Thanks for coming by the DemocracyInAction blog. This archive is no longer receiving live posting; blogging about DemocracyInAction, its online nonprofit tool Salsa, and all manner of dross to do with progressive online advocacy, now takes place at SalsaCommons.org.

Another nice entry in the podcast series of NYC-based consultant Big Duck, this one on designing for the web and e-mail. For some reason, it was overshadowed by something or other that happened this week.

"This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change." Barack Obama

Obama said it himself in his acceptance speech last night - We have a CHANCE for change. If progressives are to realize our ideals into policy/action, we're going to have to sustain grassroots pressure with all the tools in the tool box.... you know my favorite.

So what he's saying is this - Look, I can't just waive a magic want and grant you policies that make sense. This is still politics USA. Your tribes need to provide a groundswell of support for each and every issue to give me the political cover to make change. Voting me in is not enough - the party's just getting started.

Historian Arnold Toynbee theorized that civilizations gained the brio to flourish in the face of a "challenge-and-response" scenario: a military defeat, an inhospitable climate, or some other hindrance, was requisite to call forth the creative energy that would build an empire.

There's a lesson there for progressive advocates rolling out of bed this morning with an extra spring in their step ... and for conservatives who'd just as soon pull up the sheets.

Progressive online organizing has blossomed during the opposition's governance, and it's survived the post-2006 Democratic majority in Congress -- for understandable reasons. But one onion-layer behind the netroots in the Internet organizing history are Matt Drudge and Free Republic: online spaces that grew huge in the late 90's against the challenge-and-response scenario posed by the Clinton administration. Nowhere is it written that liberals must dominate cyberspace.

Check out this great video from Missoula 501 Club presenter, Harold Shinsato, programmer for SAP. He explains that real power of technology is to provide your organization's early adopters and innovators with online tools which can form a tribe of empowered supporters.