The BSD Blog

We're featured in the Financial Times today - an interview sets out our plan to open an office in London in the next few weeks. Campaigns, charities and companies are fast seeking to develop strategies for building online communities - not least because of the success of Blue State Digital client Barack Obama.

There is no reason why Britain hasn't experienced a breakthrough online campaign. Voters and consumers in the UK and across Europe use the internet for a host of other activities, shopping, gathering information on candidates or reading the news, in the same way as in the US.

We're looking forward to taking the lessons learned with Barack Obama, the DNC and our other clients in the US to the UK market from November, keep a look out for developments.

Salon.com currently is running a feature story from Margriet Oostveen called, “I ghost-wrote letters to the editor for the McCain campaign.”

Margriet writes:

I volunteer in political campaigns now and then. After a series of outings for Obama and a first mission as a phone banker for John McCain, I returned to McCain's headquarters in Arlington, Va. The offer was too alluring to delay -- they wanted to put me into action as a ghostwriter. Next to commercials and phone banking, writing letters to the editor is the most important method of the McCain campaign to attract voters. At least that is what's written in the guidelines that McCain campaign worker Phil Tuchman presents to me.

The assignment is simple: We are going to write letters to the editor and we are allowed to make up whatever we want -- as long as it adds to the campaign. After today we are supposed to use our free moments at home to create a flow of fictional fan mail for McCain. "Your letters," says Phil Tuchman, "will be sent to our campaign offices in battle states. Ohio. Pennsylvania. Virginia. New Hampshire. There we'll place them in local newspapers."

I’ll admit, I wasn’t that surprised to see that John McCain’s campaign writes fake letters about fictional sons in Iraq from their DC-suburb headquarters. That’s old-school politics.

But when your campaign is able to mobilize millions of people to take action – to donate, knock on neighbors’ doors, make phone calls, and yes, write letters to the editor – you don’t have to resort to those sort of “old-school” tactics.

The power of Barack Obama’s online tools – the power of Blue State Digital’s online tools – is in their ability to give a voice to real people all over the country... To not need six people sitting in headquarters to concoct stereotypical voices, but to allow millions to tell their own story right from home.

Click here to read more about Barack Obama’s tool set in action.

The Ballot Initiative Strategy Center (BISC) is a really important group. They fight right-wing efforts to use ballot initiatives on issues like abortion and gay marriage as wedge issues for voters. They also work proactively to pass progressive ballot measures on issues like the energy, health care, and education. 

Back in March, BSD worked with BISC to create StopBallotFraud.org, a website dedicating to exposing “the deceptive tactics behind the country’s most suspect ballot initiatives.”

We teamed up with BISC once again to redesign their organization’s website, Ballot.org. My favorite part is the state-by-state guide of what initiatives are on the ballot this November.

The site just went live a few days ago. Click here to take a look.

ABC World News with Charlie Gibson is running a feature called “50 States in 50 Days,” a nationwide tour of the political landscape leading up to Election Day.

Yesterday the focus was on Virginia – and ABC News showed how Blue State Digital’s neighbor-to-neighbor technology is helping Barack Obama create a “persuasion army” to win in Virginia:

Take a look:

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=5861243

Britain's apparent problem with so-called 'binge drinking' has seen some politicians scurry for the law books. But many law-abiding drinkers in the UK think there are laws aplenty to deal with the trouble-makers.

Blue State Digital has helped the Drinkers Alliance launch a new website to give voice to the majority. Campaigning against raising the drinking age from 18 to 21, and fighting to avoid huge price hikes on Briton's favourite tipples, BSD has created a innovative base to give the voters what they need to tell politicians where they stand.

Visit the new website: http://www.drinkersalliance.com

Jonas Lamis from RealPolitix.com spent some time poking around BarackObama.com to explore the Blue State Digital toolset.

He writes:

When the final votes are counted, chads inspected, and lawsuits settled, we may look back on the campaign of 2008 and find that, if he is elected, the secret to Obama’s success was a couple of geeks who have headquartered their tech company - Blue State Digital - in the most unlikely of places: Inside The Beltway.

