twitter

Jon Huntsman, in campaigning for the Republican nomination for the presidency, is encountering a rough reality five months removed from the New Hampshire primary: voters don't know who he is. And if general voters don't know who he is, I'm guessing young voters aren't well aware of the former governor-turned presidential candidate either.

While Huntsman has some work to do with the general electorate, And maybe some his daughters are attempting to do their part in reaching out to young voters through Twitter.

On July 28, Huntsman's three oldest daughters started their own Twitter account. At the outset, the Twitter account was created based on the daughters' desire to share where they are and what they are doing with friends. But then they thought about other uses.

Abby Huntsman, 25, said she and her sisters came up with the idea on their own as a way to keep friends informed.

'All our friends are like, "Where are you? You’re always in different places and doing interesting things!"

'And we thought, "This is a great way to reach out to, not only our friends, but to the youth and to anybody interested in following the campaign",' she said.

[...]

Abby Huntsman said she’s not sure what role the @Jon2012girls account will play in the upcoming election, but she believes she and her sisters have a basic duty to their dad.

'I think our involvement is pretty simple. It’s just getting out there, getting people excited and getting them to know a little bit about my dad,' she said.

I'm not one to knock efforts to appeal to young voters or engage in social media, so kudos to the Huntsmans.

However, I think we need to remember that technology in 2008 campaigns and technology in 2012 campaigns are entirely different phenomena. So while simply "getting a Twitter or Facebook" might have been able to pass as some kind of appeal to youth in 2008 (even that is highly doubtful), doing that alone definitely won't work in 2012.

If the Huntsman daughters legitimately want to appeal to young voters, maybe they need to tell their dad to campaign and advocate for true pro-growth policies, strategies that create jobs and increase government revenues. That's what we want and need. That he definitely wouldn't get out of the GOP primary after spreading this message shows you just how far the Republican Party is from young voters' priorities.

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.
-Bob Dylan

Some Cleveland-area businesses, officials, and citizens were frustrated in June when what was believed to be a flash mob disrupted an arts fair in Cleveland Heights. Take a peek:

Officials estimate that nearly 1,000 youth showed up spontaneously. Apparently there were random fights (though little information about these fights is provided in either the video or the Cleveland Plain Dealer's account).

This event, along with other alleged violent flash mobs, spurred Cleveland city council member Zach Reed (pictured, right) to introduce an ordinance criminalizing the use of social media - Facebook, Twitter, etc. - to organize crowds.

Under existing law, any member of a flash mob can be charged with disorderly conduct or other offenses carrying jail if there is a disturbance. Reed's legislation would have added a misdemeanor charge for summoning a crowd through social media. A first offense carried a $100 fine.

Reed said the new measure moved beyond "antiquated legislation" that never imagined social media.

To his credit, Cleveland mayor Frank Jackson vetoed that legislation this week, noting that while he is sympathetic to it's goal, the ordinance was not narrowly tailored enough to pass constitutional muster.

Reading about this on the heels of reading an articulate post by Sam DuPont at NDN - which calls for more examination of how social media can enhance civic engagement and social capital, I'm thinking about this flash mob issue in a few ways.

First, Reed's proposal to specifically criminalize social media-induced flash mobs is ridiculous. The last thing we need is another petty law on the books that we ask police officers to enforce, especially when we already have laws that address the issue. If a large group of people convenes and is hellbent on disrupting an otherwise peaceful event with violence, then the laws should be enforced. Some comments from festival attendees actually suggest that the Cleveland Heights PD efficiently defused the mob.

But instead, Reed - while admirably looking to solve the problem - throws the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. Reed's proposed ordinance is far from being narrowly tailored. An Ohio ACLU official points out that the law could penalize innocent citizens; should two or three friends agree to meet up somewhere to talk, dance, listen to music, or whatever, and several others show up and cause problems, the two or three friends would bear the responsibility under this ordinance. In fact, what Reed proposes would have criminalized the actions of those young people abroad who used social media to gather and rally against their oppressive governments and in support of democracy. Effective government can't simply pass a broad, sweeping law and - voila! - expect results.

