Occupy San Diego Email Blast Team

I am happy to hear that we have a few people who have stepped forward to help with the email blast! I really appreciate this because I think you'll agree that it is an important organizing tool for OSD, and it is best to have a few people working on a team for everything. Plus, I need some help so we can create a better daily update, without taking all of my time. The other important aspect is that I have two trips coming up and we'll need to have this whole task comfortably being executed by other people by then (beginning and middle of Dec.)

Now that I have been doing this for a couple of weeks, it is pretty clear what needs to be done, in the current concept of this daily update. (But I am open to a bit more brainstorming about what should be in it, how it should look etc. -- later. Let's just get everyone on board and helping get it out and then we can have that conversation.)

One person should be the lead person responsible for the main edits on the blast email. This is because otherwise it is hard to remember what has already been changed. Other topics can be easily edited by almost anyone. Even concurrent edits will normally be merged properly. To work together most effectively, make your edits to the topic of interest and save it right away, don't leave it open or others will not see your edits.

The other files can be edited at any time... if an email goes out and something was incorrect say in events or media, it can be fixed and there is no need for a correction email... the correction will be effective immediately because the email has the user click through to the web version.

Email Blast Procedure

Step Description	How to do it in detail	Who should do this
Create new blast topic. Copy last blast into one with a new name using the next date.	View last blast. Click "More Topic Actions" at bottom. -- Use "Copy" section. -- Change name, click Copy	Blast lead (right now Ray Lutz)
Update Annoucements	Copy any relevant announcements to All Occupy San Diego Announcements, delete as appropriate.	Blast Lead
Update News in new blast topic	Edit blast topic. Find a good photo or comic for the top, use link to it or attach it to the topic and use that link.	Blast Lead
Edit events	Open topic Occupy San Diego Events, click Edit. If a date does not exist, create it using the same format. Make sure there is a STARTSECTION marker right before it. Check the Occupy San Diego Calendar 2 to make sure it looks good. If you include a link, make sure you make it sorter by using [[Long URL][Short text, like "Facebook Event" or "RSVP" or "Info..."]]	Any Team member, Josephine Piarulli and Jason Packman are working on this. ]]
Add media	If it does not already exist, create a section for the next blast with "STARTSECTION" and "STOPSECTION" markers similar to what is already there. Add media (interesting links to articles, videos, etc. from Facebook stream or emails) in that section using the formating rules described at the top. The new section will be included in the body of the blast.	Any team member, Josephine Piarulli mainly working on this.
Check Over	Check over the entire blast email. With these new changes, the main email blast topic won't be changed too much.	Blast Lead
Blast It	At about 9pm: Copy the top of the web page and paste it into an email, using an email client that will accept formatted HTML page. Make sure FROM is correct, TO will be occupysd@citizensoversight.org Share link on Occupy San Diego group and community pages.	Blast Lead
Post It	Post to facebook groups, etc.	Blast Lead

Main tasks that are involved:

• keep schedule up to date and check with all committees, esp. education (teach-ins) and outreach (marches, etc.)
• review Facebook posts and gather up links from the main ones.
• Field email questions about what is going on.
• Accept email information and put it in the schedule, after confirming.
• Get agenda and reports from the GA and any other committees that are interested.
• Actually edit the next email blast. This is something we can do as a team.
• A couple of photos, etc are cool.
• send it out and post to FB, etc.

I think deciding what might be best for you depends on what you normally do. i.e. if you spend all day on FB then it would be not much more work to watch for cool posts that we should blast. This seems to be a good match for Omar and Ben.

Fortunately, I have been using a collaboration tool for a number of years, and it will really help us work on this together. The learning curve is pretty small for this, but it is a bit more than something like google docs because it does a lot more (potentially). (Later, this can be migrated to another domain but for now we are using citizensoversight.org because it is already available and all set up for this purpose.)

To continue this conversation, let's use email. Just reply all to keep everyone on board.

Also, you should go to this topic and read it, and register on the copswiki.org site.

• http://www.copswiki.org/Common/BasicInstructions

The core topic for all the email blasts is here:

• http://www.copswiki.org/Occupy/OccupySanDiegoEmailBlasts

And I'll be making this one:

• http://www.copswiki.org/Occupy/OccupySanDiegoEmailBlastTeam

to help us organize ourselves.