The Summit in Summit, Pt. 3: Keynote John Green.

By far the most interesting speaker of the day to me was John Green from the Bliss Institute. He gave a fifteen minutes talk on grassroots organizing generally:

Two reasons he's here. 1) His friend Todd Schneider brought him in. 2) strong commitment to political organizing. Talking about the hard work of organizing. In his study of the 2004 election, he finds something old and something new.

The Old: power of face-to-face contact. Most powerful form of mobilization. No substitute.

Some innovations. America Votes. Coalition building for all the groups.

Some groups haven’t forgotten power of f2f contact. Including 90,000 progressive activists who made 11 million contacts.

The other side does this too. Techniques apply to everyone. 85,000 conservative activists.

The New: Power of the internet. Lots in commong with f2f contact. Form of contact that transmits information inexpensively. Email trees, blogs, websites.

Not yet convinced its effective for mobilizing voters. But it is invaluable for organizing.

The old and the new fit together comprehensively.

No substitute for organization.

Someday we need to get Green to sit down for a Meet The Bloggers newsmakers session.