You haven't seen any serious changes to CampusActivism.org/ActivismNetwork.org as I've been focussing on creating a customized version of this software that would serve as a networking resource for activists fighting power plants.

The Action Center (of Philadelphia, PA) is creating a website that will map all the power plants in the US, as well as connect activists who are opposing them.

We're working with a lot of government data. Developing some fancy searches. Doing some cool things with mapping. So it's a lot of work. There should be a basic version online by June 1.

Ten years after I worked on this campaign, the group I started is trying once again to include "sexual orientation" in the University of Notre Dame's non-discrimination clause.

They're off to an excellent start!

http://media.www.ndsmcobserver.com/media/storage/paper660/news/2008/04/30/News/Psa-To.Submit.Petition.To.Office.Of.The.President-3357806.shtml

Students from the Progressive Student Alliance (PSA) will deliver a petition to the Office of the President Wednesday to add sexual orientation to Notre Dame's Non-Discrimination, PSA member Mike McCann said.

In 2007, Clinton raised $97 million for the primaries and Obama raised $95.6 million (http://www.capitaleye.org/inside.asp?ID=332). Obama did get more small donations (as did Ron Paul), but he is NOT doing well in this race because of his message. In fact Clinton is getting more votes per dollar spent than Obama (probably because she has a major name recognition advantage).

Obama is doing well because he has an ok message and a hundred million dollars of money that comes from the rich (and the guillible non-rich).

The goal of this website (CampusActivism.org) and ActivismNetwork.org is to serve both students and non-students.

However, if you look at our list of upcoming events you will see that around 80% of them are student related. Here are several reasons for this:

1. This site is better plugged into student networks. You might think this is the major reason, but I hypothesize that a key reason is that there are a lot more student grassroots activisty conferences than non-student ones.

Yesterday I uploaded the latest changes to the software. Now when you log in it will remember you as the default. Logging in will take you to a personalized home page where you can see:

-Events targetted to your location (includes local events that would otherwise not show up on the website, though you would get them by email)

-Nearby new people and groups

-New resources (same as on the site's homepage)

-Updates from your friends

-A list of your friends

-A control panel

-A status update - "Aaron is..."

According to a recent poll Canadians prefer the Democrats to Republicans by a ratio of 4 to 1. Even Canadian Conservative Party supporters prefer the Democrats by a ratio of 2 to 1. So even the most conservative third of Canadians would still go with the Democrats (the Conservative party has roughly 33% support).

The Globe and Mail story

I invite you to participate in shaping the future direction of CampusActivism.org by taking several minutes to fill out this survey.

We are striving to create new forms of online activism that are based on democracy, empowerment, and decentralization. When we come together in networks our power is multiplied and we can build strong movements for social change.

In this process, your feedback is ESSENTIAL.

Survey results will be made public (while preserving the privacy of survey respondents).




The Survey

I upgraded the blog from Drupal 4.6.5 to 5.5. It was relatively easy.

ZNet has launched their new website: Z Communications.

They're moving from a community of commentators, to a much larger and dynamic community that includes any of their members who want to join. It's possible that tens of thousands of members could start to use the new system.

They did a complete redesign of their site - which looks very good.

The latest version (3.3) of the software is now up and running on CampusActivism.org and ActivismNetwork.org.

So far, I've noticed very few bugs. Users are uploading pictures and filling out parts of the longer profile. So far I haven't noticed as many comments or resource ratings.

As always, you can see a list of features that I'm considering implementing.

Currently I'm on a community kick. So I want to create a better landing page for people when they log in. A page that includes a customized events calendar (including local events), links to their friends, and other info.