Tam is pregnant

Interesting experiment this.

A week or so ago we told a few friends / family. And it didn't leak (apart from my Dad being over enthusiastic).

Friday I announced it on Twitter.

And now I'm announcing it here.

After here I'll do Facebook.

And eventually I'll send an email to everyone else.

My guess is that Facebook will be the bursting of the dam...

Jon Stewart on Twitter

Spot on and funny.

It's no wonder that young people love it.

According to reports about young people by middle aged people.

Here

Local news websites mapped

A great map showing independent local news websites on Justin Williams' blog can be found here:
http://www.countervalue.com/

Blackie's first rule of the internet

Almost all whizzy websites fail to get any significant audience. Almost all pages on big websites such as Facebook or Youtube get a tiny audience.

Closely related to this there are plenty of simple websites, such as Iain Dale's successful blog, that are simply well designed blogs using technologies such as Wordpress.

Howard Dean at the Lib Dem Spring Conference

Howard Dean's speech at the Lib Dem Spring Conference this weekend in Harrogate was interesting even if he didn’t say anything particularly revolutionary. The six key points he made that were interesting were:

1. Build relationships first with the existing communities – you have to reach out to people who care about an issue that you've got common ground with. Implication – start by listening to what people are saying about your issues

2. You can potentially get the community to then adopt your messages (and discipline) – once they’re bought into your victory. Implication – see message discipline by the public as the sign of a successful campaign rather than the (unachievable) cause of one pure message that you direct

3. Messages trump everything else – most internet political campaigns fail. This isn’t just technical failings to use the tools well, it’s mainly a failure to have a motivating message. Implication – a crap message and a good website is pointless

4. Taking the states seriously, even when they were unwinnable at Presidential level, was incredibly powerful. These states then started having a real political debate again, raising the morale of supporters and so meaning that when the Republicans messed up (e.g. a Governor is indicted) the Democrats can reap the rewards. Implication - take the training / support to regional / local staff seriously so that they become more effective campaigners for us.

5. Reaching out to evangelicals didn’t get many to vote Democrat despite stressing the issues that evangelicals and the Democrats share. But it massively reduced their hatred of Democrats – so they were much less enthusiastically campaigning for the Republicans. Implication - keep talking to your opponents so that you can at least reduce their anger at you.

6. Personal relationships between activists and voters really matter, so the same person will knock on the same door year after year to build a long term relationship. Implications - find ways to get your staff to build relationships and be enthusiastic for you.