sairy

New media revenue models

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Granger) — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 04:49:00 +0000

At today's Women in Periodical Publishing annual Women's Leadership Conference, many of the sessions focused on the future of media and how to make money off the media (i.e. how to stay alive, adapt and thrive). Since the speakers were so kind to share what they have learned from their research and experience, I compiled a list.

In no particular order, here are some of the ways (emerging as well as traditional) to make money off of new media in consumer markets:
- advertising - not just banner ads, but used with e-mail, text, video and through third party or localized deals
- sponsorships - special deals where sponsors get extra promotion through events (online and off), articles, ads, buttons, etc.
- micropayments - tips, mini subscriptions, small donations or other crowdfunded models
- virtual goods - creation of virtual products that mimic real life products, sold for small amounts to the consumer for use in virtual environments
- print-on-demand systems - provide a physical publication that's printed individually for the reader
- mobile applications - iPhone, Android, other - licensed app use to view content via mobile devices
- contests - provide a product or service to winners with sponsors or some sort of fee
- content licensing - paid syndication or other licensing agreements for creative content (posts, articles, photos, video)
- subscriptions or memberships - paid use of content either on the web and/or on tablet devices, such as iPad or Kindle (*note this has been more successful in the Kindle market than it has on web browsers)

Of course the panelists noted that some of these models are typically more successful than others, but it does depend on the content and the audience. For those who have research or more detailed information on which kinds of business models tend to be most successful in their own experiences, I look forward to your comments.

Advice on Being a Solopreneur

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Granger) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 23:03:00 +0000

I just sat in on a panel this morning at the annual Women's Leadership Conference produced by Women in Periodical Publishing. Having previously been a speaker on how to be a consultant, I wanted to see how this panel would differ since it was all about being a solo practitioner as a journalist, i.e. freelancer, called 'solopreneur' on the panel.

Here are the tidbits shared by the four panelists that I wanted to pass along:
- Most work really does come through referrals or people met directly in person
- Setting personal boundaries is important (like work hours, sleep time, family time, etc.) to keeping sanity and balance
- Make a business plan; make a marketing plan and revisit both often
- Set a rate and aim to stick to it (even when paid by the word as writers, compute how long that roughly takes to write)
- Pro bono work or opportunities that cost money sometimes are still worth it because they can pay back in other ways (networking, perks, education, exposure, etc.)
- "Sometimes you make art, sometimes you make soup" meaning that sometimes you need to work for pay or write not at your best to get jobs done, but sometimes you will make excellent compositions, and it's important to accept that as reality
- Always start with vision first, set strategy second, and employ tactics third

Speakers: Heather Boerner, writer & editor; Grace Hawthorne, co-founder ReadyMade and consulting associate professor, Stanford Design Institute; Lane Wallace, founder & editor, No Map. No Guide. No Limits.

Fem2 and the Politics of Inclusion

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Granger) — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 02:39:00 +0000

I'm submitting a session for the Gov 2.0 Camp LA Women in Technology track. Here's the scoop:

Although the concept of open government & transparent processes assumes equal ability for participation, there are still spaces and situations in the world of online politics and government 2.0 where some or all women get cut out of the discussion or added as an afterthought. This session will address ways to ensure equal possibilities for all.

Transparency and open government assumes inclusion, so questions of how to outreach and include all groups are important. Since Gov 2.0 Camp LA specifically wanted to address problems of women, this session will focus on that (vs. specific ethnic groups, for example). Because as much as we'd like to think this new online world order provides instantaneous equality, there are still areas of gender bias. Online new boys' clubs have in some ways subtly disregarded women of equal status in online communities, causing rifts, bad feelings and a dilution in the quality of the conversation on important political and policy discussions.

Through the efforts of groups like Fem 2.0 and individuals like Allyson Kapin (@womenintech) and Shireen Mitchell (@digitalsista), some of these issues have been getting attention, but we're still not there yet. This session will discuss some of the problems and solutions to this complex issue.

Microsoft Office Winter Games Contest Semi-Finals Report

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Granger) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 08:16:00 +0000

I came, I blogged, I tweeted, I e-mailed, I Facebooked (no, that's not a real verb although people are using it way too much these days) and put up requests on a range of lists and other sites for the past 13 days in an attempt to win two coveted trips to blog at the Olympics and CES plus a brand new laptop. (Here's more info on the contest.) Voting ceased at midnight Pacific time, and to my knowledge, this is the last of the voting for this contest.

Many people have been asking what happens next. To answer the question on whether I have any idea where I stand regarding votes, no - not yet. I hope they will give us totals. The link I created near the end of the second day at bit.ly provided statistics and I was able to see how many clicks I received through that link. Some of the data was skewed, but I think I generated approximately 3000 clicks to the contest website. That does not necessarily mean I received 3000 votes, however, due to random site visitors, site errors, visitors who did not wish to share their e-mail addresses, and visitors who voted for someone else. And it does not give any sense of what the other semi-finalists produced in terms of clicks or votes. Still, it was a good learning experience for me to track everything.

