Email Database and The Grassroots HQ: Tick,Tock,Tick,Tock......

[Will]

Dabase architect/administrator

I'm a database guy...

 

[goldenequity]

http://ronpaulnetwork.info/forum

Just went there.. No need to set up anything when it already has been. Check it out.. I am bookmarking it.

Best Regards
Randy

Great! How do we accomplish the email broadcast thing.... will this/can this do it?

 

[goldenequity]

I'm a database guy...

Great .....what can we do with what we have?

 

[paulitics]

Im glad this is being discussed. We need to become organized ASAP, where our individual talents can be utilized. There are several good ideas that we need to revise, vote on, and implement. We also need to come to some consensus on which states to target and the best way to target them. We should use the poll option more often. If an idea sticks, we should go viral with it.

I don't care if it is running a business, engineering a new technology, or running a campaign, there needs to be strategy, goals, and direction. Right now, we have none. A disorderly mess,with a thousand people butting heads on ideas will not get us anywhere.

And I'm not talking about what you do on a local level. My local contribution is outside the meetup groups, and I hand out cards to people (hundreds) We don't need an orgaization or comittee to tell people to do this. Stuff like putting a bumper sticker on your car should be done already.

No, I'm talking about ideas that will work on a national level that a few people can brainstorm together and present to the group and it can be voted on and implemented. This kind of stuff can win elections. For instance the DVD, and mosaic were 2 great ideas that had a huge impact, but we need to do this 100 times over to compete. We need to understand our demographic better. We may be missing a very large but dormant group. We need to choose a theme, a message, that is marketable and appealing to the most people not 50,000 different ones that may confuse people. We need to target the right groups. And we need to get DR. Paul on as many TV and Radio shows as possible.

I like the idea of an organized grassroots, due to practicality. We are running out of time,and we need to work harder, smarter, and more efficiently. I think Iowa proved to me that this is indeed winnable. But it is in our hands not the campaign headquarters who right now are oerwhelmed and overregulated by the government.

 

[LibertyEagle]

Very well said.

 

[mdh]

I watched Jennifer's effort to alert "all" meetups to her College campus blitz idea.

It was an awsome effort by her and forum members....but was excruciating to watch.

Things that absolutely need to happen: (Military calls it the 3 "C's")

COMMAND
CONTROL
COMMUNICATION​

Every organizational/military strategy is firmly built on those 3 foundations.
So..... we FLAIL AND STUMBLE UNTIL AND UNLESS:

COMMAND
a GRASSROOTS HQ is established and supported ($$$)

CONTROL
the GRASSROOTS HQ coordinates and delegates

COMMUNICATION
a 32,000+ (protected) database of email and cell #'s established with the COMMAND.


PLAN: Declare and Establish a GRASSROOTS HQ and nominate the LEADER (Lord Xar and others have shown MUCH capability and desire) .
Pay them.
Setup HQ website and have all MEETUPS register to the site with emails/tele's.

I see "frustration" posts and threads popping up (again)......
It's getting late.....don't cha think..... WHO and WHEN is this going to happen?
.

And then it's not longer grassroots at all. This is just silly, and the opposite of what grassroots is. It invites way more problems than it could ever possibly solve, and in reality, I think it may be a half-cocked solution looking for a problem that we don't really have.

Furthermore, it's been tried before. There're several "nationwide/worldwide" meetup.com groups, several groups attempting to unite people for any number of reasons. They're out there. Why reinvent the wheel by forming yet another one that will capture at best one segment of the overall community?

What I favor is decentralized organization both regionally (for example, we have www.ronpaul.name and a small band of motivated activists here in WV) and by sites (we have those who spend a lot of time on digg, others who spend time here, etc) with regards to the internet. I also favor the use of this site and (not to spam too damned much), the IRC channel at irc.ronpaul.name (web chat link in my sig) to coordinate between the people who take the roles of organizing within regional cells. Note that it shouldn't be *commands* coming from an *HQ*, but a sharing of knowledge, experience, ideas, and anecdotes between folks who share the goal of getting Dr. Paul nominated and elected.

