www

A collective of communication designers in Melbourne, Australia are working to defeat the current conservative government of Prime Minister John Howard.

The site dearjohn.org targets the youth vote, inviting them to download free T-shirt transfers, screen savers, badges, posters, and stickers.

Although united by a common agenda to defeat Howard, the designers do not highlight a specific issue or push an alternative party to vote for. This is left for the audience to fill in blanks.

Literally. In addition to readymade downloads, the site hosts a variety of do-it-yourself materials, including instructions on making your own collage posters or gaffers tape T-shirts, and downloadable political clipart and “dingbats” — image fragments and caricatures you can use to assemble your political messages and media.

In March, I blogged about MoveOn’s use of interactive maps to illustrate participation in their campaign events. The maps are a great way to visualize the scale of the event and provide feedback to the participants and the media.

In Stamen Design’s latest project for MoveOn, the map of feedback has itself become the means of participation.

On June 28, over 55,000 people in 4,600 house parties participated in an online conversation with Michael Moore about his film Fahrenheit 9/11. Moore spoke over a live, RealAudio feed while users asked questions via the map interface. User questions and responses to questions were displayed on the map in real time.

From Stamen’s press release:

“Stamen developed a live, map-based, interactive Q&A session that allows thousands of people to communicate visually via a moderated discussion. Visitors logging on can ‘see’ themselves and their submitted questions on the map, along with those of other MoveOn community members. Michael Moore, along with MoveOn directors Eli Pariser and Adam Ruben, will respond to active polls and answer questions from the online audience. The effect is both compelling and empowering. ‘If you can see yourself on the map, so much the better, because you can identify yourself as part of a large group of Americans all working towards the same thing,’ says Michal Migurski, Stamen’s Technical Lead. ‘You can get an immediate visual picture of just how widespread MoveOn’s membership is, and immediately connect with that community.’”

A archived version of the Flash file is in the works, but in the meantime, check out the screenshots in this chronology of the event.

The event also marked the launch of local voter registration and organizing drives around the country.

...

Update: The map was used again for the July 18 house parties and screenings of Outfoxed. Here are some screenshots from that event.

Save the Date: Sunday, August 29, 2004.

Spread the Word: Download this graphic as a 176 Kb PDF, or a
100 px or 50 px square Web button.

Buy a T-Shirt: At http://www.cafepress.com/nornc/

Find Out More: Visit counterconvention.org, rncnotwelcome.org, or unitedforpeace.org.

So you’re at a presentation by some kickass organization. You’re convinced by their analysis and the work they do. The rest of audience seems fired up, too. But by the end of the question and answer period it’s getting late and the energy has started to wane. Half the crowd has already trickled out by the time someone asks, “How can I get involved?”

Only then does it come out “Oh yeah, can anyone pass around a piece of paper to get everyone’s email addresses?”

But by then it’s almost always too late. The crowd has dispersed or is too busy talking to each other.

I’ve seen this happen again and again and again. In fact, I’m guilty of it myself.

Enough! Say it with me:

“Sign Up for the Mailing List!”

It’s such a basic thing. And so very, very powerful.

While maintaining a Web site does require some special skills, maintaining an email list is easy. Whether publishing a newsletter, sending out an action alert, announcing an event, raising funds, building solidarity, or generally spreading the word, the costs for maintaining an email list are minimal. And the impact can be great.

For example:

• Using email and the Web, dockworkers in Liverpool mobilized workers around the world in a successful action against the Mersey Docks & Harbour Company
• Working for Equality & Economic Liberation used a free database tool and email to increase voter turnout in low-income neighborhoods and change welfare policy in Montana.
• The Zapatista National Liberation Army successfully resisted the Mexican military by publicizing the attacks to journalists and sympathizers in Mexico and around the world.
• Subscribers to Amnesty International’s Urgent Action Network have helped free thousands of prisoners.
• With their enormous email list, MoveOn has raised millions of dollars from their subscribers, registered tens of thousands of voters, and organized hundreds of meetings with elected officials in the U.S.
• SMS text messaging (a kind of email for cellphones) has helped topple heads of state in Spain, South Korea, and The Phillipines.