I've been told that it will take a couple of weeks to tally votes, verify authenticity and inform the top three vote-getters who will be named as official finalists. Once the top three women finalists are identified, the judges will look at the vote totals, the overall quality of work on our blogs, our submitted essays and the social media outreach we did during the voting period. Then they will make their decision as to the grand prize winner, to be announced at the OfficeWinterGames.com site on January 7th.

So the best thing you can do for me at this point - if you're still willing! - is to visit my blog and write comments on my posts. I would love it if every figure skating post had some comments there for the judges to read.

Please visit and comment on my blog at BlogHer - http://www.blogher.com/blog/sarah-granger

Thank you all who voted, e-mailed and tweeted on my behalf.

Help Me Get to the Olympics - Vote!

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Granger) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:28:00 +0000

Friends & faithful readers, I need your help!

I'll make it easy for you...

Go here: http://bit.ly/VoteSarah
Register once with e-mail. Vote for me every day through November 29th.

Tweet this:
I voted for Sarah in the #blogathlete @Office contest. Please help send her to the Olympics! http://bit.ly/VoteSarah #VoteSarah

Blast it anywhere else you can think of:
Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Plaxo, Ryze, Orkut, etc... oh yeah and that e-mail thing.

Be thanked:
THANK YOU!

...

Here's the full scoop:
I'm really excited to be one of 5 semi-finalists in a very cool contest to win a trip to the Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, Canada in February, but I need your help to win - starting today!

Microsoft Office is sponsoring one woman blogger to attend, and on top of that, the winner gets a trip to the Consumer Electronics Show in January and a free laptop. I made it to the top five by submitting my blog about figure skating at BlogHer, the women bloggers' network, but I need help getting into the finals with public voting.

Voting started today and goes through November 29th. It requires a simple registration, then you can vote once a day every day through the 29th.

Click here to VOTE!

It just takes a few steps: Click on the tiny highlighted login text at the top of the page above the list of voters, and it will take you to a screen where you can enter your e-mail address and a password. Then after you're logged in, it will take you to back to the voting screen where you'll see my name at the bottom. Click on the "Vote for me!" button below my name and you're done. Until tomorrow. ;)

The top three vote-getters go to the final round where the judges then choose the winner. My goal is to get so many votes that I blow the others out of the water, so the judges have a clear decision in the final round.

Each person only gets 13 votes - one per day. If you would like to be on my daily reminders list, please drop me a line after you register and vote. Everyone on the daily list will receive Olympic fun facts and I promise I'll stop emailing the list on the 30th. Otherwise, I'll email you every so often with reminders as the contest progresses.

One last favor: if you're willing, please tell any of your friends who you think might take a few minutes to sign up and vote for me as well.

Direct link again to register and vote: https://www.officewintergames.com/Vote.aspx

Thank you so very much for your help!

Recap of a busy week - politics, new media, gov 2.0 and more

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Granger) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:24:00 +0000

Last week was a whirlwind on the local level... after Newsom dropped out of the CA governors' race, I wrote a piece about it that had a pretty good reception at The Huffington Post but was maimed by trolls at SFGate. Having seen this happen before for other writers, I reluctantly decided to remove all comments. I reviewed the problem with other blogger friends who confirmed it's a common problem for newspapers-turned-online publications.

I put up a detailed response at SFGate explaining the problem to readers and the community there and received a lot of letters via e-mail in support. The SFGate staff also were responsive as well, looking into what they can do with the system that will help solve their comment moderation problem. (IMO it shouldn't be that hard technically - they're using Moveable Type - it's more a matter of budgeting the staff time and having a smart plan in place.)

After spending way more time on that last week, I was able to shift gears back to tech, I finished an article about Twitter Lists for Digital Landing. I've been researching Twitter Lists since they first launched, and one of my lists of the Women in Politics & Tech group (WIPT) was put on the Change.org list of Ten Feminist Twitter Lists.

Saturday, I headed to CA Data Camp where I caught up with local government, non-profit and media people who are passionate about open government. We talked about data specifics, data transfer, local applications, data and media and the related national scope. I'll be putting up at least one post at the Personal Democracy Forum about that. Here's a great summary at Spot.Us. Meanwhile, I was invited this week to be on two more conference program committees. More on that when they're official.

Meanwhile, as we were finishing up with the data apps in SF, the House voted on their final version of the healthcare reform bill. It was interesting to follow that on Twitter while in a room full of government software developers. Finally, I was surprised this morning to be on a list of Top 20 Women Political Bloggers (I think the list is a subset of liberal bloggers who are also moms).

