RootsCampSL steamed into Day 3 with an training on Second Life tools for new SL users by Ruby Sinreich, and then an in-depth debrief on Ned Lamon't Senate campaign, and it's use of technology, from Lamont Technoogy Director Aldon Hynes.
A small group for the "tools" training grew throughout the 2 hours to what was probably our largest group yet by the end of Aldon's Lamont campaign session. We didn't have time to complete a number of threads of conversation from both sessions, and both will be continued in different forms next week as we examine how to use the Second Life platform functionally and strategically to help a Democrat win the Presidency in 2008.
Highlights of the sessions included:
- Discussing methodologies for bringing data from activist websites into Second Life, and concluding that existing support for this on the Second Life platform is weak, though non-integrated Skype conference calls are frequently used
- Discussing the existing array of advocacy/political websites in Second Life and generally concluding that they currently underwhelm
- Discussing the power of guided experiences in Second Life-- such as an impressive location that guides visitors through what it is like to be a schizophrenic; we extrapolated from that that a "Tour of Iraq" experience built in Second Life might help people in the US better understand the situation in Iraq
- Discussing that creating personal relationships between people (e.g.: between an Iraqi and an American) is a core strength of Second Life
- Practiced building basic shapes and designs in Second Life
- A walkthrough of the main technology stack used by Lamont in Connecticut:
- Blue State Digital
- ActBlue for fundraising before BSD was up and running, -A home-grown "friends and neighbors" because the Sage Software system they used didn't work as hoped. The home-grown system resulted in people getting personalized postcards from the campaign, which they felt went extremely well.
- Viral Get-Out-The-Vote using Facebook.com "I Voted 2006" group
- Lamont live-blogged on local Connecticut blogs and on Daily Kos
- Discussed the role of the chief technologist within a major campaign-- they're one part Operations, but also one part fundraising, communications, and field. They're often siloed, however, and not given as strategic a role as the group felt they ought to be
RootsCampSL continues on Saturday at 1pm SLT/PST with Ana Herzog of CodePinkSL (Code Pink Second Life) leading a session entitled "Pink Jesters, Lingerie & Cyber Disobedience: The importance of humor and positive energy in activism."
Read the full Day 3 session transcript here
Missed the Day 2 report? Read it here.
Missed the Day 1 report? Read it here.
Snapshots from RootsCamp Session 3:
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