I’ve also seen four job descriptions in the last two weeks from large non-profit organizations recruiting online organizers. While these large organizations may be able to afford expensive online activist tracking database software, there are several free listserv services available to individuals and small organizations.

Steer clear of “free” services from big corporations, though. Not only are these often padded with advertisements, but Yahoo! and Topica don’t much care for the privacy or security of your users.

Below is a list of organizations that provide free email list services. They are run by activists for activists, generally staffed by volunteers and funded by donations. They generally do not include advertisements on their email lists. Many have specific policies about the types of groups they support and the types of email messages they do not. Visit: autistici.org/inventati.org, cat.org.au, communitycolo.net, interactivist.net, mutualaid.org, resist.ca, icomm.ca, nodo50.org, sindominio.

You can also set up a free announcement list on very your own Web server with phpList. It manages bounces and multiple lists very well and seems perfect for folks who are not yet ready to tackle a full-on Mailman installation.

If you do have a Web site, make sure it’s immediately clear that you do have an email list. And make it very easy for people to sign up. No need for pop-up windows — a prominent link or sign-up form will do.

Here are a couple of links to tips and tricks on using email for advocacy:

• A very basic introduction to email lists
• A more extensive list of techniques for email campaigns
• Notes on email newsletter usability
• Drafting effective subject lines
• Writing effective email action alert text

I also appreciate when an organization lets you know how an action went. Following-up an action with a brief update is a good way to build good will. MoveOn is particularly good at this.

And please only send email to people who have agreed to receive it from you. Spam from activists is sometimes called “tofu.” It’s just as nasty.

So please, please:

• Put out the sign-up sheet ahead of time. In fact, put out a couple of them.
• Pass them around early, while the event is still taking place.
• Before the end of the event, ask if everyone has signed up.

And if you don’t mind my saying so, be sure to add the email addresses you’ve collected to your listserv soon after the event. Then send your participants an email message thanking them for participating and letting them know about upcoming activities.

After ribbing David about open sourcing his content management system, I decided to put up myself. So here’s my first Free Software project: pagify is a perl script that takes the output of Microsoft Word’s “Save as Web Page...” and

• cleans out the cruft and proprietary XML gunk,
• splits the file into HTML pages wherever a Heading 1 style appears, and
• converts endnotes into footnotes on the appropriate pages.

Those little blue stickers are popping on the streets of New York again. This Saturday, on the one-year anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, millions will take to the streets to call for peace. Protests are scheduled in over 50 countries, with over 200 events planned around the United States.

United for Peace and Justice has made variations on their “flag” flyer template available for download with space to add details about your local event or create your own translation, and with rotated globes for events in Africa, Asia, or Europe.

By now there are plenty of downloadable flyers on the Web, but few designed for translation and personalization, while retaining a generally persistent brand. I’ve not seen another organization producing anti-war posters this user-oriented.

Except the Bush-Cheney presidential campaign.

From Wired:

“The Bush-Cheney presidential campaign disabled features of a tool on its website Thursday that pranksters were using to mock the Republican presidential ticket.

The tool originally let users generate a full-size campaign poster in PDF format, customized with a short slogan of their choice. But Bush critics began using the site to place their own snarky political messages above a Bush-Cheney ’04 logo and a disclaimer stating that the poster was paid for by Bush-Cheney ’04, Inc.”

See a handful of sample posters in this nostalgic Fash piece.

From Democracy Now!:

“The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control recently declared that American publishers cannot edit works authored in nations under trade embargoes which include Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Libya and Cuba.

Although publishing the articles is legal, editing is a ‘service’ and the treasury department says it is illegal to perform services for embargoed nations. It can be punishable by fines of up to a half-million dollars or jail terms as long as 10 years.

