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<br>Most of my activism these days is with two organizations--a worldwide educational 501(c)3 with<br>18,000 members and a California political group with 40,000 registered supporters.<br><br>Neither of these organizations could function effectively without our databases and internet tools<br>and our conference-call services with internet screen-sharing functionality. The educational <br>
group's 20 committees employ volunteers Skyping in from all over the world, they maintain<br>elaborate internet-accessible data depositories to facilitate collaborative projects, and it keeps its <br>base informed with a regular internet newsletter that invites people to volunteer for or contribute <br>to particular projects. In the political group we can create lists of our supporters sorted by <br>assembly district or volunteer status or even by zip code. Face-to-face meetings are fun, but<br>when I'm behind in my work and all of my work is on the internet, it's hard to justify the<br>travel time, let alone the meeting time.<br><br>I think I saw a list of 600 registered Greens in Palo Alto alone. I've only ever met about ten of <br>them that I know of. If we had a proper database we could target email announcements of local <br>functions to local members, we could inform our people statewide of the registration project, and <br>we could stir up enthusiasm for specific projects. <br><br>Paper and pencil have their place in collecting contact information on the street and at meetings,<br>but a culture of computer-phobia is guaranteed to alienate young people who want to get stuff <br>done. Using teleconferencing and internet screensharing, it's possible to teach even technophobes <br>to volunteer collaborative effort to the cause without even leaving their homes. If we want to<br>make change in the 21st Century we have to live in the 21st Century or we'll be left behind.<br><br><br><br> <br><br> <br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><div><div id="SkyDrivePlaceholder"></div>> To: sosfbay-discuss@cagreens.org<br>> Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 10:33:03 -0800<br>> From: cls@truffula.sj.ca.us<br>> Subject: [GPSCC-chat] registration drive challenge, Re: Agenda for Jan. meeting<br>> <br>> <br>> Our registration efforts over the last ten years have been<br>> impaired by an inability to collect and organize and retain<br>> contact information. New people write their names on a clipboard,<br>> and it sits in someone's garage for a year or two, and<br>> we discard it.<br>> <br>> Normal political organizations use computer software for that<br>> task. But we are not a normal political organization, we<br>> are uniquely reluctant to use computerized tools,<br>> Facebook, Gmail, and SMS notwithstanding.<br>> (The reasons *why* Greens prove uniquely averse to computer literacy<br>> are irrelevant, we just are, and we're not going to change.<br>> It took enormous, sustained, pervasive peer pressure to get<br>> us on Facebook, Gmail, and SMS. That peer pressure doesn't exist<br>> for other network services, and there's peer pressure to *avoid*<br>> any service you have to learn about or understand to use well.)<br>> At the local campaign, county, and state levels, free tools<br>> have been provided and no volunteers found who would<br>> actually learn and use them. I didn't even use the systems I<br>> installed, and neither did anyone else, not the custom system<br>> we had ten years ago and not today's world-wide standard, civicrm.<br>> Our state and national parties use commercial service bureaus<br>> instead, and that's expensive and risky.<br>> <br>> They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing<br>> over and over and expecting a different result.<br>> Any renewed registration drive for our county must be<br>> designed for pencil, paper, voice phone, and photocopies.<br>> If our tablers have to touch a computer to record a new<br>> volunteer, that volunteer will be lost. If our volunteers have<br>> to learn to use *any* software tools, they will drop out of<br>> that part of the project. We would be insane<br>> to insist we're going to respond any differently this time.<br>> <br>> Best,<br>> -Cameron in San Jose<br>> <br>> <br>> <br>> <br>> <br>> >Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 08:13:41 -0800<br>> >From: Wes Rolley <wrolley@charter.net><br>> >User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64;<br>> > rv:9.0) Gecko/20111222 Thunderbird/9.0.1<br>> >To: Post South SF Bay discuss <sosfbay-discuss@cagreens.org><br>> >Subject: [GPSCC-chat] Agenda for Jan. meeting<br>> <br>> >As a political party, it is incumbent on the GPCA to protect its ballot <br>> >access. In recent years, that has fallen drastically.<br>> <br>> >With a GPCA target of 100,000 new Greens to be registered, each county <br>> >needs to take on it's share. If you divvy up that large number based on <br>> >current registration, Santa Clara County needs to register a little over <br>> >4,000 new Greens by the November election.<br>> <br>> >While Santa Clara County GP has an active tabling program, I don't see <br>> >that this will bring in 4,000 new Greens... based on past history. So, <br>> >how do we get to that number? I suggest that it needs new ideas and <br>> >some organizational structure for getting beyond our tabling efforts. <br>> >At least, we should have a committee to refine those ideas and agree <br>> >that part of each monthly meeting should be a simple report on the <br>> >current status of the effort... how many new Greens have been <br>> >attracted. Maybe, if we measure progress, we will have more progress.<br>> <br>> _______________________________________________<br>> sosfbay-discuss mailing list<br>> sosfbay-discuss@cagreens.org<br>> http://lists.cagreens.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sosfbay-discuss<br></div> </div></body>
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