The Digital Pros to Meet at the Republican National Convention

By Sarah Lai Stirland and Nick Judd

"By the end of today Tampa, Fla., will be full up with Republicans planning to converge on its Tampa Bay Times Forum for their national convention. Among the scores of convention delegates, lobbyists, political operatives and campaigning candidates will be a host of digital campaigners — both longtime pros in the emerging field andup-and-comers hoping to ply their trade....

Republicans

Serenety Hanley, political technology consultant and vice president at Grassroots Targeting

Though Grassroots Targeting isn't as big, or in the public eye as much as Blue State Digital is on the left, its staff have been pioneers on the organizing and political technology front, and continue to work on high profile races on behalf of Republicans. Hanley got her start in political direct mail marketing, but she eventually ended up working at the Republican National Committee during George W. Bush's re-election campaign in 2003, where she worked with microtargeting expert and Grassroots Targeting founder Blaise Hazelwood on the RNC's volunteer organizing and get-out-the-vote efforts. In addition to working on that successful campaign, Hanley also has the distinction of being the White House' first female Internet director, recruited by David Almacy, her predecessor. The online volunteer program she worked on in 2003 was the RNC's GOPTeamLeader.com, and it's that platform that inspired the creation of a new customizable online action center for activists that Hanley plans to show off at the convention...."

Article on TechPresident.com

Grassroots Targeting is excited to celebrate the nomination of Governor Mitt Romney and Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin - one of our favorite states! Our team is fired up to ensure our GOP candidates win this Fall and get our great country back on track.

We will have two team members on the ground to meet with fellow convention-goers and talk about our Microtargeting services - which led to victory in the recent Wisconsin recall - and our newly launched action center widget - GTAC.

Serenety Hanley will be on hand to demo GTAC - the Grassroots Targeting Action Center. Just shoot her an email and set up a time to learn all about our new action center widget that is fully-customizable through your personal portal 24/7. And even if you don't have time for a full-blown demo, you can pick up some info on GTAC. Serenety arrives Wednesday morning and will be in town through Friday.

Lisa Valentine will be available to discuss Microtargeting. Send Lisa an email to see when would be a good time to chat about what we do and what we can do for you. Lisa arrives on Monday and will be around all week.

Look forward to seeing you there and cheering on our nominees - go Romney/Ryan!

Grassroots Targeting congratulates our Microtargeting client, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker on his historic victory tonight, a "victory for courage." With this vote, the people of Wisconsin affirmed that they want to move forward with bold reforms in Madison to get Wisconsin's financial house in order, kick-start the economy and create jobs. Special interests fighting for the old, failed way of doing business are no match for a people who appreciate their governor looking out for them.

It has been an honor for Grassroots Targeting to conduct statewide voter Microtargeting for Governor Walker in both 2010 and this year. His positive vision and willingness to take a stand for Wisconsin's future combined with a well-executed campaign speaking directly to voters put Governor Walker over the top, again. 

Today, GT Vice President, Serenety Hanley, won the CampaignTech Innovators Award for GTAC - the Grassroots Targeting Action Center. She was one of 12 to be chosen as "digital-political superstars honored for their legacies of innovation in technology".

Serenety said, "I'm honored to be among other forward-thinking technologists and am thrilled to be pursuing my passion of leveraging technologies to empower volunteers with Blaise Hazelwood at Grassroots Targeting."

Serenety will receive the award at the CampaignTech conference, April 19-20 in Washington, DC.

GTAC is a script-based action center which can be dropped in to any website that uses the voter file to help campaigns microtarget their volunteers. In addition to the microtargeting capabilities, GTAC aims to draw online volunteers offline for increased turnout for victory.

Functionality

Registered volunteers earn points and badges through completing a variety of on and offline activities.

Actions Include

• Writing a letter-to-the-editor, 
• Calling talk radio, 
• Registering to vote, 
• Tweeting a pre-filled message, 
• RSVP'ing for events, 
• Spreading the message, 
• Joining issue-specific coalitions,
• Recruiting new volunteers, 
• "Liking" on Facebook, 
• Following on Twitter and 
• Donating.  

Guests can access all of the actions, but cannot rsvp and do not earn points. All actions are still tracked through the system. 

