At POLC, one of the panels I attended that I want to discuss in this space was titled "Developing Mobile Social Software Applications." One of my clients wants to push in to the mobile/SMS space so I figured it'd be a valuable use of my time. I was right.

The panelists included:

* Justin Oberman (moderator) – Communications Consultant, Digitism
* Katrin Verclas – Co-Founder and Editor, MobileActive.org
* James Eberhard – CEO and Chairman, Motellus
* Doug Busk – Vice President of Industry Relations, SinglePoint

The top 6 take-away points that I'll be working in to my next presentation:
1. Keep in mind: All mobile is opt-in. You can't "buy a list."
2. Must have a contest or excitement to get people to sign-up for text messages.
3. Messages are limited to 160 characters – be precise.
4. How often do you communicate? When you have something important to say.
5. Always include an “ask” in every message.
6. With regard to embracing mobile: Focus first on SMS/text, then build a mobile website, and then downloads (wallpaper/ring tones).

I'll save you from re-hashing all of my notes, but I do want to focus on two quick points:
1. Doug’s company works for Barack Obama and said that his job is provide the “tools” to help Barack's campaign get their message out through mobile. In other words, they're not consulting with message but are providing another way for Barack to get that message out. Doug noted that your Text-campaign must have a holistic approach to be successful -- the message through your text must be consistent with the direct mail, phones, candidate message, etc. This is common sense to me as a communicator but still important to think about since you're adding another element to the pie.

2. Case-Study: Oprah/Barack appearances. The Barack advance team made a very serious effort to ensure that the audience and event organizers understood how to teach folks to send short-codes/opt-in to receive SMS alerts. 30 minutes prior to an event– the advance team would take the stage, taught folks how to send a short-code from their cell phone, and then offered a prize to come to the front-row to meet Oprah (the winner was selected from folks that signed up for SMS alerts).

To conclude, I'll end with noting that I was left asking myself why no campaign had started thinking of using SMS/text as a utility rather than simply a way to communicate a message. In other words, personally I use Google's SMS feature all the time because it's just as helpful as its website. In other words, because it's helpful, I use it all the time.

What I'd like to see as a campaign operative is giving a tool for 72-hour efforts so that organizers could ping the campaign via SMS for things like issue talking points, polling locations for those canvased and other useful items. That way the communications team could ensure that their message is getting out through field organizers/door-to-door efforts.