Grassroots Enterprise

Canada, or "America's hat" as my colleague Abbey Kos likes to say, turns 141 years old today—July 1st, 2008.

For me personally it means memories of a day off, fireworks, barbecue, praying for the sun to shine, going to a great concert (Bryan Adams in St. John's, Newfoundland, probably around 1990, for example). Now those memories have grown to include parties like the one held today at the Canadian Embassy in downtown D.C.—a great soiree held every year drawing a few thousand folks.

I'd like to think that in some small way Grassroots has helped Canadians (and anyone with a connection to Canada for that matter) celebrate the anual patriotic indulgence of America's closest ally. The Canadian Embassy in Washington D.C. continues to be one of our long-term clients, with our flagship site for them, www.Connect2Canada.com. If you are Canadian or are connected to Canada in some way, and you live in the United States, you probably want to be in this database for a few reasons.

As my regular readers, googlers, and stalkers know, I had the great pleasure of traveling to Istanbul and Warsaw a few weeks back to speak at a few word of mouth marketing conferences (my topic being, "word of mouth advocacy").

Now, the conferences were top-notch, and frankly, a blast.  And Istanbul and Warsaw are both wonderful cities, and places you should visit if you have the chance.  Seriously, the old city section of Warsaw is truly amazing, and yet... ya hardly hear didly about it.

But perhaps the highlight of the trip was something that shocked, amazed, and humored me all at the same time. 

Not yet.  So I'll tell you what he committed to talk about.  Custom Puma sneakers. 

Really.

Puma has introduced a "have-it-your-way" of a new kind. Shoppers in select locations during select periods can choose the 13 components that comprise a sneaker to create their own versions. The first round continues through July 17 and is available in SoHo, Santa Monica, London and Munich. 

It's a WOM kinda thing...for the sneaker crowd who want unique sneaks with a classy brand on top. 

Sure beats the PF Flyers I used to wear!...

I think I have a crush on a guy from the Internet.

He’s not the type I usually go for – married, living in a far away city, employed by a company that kind of sucks.  His name is Frank Eliason, and he works in customer service for Comcast.  He’s also the Twitter face of the organization; you can find him at https://twitter.com/comcastcares.

Folks, just a quick post from overseas, before heading out to dinner (at what still feels like 11am my time... oy...)

Just wrapped up a Word of Mouth Marketing conference in Istanbul. I was both a presenter and an MC for the whole event. Lots of fun, and a great, super savvy crowd of around 300. Had a blast, but am frankly exhausted. Hoping to get photos and video in the next week or so, so stay tuned.

But no rest for the weary yet, as I'm flying out in the am to Warsaw, to speak at yet another WOMM conference. More to come, but here's the site.

"I know what I want...I just don't know how to get there." That's a familiar frustration for folks trying to tackle a public affairs challenge by harnessing online tech. Too often I see people implementing e-technology and shoe-horning it into an advocacy strategy. Frankly, that rarely works and is likely to cause blisters. You never want Tactics chasing Strategy.

The folks at Liberty Hill Foundation, a group that partners with grassroots organizations to combat poverty and injustice in Los Angeles, want to turn that around so advocacy managers can have more confidence that their strategy is driving the online tactics...

Grassroots Enterprise Wins Third Straight “Best” Award for Social Networking.

The American Assoc. of Political Consultants Honors Innovative Online Public Affairs Firm with 6 “Pollie” Awards.

Grassroots Enterprise (GRE), a high-tech communications firm specializing in building grassroots support for causes, products and companies, today announced it has won the prestigious “Gold Pollie”© for “Best Use of Social Networking” for its work with the...

Wow. 
The American Association of Political Consultants awarded half a dozen "Pollie" awards to GRE this year, including a Gold for "Best Use of Social Networking" for our work with the Video Game Voters Network.   With "social networking" a big focus in the Web 2.0 world, we are thrilled that we won the major awards in this category from the three big industry conferences. 

Our other Pollie awards include:

A Silver Pollie for "Web video -- Grassroots/Issue advocacy" for our work with the Entertainment Software Association and the "The Fight for Video Games" web trailer...

Grassroots Enterprise won the prestigious "Golden Dot Award" for Best Political Application for its work on a groundbreaking "I Am Smoke-Free" advocacy application built on the Facebook® Platform. The award was given at the annual Politics Online Conference, sponsored by the Institute for Democracy Politics and the Internet.

This represents the second time in as many years that Grassroots Enterprise has taken home a Golden Dot Award, having also won for "Outstanding National Campaign" in 2007.

A few of us here at GRE were selected to serve as judges for the 2008 American Association of Political Consultants "Pollie" awards. Of course, the rules prohibit us from judging our own work (oh well) so we spent a lot of time reviewing TV and print ads, telephone outreach programs and direct mail campaigns.

Thankfully the Pollie online judging interface is sharp, making it a whole lot better, and faster, than being a judge on American Idol and sitting on a panel with dizzy Paula.

Frankly, some entries we saw were incredibly well done and others, uh, well...others were crap. In fact, I was reminded of Simon Cowell, a judge on the popular American Idol. He gets a lot of flak for telling-it-like-it-is...some call him mean. I disagree...