This week, I'm working on an article about Google Wave and editing a book on confidential information. I'm also working on a couple new gov 2.0 related projects that I hope to write more about soon.

Geek Summit, Social Media Style

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Granger) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 18:07:00 +0000

In a flurry of panels, one-on-one dialogues, product promos and surprise guests, the three day Web 2.0 Summit just held in San Francisco felt a bit like speed dating for tech companies:

"Hi, my name's HP and I'm eco-friendly. What's your sign?"
"Nice to meet you. I'm Google, and I can search your shared social media and make sure you're not too creepy."
"I'm MySpace. I'm a sensitive artist. Wanna come over and see my etchings?"

Bringing together Silicon Valley execs, media moguls, content producers and techie elite in one place wasn't an easy feat, but O'Reilly Media and TechWeb did a bang-up job, overflowing the ballroom at The Westin San Francisco Market Street.

Not afraid to bring out a little tension from high stakes competitors in the growing new media marketplace, John Battelle and Tim O'Reilly asked some sharp and intriguing questions of the speakers, enticing a Battle of the Bands style presentation as many presenters made major product announcements during the conference, including large screen demos and glossy booths. Wednesday's sponsoring headliner was Microsoft, introducing Bing's Twitter search, just before Google's encore performance announcing a Twitter deal and their upcoming Social Search.

The metropolitan crowd came laptops in-hand and left with plenty of exciting new ideas to take home and prepare for the next new new thing, but the waves rippling across the twitterverse will continue. Meanwhile, check out John Battelle's conference play list.

(Reposted from my column at SFGate.com.)

I can't even keep track any more.

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Granger) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 06:52:00 +0000

I'm involved in a lot of really incredible projects and have been over the past few years so much that I don't even have a running list, it all moves so quickly. But every once in a while I like to log some of it here for the few people (mostly friends & colleagues) who peruse my blog from time to time.

Recently, I joined the San Francisco Chronicle online “City Brights” local luminaries at SFGate.com and I'm really enjoying writing there. I wish I could duplicate myself and write there every day, but it's not in the cards quite yet. For Netroots Nation, I co-organized three panels. I've also been continuing to write for The Huffington Post, Digital Landing, BlogHer, MOMocrats, the Personal Democracy Forum (& techPresident).

I'm doing less right now for WomenCount due to the economic climate, but I'm still very involved. Through our radio show, I interviewed Marie Wilson, founder of The White House Project, and Christine Pelosi, California Democratic Party leader and daughter of Nancy Pelosi. Vivanista profiled me in their “Quintessential Careers” column in June. And as of September, the CRAVE SF Guide is out, a book featuring great women-owned businesses in the Bay Area including SFBayStyle, one of my projects.

As policy has been an ongoing theme, I've had the opportunity this year to be involved with 3 pretty major pieces of legislation nationally and at the state level. And although I only provided input on small pieces of each bill, I feel that I was able to help on some level. (Of course none of it has passed yet; let's wait and see.) Nationally, I reviewed cybersecurity legislation through the U.S. ACM Public Policy committee, I helped finalize Congresswoman Speier's bill to create a new presidential commission on women via WomenCount, and I worked through the Jr. Leagues of California State Public Affairs Committee that will help educate new mothers and their families on postpartum depression and related problems.

CFP 2010 will be in my neighborhood this year, so I'm looking forward to participating on the program committee however I can. It should be a great conference. In a few days, I head to the Web 2.0 Summit. I just recently helped tech review edit the Gov 2.0 compilation book being published by O'Reilly which I thoroughly enjoyed. I have another couple of potential book projects in the works as well. No official news yet there.

I've had a few new media clients through PublicEdge, and some new speaking engagements. I have been doing a lot of trainings to women's organizations on how to use new media for social good. I've also been working on a few iPhone apps helping with strategy in terms of new media as well. And I have some exciting meetings planned in Washington, D.C. that I hope to be able to write about soon as well.

Meanwhile, I continue to study and read and learn about technology and government, politics, policy, security, and all of the other areas that interest me. I never seem to have enough time to read all of the articles and books I'd like to read, but I try to stay on top of the most important issues.

I'm sure there's something else I've forgotten, but again, it's a lot to keep track of pretty much all the time. Cheers!

Top Twitter Tools List

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Granger) — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 02:13:00 +0000

In working on my article for Digital Landing on how to make the most of Twitter, I researched dozens of great applications. Since I couldn't write about them all in my article there, I decided to post the list of what I looked at here, so anyone can have a look. Of course there are more that are not on this list, but I have other resource lists where those can be found at the top.

Is there something great I'm missing on the list? Add it in the comments or email me at sairy(at)sairy(dot)com - or just tweet to @sairy.

