Liberty Tech at the Annual Meeting
Published on Wednesday, August 20, 2008
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The application of Web 2.0 technologies in the free-market movement has exploded this year. Twitter, FaceBook, Blogs, Wiki Projects, Viral Video, Video Blogging and more have been used with success to further our ideas - or help thwart bad ideas.
This past June, for example, Jim Vote, an SPN/IHS Charles G. Koch Fellow intern at the Mackinac Center, discovered an incriminating PowerPoint presentation on a regional United Auto Workers website. Vote's blog "Partisan Politics at Its Worst" (tryingliberty.wordpress.com) caught the attention of state and national media.
The 35-page PowerPoint presentation, "Changing the rules of politics inMichiganto help Democrats," bluntly described a partisan power grab in The Great Lake State by way of what The Wall Street Journal called "an ambitious proposal to amendMichigan's state constitution." The state-wide daily Detroit Free Press covered the finding in the article "Democrats' strategy for state control revealed."
Last year, supporters of Ron Paul set a record for monies raised online in one day with a money bomb campaign. Shortly thereafter, Paul supporters set a new record. The Institute for Justice recently mimicked the money-bomb concept on the anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's Kelo decision.
Certainly the above and countless other success stories will be discussed in September in the halls, over adult beverages and during the New Media and technology sessions at the 16th SPN Annual Meeting. The free-market celebration affords the perfect opportunity to meet face-to-face with the managers and technologists who have made Web 2.0 projects succeed.
In Arizona there will be several sessions focused on using technology to market ideas and research. The first session will be an open, interactive round table that highlights projects SPN members and allies are undertaking. That same day, a second technology session will focus on using video, online money bombs and more. Justine Lam, who worked on the Paul campaign, will be on hand to talk about the money bomb campaign and justin tv.
Further, the annual celebration will feature small-group tutorials in the Tech Lab. Topics to be covered include Blogging 101, advanced blog promotional techniques, live video over cell phones, podcasting / V-casting, and using FaceBook and other social networks to promote ideas. A number of SPN members have generously donated their time to make these tutorials possible. To name a few, I thank in advance the Sam Adams Alliance, Texans for Fiscal Responsibility and The Independence Institute.
The Annual Meeting schedule is available at spn.org. Write me should you have questions about the New Media or tech aspects of the gathering. Likewise, contact me if you wish to sign up for one of tech-related sessions. See you soon in The Grand Canyon State!
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Nicole Williams is the management & technology advisor at SPN. Write her at williams@spn.org.
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