I'm not arguing that there isn't a problem to be solved when people congregate with the intention of disrupting a community. However, the question Cleveland and its suburbs should be asking is not "How are these youth organizing," as this legislation does, but "Why?" I wonder if it has something to do with 25 percent of teenagers in this country being unemployed? Perhaps many youth have nowhere left to gather, other than 24 hour Wal-Marts?

What is this subculture resisting? Perhaps it's not the suburban couple or family, but a society and community that seems to have forgotten about them?

I hope Zach Reed reads Sam DuPont's blog post. DuPont doesn't view social media as a menacing threat to society. Instead, he suggests that our communities and young people could benefit from a leveraging of these technological tools to increase social capital.

[I]f this generation is to rebuild American social capital, it needs fora in which to connect, build bonds, and establish the mutual obligations of social relationships. While the primary causes Putnam points to are immense, historical shifts, the secondary causes can be largely boiled down to the resultant decline of membership in general community organizations: churches, Rotary clubs, PTAs, etc. It's hard to imagine most of these organizations making a powerful comeback among the Millennial generation, and we're left with the question of where, exactly, Millennials will come together to build social bonds.

Another cause Putnam identifies as contributing an additional 10% toward the decline in social capital is "suburbanization, commuting, and sprawl." This trend has reoriented American communities away from the neighborhoods, downtown areas, corner bars, and public squares where social capital was once forged, to a landscape dominated by highways and strip malls where the closest thing to a shared public space can be found in the Caverns of Walmart. And so, in addition to the evaporation of civic groups, our shared physical spaces are also disappearing, and the question of where social capital can be created in the 21st century becomes still more confounding.

As you've no doubt guessed by now (Sorry this took so long. Actually, I'm not sorry at all. Brevity is for cowards.), the point I'm driving toward is this: with the decline of community organizations and associations, and the disappearance of shared public spaces, I look to new network technologies to bridge some of those gaps, and help create the shared public spaces of the 21st century.

Perhaps instead of fearing and resisting social media and flash mobs, the local government in Cleveland and its suburbs could make an effort to learn about and embrace these phenomena, while also trying to understand how to improve youth quality of life in the area? Yes, cities like Cleveland and the suburbs have lots going on and many priorities in these tough times, but ignoring youth issues and rejecting their culture is not effective problem-solving, it's sinking like a stone.

Originally posted at Citizen Orange.

The fate of almost a million lives could be decided in the next six hours.  As a voter, as a millenial, as a migrant, as a Guatemalan, I'm writing to say that I will be watching along with the vast majority of those who will determine the future of the United States of America. 

If you already haven't heard already, Harry Reid is going to offer the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act up as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act.  The Senate is scheduled to vote on taking up the Act tomorrow at 2:15 p.m.  If you haven't called you're Senator yet in the support of the DREAM Act please do so now by calling:

It is imperative that you focus on these Senators.  If you've called already, call again.  If you've called again, ask five friends to do the same.  If you've done all that, here are some more actions you can take.

If you haven't heard about the DREAM Act yet I wouldn't be surprised.  The media has largely been focused on the train wreck that is Christine O'Donnell's campaign.  But the mainstream media is missing out on one of the most suspenseful political dramas I've ever witnessed.  No one knows if we have the votes to beat the filibuster in the Senate, today.  If we don't beat it, the National Defense Authorization Act will likely have to wait until after the elections.  At that point, all bets are off. 

One of the most compelling elements of this political drama has been the interaction between The LGBT movement and the migrant youth movement.  What to an outsider might be perceived as two unrelated constituencies, perhaps even hostile to each other, have been working long before this moment to build unity and solidarity.  It is one thing to believe in the truth that we are all woven into a "single garment of destiny."  It is another to live that truth and act on it.  The migrant youth movement and the LGBT movement having been living and acting on that truth, as we all should.  My freedom is tied up with the freedom of everyone else in the universe, and tomorrow we have a chance to set close to a million people free. 

