FEBRUARY
• Feb. 8: Adele, B. Loewe and David M held a Chicago info session. Based on that meeting, Bill Ayers connected with Democracy Now! and The Nation. • Feb. 12: Regional breakdown plan sent to Comm-media working group, so the group is aware of team members in the same and different regions and they are able to reach out to each other based on areas of expertise. • Feb. 10: Adele submitted an interview with Detroit Youth to Left Turn Magazine. The next issue is being released next week. • Feb. 17: First People’s Media Center call (attendees: Mallory, Alfredo (ICT), Adele and David (Comm), Leslie( Program and Culture), Radical Reference, Indymedia, Prometheus Radio) • Feb. 25: Veronica Hill (Comm-Media) is interviewed by Forward Kansas: http://forwardkansas.com/2010/02/kansans-involved-in-the-us-social-forum/ • Feb. 25: Adele interviewed Adrienne Maree Brown and Jenny Lee about the importance of AMC and USSF in Detroit. Will be turned into audio pieces for website and article to be pitched. • Michigan Citizen piece: PMA’s: Preparing for Detroit USSF:
MARCH
• The Detroit Local Communications working group met this past weekend and they requested talking points with more accessible language. Adele created them and sent them to the full DLOC list. • make/shift magazine placed USSF web ad on site. Will remain until after the forum. They have also agreed to include USSF info in all their materials and announcements. • Reg McGhee created Labor is Coming to Detroit pieces for publishing and dissemination to all Labor Unions • Michigan Citizen Pieces: The United States Social Forum and immigration: Moving beyond borders:
• March 3: Adele met with Zak Rosen and Neyda Martinez of WDET/WNYC. • March 4: Adele, Akudo Ejelonu, Mallory Knodel participated in a USSF info session at the Brecht Forum in New York City. • March 5: Adele and Karlos Gauna Schmieder spoke with reporter from What's Up Magazine in El Paso, TX. She’s writing an article about a fundraiser in Texas being hosted to send residents to the USSF. • Indiana info session put together by Jackie Smith (Writers’ Network) and B. Loewe covered by eTruth: http://www.etruth.com/Know/News/Story.aspx?id=507320&fcid=Know- • March 7: Adele gave a USSF presentation at the All Power to the Imagination! Conference in Sarasota, FL. She was interviewed by 96.5 WSLR: Sarasota’s community radio. • March 7: Adele and Adrienne Maree Brown met with E Class, who is the local radio host for Making Contact, a nationally syndicated progressive radio program. They are trying create a 29-minute program in May (maybe early June), to help build awareness/excitement about the USSF/AMC ahead of time • Ongoing: Adele, Reg, Lottie training Comm spokespeople
UPCOMING:
• Piece by Karen Viado (Writers Network) will be submitted to London Progressive Journal. LPJ will be running a piece on the USSF every other week. • Adele and Sha working on a sample appeal letter for NPC orgs to tailor • USSF piece written by Cythia Peele (DLOC COMM) coming out in the Michigan Citizen, mid-march. • March 15: Piece being submitted by Lorna Mpho Mabunda to Healing Garden Journal • March 20: Adele speaking about USSF on Dia De La Mujer panel at Michigan State University • March 22: Adele will be interviewed on WCBN-FM, the UM college station in Ann Arbor • Call out for a second administrator of the Writers Network • Call scheduled with National Boricua Network • April/May/June: Awareness Blog will run pieces about the USSF. • May: Stelle Slootmaker (Writers’ Network) will write a story announcing Grand Rapids May Day event, including a reference to USSF involvement. It will be posted on www.griid.org.
