Democracy In Action

(From this week's Weekly Highlight email. Click here to sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday!)

It's the "Salsa Weekly Highlight," your quick hit on what's new in Salsa to help get the most out of your online program. As always, you can find plenty more news, updates, and conversation throughout the week on SalsaCommons.org.

Last week, I shared highlighted Salsa's ability to automatically email you query results on a regular schedule.

This week, we'll take a look at that exact same feature in reports.

Schedule recurring exports of Report results

Just as with queries, for reports you need to execute regularly, you can let Salsa do the work for you by scheduling them to run automatically.

(From this week's Weekly Highlight email. Click here to sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday!)

It's the "Weekly Salsa Highlight," your quick hit on what's new in Salsa to help get the most out of your online program. As always, you can find plenty more news, updates, and conversation throughout the week on SalsaCommons.org.

This week, I wanted to flag another oft-overlooked feature that's actually been in Salsa for a while.

Schedule recurring exports of Query results

Almost all Salsa users take advantage of Queries to segment or export their supporter lists.

For queries you need to execute regularly, you can let Salsa do the work for you by scheduling them to run automatically.

Light, but provocative, this video is making the rounds: the state of the Internet at the end of the Aughts.

I guarantee a few of the numbers in here will arch an eyebrow. (The video is also an interesting template for the engaging presentation of dry facts and figures...)

(From this week's Weekly Highlight email. Click here to sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday!)

It's the "Weekly Salsa Highlight," your quick hit on what's new in Salsa to help get the most out of your online program. As always, you can find plenty more news, updates, and conversation throughout the week on SalsaCommons.org.

We've been sharing a slew of new Salsa features with you lately, but Salsa also has a lot of great tools that have always been there.

This week, a feature you might not have noticed or taken advantage of (though hopefully you have!):

Email Open and Click-Through Rates by Group

You probably already know all about retrieving Email Blast performance numbers in the Email Summary Report.

Did you know the summary report also allows you to break down email performance metrics among any subset of your list?

Middle Coast LLC, the hottest new consulting firm in the Progressive Movement, is pleased to join every online organizer's best friend, Salsa Labs, in co-sponsoring Welcome to Roots Camp - A Night of Mayhem.

In teaming up with the good folks at the New Organizing Institute, Middle Coast and Salsa wish to honor the front line activists who make progressive change possible with whiskey, beer and delicious snacks.

Get ready to rev up your Rock Band on and carry on like the Karaoke star you know you are, and join us at Salsa’s headquarters located at the corner of Connecticut and R NW, just north of the Dupont Circle metro station. The entrance is on R st, between the Starbucks and the Teaism.

Empowering people is hard work. Middle Coast and Salsa are proud to lend a hand to the New Organizing Institute as they host "a candid reflection on all of the online and offline organizing done in 2009." Roots Camp DC begins Saturday, Feb. 20, but the party starts Friday night at 8:00 pm.

So join Middle Coast, Salsa, and NOI - a triumvirate of organizing excellence and good cheer - and kick off Roots Camp as it sprouts in the District in 2010.

Middle Coast LLC is a team of skilled professionals and passionate advocates with decades of experience in the progressive advocacy and campaign world. Melissa Byrne, Gina Cooper, Lindsay Marsh and Melissa McNee founded Middle Coast in 2009 to help progressive causes and candidates find success one strategic decision at a time.

It's the most wonderful time of the year: RootsCamp!

Hosted by the New Organizing Institute, a great organization we're proud to call a Salsa user, RootsCamp is an essential stop on the online organizing training circuit. At ten bucks for a bustling "unconference" with political strategist and professional communicators who seriously know their onions, you'd be crazy not to come.

Since you're here in town anyway, do like the e.politics man says and join Wired For Change and Salsa Labs and get planted pre-Rootscamp tonight from 8 p.m. to late at the Salsa offices at 1700 Connecticut Avenue NW (the corner of Connecticut and R, right above the Starbucks).

'Twas the night before Rootscamp and all through DC Progressives were looking for something to see. Ready to talk about topics so varied, They begin looking 'round for a place to be merry.

When up above Dupont there rose such a cry. They said to themselves, "hey, let's go stop by!" On R street they found a party so sweet-- There was booze to be drunk and people to meet.

