Enjoy, but also be on alert.

As someone who has voted in every election since legal—even registered when living in Minnesota to vote in the 2006 Congressional races—I’ve always viewed the action as a civic duty. I’m pretty sure that’s how it was taught in school. This is the first time I see voting as an opportunity, as a privilege. Not only am I reminded by my non U.S. citizen friends living here, who would (insert hyperbole here) to vote, but also I couldn’t be more excited to be part of something so big. Sure voting has always been a national activity. But it’s never felt so historic or made me feel connected nationally and globally.

For that matter, it’s never made me feel so close to my family. I’m out on Long Island today to cast my vote along with my immediate family members. This election has certainly been a global event, but it has also been a family affair. For a year at least, we have had discussions and debates (during the Democratic Primaries mostly), we have swapped stories of local politics, and we have sent countless emails and links to each other.

We have come together. We have rallied around Barack Obama. Of course, we want change. But we have chosen to believe in and invest in Hope.

I said once a few months ago, “McCain makes me want to hide. Obama makes me want to help.” I’ll admit that’s a bit dramatic. Yet, the sentiment still holds true. While McCain has based much of his campaign on the kind of fear that makes me want to look out for my own best interests, Obama has reminded us that we’re all in this together. He has called upon and inspired many individuals already to take greater responsibility for making (and actions to make) our communities better places to live and our country (once again) a symbol of progress, adaptability, respect and possibility. I think each would be a capable President; however, only one candidate has shown himself to be a thoughtful, steady and visionary leader. That’s what we need in the U.S. and the world.

I can’t wait to cast my vote for Barack Obama.

While the examples are certainly focused on politically-motivated people, I think the same is pretty much true for most organizations. It’s hard to be nimble. It’s scary to launch and learn. It takes a lot of constant monitoring and hands on responding.

This week has been a solid one for Obama Baton. Just over two weeks since the original idea was had, we’re building momentum and an audience of supporters, many of whom are following on Twitter and joined our Facebook groups for New York and Chicago. We’ve also received some really nice shout-outs.

Yet, when it comes to the spreading of an idea, we can’t even compare to “That One”. Within a day of the second Presidential debate—when McCain referred to Senator Obama using the term in quotes—this site was live and selling “That One” gear. They recognized the meme immediately when they heard it, and now their Facebook page already has over 21,000 fans.

My final example (not to be confused with the final countdown – via @lilmissjen) of a person compelled to create by Barack has got to be Mike Cuffe with The Obama Experiment – via @darrylohrt. And though it may have taken longer than the above creations from idea to execution, he has promoted his work with a video of art speed painting.

Lastly, I want to wish good luck to Kevin, who will be running the Chicago Marathon this Sunday with Obama Baton. Thanks everyone for your support. Please continue to pass it on.

Clay + Kevin + the rest of the Hustlewood team have been working their butts off, Giorgio (can’t resist the Zoolander reference) and have managed to get a site up and running (can’t resist the pun) in less than ten days. We’re still revising it and will likely continue to do so over the next week (if not more) as we learn what’s working and discover opportunities to enhance the experience. What that means is making the idea and call to action more clear and compelling, the blog portion more interesting and useful, and the pieces (Twitter, Flickr, Facebook NYC & CHI, etc.) work more seamlessly and effectively together.

As I said in my last post, we’re trying to be as transparent and inclusive in building this idea (and we hope, movement) as possible. We’re using our blogs and now the blog on obamabaton.com to do so. (Please comment over there with any Obama Baton-specific thoughts you have.) And we’re learning quite a bit along the way. But we’ve still got a long way to go—a couple of marathons at least—before Barack wins on November 4th. So please visit the site, show your support, and Pass It On.

Since Clay kicked it off by making a bad-ass video titled “How To Wireframe”, I figured I’d follow up with another “How To” post. Definitely got aggressive with the title, but creating a movement is the goal. Let’s begin at, well, the beginning.

The inspiration: Very simply, Barack Obama. I, like many of you, have been moved by our Democratic Presidential candidate. I credit him with building broad interest in politics. But more importantly (knowing that interest would have grown given dissatisfaction with Bush and our current economic crisis), I credit Barack with generating true enthusiasm about our future. I’m in Paul’s camp of believing in the power of the Hope message. We both understand it hasn’t been proven to stir people to action quite like fear. Even so, it took him through the primaries and continues to motivate many of us to do something…including me.

What’s great is a ton of people have take action—whether at the grassroots or national level, whether in the art community or celebrities or youth, whether working within his campaign or outside of it. Yet, ‘wanting to do something’ is where I’ve been for months, and I get the sense that I’ve not been alone. Until last week, September 24th, when I had an idea worth sharing:

I show you this screen grab from my GChat conversation with Clay for two reasons. First, because it’s always interesting (at least for me) to see ideas in their birthplace (i.e. napkins, sketch books, PowerPoint, etc.). Second, because sharing an idea makes it that much more likely to come to life. in this case, Clay and his Hustlewood team were the fire-starters, the catalysts for action. A special thanks to Kevin for the work he’s been doing here designing our above logo and soon-to-launch site.) Third, because sharing also makes your idea better from adding others’ thoughts or just clarifying your own. The next line in that convo was “let’s do barackbaton.com – with virtual baton to sign, hold design competition…” As you can see, the name has changed (initially called Barack Baton – those who know me know I love me some alliteration) and the idea has become more focused on real life interactions.