Media presently connecting with directly:
• Fortune Magazine • The Marc Steiner Show: a public affairs radio show that broadcasts on the NPR affiliate in Baltimore, MD • Free Press in Northampton, MA • Free Speech TV • Community Television Network, Ann Arbor, MI • Progressive Radio Network (Adrienne Maree Brown will be interviewed) • Sirius Satellite Radio: Sirius Left • Michigan Public Radio: WUOM-FM in Ann Arbor • The Miltant • Progressive Communicators • Open Media Boston • Reality News Radio, FL • Detroit Free Press • Michigan Citizen • BLAC Magazine • WDET/WNYC • Left Turn Magazine • 96.5 WSLR: Sarasota’s community radio. • Making Contact, a nationally syndicated progressive radio program • Prometheus Radio • Healing Garden Journal • WWJ Radio • YES magazine • London Progressive Journal • Press TV • WCBN-FM: UM college station • make/shift magazine • European Federation of Journalists/International Federation of Journalists • Awareness Blog
Social media portion (submitted by David M): REPORT: 2/22/10 – 3/8/10 [Wiki data, Email Marketing, Social Web, Website Information, Multimedia, Propaganda/Online Design] David M.
[Wiki/Training] Point Person: Mark Dilley
Project Status:
1. Comm WG has committed to utilizing wiki.ussf2010.org to organize data and be a source of especially internal data regarding the USSF planning process. 2. We have decided on encouraging point people from working groups to uphold the wiki and use it as a source of connection to the planning process for each team. 3. Mark has done individual trainings with various Working Group members and is going to continue to train folks to make sharing on the wiki available. 4. Mark has drafted a new homepage for the Wiki with easier navigation and Working Group timelines that we think will make the wiki more comfortable and useful for people.
Next Steps: • Transitioning to new wiki homepage • Continual wiki trainings with key organizers • Continuing to manage, update and moderate wiki information and navigation • Pinpoint Team Leaders who will be updating wiki for their team and intentionally bringing on folks who have been out of the fold (ie. Youth, queer liberation committee, disability justice)
[Email Marketing] Point Person: Charles Lenchner
Project Status:
1. Email Scheduling: a. “Fundraising Appeal” sent on December 16 to 7,100 email recipients. 1,100 tracked opens. b. “Registration Live” e-blast was sent on Jan 28, 2010 to 7,422 recipients, 1492 tracked opens. 1378 clicks took people to our website. c. “Cultural & Workshop Submissions/ Fundraising Appeal e-blast newsletter sent on Feb 25 to 8037 recipients. 1,420 tracked opens. 599 clicks took people to our website.
2. Email System Management a. Bea Loewe & Sha have been handling emails, but are transitioning the responsibility to the Comm-Media team with Charles Lenchner at the lead. We had a call to plan this transition and future strategy. Charles & David have spoken with Working Group leads & is drafting a master schedule of emailing which will incorporate working group messaging needs & timelines- with focus on Communications (narrative), Logistics (updates), Outreach (registration & proposal pushes), and Resource Mobilization ($ appeals). b. March 6: Adele, Chalres & David M from Comm-Media just received access to CiviCRM/Email Marketing system and data.
3. Data Management & Listserv Building a. Our listserv is vital piece of USSF communications and the numbers there are absolutely low and must grow. The quality of previous data is not wonderful, current to incoming data will be key. b. Comm WG will be reporting on listserv numbers, click-throughs and give estimates on how many people are receiving our information. c. We have connected with Outreach WG to share mappings of organizations/regions/contacts so we can make a concerted effort to get folks on our listserv and utilize that listserv in region/sector/constituency specific ways for targeted outreach & response. d. We are planning listserv benchmarks to go along with registration benchmarks. Our listservs and social web networks should grow proactively in relation to our timeline of Registration benchmarks. e. We have begun planning with Outreach WG a concerted effort to grow our listserv base by connecting with large networks, alliances & organizations, focusing on NPC organizations and making it as easy as possible for folks on the ground to join our listserv and for organizers to promote that process.
Next two weeks: • Transition fully to Comm WG handling email blasts. • Finalize proposal for email blast protocol moving forward and send out to OC, NPC, Wgs. • Charles will coordinate with other main WGs to compile and send out the next series of e-blasts, this period focusing on registration push to strive for our registration deadline and also make push for cultural event/workshop submissions • Build team to map organizations/outreach for major organizational/alliance/network listservs where we should have a continued e-newsletter presence. • Edit USSF website to ensure maximum ease of joining the listserv • Connect with ICT to make sure email data from incoming registrations is getting on our listserv and that we have a specific list delineated for registrants. • Delineate CiviCRM list by region & other demographics- find if this is possible.