One thing Jonas talks about in his post is Blue State’s matching donations tool. The concept isn’t anything new; in direct mail fundraising, letters often claim that “your donation will be matched” – usually by an anonymous multi-millionaire, or by the candidate him/herself. But for campaigns like Barack Obama’s, which aim to empower millions of supporters, not a handful of rich donors, that strategy doesn’t fit. Instead, the matching tool allows regular folks like you and me to match each other’s donations, and send notes of encouragement back and forth to make a personal connection with one another.

The geeks here at Blue State (myself included) really enjoyed the RealPolitix play-by-play of all the MyBO tools. Thanks Jonas!  

Blue State Digital is best known for its big-name political clients… but that’s not all we do. Increasingly, BSD is working with nonprofit organizations, cultural institutions, and socially responsible corporations on new and exciting projects.

This week, we launched one of the most interesting and ambitious sites we’ve ever done: the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.

It’s a big year for Sundance. The Festival marks its 25th anniversary this year, and they turned to Blue State for new ways to engage not only their filmmakers, but donors, volunteers and attendees.

In the weeks and months ahead, the site will be expanding in scope with new features like STORYTIME, an online collection of stories and memories from the past 25 years in Park City. Be sure to check back for the new features as we roll them out.

Sundance Film Festival is just one of the many programs of The Sundance Institute, which is also a new BSD client. We will be working with SI to enhance their donor and membership communications, build attention online for their other programs, and recruit new supporters of independent art and artists.

The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network is a non-partisan legal support and policy organization dedicated to repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and replacing it with a non-discrimination policy for lesbian, gay, and bisexual members of the military.

A few months ago, SLDN came to Blue State, looking for ways to step up its campaign. BSD’s technology and strategy teams have been working with SLDN to engage their membership and strengthen the online grassroots movement to lift the ban.

Yesterday, we launched their new organization website to help give SLDN the tools to build this movement. Take a look at the new SLDN website:

http://www.sldn.org

It’s a dilemma many civic-minded college students face: “Should I vote absentee back home – or should I re-register at my school?”

Unfortunately, it’s not as easy as deciding which state, senator or representative needs your vote the most. The state laws governing voting eligibility can be both confusing and restrictive.

To help clear up that confusion, Blue State Digital worked with the Brennan Center to launch their “Student Voting Guide,” a comprehensive and interactive map for students to determine where they can vote. The map displays ID, residency, registration, and absentee voting requirements for both students’ home states and school states.

The map’s data was built directly into BSD’s content management system, allowing the Brennan Center to update the map the same easy way it would update a blog post or press release. There are also widget versions of the map available to add to your facebook page, blog or web site.

Take a look at this handy map and pass it along to any students you know:

http://www.brennancenter.org/studentvoting

It’s been a busy August and September for BSD – so busy that’s it’s been difficult to find time to update our own website. Here are a few new websites that have occupied our time:

The Democratic National Committee (democrats.org)

Blue State Digital redesigned the Democratic National Committee’s website with a simple, clean design before the November election. It’s now easier than ever for Democrats to learn the latest news about the campaigns and get involved to defeat John McCain.

Trouble the Water (troublethewaterfilm.com)

Trouble the Water won of the Grand Jury Prize at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. The film tells the story of New Orleans residents “who survive [Hurricane Katrina] and then seize a chance for a new beginning.” Trouble the Water’s website features the film’s trailer, screening information, and ways to take action in the Gulf Coast. In just the past 2 weeks, the small film’s site has received over 73,000 visits and thousands of new sign-ups for more information.

Martin O’Malley (martinomalley.com)

We relaunched Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley’s website as a microsite for the Democratic National Convention. Their goal was to provide comprehensive information about the convention for the Maryland delegation in Denver, and help Maryland Democrats who didn’t make the trip feel like they were there. As someone from the Governor's staff said, it’s a "Web 2.0 explosion" -- with Flickr, twitter, and YouTube all heavily featured on the site.

South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families (sdhealthyfamilies.org)

In 2006, Blue State Digital worked with Stand Up SD to defeat the state’s infamous abortion ban. In 2008, the abortion ban is back – and Blue State Digital’s technology and strategy team is working with the South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families to defeat Initiated Measure 11. The new site provides the latest news and information about the measure, and ways for activists both inside and outside of South Dakota to get involved.

America’s Voice (americasvoiceonline.org)

America’s Voice is the newly-founded communications campaign working to win common-sense immigration reform. Blue State Digital provides both technology and strategy support to AV to help build an unprecedented grassroots mobilization campaign around immigration.