The Tuesday, March 9th meeting of the Rocky Mountain Internet Users Group (RMIUG) will feature a panel discussion called "Electing with Clicks: The impact of the Internet on Politics today."

As radio did in the 1930s and television did in the 1960's, the Internet is maturing into a major political medium in the 21st Century. Grassroots organizations are finding that combining the Internet with a compelling message, a passionate base, and a visionary leader can yield enormous results at a fraction of the time and cost. Many analysts believe that we are on the verge of a new age in political messaging, and organization.

Our panel will cover the use of the Internet in the political arena. What tools and techniques seem to work? What combinations of factors increase an organization's chances of effectively reaching its constituency?

The following guest speakers will provide an interesting perspective on the topic:

Matt Statman (matt@motivedi.com) serves as both the Co-Founder and Director
of Client Services for Motive Design+Interactive, a Denver
based brand and interactive marketing agency. Matt's company built
DeanForAmerica.org: former Presidential candidate and Vermont Governor
Howard Dean's website. DeanforAmerica.org is considered instrumental in
bringing the obscure politician to front-runner status. DeanForAmerica.org helped Governor Dean raise over $50 million (a record for a Democratic Presidential candidate) with an average campaign contribution of just $75 while exciting hundreds of thousands of passionate followers. Matt will discuss the experience of bringing Governor Dean online, the tools and techniques that made it such an integral force, and how the site influenced other contenders.

Jody Strogoff (jody@coloradostatesman) is editor/publisher of The Colorado
Statesman, a 105-year old weekly non-partisan periodical whose readership
includes all the legislators and members of the congressional delegation.
Two years ago, Jody ran a series of articles analyzing the websites of the
different candidates and campaigns. Jody will use her 30 years of political
analysis experience to give our discussion the perspective on what
candidates are doing with their websites and how the Internet is impacting
campaigning in general.

Bobby Clark (bclark@deanforamerica.com) is a recent alumnus of Dean for America. As one of the earliest staff members, he led the development of the Dean campaign's groundbreaking Web presence, including design and development of the campaign's Web site, rollout of features such as Dean Meetup and DeanTV, and establishment of the online contribution system that took in a record $23.5 Million in one year. The Dean campaign is widely recognized as the first presidential campaign to use the Internet effectively to build a national organization for grassroots organizing and fundraising. Prior to joining Dean for America, Bobby worked as a marketing executive, helping to start Internet companies in Colorado and California. He moved to the political arena in the 2002 election cycle, serving as Deputy Campaign Manager for Colorado's Election-Day Voter Registration Initiative.

URL's of interest:
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Motive Design+Interactive, http://www.motivedi.com
Dean for America, http://www.deanforamerica.org

The meeting is Tuesday, March 9th from 7:00 - 9:00 pm (with optional 6:30 pm
start for refreshments and informal networking). The meeting will be held at
The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) at 1850 Table Mesa Drive
in Boulder. To get to NCAR from the Boulder Turnpike (US 36) or Broadway (US
93), take Table Mesa Drive west towards the mountains for approximately 2.5
miles into the foothills. NCAR is at the top of the hill. For door-to-door
driving directions, go to MapQuest (http://www.mapquest.com/), click on
Driving Directions, enter your starting address, NCAR's address, and voila!
Park in the NCAR lot, go in the main door, and ask the guard to point you to
meeting, which is held in the main auditorium, right off the lobby. The
meeting is free and open to the public, but we may pass the hat to help
defray expenses.

Our meeting location seats about 120 people. That is usually enough room to
accommodate all attendees, but it's impossible for us to predict how many
people will show up for any given meeting. Seating is always on a
first-come, first serve basis, and in the event of more attendees than
seats, we won't be able to admit additional people into the auditorium after
all seats are filled.

Thanks to our two sponsors who help make RMIUG meetings happen:

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MicroStaff (www.microstaff.com) which provides Creative and Technical Talent
for Web, Interactive Media, Marketing Communications and Software
Development projects, is the sponsor of food and beverages for RMIUG
meetings.

ONEWARE (http://www.ONEWARE.com) -- a Colorado-based software company that provides semi-custom web-based applications, sponsors the RMIUG meeting
minutes.

Consultants and companies are invited to bring Internet-related Product
information, brochures, and business cards which will be displayed on an
information table.

There are email mailing lists set up for this group. To subscribe or
unsubscribe, see http://www.rmiug.org/maillist.html You can also reach the
RMIUG "Executive" Committee at rmiug-comm@rmiug.org. Our web site is at
http://www.rmiug.org/

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Please note that RMIUG is hosted at NCAR and we are their guests. NCAR has
security regulations in effect that we must follow in order to use the
facility. If any RMIUG attendee is unwilling to follow these simple
regulations, I would ask that he or she not attend and instead read the
minutes after the meeting.

Here are the NCAR security policies that must be followed:
1. No weapons.
2. Must sign in at front desk and provide name.
3. Cooperate with security folks including providing IDif requested.
4. We are guests of NCAR so cooperation and courtesy are expected when
dealing with NCAR staff.

If there are any questions or concerns with this policy, please contact me
directly.

Thanks, Josh Zapin (josh@rmiug.org).