Overall Twitter resources:

Twitter Fan Wiki - Everything you ever wanted to know about Twitter

Alltop Twitter Page - great blogs all about Twitter and related apps

@Twitter_Tips - great fed of all kinds of Twitter tools

@TweetingTools - more good tips on Twitter, with random quotes to boot

Twitter search and display:

Twitter Search - official Twitter search

Twitterfall - view tweets via subject as they "fall" like a waterfall down the screen

Multi-account and multi-user applications:

Tweetdeck - desktop & mobile apps (Mac, Windows, Linux) that allows for groupings and advanced features; top favorite of all apps

PeopleBrowsr - highly configurable, full featured web-based series of apps for Twitter use - includes search and configurable groupings apps

Tweetie - multi-account viewer for the Mac

Cotweet - multi-user twitter, ideal for businesses; the standard-bearer in business Twitter use

Twhirl - multi-account viewer for Windows & Mac (based on Adobe Air)

Tweetvisor - browser-based Twitter that allows for viewing tweets, @replies and DMs all at one on a quick interface

Nambu - robust viewer for the Mac

HootSuite - sleek, web-based multi-account Twitter interface; also comes with a Hootlet toolbar mini-app that works with Firefox, Safari and IE

Twibble - desktop app for Mac, Linux and Windows, supports multiple accounts

Seesmic Desktop - well reputed desktop app for Mac or Windows (based on Adobe Air)

Seesmic Web App - very clean UI for single-account Twitter view

For the iPhone:

Tweetie - easy-to-use, full-featured multi-account application

Twitterific - multi-account Twitter, but minus a few features

Tweetdeck - multiple accounts, syncs, works with yfrog and Twitpic, URL shorteners; configurable

Nambu - fairly sophisticated app for single-Twitter use, integrated with FriendFeed, pic.im and tr.im

Twitterfon - basic, clear interface

Seesmic - iPhone app coming soon

Birdfeed - clean app with local caching and timestamps

For the Blackberry:

Twitterberry - most popular Twitter updating software for Blackberry

Twibble - mobile version of desktop app integrated with Twitpic

UberTwitter - full featured app; integrated with Google Talk

For Windows Mobile:

TinyTwitter - basic app for using Twitter (note: entire site optimized for mobile devices, not traditional browsers)

ceTwit - full featured client that works with Twitpic and Ping.fm

Quakk - open source Twitter app

Twitter Feed Tools:

Twitterfeed - efficiently feeds blogs to twitter, allowing for added text configuration and timing

FriendFeed - view multiple twitter & other social media feeds

Posterous - posts to blogs and twitter feeds on a wide range of platforms; recommended by Guy Kawasaki

Lazyfeed - allows for blog feeds (like a feed reader) as well as input to personal feeds; similar to FriendFeed but a more professional UI

Stats & Analysis:

Twitter Grader - gives grades based on a 100% scale, based on number of followers, power of followers, number of updates, update recency, engagement level and follower/following ratio

Twitterank - ranking algorithm built by a Google programmer, rates percentages of accounts

Twitalyzer & Twitalyzer Pro - analyzes overall influence, retweets, references to and mentions of the account, with Pro features showing top influencers in your network

Twitterholic.com - tracks followers, friends and updates over time

Socialtoo - allows for surveys & stats but have to pay for Twitter stats

Twitter Analyzer - has nice graphs of usage by keyword, hashtags, etc.

TweetStats - graphs tweets per hour, month, etc.

Tweet Counter - sends reminders when users are close to major milestones like 100, 1000, etc.

twInfluence - provides sleek graphs of usage by interface, @replies, RT's, by month, days of the week, and time of day

Follower Management:

Twerp Scan - "anti-fool contact management" system; can manage by followers or those being followed and is quick to add/subtract - much more efficient than follower management in Twitter

Mr. Tweet - recommendation engine

WeFollow - adds users to searchable threads

SocialNewsWatch List of Top 237 Twitter Users Who Will Follow You Back - what it says it is, based on number of followers

Tweet Friends - compares 2 twitter feeds for common friends added over past 24 hours (or so)

Browser Plug-Ins:

Twitter Friend Bios - plugin for Firefox browser

Shareaholic - drop-down plugin for viewing multiple social networking feeds

Twitbin - sidebar plugin for Firefox

Marketing & Advertising Tools:

EasyTweets - cost depends on number of feeds, accounts, and continuous searches; posts automatically to Twitter

Twittad - affinity network that connects twitter feeds with advertisers; works on mobile devices

TweetROI - tweet about whatever you want (from their list of advertisers) and get paid for it

Magpie - embedded ads into user timelines

Izea - boasting 25,000 advertisers and 250,000 bloggers, they produce "sponsored conversations"

Payment Engines:

twitpay - allows for Twitter payments via PayPal; for all kinds of purposes via RT2Buy system

tipjoy - makes it easy to pay other Twitter users or to let them pay you with a simple 'p $x @user' command

Twitter Backgrounds:

PrettyTweet - creates twitter backgrounds

Images & Videos via Twitter:

yfrog - enables image & video sharing

Twitpic - sends photos to Twitter, view photos posted by others

pic.im - photo URLs and stats, usable with Twitter

Assistive Tools:

Twitwoop - allows you to record tweets by voice

Wassup?

