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Ten Things You Can Do to Win a Political Campaign
CoLab Mel King Fellow Malia Lazu originally wrote Ten Things You Can Do to Win a Political Campaign for The Nation magazine. In this post, she examines her most important point in that article: “Don’t...
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Students Take to SMS for Organizing in Brooklyn
For the past month we at The Urban Labs have been engaged in our first experiment with SMS as an organizing tool. The Urban Labs, working with Institute for Juvenile Justice Reform and Alternatives...
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Technology Builders are from Mars. Community Builders are from Venus
These are my notes from a talk at The Future of News and Civic Media Conference– As a woman, I can tell you I truly believe that men and women are from different planets. As a community builder, I...
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Be a Champion, Not a Rock Star Candidate
There is only one way to counter the effects of organized money: organized people. The true keeper of this country’s democracy is its people, whether they decide to participate in the vote or not....
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How Your Political Campaign Can Learn from Companies that Know How to Use the...
For the past four years Doritos has hosted Crash the Super Bowl, a contest for consumer generated commercials. Doritos gets thousands of advertisements and picks six finalists. The public votes on...
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Organizing Is Not Campaigning, and High Numbers Do Not Mean Effective Organizing
Last night I had a very interesting conversation with a friend of mine who is creating a tech start up catalyzing local civic engagement. My friend is engaging in conversations with many companies...
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In It for the Long Haul: Why Enthusiasm Doesn’t Always Matter
“I think we could learn a lot about how to build consistent civic engagement by looking at long-term relationships like my grandparents.” – Malia Lazu This week my family celebrated my grandparent’s...
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Nursing a Three Billion Dollar Hangover
Here are some thoughts I am taking away from the past two years and the 2010 election: KUDOS to the organizations doing the street-level electoral work: The League of Young Voters, who have been...
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Welcome to Rootscamp: Lessons in Organizing
Rootscamp is a wonderful model of the ‘un-conference’ that allows organizers to convene in a safe space and talk about their work. Last weekend Rootscamp came to Boston and I was honored to open the...
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Putting the Year in Perspective
As I tried to get a Top Ten list ready for the New Year I could not find the motivation. We have had some moments that make great stories but as a whole they amount to… angry politics, lying husbands...
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