Unique Features

• Voter File Integration: The voter file can be loaded in to the backend for matching during registration. This allows campaigns to microtarget their volunteer database since all actions are tracked through the system.
• Social Integration: GTAC was developed using Open Graph to allow for "frictionless sharing" through custom GTACs on Facebook. Whether a campaign chooses to implement the Facebook Canvas Application does not affect the basic social sharing features within their website's GTAC.
• Rewards Based Recruitment: A premium is put on volunteers who recruit new volunteers.
• 2 types of access: Registered volunteers who earn points and guests. Guests can see and do everything, but they do not earn points.
• Complete Control: Campaign managers have complete control over the actions, the text, the data and the users through an admin portal – as well as 24/7 access to the portal.
• Offline Actions: Campaigns can manually add points to volunteers who have completed offline actions. 

Additional Features in Development

• Mobile GTAC
• Blank & Customizable Actions to accept any script 
• In depth analytics
• Volunteer versus Volunteer challenges
• FourSquare checkin integration
• Ability to add tagged content streams based on issues
• Integrated store for redeeming points

Campaigns & Elections Announces 2012 CampaignTech Innovators Presented by CBS Interactive
Digital-political superstars honored for their legacies of innovation in technology

April 4, 2012 – Arlington, VA – Today, 12 digital-political practitioners and strategists at the top of their fields are being honored as the second class of Campaigns & Elections’ CampaignTech Innovators presented by CBS Interactive.

Nominated by their peers, Innovators work in the fields of technology, campaigns, advocacy and government and have developed a legacy of innovation and collaboration using technology to inform, enable and engage voters and constituents on behalf of a political or issue advocacy campaign or legislative office. Winners of the award all demonstrate a visionary approach to the future of digital politics and advocacy.

The recipients below will be awarded in the following four categories on April 19 at the CampaignTech conference in Washington, DC:

· Campaign Innovator – Individuals with a legacy of innovative outreach on the digital campaign trail

· Advocacy Innovator – Individuals who apply their strategic technological minds to issue advocacy

· Capitol Hill Innovator – Individuals in Congressional offices who use technology to communicate with constituents and craft public policy

· Nonpartisan Innovator – Individuals who have made an impact digitally in the nonpartisan world or internationally

Profiles of the winners are below:

Campaign Innovators
Serenety Hanley: Vice President, Grassroots Targeting
Republican
Serenety had the honor of serving President George W. Bush as the first woman to hold the title of White House Internet Director as well as the Director of the Office of Web Communications at the Environmental Protection Agency. Previously, she was the first Director of Political Technology at the Republican National Committee where she developed and managed innovative and first of its kind political technology projects, including the award-winning GOPTeamLeader.com volunteer website which was the first "gamified" political web site that awarded points for recognition and redemption.

Jason Rosenbaum: Senior Online Campaign Director, Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC)
Democrat
Jason is co-founder of the blog The Seminal. Now, at the PCCC, he helped draft Elizabeth Warren into the race for Senate (MA) and helped House campaigns around the country run great new media programs in 2012. He has also aided on issues such as net neutrality, SOPA, and protecting Medicare and Social Security at the PCCC. 

Tom Serres: Founder/CEO, Rally.org
Nonpartisan
As Founder and CEO of Rally.org, Tom is building one of the largest fundraising apparatuses in the world. His product serves 11,000 organizations across the United States and abroad and operates on two continents. Tom was awarded a 40 under 40 award by the New Leaders Council in 2010 and a Reed Award by Campaigns & Elections magazine for Most Innovative Product in 2012.

Stuart Trevelyn: CEO, NGP VAN
Democrat
Stu led the vision for the NGP VAN’s innovative new Social Organizing tool, which allows supporters of a campaign to match their Facebook friends to the voter file. This way, a campaign can create target universes and supporters can use web-based tools like a Virtual Phone Bank to engage their friends in that universe. Following the NGP VAN merger, Stu led the launch of NGP VAN’s new Accelerator digital product, which is now the most widely used website platform among Democratic candidates.

Advocacy Innovators
Charlie Harper: Editor, Peach Pundit
Republican
Charlie's blog, Peach Pundit, is the largest in the state of Georgia and is read on a regular basis by elected officials, political junkies, and the mainstream media. The blog fights for changes to Georgia’s political ethics laws. As part of this, Peach Pundit helped uncover a corrupt Speaker of Georgia’s House, which ultimately resulted in his resignation. The Fix has listed Peach Pundit on its list of influential blogs.