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Granger) — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 17:09:00 +0000

A lot's been happening lately for me - elsewhere... so here's a bit of a summary for those who are curious. Also, I keep recent news of what I've been doing professionally updated typically at my professional website, SarahGranger.com.

My new media consulting (via PublicEdge) is going well. I'm working primarily with WomenCount as their director of new media. It's been wonderful working with elected women and women candidates on the blog, the radio show, and via Twitter. I've also been helping some online publications, start-ups, nonprofit and other political organizations.

In March and April, I received two awards. March's was a collective writing award given to an issue of Bay Area Parent where I wrote an article about gifted children (what it's like to have one, and what it's like to be one). In April, I received a new media award from the California Democratic Party, which was entirely unexpected but felt nice to be recognized for my political new media work.

I've been speaking at a ton of conferences lately. In February, I spoke at Fem 2.0. In March, I was at South by Southwest Interactive. In April, I provided a couple of trainings on social media and then I spoke at the Nonprofit Technology Conference on 3 panels. I also spoke at the Netroots Nation New Media Summit and at the 140TC conference. All three of those were in the Bay Area. I organized 2 other panels for the Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference in June. Then in August, I'll be speaking on 3 more panels at Netroots Nation. I'm looking forward to a break from conferences for a while after all of that.

Recently, I was featured in Vivanista's "Quintessential Careers" column for my work with SFBayStyle, and I was interviewed for an Entrepreneur magazine piece about social media as well.

July 4th Patriotic Song List

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Granger) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 07:01:00 +0000

In honor of the celebration of our Independence Day, I put together as many patriotic tunes as I could find for an iTunes mix. Many didn't make the cut, but I selected my favorites that fit together in the most celebratory arrangement I could work out for a July 4th cd mix, song list here (downloadable on iTunes as an iMix called "Sairy's July 4 CD Mix":

"Star Spangled Banner" performed by The U.S. Military Bands
"Battle Hymn of the Republic" sung by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir
"Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" by The Andrews Sisters
"Born in the U.S.A." by Bruce Springstein
"Our Country" by John Mellencamp
"American Pie" by Don McLean
"America, the Beautiful" sung by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir
"America" by Neil Diamond
"This Land is Your Land" by Woodie Guthrie
"The Star-Spangled Banner" sung by Jennifer Hudson
"My Country! 'Tis of Thee" sung by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir
"America" by Simon & Garfunkel
"R.O.C.K. In the U.S.A." by John Mellencamp
"Only in America" by Brooks & Dunn
"U.S. Blues" by the Grateful Dead
"Yankee Doodle Dandy" performed by The Hollywood Studio Orchestra & Chorus
"When The Saints Go Marchin' In" performed by The Dukes of Dixieland
"Strike Up the Band" arranged & performed by the Boston Pops Orchestra

Happy Fourth of July!

1980's One-Hit Wonders

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Granger) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 19:21:00 +0000

I spent several hours over the last 2 days putting together a mix of 1980's one-hit wonders to initiate my iTunes reorganization project. Here's the first cd mix and honorable mentions that made it onto the megamix on my laptop...

Sairy's 80's One Hit Wonder CD Mix:
"It's My Life" by Talk Talk
"The Safety Dance" by Men Without Hats
"Obsession" by Animotion
"Our House" by Madness
"Der Kommissar" by After The Fire
"Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor
"Maniac" by Michael Sambello
"867-5309 / Jenny" by Tommy Tutone
"I Melt With You" by Modern English
"Perfect Way" by Scritti Politti
"Send Me an Angel" by Real Life
"Too Shy" by Kajagoogoo
"Tainted Love" by Soft Cell
"99 Red Balloons" by Nena
"Smalltown Boy" by Bronski Beat
"Electric Avenue" by Eddie Grant
"Come On Eileen" by Dexy's Midnight Runners
"She Blinded Me With Science" by Thomas Dolby

Others of note that made the megamix but not the cut for the cd, in no particular order...
"Voices Carry" by 'Til Tuesday
"I Want Candy" by Bow Wow Wow
"Harden My Heart" by Quarterflash
"The Politics of Dancing" by Re-Flex
"Axel F" by Harold Faltermeyer
"Centipede" by Rebbie Jackson
"Somebody's Watching Me" by Rockwell
"Rock Me Amadeus" by Falco
"Mickey" by Toni Basil
"Whip It" by Devo
"Missing You" by Tom Waite
"Tenderness" by General Public
"I Got You" by Split Enz
"Your Love" by The Outfield
"I Can't Wait" by Nu Shooz
"Word Up" by Cameo
"Walking On Sunshine" by Katrina & The Waves
"Wild Wild West" by The Escape Club
"Puttin' On the Ritz" by TACO
"Summer In The City" by Lovin' Spoonful
"Turning Japanese" by The Vapors
"Turn Up The Radio" by Autograph
"Love is the Law" by The Suburbs