[Social Web] Point Person: David Marques
Project Status:
1. We have in the past month had conversation with WGs and movement social web experts regarding overall Communications needs & an overall social web plan we can/should employ. 2. We’ve been in a foundation-building phase of this process where we are establishing presence in social web platforms and allowing our networks (followers, friends, etc) to grow there. 3. We’re testing out what’s possible with each system and beginning to use them for messaging purposes and have begun tracking recognized results in both getting the word out, bringing new people into the USSF network, and connecting with key organizers & regions. 4. Our current overall plan has not released, but is generally to create & managed a self-determined official USSF presence in a wide array of social web & online platforms, communities, and to do this intentionally to reach diverse audiences, communities and local/national/global regions. We’ll be employing both mainstream and open source methods and adhering to USSF Technology principles while absolutely utilizing an overall strategy that suits general USSF outreach, public image, & information sharing needs. 5. Current online tooks in place, their numbers, and purpose. a. bit.ly account for link shortening & click-tracking. We can measure how many folks click links in our platforms. b. Facebook i. Fan Page (http://bit.ly/bVm2Cr) started Jan 10. Jan 30: 2,775 fans, Feb 10: 5,235, Feb 25: 6,338 fans, March 8: 6,808 fans. Fan page offers statitus reports & regional breakdowns. Our fans are: 37% male, 54% female, mostly in the 25-34 age range, then mostly in the 35-44 range. By region, our fans are mostly from NYC, Chicago, Seattle, then San Francisco and by country majority USA, then Canada, then Mexico, UK, France, then Brazil. English is predominant language of this audience. Goal of this group is to grow to at least 30,000 members. We can send bulk updates to this list, though not perfectly effective. It will be our main Facebook source of creating buzz. Facebook fan page can effectively send targeted message by region. For the NYC event for example, we were able to send a reminder message to just 630 facebook fans who were in that region. ii. Facebook "Group": has 2,313 members. We can send very effective direct messages to this group until it reaches 5,000 members. It’s effective in creating USSF ‘event’s because we can directly ‘invite’ everyone in this group to those events. The USSF phone call sessions for example- we created an event and in just 4 days we have 217 ‘confirmed guests’. We expect that to considerably increase participants on that next call- B & Cindy are going to let us know. iii. Facebook Person Profile Feb 21: 1,527 friends, Feb 24: 1,815, March 8: 2,364 friends. This profile is effective for outreaching to new folks & intentionally finding folks & groups that are related & organizing towards the forum. We can join many groups, have a presence, answer calls related to USSF facebook postings by the community, and connect with ‘facebook organizers’, of which there are many popping up. There is a friend limit of 5,000 and we plan to make that in the next month. We are making lists of USSF facebook team organizers who have agreed to help get the buzz out in a coordinated way when things are posted on USSF website. iv. Facebook self-organized groups have popped up for many cities/projects and we are in touch with their organizers: 1. Chicago: http://bit.ly/amuYbZ 2. Boston: http://bit.ly/bCSLdW 3. Philly: http://bit.ly/b3lFfH 4. Lansing-Area: http://bit.ly/9k7s9O 5. Washtenaw County: http://bit.ly/aBekdx 6. South Sound: http://bit.ly/c889V7 7. Kentucky: http://bit.ly/9HTB10 8. Indiana: http://bit.ly/a3ZlQe 9. San Antonio: http://bit.ly/bP3slj 10. Youth Road to Detroit Group: http://bit.ly/bLdaiH
