Connection Café: Converging Campaigns- what I'm looking forward to hearing and learning

	Converging Campaigns- what I'm looking forward to hearing and learning
	Posted by at May 21, 2008 07:00 AM CDT Categories: Advocacy, Nonprofit Trends, Social Media, Technology

After a great, long dinner last night with the panelists from the “Converging Campaigns” panel line-up, I thought a bit about what I might hear today and what Internet viewers and Connection Café readers might take away from these great minds who have come together to share a little insight (and in 90 minutes they will no doubt only scratch the surface of what nonprofits, advocacy organizations and politics are currently experiencing and questioning).

Last night, we discussed the panel name – Converging Campaigns – and what exactly that connotes. I think it’s such an interesting time to be in any of these spaces because things are changing, and converging, so rapidly. The way a political campaign functions is now similar to how a nonprofit runs its seasonal fundraising campaign or advocacy efforts – and vice versa. Each of which is continuously evolving and learning from one another. And social media sites like Facebook are being used more and more as a utility to bring people and ideas together in a significant and meaningful way. Take for instance nonprofits creating Facebook applications to promote advocacy and raise funds like those of Conservation International and the Salvation Army. Or take a look at how political candidates are rallying people and events through Facebook pages and applications.

What I think we often overlook is that the essence of these new, converging efforts, campaigns and technologies are doing exactly what we all did before the Internet age – uniting people, ideas and causes. In short, it's constituent empowerment at its best.

So now it’s 8 am at the National Press Club and I’m off to absorb as much as I can from 6 true experts in their respective fields. I look forward to hearing in greater detail about how similar these seemingly diverse campaigns and communications efforts really are. And where, exactly, we should all be casting our eyes in the future.

I’ll also be taking a stab at live tweeting from the event, along with my friend and colleague Chris Bailey, so feel free to follow us live - twitter.com/jordanv (@jordanv) and twitter.com/chris_bailey (@chris_bailey).