One of the most exciting emerging fields in technology is online organizing. Lately, I've been calling this Activism 2.0, and by that I'm referring to online organizing powered by tech savvy activists and a series of developing web-based applications that leverage political, map-driven, and user-contributed data in powerful ways. Amidst great defeats, both online organizers and the tools they use continue to innovate rather than abandon their efforts.

Snapshots of lobbying techniques used as Congress gets ready to start writing bills overhauling health care:

Earlier this morning, the New York State Senate launched their new website at NYSenate.gov. On the 14th floor at 250 Broadway, Majority Leader Malcolm Smith introduced the new web portal in front of a giant screen projecting the homepage of the new site.

I love the concept of “patch-through” telephone call campaigns because it promises to help organizations empower their constituents to call their Members of Congress offices and directly express their position on important legislative bills. However, for many years these kinds of campaigns have been tricky – to say the least – to pull off successfully. For one thing, the staff time and budget it takes to run patch-through call campaigns can be overwhelming. You have to coach constituents effectively so they don’t end up stuttering and confused at the moment when they suddenly find themselves on the phone (thanks to you) with their Congressional office. Plus it’s difficult to measure results, because there aren’t many good reporting tools.