c. Twitter [1] i. Twitter is meant to reach a very large audience and spread news (2-4 tweets daily) about the USSF as well as create conversations about issues & movement building. Current “followers” is 919, up from 780 2 weeks ago. It’s finally starting to come up steadily as our information because more useful and we hope to grow it as much as possible. Christina Bronsing will head up this process and is reaching out to team members. ii. We have chosen a hashtag of #USSF to encourage twitters to use in reference to us. iii. COMM WG has official taken responsibility over the twitter & a Cotweet.com team-tweeting account and has a team in place of David, Christina Bronsing and Veronica hill so far to manage official USSF tweets, manage relationships there and intentionally increase our network. iv. USSF organizers, ie. Adrienne, Adele, Karlos will continue tweeting about USSF from their personal accounts, which have considerable followings. v. Tweetdeck has been setup for USSF, but is currently on hold. vi. We’re using "Twitter Search" to search what's being said about USSF & intentionally connect with USSF organizers in the Twitter community d. Identi.ca i. Mark Dilley is building the foundation & testing possibilities in Identi.ca, an open source Twitter-like alternative. The audience here is mostly the tech activist community. e. MySpace Page [2] i. Designed but just about to start foundation phase. Fausto Lopez from Leftist Lounge is heading up this effort and its purpose being to reach the myspace, youth, progressive community. f. Also in the mix include: i. A tumblr news feed account – for creating buzz in blogosphere & google news searches ii. De.lic.ous account – for aggregating links out there about the USSF and helping to get our buzzup, also helpful for COMM WG in sharing links & connections. iii. Goodreads – someone brought this up as a part of the booksharing/Detroit project iv. Znet – someone brought this up and offered to hold down the USSF online community there. v. Cafémom – ditto znet vi. Frontline SMS – a mass text messaging service. Marco Amador is offering to help us think about the role of mass text messaging for the USSF possibly and movement building in general. vii. Blackplanet – Keith Gordon of youth technology corps has offered to hold down a USSF presence there. viii. Blogosphere questions – we’re planning an online publication aspect for the USSF writer’s network, to create a strong USSF presence in the blogosphere with social web/networking capabilities. Possibly in open source wordpress/Drupal, but not necessarily dominating on the main USSF site.
[Social Media] Next Steps: • For platforms that have a network base in place and whose foundation has been built (facebook, twitter, etc), we begin using them to send out messages coordinated with our overall messaging & info sharing strategies. • Continue to build foundations for platforms we’re just beginning to use. • List social web platforms in a ‘connect’ or ‘social web’ section on main USSF site so folks can be sure to find us in the online communities they are a part of.
[Multimedia for Comms] Point Person: David Marques
Project Status:
• David and Adele are searching/planning for a general USSF promo video. • David received all 2007 footage from Nisa Joorabachi and has some leads • Neily Jennings from NASCO has offered leading the charge on official Audio/Radio PSAs and has drafts of language and audio that we’ve been collecting (from DLOC meeting& other organizers). • We plan to coordinate official promos and build foundations for online media sharing platoforms this month, and start utilizing them along with our overall messaging plans and Arts/Cultural/Multimedia projects in April. • We’re planning a multimedia section of the website, though need to hash out how this will be possible with our website structure. 2007 media for example, is at http://media.ussf2007.org.
[Video] 1. ICT is developing a sort of in-house, open source Video-sharing Alternative, but is just starting out and hopes to have it complete by the USSF. 2. We have setup a youtube channel at [3] and begun to favorite videos related to the forum, create playlists based on various types of videos (2007, current interviews, 2010 happenings) and have reached out to folks who are already creating videos & posting them to youtube. We are documenting these videos on the wiki as well. We can post our official Videos here and have it be a place where we find and connect with mediamakers who use youtube to share info & art about the forum. Students from Columbia College have offered to manage this site & intentionally outreach to the USSF community on youtube and makers of related videos.