Again, the media hasn't been watching but everyone who matters everyone who will decide the future of this country is watching.  The DREAM Act has been front-page news on major Spanish language newspapers all week, and featured heavily on Spanish language television.  The U.S.'s largest and fastest growing minority, Latinos, is watching, today.  Educators and students from around the country have organized for and come out in support of the DREAM Act.  The next generation is watching, today.  Facebook and twitter have blown up with mentions of the DREAM Act, and traffic on the sites covering the DREAM Act is through the roof.  Business leaders, religious leaders, and military leaders have all come out strong in support of the DREAM Act.  If the Senate fails to move the DREAM Act forward today, we will all be watching and we won't just remember this November, but for the rest of our lives. 

The next generation isn't just watching whether the DREAM act will move forward, but whether the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT) will move forward.  Lady Gaga has galvanized youth for the repeal of DADT with her extensive twitter and facebook following in a way that probably hasn't been seen seen Barack Obama was elected.

According to a poll commissioned by First Focus, 70% of the U.S. public supports the DREAM Act.  Multiple polls show that a majority of the U.S. public supports the repeal of DADT.  Republicans, for the most part, are floating arguments about procedure.  They are saying that Democrats are playing politics with the National Defense Authorization Act.  Republicans are playing politics, too, and have used the procedure of the filibuster to grind the Senate to a halt for two years.  Playing politics is what politicians do.  The public doesn't care about politicians playing politics or what procedures are used as long as Congress does their job and gets things done.  It's time for Congress to get two things done that the majority of Americans support. 

Republicans, especially, face an important choice, today.  They can please their increasingly regional extremist base and relegate themselves to irrelevancy for a generation, or they can do the right thing and be competitive with the next generation of voters.

If we win, today, we will face an even steeper uphill battle, but we will all be watching.  Failure has not entered into my mind.  We will pass the DREAM Act and DADT will be repealed.  It is no longer a question of if, but a question of when.  The time is now and whomever stands in the way will regret it for a long time. 

Pew's study on Social Media and Young Adults has some really interesting findings: teens don't blog or tweet. According to the study, 14% of online teens blog. This is down from around 28% just a few years ago. As for Twitter, only 8% of people 12-17 use the service.

The study also found that 93% of young adults go online, with 63% of those using the internet daily. This is comparable to only 38% for those over the age of 65.

So what does this mean? We know that teens use the internet, regularly. We know they are active on social networks - they post comments (83% of online teens say they've posted comments on a friends' pictures), they communicate (although less teens now say they use social networking to contact friends), and more. They do not, however, create that much content.

Only 38% of teens share content in general, 21% remix content, and once again - only 14% blog. For adults, the numbers are even worse. The difference comes in the fact that the numbers for adults have come up in recent years. Teens, on the other hand, created more just a few years ago.

Some, such as Ben Parr, have come to the conclusion that teens just don't have the life experiences needed to create quality content. They are simply consuming. Even though I am a teen, I tend to agree with this rather negative view...Most teens are not interested in creating content. Instead, they are simply consuming.

Members of my generation are consuming more information in a day than one might have come across in a lifetime in centuries past. They're reading, watching, and listening. The number of teens who simply USE the internet (93%) are huge. These young people will be heading into college and jobs with a new and unique outlook, gained by exposure to such huge amounts of information.

Overall, the study is interesting, but there isn't much to feel bad about if you're a teen. The fact we're able to consume so much more content than previous generations means we will be creating much more high quality content of our own in the future.

The Pew Internet and American Life Project finds that while an older audience is moving to Facebook, Twitter is becoming younger.

Martha Irvine, an AP youth beat writer, wrote a story on this development a couple days ago, finding that while a significant number of youth are moving to Twitter, many of them are doing so grudgingly believing that Twitter updates contain too much minutiae for their tastes.

"Quite frankly, I don't need to hear if someone stepped in dog poo on the way to class or how annoyed they are that they lost their favorite pen," says Carolyn Wald, a University of Chicago junior who has not joined Twitter and rarely posts status updates on Facebook because "I don't want to assume that people want to hear those things about me, either."

One explanation for this surge is the increased availability of wireless devices for youth today. The study reports that the more wireless outlets youth have, the more probable it is that they will tweet.

