eDemocracyCamp 2008 - Review

I just wanted to do a quick review of eDemocracyCamp, the BarCamp conference that I attended earlier today. For those of you who aren’t familiar with BarCamp conferences, they are user-driven issue conferences, usually focused around Web 2.0, new media, open source software, et cetera. In other words, people volunteer to organize the [...]

eDemocracyCamp: National Policy Discussion and Online Component

Presenter: Joe Goldman
I’ve got a more cohesive review here.
What would it look like to have a national discussion with 1,000,000+ people involved? – Did a pilot in 2003 & 2004

Need to engage enough people that people would take notice
Need to do it in enough places that Congresspeople would think their constituents were represented
You need to [...]

eDemocracyCamp: Communicating with Congress

Presenters: Rob Pierson & Will Johnston
I’ve got a more cohesive review here.
Topic Code for e-mail

Help Congressional offices deal with increasing volumes of e-mail
Provide a unique identifier for each new mass mail campaign
Would allow offices to aggregate all letters from a specific organization on a specific topic AND view how constituents have customized a form letter [...]