Katie Harbath: Manager for Public Policy, Facebook
Republican
As the liaison for candidates and elected officials at Facebook, Katie is helping to bring the newest Facebook tools to campaigns. Katie regularly works with campaigns to integrate Facebook and strategizes with them to launch new tools on Facebook. Examples include: Tim Pawlenty’s announcement of his Presidential run on Facebook and the first ever Congressional Hackathon. Previously, Katie worked at the National Republican Senatorial Campaign where she was among the first people to start testing and experimenting with mobile.

Rosalyn Lemieux: Founding Partner, Fission Strategy
Democrat
Rosalyn founded Fission Strategy, an award winning, 20 person firm. She is also responsible for building Attentive.ly, a social media platform for non-profits to use the social web. Attentive.ly serves as a bridge from email into social media and makes it possible for organizations to learn more about the people that they communicate with over social media as opposed to email. Previously she served as the Founding Executive Director and Campaign Director at the New Organizing Institute, where she started RootsCamp and Bootcamp.

Capitol Hill Innovator
Seamus Kraft: Digital Director, Committee on Government Oversight
Republican
Seamus has successfully deployed several major improvements on the way that Congress interacts with the American public. As part of the majority, Seamus launched the MADISON Project, a program to enable anyone to comment on specific provisions within legislation, taking the once closed markup process and opening it fully to the public. Several provisions generated by the public on the MADISON platform have already been incorporated into legislation. Previously, Seamus created the Citizen Watchdogs program that enabled the public to submit examples of government waste.

Nonpartisan Innovators
David Binetti: CEO/Co-Founder, Votizen
Nonpartisan
By founding Votizen, David has put the voter back at the center of American politics by creating a new political currency based on voter-to-voter connections, reducing the influence of money and increasing the importance of relationships in civic engagement. Recently, several celebrities have invested $750,000 in Votizen, including Napster co-founder Sean Parker. David is also the founder of USA.gov.

Kahlil Byrd: CEO, Americans Elect
Nonpartisan
Kahlil Byrd has dedicated his career to U.S. domestic politics and international media development. As CEO of Americans Elect, Kahlil is leading the first ever nonpartisan national online presidential primary. For the first time ever, the American people will directly nominate a presidential candidate online through AmericansElect.org, and their choice will appear on the ballot nationwide. Kahlil is combining our newest technologies with our oldest values to create an innovative and more democratic way for Americans to pick a president.

Tom Hallaran: CTO, IB5k
Nonpartisan
Tom cut his teeth as a bio-informatician at Washington University’s Genome Sequencing Center, writing software to automate the genome sequencing and mapping pipeline. Now, at IB5k, Tom helps public servants, non-profits, and civically-minded corporations connect with their customers, audiences, friends, and constituents through a genuine, commonly shared experience. Tom has expertise in planning, building and supporting large scale, high performance sites, applications and campaigns.

Tracy Russo: Director of New Media, Department of Justice
Nonpartisan
Tracy is responsible for development and execution of digital and social media strategy for the Department of Justice. She redesigned and rebranded the department's website, justice.gov, to focus on helping citizens find and get critical information about the department on the web or through major social media channels. She also envisioned, designed and developed FOIA.gov, a key open government web initiative, which provides all citizens with information about FOIA including agency compliance, what the law is, how it works and how to make FOIA requests.
 

The CampaignTech conference is being held in Washington, DC on April 19-20 at The Washington Marriott. For more information, media credentials, or to buy tickets, please visit www.campaigntechconference.com.

Launched in 1983, Campaigns & Elections’ seminars attract political professionals, candidates, political junkies and those involved in campaigns from all over the United States. In recent years, attendees have also come Europe, Canada, Africa, Australia, Latin America and Mongolia. Campaigns & Elections events are nonpartisan, making the seminars the one place politicos can learn and network from the best of the best, regardless of party affiliation.

Exclusive sponsor of the CampaignTech Innovator Awards, CBS Interactive, is one of the leading online content networks. They cater to the needs of consumers across news, sports, entertainment, technology and business. With hundreds of millions of unique visitors from around the world each month, this site is a global top 10 web property and the largest premium content network online.