 

[Suzu]

Great! How do we accomplish the email broadcast thing.... will this/can this do it?

Meetup organizers and their delegated assistants are able to send targeted newsletter emails through this forum. The more meetup members join the forum, the more members can be reached with these emails.

It is not like the meetup email function, where everything gets publicly posted on a message board and one has the option to turn off receiving emails. These emails are sent as private forum messages. Notification of receipt of PMs can be turned off for folks who check in regularly, or they can keep notification on and receive the full PM from the meetup organizer via email.

 

[LibertyEagle]

Not a problem we have?

Do you not see any benefit in being able to contact at least all the Meetup organizers, without having to bring in about 10 other people to do so and making it a day long effort? You know, for things like fundraising for special projects like ads, or for example, to ask them to spread the word to their members to please upload their pictures to the mosaic so we don't have pics duplicated 5 times. Or even for Jennifer's campus idea.

Or how about having a central repository of high-res video that people can use to create their own YouTubes, DVDs, etc? Or, do you see any need for a well-done DVD that we could get mass produced to handout?

Seems to me, we can be proactive, or continue to be reactive. A little bit of strategizing and planning really won't kill anyone. I promise.

Whatever...

 

[mdh]

Not a problem we have?

Do you not see any benefit in being able to contact at least all the Meetup organizers, without having to bring in about 10 other people to do so and making it a day long effort? You know, for things like fundraising for special projects like ads, or for example, to ask them to spread the word to their members to please upload their pictures to the mosaic so we don't have pics duplicated 5 times. Or even for Jennifer's campus idea.

Or how about having a central repository of high-res video that people can use to create their own YouTubes, DVDs, etc.

Whatever...

Several groups exist that have tried to bring together all of the meetup organizers. From what I've heard, none of them has even half of the organizers alone on-board. If these other efforts haven't been able to do it, what makes you think that this holier-than-thou "three C's COMMAND" will have any more success? The whole "command and control" bit is a big turn-off for me. The "communications" bit is worthy, but it's been done and is being done already by numerous others - with some limited success, so what makes you think you'd have more success with this effort?

If people want to create a high-res video repository, this shouldn't be hard to implement at all, and I can help with this if others are willing to put in some work on it too.

 

[constituent]

mdh...

try freeme.tv. i really enjoy what they've got going.

 

[LibertyEagle]

Several groups exist that have tried to bring together all of the meetup organizers. From what I've heard, none of them has even half of the organizers alone on-board. If these other efforts haven't been able to do it, what makes you think that this holier-than-thou "three C's COMMAND" will have any more success?

We don't need to bring them on board. All we need is a mechanism other than the very time consuming and extremely limited facility within Meetup, to send them emails. That's it.

 

[mdh]

mdh...

try freeme.tv. i really enjoy what they've got going.

Yeah, there're already others doing video archives too - if someone wanted something a bit more search&grab oriented for video *makers* rather than people looking to view videos, though, I haven't seen that before. Could already exist and I've just never heard of it, though.

 

[mdh]

We don't need to bring them on board. All we need is a mechanism other than the very time consuming and extremely limited facility within Meetup, to send them emails. That's it.

How do you propose harvesting all of those emails without bringing them on board? I don't believe meetup.com makes all email addresses public by default.

 

[LibertyEagle]

I don't think we need any kind of big command and control structure. Not for a minute. Paulitics said it well. "I'm talking about ideas that will work on a national level that a few people can brainstorm together and present to the group and it can be voted on and implemented." This would only be a small fraction of the total things that were done and wouldn't in any way infringe on the freedom of Meetup groups, or individuals to do their own things. All we're talking about here are some tools to operate and possibly putting together a few strategic initiatives that will work on a national level.

