Robots with Canvass Packets: The Future of Digital Organizing
Session Type(s): Panel
Starts: Thursday, Aug. 2 2:30 PM
Ends: Thursday, Aug. 2 3:45 PM
Room: 219
For the past decade, Democratic campaigns and progressive advocacy groups have largely kept their “digital” and “organizing” strategies separate. With the rise of new digital organizing technologies and their increasingly widespread utilization among smaller campaigns and organizations, 2018 is the year that digital can meet field organizing in a meaningful way. From automated workflows to volunteer recruitment, event follow-ups, and GOTV, this panel will discuss what they’re seeing on the ground in 2018, and what is possible heading into 2020 and beyond.
Moderator
Amanda Coulombe
Amanda is the General Manager of Organizing at NGP VAN. Previously, she spent five years in the Product department, working with national and international clients to improve and develop new features that help campaigns and organizations maximize NGP VAN’s organizing tools to win in the field. Amanda believes strongly in marrying new technology with traditional organizing best practices to achieve efficient, grassroots-driven field campaigns. She has also spent more than a decade working in field and get out the vote (GOTV) operations on local, state, and national campaigns. Most recently she served as the Statewide GOTV Director for both Senator Elizabeth Warren and Senator Ed Markey in her home state of Massachusetts.
Panelists
Lauren Miller
Lauren Miller served as digital director for Elizabeth Warren’s historic 2012 Senate campaign in Massachusetts, and she continues to manage Senator Warren’s online communications, outreach, and fundraising strategy.
From 2013-2014, she was a senior director at Bully Pulpit interactive, the largest digital marketing firm of the Democratic Party. Most notably, Lauren led BPI’s work on Marty Walsh’s underdog mayoral campaign in Boston, serving as the campaign’s digital director for the preliminary and general elections.
Prior to joining the Warren campaign, Lauren spent more than six years at Blue State Digital, the technology and consulting firm best known for its work on BarackObama.com. As director of online communications, she built and managed a team of talented writers, social media experts, and content strategists in Washington, New York and London that ran programs for more than 100 political campaigns, advocacy groups, and nonprofit organizations.
Tessa Simonds
Tessa Simonds is the Director of Grassroots Mobilization at the Democratic National Committee, where she oversees the party’s digital organizing and national digital support programs.
She most recently served as interim Digital Director at the DNC, where she oversaw the digital program. Prior to the DNC, Tessa served as the Digital Director for the Texas Democratic Party, where she managed a team of five staff.