Robert Bovenschulte, president of the publications division of the American Chemical Society, which decided this week decided to challenge the government and risk criminal prosecution by editing articles submitted from the five embargoed nations.”

From the Treasury Department itself:

“As you know, the importation from any country and the exportation to any country of information and informational materials, whether commercial or otherwise, regardless of format or medium of transmission, are exempt from the Iranian Transactions Regulations, 31 C.F.R. Part 560 (the ITR). ITR, § 560.210(c)....

Nevertheless, certain activities described in your letter would fall outside of the information and informational materials exemption. The collaboration on and editing of manuscripts submitted by persons in Iran, including activities such as the reordering of paragraphs or sentences, correction of syntax, grammar, and replacement of inappropriate words by U.S. persons, prior to publication, may result in a substantively altered or enhanced product, and is therefore prohibited under ITR § 560.204 unless specifically licensed.”

Boy is this ever crying out for civil disobedience from all of us bloggers. I’m not sure if republishing or translating information off the Web is covered by this (since it’s accessible anyway), but posting translations of otherwise published or unpublished material probably would be.

Let the Office of Foreign Assets Control know about it at ofac_feedback@do.treas.gov. To complain to the Department of Justice about the issue email AskDOJ@usdoj.gov.

Via the Project Censored and Juan Cole

As far as centrally-coordinated online campaigns go, one technique I’ve particularly admired about MoveOn’s organizing is the way the coordinators gather feedback and circulate it back to the participants of a given action. Participants around the world can read about of what others are doing, and get a sense of the impact and scale of the action. Too many organizations simply fail to ask who is taking offline action. And many send out endless streams of urgent action alerts with little, if any, follow-up.

Usually MoveOn’s updates arrive as the text of an email, but this Flash driven map does the job visually and interactively. The map effectively presents both the macro and micro views of the many house parties organized across the U.S. on December 7, 2003 to view the documentary Uncovered: The Whole Truth about the Iraq War.

Despite the initial written instructions, the interface could be made a little more intuitive by giving shapes of the states some kind of rollover behavior.

Still, I find it more informative than MoveOn’s previous action map. This map of the February 26, 2003 phone-in rotates the display of only one tesimony per state. Instead of plotting data the map paints a more atmospheric picture of the plurality of voices and the outrage that rained upon the Capitol that day. The geographic shapes only provide a general spatial context to the ticking clock and growing tally of calls.

Between the two is a world map of candle light vigils organized on March 16, 2003. The map displays testimonies, photos, and the sites of vigils, but the user is unable to draw any actual numbers from it, only impressions. The zoom effect is gorgeous, but the testimonies quickly overwhelm, like hundreds of little pop-up windows you’re unable to move or close.

The maps were all designed and programmed by Stamen Design in San Francisco.

...

See also this Jully 2004 item about Stamen Design’s live, interactive conference call map.

Steven Romalewski sends this growing list of nonprofit online mapping Web sites in New York City:

“We’ve noticed a kind of a critical mass of these mapping and data services recently.

Most of these have been created by my project, NYPIRG’s Community Mapping Assistance Project (a team of six people, part of a nonprofit organization, that uses GIS to help other nonprofits achieve their missions). They’re all part and parcel of an effort to ‘democratize’ data and provide powerful new tools with a community-based focus. Each site uses GIS technologies that few other nonprofits have tapped into, but that government agencies and the private sector have used to great effect. The websites use government data in in new and innovative ways, often to provide services that most government agencies would never provide. And they give local neighborhoods and individuals a window on their world that would’ve been daunting, at best, and maybe impossible for the average citizen or block association to obtain. The sites have helped level the ‘playing field’ in New York to a great extent, so public agencies and large companies don’t have a monopoly on information.