Living on Twitter and Other Thoughts on Social Media

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Granger) — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 03:12:00 +0000

I've been living on the 140 character micro-blogging world of Twitter more than ever lately - it's easy given my mobile lifestyle and I've become quite enthralled by the community and immediate nature of it all. But eventually it can become too much. Sunday night, we had the #fem2 (Fem 2.0 conference follow-up) live chat, then Monday began the #p2 (new progressive aggregate hashtag) talk. Tuesday, we had a presidential joint address to congress and #pvow (The Political Voices of Women) participated in a life chat. Wedndesday night, #women2follow began (courtesy Alysson Kapin, @womenwhotech) and all of the sudden, it's #followfriday now. Busy busy. Follow @sairy to see what I'm up to there.

The rest of the time, I've been speaking at conferences - Fem 2.0 at the beginning of February and South by Southwest coming up in a few weeks. I'm working on a new major project helping WomenCount online as their Director of New Media. I'm also working with some startups and small organizations through FutureCampaigns. Through these activities, I'm learning new things and thinking a lot about the implications of social media in advocacy, outreach, activism and of course politics.

It's all about social media these days, so I'm trying to stay on top of the technology behind whatever I'm writing about here, there, wherever. Watching Twitter become mainstream with members of congress, moms, artists, and others not part of the usual tech early adopter crowd has been a lot of fun so far. I'll try to update this blog more often, reflecting my thoughts on related topics. Thanks for reading.

My Afternoon at the White House

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Granger) — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 06:46:00 +0000

Me behind the podium in the White House press briefing room today.

I arrived late to the press briefing, but luckily the Press Secretary was behind schedule as well. After I settled next to the wall (where apparently CNN would catch me on TV anyway), I tweeted the press briefing. Then I spoke with press staffers about some stories I'm working on, talked with some other reporters including Katie Couric, who was there with other major anchors to interview President Obama. After that, on my request, someone from CNN took my picture and convinced me to stand behind the podium for the shot. It was a fun afternoon.

Fem 2.0

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Granger) — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 08:06:00 +0000

The question of where to go in terms of the feminist movement in the future with new media and the new millennium is a big one, and several people got together to plan a conference and brainstorming session around this concept. Feminism encompasses a broad range of ideals including gender equity, equal rights, pay equity, reproductive choice, and much more.

The challenge of the original feminist organizations as well as some of the newer ones is: where do we go now? The Fem 2.0 conference and online dialogue will hopefully provide some direction in this area.

I'll be speaking on one of the panels about feminism in the media and how to help women's organizations expand their outreach online. The conference is being held Monday, February 2nd at George Washington University in Washington, D.C..

Join Me at South by Southwest Interactive

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Granger) — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 17:22:00 +0000

March 13-17, Austin will be buzzing with web and new media professionals and enthusiasts for the South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive conference, part of the entire SXSW festival which includes music and film and spans over a week of events.

I found out a couple of days ago that I will be leading a Core Conversation that I proposed a few months ago. It's entitled "Whitehouse.gov 2.0: Upgrading to Open Source Government." What that means is I'll be primarily operating in the role of facilitator for a discussion about how the new national administration can provide more open dialogue through new media and use of the Internet.

Here's how I described the session in my proposal: "The 2004 and 2008 campaigns' use of collaborative tools, blogs and social networking have shown citizen activism and online communities can wield powerful influence. In 2009, our challenge becomes how to harness these tools in order to reopen the policy-making process."

I hope to produce a report of the recommendations that come out of the discussion to submit to the new administration and I'm looking forward to getting as many people involved with this as possible. Please join me at SXSW in Austin!

(Cross posted from the FutureCampaigns blog.)

Latest writing...

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Granger) — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 05:09:00 +0000

For those who want to keep up on what I'm doing, I'm still keeping busy, although taking a brief breather now that the election is done.

I'm excited about a small project I took on earlier in the year that just launched - the California Legacy Trails, part of the California Museum of History, Women and the Arts. I wrote the intro script for the Remarkable Women's Trail as well as for the Legacy Trails, both read as an introduction to the trails, by Dana Eastwood (wife of Clint, former news anchor, board member of the museum). It was an exciting project and it's fun to see my words in action.