[Photo] • Already photos from the many happenings are coming in, and we should be able to find them, research them, and pool them. • A flickr page has been set up at http://www.flickr.com/ussocialforum with albums for ‘meetings, info sessions, organizing’, ‘grassroots fundraisers’, ‘art making sessions’ and ‘flyers, banners & logos’. These albums have been duplicated in our other social web platforms that handle photos, and some photos have been uploaded for streaming on the USSF mainpage. • We’re sharing graphics & photos also on the USSF wiki, but the flickr page will serve as a way of engaging in the photography community and inviting folks to use the platform to share photos with and about the USSF. We have created a pool for example “USSF Community Creative Commons Pool” where folks will share photos that the general USSF community & organizers are free to use in our outreach & art. Pidge Pagonis, a queer photographer from Chicago, is heading up this site’s organizing with a team of photographers.
[Audio] • We’re thinking to use SoundCloud as an audio and audiographer organizing resource. SoundCloud is increasing popular and is a social network of audio pieces. We can easily upload audio here, connect with the audio community and draw embed codes from our pieces for placing them on our other social web platforms and in outreach. Our official audio can be here, and there is talk of having a call-in project where folks can call in, and have the audio recorded and shared through SoundCloud and our other social platforms & website. Tania Unzueta & Neily Jennings have stepped up to build a team around audio efforts.
[Multimedia] Next Steps:
• Build foundation of network in each of the platforms • Connect with ICT about media capabilities of USSF website • Close in on planning & creation of official USSF video & audio promo • Connect with media creators/organizers around special multimedia projects we can do once all our social media platforms & networks are in place. (photo contests, mixtape audio contests, video sharing pools, etc).
[Website Info] Point Person: Scott Byrd
Project Status:
1. Scott and David are holding down Comm WG updates to the main USSF website and supporting ICT requests for the website. 2. We’re planning some navigational changes and proposals will be forthcoming 3. David has connected with Roberto in Access to manage & see through Spanish language translations for the website. We have made some headway but many pages are still due for translation. 4. We’ve been in political discussion with ICT and OC members about the presence of proprietary software buttons on our website. 5. We’ve been in discussion with working groups, especially Resource Mobilization and Outreach, about the role of the website and how information flow will be most helpful for our outreach, info sharing & resource mobilizing efforts. It’s pretty decided that our website needs some work to make sure folks are finding it easy to navigate and find what they need, in addition to flushing out protocol for how information gets updated on it. 6. We’ve begun a http://ussf2010.org/outreachmaterials Outreach Materials page on the USSF site and plan to make it like the Promote site on the Allied Media Conference site (http://alliedmediaconference.org/participate/promote)
[Website Info] Next Steps: • Build team to handle COMM/Information related website updates • Make proposal for any sweeping website navigation changes • Proofread site for proper linkages and information • Continue to handle ICT Tickets and encourage working groups to use the system. • Review proposal about proprietary links & move forward with changes.
[Propaganda/Online Design] Point Person: David Marques
Project Status:
1. Comm WG has connected with Nadia from Design Action, who created our initial materials/themes/branding to gauge her interest in continued support. She is down to do basic requests and wants to help us ensure our ‘branding’ stays consistent with the original designs & themes, though she’s exstatic that other artists & designers will be recreating exciting materials. 2. Mark has created a ‘graphics’ pool on the USSF wiki to pool our current working graphics for USSF materials. Nadia from DA has received training on the wiki and is contributing to the wiki effort there in her ongoing work. 3. We have some starting online web & print ads, including a business card style ad. 4. Vasudha Desikan from Left Turn has stepped up to coordinate the Left Turn design family to support our design efforts. She is going to first help us redesign our Feed the Roots, General USSF Outreach, and Organizing Toolkit packets into something really irresistible but also consistent with USSF design. She’s also talking to Trust Your Struggle Collective about playing a similar role. They have offered to help with other things such as social web platform backgrounds, graphics, flyers, etc. Possibly Program Packet?
Next Steps: • Closing in on design & creation of needed Digital Packets with Vasudha and Left Turn • Listing a number of needed web and print Ads for Nadia to design & share so we can easily get these to would-be promoters. Full page, half page, postcard flyer and business card flyer sizes, black/white & color for print. And Various sizes for web, in color. • Revisiting website design process and any design needs for the USSF websites.