Getting the right people on board (especially people with skills/passions, other than writing which you can tell by the length of this email is the area I enjoy most) was key. Additionally, I’m getting some other parts in place such as:

1. Developing a voice for Obama Baton before and after the site launches. I’ve, unsurprisingly for those in the ad world, decided on Twitter. Had been looking into Yammer but have to stay where my people are.

2. Creating a face for Obama Baton and showing the faces of its supporters. For this, I’ve gone to Flickr. Take a peak at the logos, which we’ve made available to take, as well as some shots of my family with the baton. Which brings me to step 3.

3. Buying the physical batons. On a tight time-line, this was a bit harder than expected given I was looking for blue batons specifically that were not made of cheap plastic. After unsuccessful trips to Sports Authority, Modell’s, Paragon and Jack Rabbits in Manhattan, I finally found a couple nice aluminum ones at Super Runners Shop in Huntington, NY and was able to get them engraved at Things We Remember at Walt Whitman Mall.

4. Building a community for Obama Baton supporters and runners in New York on Facebook. Chicago coming very soon.

That’s that for the next hour at least. More to come as we run full speed forward. Hope you found that interesting. Now it’s your turn. Follow Obama Baton, Take Photos and tag them “obamabaton”, and/or Join the Obama Baton group. Or comment here.

I’ve been meaning to post this video (below) for a couple of weeks now since Gonzalo Perez of Motivo Insights showed it at an ESPN off-site. It’s been online since May, so I’m already late to this party. But isn’t that the Latino way! (Don’t worry that’s not whitey speaking out of turn; he and another speaker confirmed this was not just a stereotype that day.) Anyway, Voto Latino teamed up with Declare Yourself to get young (18-29) Latinos involved in the voting process (first and foremost, by getting them to register to vote). This, one in a series of videos, is the result:

“La Pasion De La Decision” definitely seems to resonate with the members of this audience, who embrace their hybrid Hispanic-American lives. They no doubt feel a connection to Telenovelas (whether they grew up with them or through their parents/grandparents) but likely think they are just as over the top as their non-Hispanic counterparts/friends. The message doesn’t get lost in the spoof, IMO, and benefits greatly from the story being played by Wilmer Valderrama (of whom, I’m an unashamed supporter) and Rosario Dawson (of whom, I’m certainly not ashamed fan). Also check out episode 3, for a cameo by Craigslists’ Craig Newmark.

Te sigo amando.

That said, I was extremely delighted to see my buddy, Jake, back on the blogging horse (again, bipartisan horse) with his take on the Veep Selection. As he holds a degree in Philosophy from my alma mater (and mathematics for those counting – I can’t help myself) as well as has lineage in Congress (my father’s father was a mechanic…), I always like to get his perspective in this area. And his thoughts on whom each candidate should choose for the VP position are definitely worth the read.

Out of respect to Tim Russert—did anyone else watch the Remembering show this weekend? So moving—, I wanted to keep the intersection of politics and immaturity to a minimum last Friday. Though the mourning period isn’t over, I did want to pass on these things that made me cringe before they are too out of date:
1. This fake McCain and Montag correspondence.
2. This real Fox headline.

Finally, for anyone who hasn’t seen Obama’s Fight the Smears yet, take a look. There’s a reason he keeps getting positive articles written about his web strategy. Tools like this one, which to paraphrase BFFB re-frame the conversation (smears, not claims) and allow you to spend more time having the conversations that matter to the American public.

And I don’t give dissatisfaction with Bush the credit for this spike in and sustained interest. I was pretty angry in ‘04 as well. I’m excited by the fact that we have a serious female candidate (more so than when we had a Jew as a VP on the ticket) and the prospect of our first woman President. I even like her. However, while she represents a change in leadership (policy and proof that we’ve grown as a nation), she still represents what I find uninteresting and uninspiring about politics. If she and Edwards were the two Democratic candidates left last night, I would have felt a “win” for one vs. the other more critical. Yet I can tell you with certainty, if I watched at all (unlikely) I would not have watched with enthusiasm, with eager anticipation…the way I did last night.

Barack Obama makes me passionate about politics. (Yes, I found myself researching the process of awarding delegates last night.) He makes me believe things can be different. And most importantly, makes me and others feel they must do something. He inspires action (which is what Do Day is all about). I stayed up to watch his speech last night, and something he said hit such a nerve that I got out of bed to find a pen and write it down:

We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.