Just found about a digital upgrade concerning NCoC's upcoming conference on September 9. The conference is fully booked, I think, but they are opening up for questions via Twitter and you can follow it all via live stream. I'm really looking forward to this event; they'll be capping it off with a naturalization ceremony, a very moving experience. Tune in on the 9th! Details below.

The National Conference on Citizenship is taking place on September 9 from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. in the Library of Congress. This year, NCoC looks forward to expanding beyond the Conference walls to allow individuals who cannot join the event in Washington DC to participate online. Through the utilization of several forms of social media, virtual attendees will be able to watch conference programming, as well as submit questions and comments online. We’ll be streaming the event online and every time the conference opens for questions, our “Twitter Correspondents Desk” will make sure we take one that was submitted online. Follow @NCoC on Twitter to participate and get linked to the event live stream. Go here for more details.

A great website was started as a means of connecting progressives on Twitter called TweetProgress. According to the site the plan

"was hatched up by @jgilliam, @myrnatheminx, @jdp23 and @ginacooper to bring more progressives on Twitter, and better connect the ones who are."

A while back we did a quick hit about how Twitter is old ... er .. more middle aged... people who live in urban areas. And Politico did a piece about how more GOP elected officials are on Twitter. This is sad.

So the Folks at TweetProgress decided to fix it. Tracy - aka @myrnatheminx - was the co-founder (along with Jon Pincus) of the hashtag #p2 which basically stands for progressive 2.0 and simply serves as a much shorter tag than something like #topprog or even #tcot but helps us keep tabs on progressive tweets that should be retweeted. The website is a catalogs of all progressive tweeters who might want to be linked to other progressives.

"We want to help progressives find each other on Twitter and coalesce around progressive issues and actions," TweetProgress co-founder Tracy Viselli told The Hill. "There is a huge pool of progressives out there doing very cool stuff already on Twitter, but not everyone knows about what they are doing. We hope to use TweetProgress to do that."

The site went live just in the last couple days–against the intentions of Viselli and the site's co-founders. . .

"I think we've always seen ourselves as different from conservatives on Twitter," Viselli said. "First, TweetProgress is not built around there being an elite like [#]TCOT is. We want everyone to join the progressive fold and help us get our message across."

As you can see the real goal of TweetProgress is to allow newbie twitter folks to join and find mentors who are already established twitter'ers and can help them learn the ropes of progressive tweeting. Another goal is for #p2 folks to reach out to other progressives who don't know about all of the great work that is being done on Twitter to help progressive activism.

While more GOP elected officials might be more prominent or more noisy on Twitter, TweetProgress is banking on the millions of other users who just don't know the impact they can have if they join the cause.

I think this is a great opportunity to also bring more young people to twitter. While so many young people prefer facebook or myspace as a means of updating their status, you can download apps to your iPhone for Twitter and you can sync your twitter account to your Facebook account so it feeds directly into your status update. That way you don't have to navigate that detailed interface while going 80mph down the highway... ... not .. that I've done that..... .... ....

If you work with a cause, an organization, or candidate I wrote a few weeks ago about some of the most successful tweeting campaigns I've been grateful to worked with. And Kevin Bondelli's All Inclusive Guide to Twitter can be found here too. And if that isn't enough of a ringing endorsement of why you should join Twitter or join TweetProgress... then the coolest thing is that Al Gore signed up for it.

• Ezra Klein has "One Flowchart to Rule Them All" - a simple chart effectively explaining health care reform.
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• CIRCLE notes that non-college youth are less likely to volunteer.

A listserv I'm on has had a very interesting thread about Tweeting recently beginning with a piece from Politico that says more GOP electeds are on Twitter than are Democratic Elected Officials almost 2:1 - 100 to 56 according to Tweet Congress.

"A total of 261 Dems are ignoring the new technology (Claire McCaskill ain't one 'em) compared to 119 non-Tweet R's."

This broke into a discussion that questioned the demographic of Twitter and its usefulness to the political youth movement as well as its effectiveness for advocacy and/or outreach.

