2009 Politics Online Conference Photos

A great time was had by all!  Thanks to everyone who stopped by our booth and to the organizers of the conference at George Washington University and Campaigns & Elections.  See you again next year!

Rep. Mike Quigley Fills Illinois 5th District Seat

Yesterday Congress swore in the Honorable Mike Quigley, who fills the open 5th District of Illinois after winning a special election earlier this month.  The seat became open when Rep. Rahm Emanuel joined the Obama Administration last winter.  Congrats to Rep. Quigley— we’ve got a backlog of letters waiting for you!

Sponsoring the 2009 Politics Online Conference

We’ve just finished two days at the annual Politics Online Conference in downtown Washington, DC, where we sponsored and had a table to demo the Rally Congress platform.  We had a great time.  Photos and details to follow!

A Few Tweaks to the Control Panel

Clients logging in to their control panel may notice a few changes today.  We’ve created a new box for “System-wide” adjustments that impact all pages on your site.  These include uploading a logo or header image, changing the color scheme of your Rally Congress pages and title text, and editing the default forward-to-friend text.  Hopefully this improved layout will make managing the system even easier!

Easter Server Upgrades!

The Rally Congress team was up before dawn yesterday as we migrated the entire technical platform and all client databases to a new set of servers.  We did the move on the holiday to minimize the disruption and downtime, and to do it when the system was least busy.

The move was smooth and the result are web pages that are even faster than ever!  The new capactity will also allow us to handle even heavier weekday peak load.  The migration is part of our long-term investment plan and will support new features for you in 2009.

Adding Guam’s Delegate Madeleine Bordallo

We’ve just added support for Guam zip codes and emails to Congresswoman Bordallo after several requests from Guam residents.  Of course, for U.S. servicemen and women temporarily serving abroad, the best thing is to send email to the officials representing your permanent address.

Guam, of course, is a U.S. territory in the Pacific Ocean— “Where America’s Day Begins!”

New Feature: Edit Your Forward-to-Friend Pages

Every Rally Congress client has “Forward-to-a-Friend” pages that are standardized for all of your calls to action.  These pages, of course, allow your users to engage their friends through system-generated emails. (You can view an example.) Every account includes some default text, but now you can make changes if you prefer something different.  Just use the “Edit Forward-to-Friend Message” link in the Control Panel.

Congressional Twitter and Facebook Contact Info

Have you heard that John McCain is a profilic tweeter on Twitter, with over 340,000 followers?

Many members of Congress have a Facebook presence, and some are even on Twitter!  These are important new avenues where you and your advocacy campaign can reach them.  One of the great features of Facebook is the comments “Wall” where friends can leave a public message.

There’s a random screenshot of Senator Blanche Lincoln’s Facebook page.  You can look up House and Senate Twitter and Facebook contact info (where it exists) by member: http://www.rallycongress.com/congress/

Rally Congress Introduces “Learn More” Pages

A petition is a great tool to advance your cause, but many users want more in-depth background information and talking points than can be provided in a petition format.  That’s why Rally Congress now includes “Learn More” pages—  content pages that you can associate with your petitions.

You can create, edit, and delete your own Learn More pages in the Rally Congress control panel’s Petition section.  Go ahead and post issue background information, links to articles, and other relevant items that support your petition. You should also use the dropdown menu to associate your page content with a specific petition.

Your “Learn More” Pages will appear as links on your petition and in your main Action Center page.  These pages are also optimized for search engine placement, so adding original content on your issue will help bring more traffic to your petition campaign!

Senate.gov Launches History of Russell Senate Office Building

For those of us who love Congressional history, there’s a cool new online feature on the Russell Senate Office Building, which was constructed at the turn of the last century.  Of all of the Congressional office buildings, Russell is the most richly ornate…its marbled and columned hallways embody the phrase “corridors of power.”