 

[robatsu]

I think that some of the opposition to some of the ideas being talked about stems from a worry that a newly created structure will try to brand itself as the official unofficial campaign and begin trying to give out orders, etc. While I don't think the ideas that are gaining in traction, which are mostly about setting up things to facilitate communications, probably should be sensitive to emphasize that anything being done is additive, not subtractive. Anything that would be set up would be an additional activity to all the efforts going on now and in no way supersedes/invalidates/delegitimizes/tyrannizes what people are doing.

As a previous poster noted, if we get something set up, it will soon prove its worth one way or the other via its virality or lack thereof.

This effort/thread also isn't a criticism of what people are doing now, but meant to address things that aren't being done, or are being done but with great difficulty (Jennifer college network, e.g). This is a big campaign, and there is need for action/information from individual to coordinated at levels up to national.

Anyone who doesn't support it should just walk away at this point, and let the free market of ideas on the forum and elsewhere see if it gets enough positive support to do something useful for the RP campaign, which is what everything we do is about, in principle.

 

[LibertyEagle]

Yeah, there're already others doing video archives too - if someone wanted something a bit more search&grab oriented for video *makers* rather than people looking to view videos, though, I haven't seen that before. Could already exist and I've just never heard of it, though.

Ok, I've heard from countless people on this board that darn, all I had to work with was low-res Youtube videos. For example, Gigaplex's DVD. It sure would have been nice if he would have had better video to work with, don't you think?

Am I the only one that sees a benefit for having some high-res video footage and knowing where it is located for people to go use?

 

[DjLoTi]

Plus, have a major PAC where there's universal involvement and we vote on what we feel is the best product. I think that'd be a good thing to do.

 

[LibertyEagle]

How do you propose harvesting all of those emails without bringing them on board? I don't believe meetup.com makes all email addresses public by default.

That's the problem. I was hoping someone could figure out a solution. I think one of the guys in the Austin Meetup is working on it. I'll check with them when I get a chance and see how its progressing. They may have gotten diverted to the Call Texas program.

 

[mdh]

I don't think we need any kind of big command and control structure. Not for a minute. Paulitics said it well. "I'm talking about ideas that will work on a national level that a few people can brainstorm together and present to the group and it can be voted on and implemented." This would only be a small fraction of the total things that were done and wouldn't in any way infringe on the freedom of Meetup groups, or individuals to do their own things. All we're talking about here are some tools to operate and possibly putting together a few strategic initiatives that will work on a national level.

Well, if you read my original post, the "big command control structure" was what I was firmly against, not the improved communications. I do, however, have great misgivings about how to implement a better communications structure in a way that is at all efficient and reaches more people than existing structures. I also have misgivings as to whether it's possible at all - we'd be relying on others for a lot of info. There have been times when I've asked site maintainers, etc, to help me get information and have received no response more than I have received responses. This of course does make it harder to communicate critical information to people - such as voter registration deadlines to people in my state. I wish we had something better, but I've looked into what it'd take, and haven't found any realistic strategies to harvest the data that would be needed to create a better contact database than any of us have already.

As far as broad initiatives go, I think most of us are open to this to at least some extent - but why have some voting group, etc? Why not instead just throw the idea out there, and either no one will implement it, some people will implement it, or a lot of people will see it as an awesome idea and implement it. You won't win trying to herd cats, but if you tell them where there might be some fish, some of them may go in that direction.

 

[mdh]

Ok, I've heard from countless people on this board that darn, all I had to work with was low-res Youtube videos. For example, Gigaplex's DVD. It sure would have been nice if he would have had better video to work with, don't you think?

Am I the only one that sees a benefit for having some high-res video footage and knowing where it is located for people to go use?

I have unmetered 100mbps bandwidth and can throw about 50 gigs of space to start with at this. With about a week's notice (ie - if it grows quickly) I can pull down another ~100mbps of bandwidth and a couple of terabytes of disk space. Just say the word, and we'll roll.