Here are the links:

• http://www.MyCITI.org — the Community Information Technology Initiative (CITI) website that puts mapping tools in the hands of New York City’s local planning boards, in a way that they can avoid the need to spend limited resources and duplication if all 59 boards had to buy the software and invest in the data creation themselves;
  
• http://www.oasisnyc.net — a wealth of information about parks, wetlands, gardens, and other open spaces across New York, reaching across all levels of government and developed for all different aspects of the city’s ‘greening community’. This site was spearheaded and funded by the US Forest Service, and involves a steering committee of more than 40 nonprofits, government agencies, academics, and businesses;
  
• http://www.nonprofitmaps.org/netmaps/bedc/bedc.htm — the Brooklyn Economic Development Corp’s. ‘Destination Brooklyn’ service that offers detailed real estate and demographic information for every property and neighborhood in Brooklyn, geared toward small business owners and community development organizations;
  
• http://www.straphangers.org/cmap.php — the Straphangers Campaign’s ‘Get Where You’re Going’ site, providing precise location information about the subway stops closest to any street address in NYC (which the MTA’s maps can’t do, since they’re geographically distorted to fit on a printed page);
  
• http://www.MyGovernmentNYC.org — allows anyone with a New York City address to easily find and contact the public officials who represent them at all levels of government, and is used by thousands of people each month, regularly praising it for its simplicity and comprehensiveness;
  
• http://www.nonprofitmaps.org/netmaps/lac/lac.htm — how to locate family literacy programs based on a survey by the Literacy Assistance Center, mapped by category, borough, or ZIP Code. The site also shows nearby subway stops and public libraries;
  
• http://www.nonprofitmaps.org/nycnonprofits — the NYC Nonprofits Project Service Atlas. It extends a 3-year study of the nonprofit sector that was released in June 2002, by enabling you to locate any of more than 6,000 nonprofit groups in the city by ZIP Code, neighborhood, Community Board, or City Council district. Groups are listed in 17 major categories and lots of sub-categories. CMAP created the Atlas for the Nonprofits Project; and
  
• http://www.LowerManhattanMap.com — helping with the recovery and rebuilding efforts of lower Manhattan small businesses, tourist destinations, and cultural organizations. The site includes information maintained by 3 business improvement districts on almost 2,000 local businesses, retail stores, restaurants, community services, cultural sites, and tourist attractions.”

Since we know exactly how mad cow disease is spread, it should be pretty easy to identify which meat to buy just by finding out how the cows are raised. Free range? Grass fed? Organic? It’s all labeled there on the package, right?

You might be surprised to find out just what falls into the gap between “Grass Fed” and “100% Grass Fed.”

In steps the Consumers Union to provide the story behind the cypher:

“Consumers Union (CU), the independent nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, is providing consumers with important information about which meat labels can and cannot help consumers wanting to reduce their the risk from mad cow disease.

Mad cow disease is known to pass from one animal to another through the use of animal by-products in animal feed. Certain labels indicate that animal by-products are not used in the feed that produced the meat. Therefore, meat carrying these labels is very low risk in terms of mad cow disease.

The information is posted at eco-labels.org which lists the the most helpful labels (“Organic” and “Biodynamic”) somewhat helpful labels (like “100% Grass Fed”), and labels that should not be relied upon to reduce the risk of exposure to mad cow disease (like “Free Range”).

In addition to meat labes, the site lists terms and labels from other food, household, and personal care products, and clearly states which terms do or do not have official definitions and organizations who verify compliance.

From eco-labels.org:

“CU launched www.eco-labels.org in the spring of 2001 to help educate consumers about these labels. Consumers Union believes that the best eco-labels are seals or logos indicating that an independent organization has verified that a product meets a set of meaningful and consistent standards for environmental protection and/or social justice....

The purpose of this site is to provide information to consumers regarding eco-labels, products that carry eco-labels, the organizations that produce eco-labels, and government and private standards for ‘green’ products. Our goal is to help consumers make more informed choices in the marketplace, and participate more effectively as citizens in important decisions that affect the environment.”