I'm now writing regularly for the Personal Democracy Forum and techPresident, focused on emerging information technology in government and campaigns, respectively. PdF features articles about uses of social media and new online tools around the globe in communities and governments. techPres keeps up with the campaign beat - the latest and greatest of "how the candidates are using the web". Both sites contain fascinating stories and information every day, and I'm excited to be a part of their team. Check out my blog there.

I continue to write about figure skating for BlogHer, keeping me engaged in the sport I know and love. I recently covered Skate America and Skate Canada and I'm looking forward to writing about the U.S. Nationals January 18-25.

I have a couple of other new projects I'm excited about as well, that I look forward to writing about soon...

Phew! It's finally over... but I miss the campaign.

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Granger) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 22:55:00 +0000

It's difficult to explain post-election feelings I'm having this year. In 2004, I worked 16-18 hours a day on a presidential exploratory organization only to have it evaporate, leaving me completely spent. I then moved into consulting for a nonprofit and tried to help with the Kerry campaign on the side as able, but there wasn't the kind of inclusion and ability to feel a part of that. We thought he would win, as we'd thought Gore would win, and he lost. It was a terrible, hopeless feeling, wondering how we could make it another four years. And the people who I had worked with daily for so long just disappeared from my life, making me sad.

This time around, I started trying to get involved for Hillary at the start and did what I could, but the organization was tightly controlled with little we could do remotely other than blog about it and help out on the ground in small doses. I knew Obama was running a better online operation and my view of him improved throughout the primary to the point where I felt in many ways after he won the nomination that he would do better than Hillary in terms of being able to rally people behind him. She had the policy knowhow and experience; he had the charisma and the might. So I kept on blogging and began to a feel a part of a movement, through the MOMocrats, BlogHer, the Political Voices of Women and WomenCount, through the Personal Democracy Forum conference, Off the Bus (the Huffington Post project), VoterWatch, and of course the Democratic National Convention. I advised who I could on the side - candidates and campaign staffers alike, I blogged a bit for Women for Obama and helped launch the Tech for Obama site. I was tapped into everything and I felt included. I even reconnected with some people from '04 who had lost touch. Each debate, I was online live chatting, blogging, tweeting. I interviewed fascinating candidates and gave some tips on how to leverage the Internet for their campaigns. It felt good to help and I enjoyed interacting with people in every way I could. Then came election day.

I had already voted 3 weeks previous, just in case I needed to hop on a plane and cover voting problems somewhere, but I still felt the excitement for my vote on election day. I enjoyed hearing the reports of people voting via TV news, Twitter, facebook accounts, e-mail. It was like somehow the election was a real national event for once, not just something people dread. I felt a real thrill of being a part of it all, like being back in the stadium in Denver after a long line that lasted two years, winding around the web. I decided that night that I wanted to feel that buzz of people in person celebrating, so I went to 4 different election parties, the last two being juxtaposed both physically and in terms of their results. In one ballroom at the Westin in San Francisco, San Franciscans celebrated Obama winning the presidency and we watched his speech, cheering together. That was a great feeling. In the ballroom next door, it was too close to call for Prop. 8, and we inevitably lost in a close ballot proposition race over the right to gay marriage in our state. It felt bittersweet. Even after working countless hours and seeing all of the numbers as the electoral map turned blue, it was tough to soak it all in.

All through the night, I was on my phone, reading results and commentary by friends on Twitter, and I felt my friends with me, but the reality was that even though I saw many people I knew throughout the night, those who I had worked with closely each day of the campaign were scattered across the country and I missed being at home on my laptop celebrating and commiserating with them during that moment. It was like an incomplete memory. Somehow, I wanted that feeling of elation - celebrating in person and online with my compatriots, with all those who I felt were my sisters and brothers in arms. I even missed those in other parties who I had observed throughout the campaign. I felt for their loss when I saw their tweets come through during the night.

Now we look toward January 20th where we will watch the most notable inauguration of our lifetimes, and I am already fretting about how to make it memorable, meaningful. I've always been of the mindset that I need to see something to believe it. I want to see Barack Obama in the oval office behind the president's desk. Then perhaps it will really settle in for me. As President-Elect Obama has said, "this is our moment." Let's find as many ways as we can to celebrate it, revel in it, and share it together.

In-Video Commentary of Last Week's Debate

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Granger) — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 18:43:00 +0000

Well, we ran into some technical and logistical challenges with this experiment, but I'm excited to be done with my commentary for the debate from last week (just in time for this week's VP debate!)

Here's what I wrote. I don't expect anyone to read all of the commentary, but whatever you do view, keep in mind I was not in fact check mode while working on this - my notes are more related to language, style, nuance, gestures, expressions, that sort of thing. I made some policy related remarks, but there are others out there with a lot more time and resources than I had for this who can cover which statements were true, which were lies, and which were slanted.

