RootsCamp: The Netroots '06 Post-Election Debrief
The goal of RootsCamp is to bring together the progressive community to draw lessons from the 2006 elections -- everyone from the "netroots" to precinct captains to field organizers to national message consultants. A true, no-holds-barred, post-election debrief.
Why hold a BarCamp-style post-election debrief? Because so many people at all levels are discovering amazing innovations in organizing, using technology to make a difference, adapting to new media habits -- or just getting really good at stuff every campaign knows it needs to do well (but does poorly). Sure, "high-level" debriefs take place in Washington, DC. But who's invited? NOT the precinct captain, the blogger, the guerilla ad maker, or even the head of the state party or local org who is kicking ass in a bold new way.
RootsCamp has its own domain, but we're going to post updates here so that interested BarCampers can stay tuned and hopefully jump in and help out. Those of us organizing have much longer roots in the organizing community than in the tech world -- so we would really love to get your thoughts, input, and support. Thanks!
UPDATE LOG
2006-10-06 Roz is spending most of today making all the planning more transparent -- posting what we're up to here and to the Google group. Ginny's outreaching to potential sponsors. We're hoping a few national orgs pledge to support each RootsCamp with a few hundred dollars each, up to a max. Micah's doing a bunch of outreach and serving as kind of a "welcome wagon" to new hosts.
Roz is cross-posting our updates at http://www.barcamp.org/rootscamp/ to keep the BarCamp crowd in the loop.
2006-10-05 Micah Canal from America's Impact joins the RootsCamp planning team. Welcome! A bunch of us talk with Chris Messina. The take-away: Be more transparent with the planning. Ab-so-lutely. From now on, we're posting everything to the wiki and the planning Google group. Sweet, RootsCampBOS is born.
2006-10-04 Word is starting to spread... Ginny's got connections to all kinds of amazing young organizers working on campaigns this cycle and Roz knows lots of organizers working on the PAC/issue side. Zack seems to know everybody (in our little universe). We're hoping that soon this grows much bigger than our circle of friends/connections.
Roz starts RootsCampDC.
2006-10-03 Ginny, Roz and Le'Kedra spend the day working up a list of people and organizations we know might be interested in RootsCamp. It takes all day and we don't end up actually getting any email out :-\
2006-10-02 Nica Lorber starts up RootsCampSF. The organizing team is shaping up with some amazing people joining the effort: Chris Warshaw, Madeline Stanionis, Andrew Hoppin...
2006-09-28 Roz (NOI ED) and Le'Kedra high-tail it to NYC to check out BarCampNYC2. Awesome! We meet Noel Hidalgo, who promises (we're holding you to this!) to organize RootsCampNYC.
2006-09-22 Ginny Hunt and Le'Kedra Robertson at Emerging Progressives join the effort. Le'Kedra agrees to dedicate herself full-time from now until the events happen to supporting the volunteer hosts. We're going for it!
2006-09-15 While the folks over at NOI stew over whether RootsCamp is a good idea, Kevin Makice takes the initiative and starts organizing one in Bloomington, IN. Sweet.
2006-09-01 After attending FooCamp and a spark of inspiration from Nica Lorber at the NOI II training, Zack Exley at the New Organizing Institute clones the BarCamp wiki as RootsCamp.
Here's a video of Chris Messina explaining BarCamp.