According to the Nielson Wire

"Twitter’s footprint has expanded impressively in the first half of 2009, reaching 10.7 percent of all active Internet users in June. Perhaps even more impressively, this growth has come despite a lack of widespread adoption by children, teens, and young adults. In June 2009, only 16 percent of Twitter.com website users were under the age of 25. Bear in mind persons under 25 make up nearly one quarter of the active US Internet universe, which means that Twitter.com effectively under-indexes on the youth market by 36 percent."

What Jason Pollock from The Youngest Candidate remarked was that early adoptors of Twitter were already middle aged, where early adopters of Facebook and MySpace were in their teens and 20's. Twitter was more of a technology phenomenon when I began using it, but it has grown from there to become more of the social network people see it as today.

The major focus for me has been with search engine optimization. You hear this thrown around a lot but, essentially it means that the more sites you promote your blog posts to, the more ways people are able to find it, and the higher it will climb in a google search.

My example to the list was something we orchestrated earlier this year during the Kansas Legislative Session. A number of my friends were early Twitter adopters, and have talked it up so significantly that everyone we know is now on Twitter, creating a predominantly progressive following on the site in Kansas. So while nationally there might be more GOP elected officials on Twitter than democrats, in our state, progressives dominate the pool and use it constantly to promote progressive blogs and bloggers, causes, and candidates, while also waging major hits online to GOP electeds at the federal and state level.

We suffer from a profound lack of transparency in our state Capitol. There are no video or recording devices allowed inside the chamber or committee rooms. If you want audio you have to go get the day's tape and search for the quote you want. Then basically put the audio into a video that just features the member's photo. It sucks. But, this past session we had progressive lobbyists and bloggers live tweeting the legislature and committees with our offensive network of retweeters prepared to spread the word.

Early in the session then Governor Kathleen Sebelius (now Secretary of Health and Human Services) had proposed solutions to the budget difficulties Kansas, like many other states, was having. The GOP lead legislature wasn't interested in pushing the Governor's plan and as such threatened to shut down the government. We knew there was going to be a throw-down throughout the day and had primed our group to be prepared to Tweet and drive traffic all day about how the GOP didn't care about regular people in Kansas.

It began early with a few blog posts on Kansas Jackass , and a clever name PayCheck Gate. Then the tweet storm began. For a few hours we tweeted and encouraged other to do so about the controversy, we encouraged people to call elected officials, we crossposted blogs, and everything had the tag #ksgop.

People made fun of us, asking why we were promoting progressive values like getting paid all while labeling it with KSGOP? It seemed silly. Until about three o'clock that afternoon when a google search for KSGOP reveled our blogs as the #1 search. Second, was the thread on search.twitter.com for our hashtag, and third was the KSGOP's website, which by the way, is www.ksgop.com.

So, while I agree that there are limits and flaws to organizing with Twitter, you can build a powerful social media advocacy movement that young people can participate in via smart phones and sometimes while at work or in class. Further, it doesn't require youth to give money, write a letter or email, or make a call. You can create the movement, activate it, then do a process story about it followed by fundraising around it's success. You can use it to tear down and build up, depending on your agenda or your org's strategy and goals.

Best Practices

Many of you have heard me say that my real job at Mixed Media is to just cause trouble on the internet all day. But its something everyone can learn, develop, and foster if they have the time and energy to do so.

My suggestion, particularly to those organizations or campaigns working in the states or in specific cities that are smaller (like Atlanta vs Chicago and NYC) is to do a workshop for your members on Twitter. Show them the practical applications, how they can use it to help, and network them in with your movement. Use it to promote small things first like blogs or news pieces. Watch via search.twitter.com or BackTweets how the branches of the tree work, if it's not working build your base with more workshops, or consider doing blast emails or facebook messages asking folks to RT @Whoever or change their status update.

Your result will be a following much more powerful than someone who has 40,000 friends - it will be hundreds of people that will retweet and advocate for your causes.

You can build local and regional movements quickly and easily then use them to promote your organization, have friends help cultivate small donors, promote online outreach, and give your members some form of consistent participation that they feel is meaningful without having to donate money all the time.

Twitter - USE IT! If you ever have any questions feel free to email me - my information is on the about page.

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