Blogging the Debates

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Granger) — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 07:18:00 +0000

The first debate finally came and went, and it was fun to spend time viewing both candidates while talking off and online. You can see the MOMocrats' live chat, the BlogHer open thread/live blog, and my twitter feed for what I wrote live - it was mostly casual responses.

Over the weekend, I plan to use the in-video blogging tools from VoterWatch's bloggingthedebates.com site and I should be able to embed some of that here.

I'll be doing more of this type of coverage for the other debates, and possibly liveblogging for MOMocrats. Stay tuned.

Listen to Digital Politics Thursday

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Granger) — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 06:29:00 +0000

Thursday, September 25th, I'll be on Karen Jagoda's "Digital Politics" radio show at SignOnRadio. The topic of the show is women voters and I will be on with Mindy Finn who ran e-strategy for Mitt Romney '08 and worked on Bush '04 as well as for the RNC.

The show begins at 12:00pm Pacific and those who are interested can listen live from the site via RealPlayer, Windows Media Player, or iTunes. Call-in number is 866-818-6384 for questions. The show will be podcast and available for listening after it's aired as well. Check back to the site for more details.

Coverage from Democratic National Convention

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Granger) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 17:09:00 +0000

I'm still catching-up from covering the Democratic National Convention, but I've done a terrible job logging all of what I wrote about the experience and I've been getting several requests to summarize and link to the posts from the week. So belatedly, here they are:

Women for Obama Blog -
Coming Together

WomenCount Blog -
Unconventional Nancy Pelosi Calls for More Women in Government
WomenCount Launch Celebration at DNCC (edited and half written by me; the rest by other MOMocrats)
Out of the Race, But Continuing to Fight for Issues Important to Women

Also, here's a post about a panel I was on for WomenCount in The Big Tent: Cracks in the Glass Ceiling: A WomenCount Panel. Erin Kotecki Vest of BlogHer, also on the panel, wrote a post about it including Q&A following the discussion. I heard through the grapevine the entire video was supposed to be up at The Big Tent YouTube channel, but I have yet to find that.

FutureCampaigns Blog -
The DNCC & Netroots: They're Beginning to Get It

BlogHer Politics -
From Twitter to Tear Gas: MOMocrats Take Denver & the DNCC
MOMocrats Rubbing Elbows at the Democratic National Convention
Hillary Clinton Calls for Vote by Affirmation - Barack Obama is the Democratic Nominee
MOMocrats at the DNCC: We Came, We Saw, We're Exhausted

MOMocrats -
Barack Obama is the Nominee - Vote by Affirmation!
The DNC: Up & Coming Democratic Leaders
No Police Outside Invesco for Obama Speech - Longest Lines in History (the night of the big event at Invesco field)

Here are some great photos of the MOMocrats in a post by Glennia Campbell, MOMocrats Managing Editor, and Glennia's flickr stream has more great images.

Blogging the Democratic National Convention This Week

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Granger) — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 07:06:00 +0000

Thanks to the MOMocrats for initiating this great project... I'm going to Denver today, covering the Democratic National Convention for several online publications (mostly blogs) including:

Sairy
BlogHer
MOMocrats
Obama HQ Blog
WomenCount Blog
FutureCampaigns Blog
Silicon Valley Moms Blog
Huffington Post - Off the Bus
The Political Voices of Women

I'll be spending time pretty much everywhere - at the convention itself, in the Big Tent, at the Unconventional Women event, the EMILY's List events, Youth delegation events, California events, New Democrats Network events, getting together with Emerge alumni, meeting people and of course partying. I'm particularly looking forward to the Rocky Mountain Blogger Bash which looks to be a great way to kick back, and the Big Tent will be hopping I'm sure.

Follow the action via Twitter - sairy - and momocrats!

Please Pretty Please Vote for My Proposed SXSW Panel!

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Granger) — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 06:55:00 +0000

I have proposed the following panel for the South by Southwest Interactive conference in March...

Title:
Whitehouse.gov 2.0: Upgrading to Open Source Government

Summary:
The 2004 and 2008 campaigns' use of collaborative tools, blogs and social networking have shown citizen activism and online communities can wield powerful influence. In 2009, our challenge becomes how to harness these tools in order to reopen the policy-making process. Panel presentation followed by brainstorming session.

If you like the idea, please VOTE for it by Friday!

I really hope we can take the brainstorming session and turn it into a report to submit to the next presidential administration.

Please see also TechMama's recommendations for panels, including Joanne's on building political influence online and Beth's on moms using tech, where hopefully I'll have a chance to participate as well.

New Bi-Partisan Commission on U.S. Policy Toward Russia

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Granger) — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 22:25:00 +0000

I'm happy to learn that Senator Hart will be co-chairing a new commission, announced this week, on U.S. policy toward Russia, along with Senator Hagel. The commission will produce a report for the next U.S. presidential administration. I look forward to reading it.