Robots with Canvass Packets: The Future of Digital Organizing
Session Type(s): Panel
Starts: Thursday, Aug. 2 3:30 PM (Eastern)
Ends: Thursday, Aug. 2 4:45 PM (Eastern)
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 is the communications director for the Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School, where she oversees all communications strategy and media relations.
For nearly a decade, Lauren served as senior advisor and digital director for Senator Elizabeth Warren on her 2012 and 2018 Senate campaigns and in her Capitol Hill office, building her digital program from scratch and helping her become one of the most powerful voices in the Democratic Party.
From 2013-2014, she was also a senior director at the digital marketing firm Bully Pulpit Interactive. Most notably, Lauren led BPI’s work on Marty Walsh’s underdog mayoral campaign in Boston and served as the campaign’s digital director.
Prior to joining the Warren campaign, Lauren was one of the first employees at Blue State Digital, the groundbreaking BarackObama.com technology company. As director of online communications, she built the firm’s email team and developed online advocacy, fundraising, and social media 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.