They wanted to drink and rock really hard But karaoke killed careers and georgetown killed bars. Come rock band! Come Guitar Hero! Come whiskey! Come Beer! Salsa Labs threw a rager, and you heard it here.

If you're a Salsa user, you'll be hearing a lot more about it over the next four months, but for now, just stick a pin in the calendar:

Salsa Users Conference
June 24-25
Washington, DC

This will be our second user conference. The first (in June 2008) was a huge hit, highlighted by a Lawrence Lessig keynote address.

No Lessig slated this year (at least not yet), but that's all the excuse we need for this remix of his recent Colbert Report appearance.

(From this week's Weekly Highlight email. Click here to sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday!)

It's the "Weekly Salsa Highlight," your quick hit on what's new in Salsa to help get the most out of your online program. As always, you can find plenty more news, updates, and conversation throughout the week on SalsaCommons.org.

We've been keeping you abreast of our ongoing project to upgrade your Salsa headquarters interface, tool by tool. Over the past two weeks, we rolled out new and improved workflows for Donations Pages and Signup Pages.

This week, check out the new Content Pages workflow!

As with Donations and Signup Pages, this streamlined Content Items workflow clarifies the existing page creation process, with

• more explanatory tooltip text
• a single compact tab
• the ability to set a page to "inactive" -- meaning that supporters who follow the link will no longer be able to see its content

Take a look (and consult the Content Items documentation) and let me know what you think!

There'll be more headquarters workflow improvements along the same lines in the weeks ahead, and we'll be sure to let you know as they roll out.

So you know: think twice before targeting your email lobbying campaign at the federal judge who's hearing your case.

Facing a new ruling from U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman, after a federal appeals court instructed him to reconsider an earlier $37.6 million contempt sanction, infomercial pitchman Kevin Trudeau apparently thought the judge might take note of praise from his fans for his books.

And Gettleman clearly did. Finding his court e-mail and BlackBerry flooded with thousands of messages sent in response to a blog post yesterday by the syndicated radio talk show host, the judge addressed what he described as e-mail harassment by threatening to have marshals come and get Trudeau if he didn't appear at an emergency hearing today, reports the Associated Press.

Then, when Trudeau did appear, the judge held him in criminal contempt and required him to surrender his passport and post $50,000 bond, the news agency recounts.

It's no secret that DemocracyInAction loves non-profits. To show our committment to the progressive non profit sector, DIA is giving away 5 free accounts to qualifying 501c3 organizations. Our promotion is designed for groups who 1) aren't using Salsa already, 2) have an impressive organizing ability and 3) who can't afford it otherwise. If you know of an organization who fits the bill, please send them our application - http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/103/t/113/questionnaire.jsp?questionnaire_KEY=975

(From this week's Weekly Highlight email. Click here to sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday!)

It's the "Weekly Salsa Highlight," your quick hit on what's new in Salsa to help get the most out of your online program. As always, you can find plenty more news, updates, and conversation throughout the week on SalsaCommons.org.

Even though we're snowbound here in D.C., we've been hard at work enhancing the tools you use every day in the headquarters.

Last week, we told you about a new Donations workflow.

This week, I'm excited to unveil our new Signup Pages workflow.

As with Donations, this new Signup Pages workflow streamlines and clarifies the existing page creation process.

• We've kept all the same fields and setup choices you're used to, but grouped them into compact tabs of related options.
• We've added more explanatory tooltip text to help you find your way about quickly.
• And we've rolled in enhancements you've already seen elsewhere, such as the ability to build auto-responses on the fly in the page workflow itself.

These updates have been pushed out live this morning, so take a gander, and let me know what you think!

There'll be more headquarters workflow improvements along the same lines in the weeks ahead, and we'll be sure to let you know as they roll out.

(From this week's Weekly Highlight email. Click here to sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday!)

It's the "Weekly Salsa Highlight," your quick hit on what's new in Salsa to help get the most out of your online program. As always, you can find plenty more news, updates, and conversation throughout the week on SalsaCommons.org.

As you might have already noticed, we've made a few tweaks this week to streamline your Donations page setup process.

• We've kept all the same fields and setup choices you're used to, but grouped them into compact tabs of related options.
• We've added more explanatory tooltip text to help you find your way about quickly.
• And we've rolled in enhancements you've already seen elsewhere, such as the ability to build auto-responses on the fly in the page workflow itself.

