05th Nov 2008
Tweeting Election 2008
It was a festive day, running about online and in real life, “covering” the history-making election of 2008. Can you believe how many people actually got out to vote this year? Go Team USA!
I spent a good amount of the morning trying to feverishly tweet about Twitter Vote Report, a project quickly-yet-skillfully implemented in just three weeks by Allison Fine from the Personal Democracy Forum and Nancy Scola, Associate Editor of techPresident (Fast Company story). This project is proof that a huge tech project can be produced in a truly grassroots fashion, wrangled via a fantastic wiki, contributed to by volunteers, and get the attention of outlets like CNN (can’t find a link, but I know people saw it), Mashable, and rocketboom. Three weeks, kids. Amazing. I wish I had done more to help get the word out (I’ve tweeted off and on about it in the past few days), but still, I think the turnout was impressive.
Twitter Vote Report was designed to take in data from hashtags in tweets and reprocess them into mashups like Google maps to track wait times, machine problems, registration problems, fraud, and overall good/bad feelings about the voting experience. Most people new the basic #votereport hashtag, but not many of the other tags were used, or used properly, enough to help the other apps pick up the data necessary. On the enormous upside, it’s impressive that Twitter Vote Report offered a “don’t Twitter, never will” set of options, to broaden the scope of participation, including posting transcriptions and sound files of phone messages. I think that, with enough time to seriously market the tags, or perhaps even some sort of structured form-based input system for people may need it, it could be a serious way to track the next set of elections.
It took me approximately 53 minutes to vote. It was worth it. I tweeted my vote, and even took listeners into the voting booth with me via a recording on Utterli:
Ken George , WBUR Twitterer in Chief and Social Media guy over at WBUR, graciously invited me to participate in the #wburvote event, where a handful of us tweeted the election on behalf of the WBUR station. It was quite the hoot, filled with different approaches to using different types of social tools online, including Twitter, to report on the election. I arrived at the station around 2pm or so, spent most of the afternoon talking with Ken, and David Boeri, host of Radio Boston and awesome journalist/speaker, helping them brainstorm possible stories, uses of the technology, and methods for getting people to interact with the station. I also met a slew of interesting people, and discussed social networking, Twitter, and human interaction with new WBUR people I met.
The rest of the WBUR Twitter Central crew arrived in the early evening (in order of appearanc): Jeff Cutler, Gradon Tripp, Scott Frazer, Deb Agliano, and Adam Zand (there were more Twitter peeps posting off-site, check out the search for everything hashtagged #wburvote). The entire event was peppered with exceedingly exciting and scintillating conversation, excellent snacks, and lots of fun watching the numbers roll in. We were interviewed on video, talked to WBUR staffers about what exactly we were doing and many aspects of the social web, pictures taken. The staffers were really happy to see us there, and very curious about what we were doing, which made for a very positive and open environment. Everyone had different approaches to the “reporting” idea: Jeff corresponded with Twitter followers and friends about their experiences and tweet bits, Adam posted many utters, I messaged followers with questions and comments while I trolled different Twitter searches, and everyone tweeted their hearts out. The WBUR Twitter effort even got a shout out on the air, which is awesome progress.
When I started this post, I was drinking a Hitachino Nest Red Rice Ale, watching Obama deliver his FTW (abbrev. internet slang, “for the win”) speech, still tweeting, at home, in my pajamas, just after watching Jon Stewart announce Obama’s win on Indecision 2008 and helping a friend find a live video stream of the speech for his sister in China. It’s been a day of meeting new people, coining new phrases (Scott gets a super gold star for “premature calculation,” a danger of overly-excited polls, but nothing to be ashamed of 
), and feeling really connected in person *and* by way of technology with the rest of the nation on this momentus occasion. It was definitely a treat to use the social web’s powers for good today, and I’m excited for what the future of interaction holds for us.
Tags: election, election08, social media, social networking, Tweetup, twitter, vote, wbur, wburvote
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Always fun hanging with you, Ken George and WBUR tweet up peeps. This one was extra special since Obama is President-Elect!
@Adam Zand @NoOneYouKnow: It was definitely an awesome night, on so many levels! I’m hoping to do more of this sort of thing, if for no other reason than it’s a lot of fun. I think opening the doors to people in the know is an excellent way for any organization to tap into the open source-minded community of social tech and learn their way around.
[...] Tweeting Election 2008 …over at WBUR, graciously invited me to participate in the #wburvote event, where a handful of us tweeted the election on behalf of the WBUR… [...]
Thanks for joining us at the station Election Night and help us Twitter the election results. It was great fun.
As always it is great fun to be around your exuberant self. A salutary blast of fresh air (no pun intended) in these buttoned-down public radio warrens.
And as an added bonus we get an education gratis in social media best practices and Twitter tips and tricks. I feel guilty. I wish I could tell you “the check is in the mail.” Seriously, you’ve earned that.
See your around. Maybe you can present at a future WBUR-sponsored event?
Link below is ot the video of you in action. Please feel free to use it.
http://tinyurl.com/5h6n79
Thanks again for everything!
– Ken
@Ken George: It’s always a pleasure to hang with the WBUR gang. On one hand, I kinda wish you could pay me, too ;D. On the other hand, I have fun doing it, so I consider it part of my contribution to the station as a member.
Who knows, maybe someday you’ll have an actual little corner in your warren just for me.
I’d love to present at a WBUR-sponsored event! Just let me know the deets, and we’ll figure it out.
As always, thanks for the kind words, and I’m glad to help. We should do a “working lunch” again soon, community tech never sleeps!
Community tech may never sleep but public radio employees do. Got plenty the other night and feel close enough to refreshed that I can start planning Tweet-Up number..is it five? I lost count.
And yes we need more AM’s inside public radio. I have no doubt you’d make the short list that day in the hypothetical future we hire a social media guru.
And yes lunch soon!