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Archive for the tag 'blue state digital'

Jun 23rd, 2009 | Ben Kepes

my.barackobama.com: The Secrets of Obama’s New Media Juggernaut

Ben Kepes

Cross posted from CloudAve - specialist cloud computing and SaaS blog

Jascha Franklin-Hodge, Chief Technology Officer & Founding Partner, Blue State Digital looked at the strategies and tactics that helped put Barack Obama in the White House. Blue State is a five year old company that helps leverage social media for primarily issue or event based clients – from elections to humanitarian disasters to fundraising events.

Some statistics;

  • Over 1 billion emails sent to over 13 million email addresses
  • Over 1 million SMS subscribers
  • Over 200000 offline events planned via the web
  • Organised 35000 volunteer groups
  • 14.5 million hours of YouTube content viewed
  • Raised $770 million

Lessons we can learn from the online Obama campaign

  1. Drive Action - be true to medium, think about the use case
  2. Be Authentic - don’t do press release to email, send email from a person within the organisation, ensure a consistent voice
  3. Create Ownership - turn users into advocates, crucial to turn people into active rather than passive participants, connect people with each other, solicit ideas from the community
  4. Be Relevant
  5. Create a Strong, Open brand - consistent, professional, polished
  6. Measure Everything – emails, online advertising, engagement, fundraising
May 18th, 2009 | Janetti Chon

New Keynote: Jascha Franklin-Hodge, my.barackobama.com)

Janetti Chon

Below is the Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco video of Jascha Franklin-Hodge presenting in the Government 2.0 track - my.barackobama.com: The Secrets of Obama’s New Media Juggernaut. As the founding partner and CTO of Blue State Digital, the creators of the my.barackobama.com technology platform, Jascha has an impressive bio and we’re excited to have added him to our Keynote roster for the Enterprise 2.0 Conference this June in Boston.

Jascha brings more than a decade’s experience in software development in the corporate, nonprofit, and political spheres. His company spearheaded Obama for America’s extensive online fundraising, constituency building and peer-to-peer networking initiatives, all of which helped to create momentum for the President-elect’s successful campaign in 2008’s historic election.

For the campaign, Jascha managed the team that built and ran the my.barackobama.com technology platform, and worked directly with Obama for America’s New Media team in providing the tools and platform to engage supporters, donors and volunteers. In addition, he managed the server and systems infrastructure that powered the Obama web presence. For Gov. Howard Dean’s groundbreaking 2004 presidential campaign, Jascha led the technology team responsible for scaling, securing, and maintaining a high-visibility, high-traffic Web site, which received praise from both the political and tech communities for its usability, reliability, and depth of functionality.

Before entering the world of politics, Jascha was the director of software development for America Online’s Digital Music Division. He helped architect several cutting-edge applications including Radio@AOL, Spinner, and MusicNet, as well as the digital music player Winamp. He has also worked for the Art Technology Group and Software Tool and Die (The World), and has consulted to the Computer Museum, Andiron Press, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), and the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.