I hope these changes will help your team make brilliant donation pages in a flash, and let new Salsa users acclimate in the blink of an eye. Give it a try, and let us know what you think!

P.S. -- If you're in D.C., remember to come by this Thursday, Feb. 4 for our in-person training and happy hour!

(From this week's Weekly Highlight email. Click here to sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday!)

It's the "Weekly Salsa Highlight," your quick hit on what's new in Salsa to help get the most out of your online program. As always, you can find plenty more news, updates, and conversation throughout the week on SalsaCommons.org.

You, our users, have often asked for more options to keep old campaigns, donation pages, events, and other aging Salsa data out from underfoot.

After all, it's a pain to pick through long lists of historical actions just to get the few ongoing ones you need to see. And you don't want to delete them outright and lose the data altogether.

Solution: just archive them.

It couldn't be easier:

• Any Salsa data can be archived just by tagging the entry archive.

Archived entries disappear from your default Salsa lists of data, but they haven't been erased. Instead, an "Include Archived Entries" link toggles between a view of the filtered list (excluding archived items) and a view of the entire list (including archived items).

Archived data is never filtered out from any queries or reports unless you explicitly incorporate the archive tag.

I started using this brand-new feature myself just the other day and I absolutely love it. Give it a try, and the State of your Salsa will be: tidy!

There's always an election somewhere in America, and since this is an even-numbered year, there will always be a few hundred thousand of them.

The time is ripe to jump on the advanced organizing platforms available through Wired For Change -- and through package deals, Democratic candidates for Senate, House, and state legislatures can all get set up on Salsa in moments for next to nothing.

But it's time to think strategy, too. 2008 is so 13 months ago! The indefatigable Colin Delany of epolitics.com shares this video of his discussion with one of our former fellow-travelers about the lessons local candidates can and can't draw from the Obama campaign's model.

Topical free ebook downloads from Colin:

• Learning from Obama: Lessons for Online Communicators in 2009 and Beyond
• How Candidates Can Use the Internet to Win in 2010

Think not enough has changed?

Change.org is publicly launching its second annual "Ideas for Change in America" this coming Monday, January 25. But why wait for the public? Partners like you, me, and the Salsa-using nonprofit community can get a head start posting ideas at www.change.org/ideas.

You might want to get in at the front of the line in your issue area. Change.org says it will be giving nonprofits the email addresses of everyone who votes for their idea, so long as those users are not already signed into Change.org and do not opt out ... so there's list-building potential for everyone: the first Ideas for Change in America last year drew more than 7,500 ideas and 650,000 votes.

To participate, all a nonprofit has to do is submit an idea for a policy or program they want to see changed or implemented, and encourage supporters to vote for their idea.

Gets even better if you win. After the last round of public voting in February, Change.org will host an event in Washington, DC announcing the 10 winning ideas and presenting them to Obama Administration officials ... then promote said winners and their sponsoring organizations to more than 1 million members and 15,000 bloggers in Change.org's universe.

Question? Here's the FAQ.

(From this week's Weekly Highlight email. Click here to sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday!)

It's the "Weekly Salsa Highlight," your quick hit on what's new in Salsa to help get the most out of your online program.

We're always making improvements to the Salsa headquarters that you use as a campaign manager, any time we find things that could work a bit smoother.

This week, I wanted to share a couple of recent enhancements to your Email Auto-Responses/Triggers section.

We've pared down and clarified the display you get when you choose "List Auto-Responses" under the Email tab.

This simplified table of saved Auto-Responses should make finding and managing them a snap.

In response requests from you, our users, to clarify the process of building an Auto-Response, we've added tooltips (highlighted below), and even incorporated the popular "Auto-Generate Text from HTML" feature from our email blaster.

I hope these changes help your organization use the powerful Auto-Responses feature!

As always, you can find plenty more news, updates, and conversation throughout the week on SalsaCommons.org.

As a Massachusetts Democrat, I grew up with my parents pointing to Teddy as the example of what it meant to stand up for your principles, even when it might be not be popular, even when everyone else shouted you down. This is not just a race for a Massachusetts Senate seat. This is a race to select someone to carry on the legacy of Teddy Kennedy. This is a race to ensure that national healthcare, the promise of 40 years of progressive politics, becomes law. Martha Coakley is the 60th vote for cloture and Scott Brown has vowed to be the 41st to block it. It's that simple.