User:Chadlupkes/Political Networking

From Left Space

Political Networks consist of four main categories.

Contents 1 Individuals 2 Groups 3 Issues 4 Events

[edit] Individuals

Individuals are the core of any networking system. Whatever information they are comfortable having in the public domain should be made available, meaning that they have the right to confirm or delete any and all information if they wish. That's what I'm getting from the Plaxo concept.

What is Plaxo? Plaxo is a networking service that works with Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express. With Plaxo, you can update your contact list by sending update request emails to your friends and let them insert the correct information directly into your address book. The service automatically keeps up-to-date with anyone in your address book that uses Plaxo - no emails necessary. And you can access your contact list from any computer. Sound useful?

Individuals connect to other individuals through friendships and acquaintances. In a strong networking tool, people should be able to find a person with a particular interest or skill, and find a connection to them through their primary contacts. This is what Linkedin does, allowing people to connect to each other, and enabling searches to find certain people, or even everyone that works for a particular company. We can use this concept and match people with similar interests.

What is Linked In? "Linkedin is an online service helping business professionals find and connect with one another more effectively. Whether looking for jobs, a lead for that next deal, or seeking out an industry expert, users can make contact with thousands of professionals through a chain of trusted connections. The company was founded by Reid Hoffman and is based in Mountain View, California." We can use this service to help us manage and understand our personal network.

Another website that might be new to everyone is the Orkut network. We're just beginning to use things like this. Although it works much like Linkedin does, this service is for tracking personal contacts. Grassroots organizations might see this as a better option. We have started a Democracy for Washington Community on Orkut, so please feel free to join!

[edit] Groups

People band together for certain causes under the banner of an organization, be that a non-profit, PAC or club. It would be really nice to be able to see who else is a member of Sound Nonviolent Opponents Of War, the Green Party, Mothers Against Drunk Drivers, or a particular candidate's campaign. It's also important that the right information is posted about each organization, and that information should be controlled by the people running it. Guidestar is a model for this, granting access and update permission to someone designated by the organization. We could do something similar, creating a list of organizations and how to contact and work with them. We can also incorporate webrings to directly connect the websites.

[edit] Issues

Individuals hold certain issues as more important than others. I like to consider Tax Reform, Lawrence sees Gay Marriage? as a very important issue, David cares about the Homeless, Whitney wants us to pull out of Iraq. With new issues and platform stands coming up almost daily in the news, it would be wonderful if we could track how important people judge certain things to be in the larger scheme of things. A ranking tool like this doesn't really exist, but it wouldn't be to difficult to create if we could get some time for development work. Once put together, it would help rank issues in the overall community, giving us a better chance of making sure that we focus on the most important issues first, and that we don't forget anything along the way.

[edit] Events

Events are planned by organizations and grassroots groups, and it's usually a good idea for small groups to be able to track the invitations and find out who might be showing up and who can't make it. Evite does this well.

Meetup.com is another way for people to get together to talk about certain issues and for specific reasons. Most candidates seem to be jumping on the bandwagon since Howard Dean made them so successful in his campaign. House parties are another option, organized by Evites or on a larger scale through a tracking service like DFA put together. We can do that too.

Mailing lists are one of the killer aps of the Internet. Lists can be focused around a Group, Issue or Event, and everything in between. Yahoo Groups does them well, and there are many free scripts out there that do the same thing. This grants people the ability to have news of a particular bend come to their own inbox. Can we improve on the idea? I think we can if we brainstorm enough.

All of this is part of networking. Which of these concepts, or others that we have not thought of yet, do we want to include in any tool that we develop? I'm not necessarily talking about an online tool, although it would be fun to create one. (Yes, I'm a glutton for punishment.)

The most important concept to get across is that the network already exists. We all know other people who agree with us, we are all involved in different groups, we all plan and attend events, and we all care about issues. We just don't know what the connections are because they have not been documented. It's that documenting of the existing network that we need to work on.