Those of us who volunteered for the Clinton campaign this year were introduced to an exciting new tool. It’s called Activate, a phone banking system that can be accessed entirely from your phone, any phone, anywhere. There are no computers or dedicated “call centers”, but like a call center, every call is a live person. Everyone who used it loved it.
I didn’t realize until today that this product is available to any Democratic candidate, party or political organization for a fee. Last year, it won a 1st Place Pollie Award for best new technology.
Go check it out at www.nextbigthing.us.
9 Responses to The next big thing
Help Daniel
it is true – activate is pretty darn cool
even more fun – sending the jerks to spanish world on activate!
You can send jerks to Spanish world? Who knew? One of the things I like most about the system is (until they had us calling Republicans), I didn’t get any jerks. All lovely Democrats. The lists were highly targeted too: senior women one day, young professionals the next, and so on.
Good thing the party paid big bucks for an in-house phone system and has to pay a pretty hefty monthly lease fee as well.
i got a few who were like “HILLARY?!? NO WAY IN HELL DONT EVER EVER CALL ME AGAIN WITH THAT HORSESHIT – I’M VOTING FOR HUCKABEE”. when you get someone like that, you were supposed to push 8 which was “Not supporting – do not call back”, but one time I accidentally pushed 9 which was “Spanish speaker” which I am assuming will send them a caller who will speak spanish to them. So yeah – the first time I did that, I was like “oops!” but then I thought it was kind of fun to send them to spanish world anyway
looking back – I’m thinking when I got those people, I was probably talking to the husband or father of the person I was intending to talk to (young democrat leaning women) – so I have to say, that is one negative to activate…while you dont have to deal with phone sheets, you also dont have the name of the person you are trying to reach so you cant say “Hey! Can I speak to Jane Doe?”, instead you have to go to whoever picks up the phone “Hey I like Hillary, how about you?!?!”
i got a few who were like “HILLARY?!? NO WAY IN HELL DONT EVER EVER CALL ME AGAIN WITH THAT HORSESHIT – I’M VOTING FOR HUCKABEE”. when you get someone like that, you were supposed to push 8 which was “Not supporting – do not call back”, but one time I accidentally pushed 9 which was “Spanish speaker” which I am assuming will send them a caller who will speak spanish to them. So yeah – the first time I did that, I was like “oops!” but then I thought it was kind of fun to send them to spanish world anyway
looking back – I’m thinking when I got those people, I was probably talking to the husband or father of the person I was intending to talk to (young democrat leaning women) – so I have to say, that is one negative to activate…while you dont have to deal with phone sheets, you also dont have the name of the person you are trying to reach so you cant say “Hey! Can I speak to Jane Doe?”, instead you have to go to whoever picks up the phone “Hey I like Hillary, how about you?!?!”
Interesting. Targeting is never as scientific as people hope or think it is. Instead of “talking exactly to the people who want/need to hear this message” it is often more like “talking to a group of people who because of some characteristic are 15% more likely to want/need to hear this message.”
In a small district or with a big budget it becomes possible to ID your universe but even ID’s can be tricky: you are relying on people to self report their behavior. Rob Thomas and Nickelback were both in (various) Billboard Top 10 lists for 2007, know anyone that admits to having purchased that anytime recently?
I’m using it right now to make calls to TX for Hillary!
I’m using it right now to make calls to TX for Hillary!
“Rob Thomas and Nickelback were both in (various) Billboard Top 10 lists for 2007, know anyone that admits to having purchased that anytime recently?”
Got em both.
NNOOOOOOOOOOOOOTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!