pitch in.  Another example of an unauthorized campaign taking advantage of the Internet to solve problems. Thanks to CrisisCommons.org and all the people they are engaging in this effort.

Listen to this interview with a true activist.

Bookmark Us

Influencing Public Opinion

Guest this week on the Digital Politics podcast was Paul Goodwin, partner, Goodwin Simon Strategic Research talking about rapid response and how candidates and advocates can influence public opinion.  We also talk about President Obama’s speech last night on health care reform and the rapid response from all interested parties.

Paul points out that there are many more ways for people to get information which might influence their opinions, which makes it increasingly hard to respond to myths and untruths.   He also suggests that social nets are a proxy for the old face-2-face techniques candidates used in the past.

Listen to this thoughtful discussion.

Bookmark Us

Figures Don’t Lie

Digital Politics podcast this week features guest Shabbir Safdar, founder of Virillion.  Shabbir talks about how the true metric of success is the real world result of an advocacy or political campaign and not just how many online friends or followers on Twitter.  He made me promise to stop using the term ‘viral’ in 2010 as he contends that viral is now “baked into” the online world and that is just the way it works.  I can start doing that now as I totally agree with him.  Shabbir has always been ahead of the curve.

Check out this insightful conversation which also includes Shabbir’s 3 rules for rapid response.

Bookmark Us