I'm on my way to Austin, TX for American for Prosperity's Defending the American Dream Summit.

I'm not alone.

Countless others are making the trek to train local Texas activists and bloggers to be effective:

David All, Joe Mansour, Matt Sheffield, Sendhil Panchadsaram, David Almacy, Vincent Harris, Steve Stapleton, William Beutler, Danny Glover and Robert Bluey are all traveling to make a difference for the conservative movement.

All of these people (and many more) are engaged in Leadership Institute New Media training tomorrow.

Look forward to live updates from the event and please feel free to offer comments & to suggest prime locations to hang out in Austin.

The Leadership Institute is working with Americans for Prosperity's Erik Telford to put together top-notch Internet training for local conservative activists and bloggers at AFP's RightOnline, Defending the American Dream Summit on July 18th & 19th in Austin, TX.

The result is a cutting-edge program and a step in the right direction for the conservative movement.  This is the first of many more opportunities for online trainers to go where our local activists are -- to train them on the ground to be more effective online. 

I'm so grateful to the speakers who are a part of this important training on July 18th:

David All (Slatecard.com), Sendhil Panchadsaram(Slatecard.com), Joe Mansour (David All Group), Robert Bluey (Heritage Foundation), David Almacy (Waggener Edstrom), William Beutler (New Media Strategies), Steve Stapleton (KMA Communications), Vincent Harris (Senator John Cornyn), Danny Glover (Eyeblast.tv) and Matt Sheffield (Newsbusters) and so many other prominent conservative voices.

 You can check out the entire program and register at Rightonline. 

I hosted a panel discussion yesterday at the Leadership Institute on "Why the Internet Matters" for a group of young conservatives. Robert Bluey (Heritage Foundation), Cyrus Krohn (RNC) and Matt Lira (John McCain 2008) offered insight into how the Internet is shaping conservative politics in 2008 and beyond.

The general consensus? The Internet is empowering real people to get involved in the electoral process at a level never before witnessed in American politics. Soon, the Internet will dominate political elections as more and more voters prefer to communicate with their peers online.

I think the right is beginning to recognize that political trend, which is why a select group of conservatives are pushing organizations, candidates and elected officials to be more effective online. This is why Robert Bluey began holding weekly Conservative Blogger Briefings to facillitate conversations between major figures and prominent bloggers at the Heritage Foundation.  And I think the conservative movement is making progress in our effort to surpass the left on the Internet.

I asked Robert Bluey to talk about how the Conservative Movement is using the Internet to affect policy change. He cited Heritage's involvement in the immigration debate in 2007 as a key example of how two-way online communication enhanced the conservative agenda.In 2007, Bluey believes he created a model that the movement is re-creating. This was a moment in which a conservative organization promoted social networks & used YouTube to simplify complex messages.

By encouraging grassroots supporters to join the discussion and add content, organizations did away with the tried and true Top Down way of communication and began to focus on Bottom-Up involvement.

Now for the first time, countless organizations are using new media tools to empower supporters to be effective at the local level and in turn, we are affecting policy change even if our progress is recorded in micromovements.

To Cyrus Krohn, baby steps for the movement now lead to major strides down the road.

Cyrus Krohn mentioned that he realized the non-partisan value of the medium to the electoral process in the mid-1990’s. It was a realization that in the 1990’s and perhaps even today, many political parties did not want to hear.Flash forward to 2008, and the RNC’s phone is ringing off the hook. More and more campaigns are wondering how they can use the Internet to win elections. So, conservatives see the need, but Cyrus notes a generational gap.

Many conservative generations understand the importance of new media skills, but still don’t know how to use them.

This is why the Leadership Institute is expanding its Internet training programs and expanding its reach across the country. To be successful, I think all organizations need to work together. Each organization serves a role in the movement and a better stream of communication between each party is only going to help hone our efforts.

Matt Lira took our discussion a step further to state that 2008 is the most important year for the Internet.And 2009 will be the most important year for the Internet. And 2010. And so on.The goal is to constantly re-evaluate where we stand online as the communication dynamic changes.

I enjoyed Matt’s discussion of his time with Eric Cantor and now at John McCain. He talked about how he went from a high resource environment at the RNC to a lower resource environment on the Hill.

I had to sharpen my blade and learn to be more efficient with the resources available. When every penny counts, you strive to be more effective in everything that you do.

To Matt, Web 2.0 reenables Americans to be involved in the decision making process.

So what’s next?

Cyrus foresees the movement from Horizontal Social Networks, like Facebook, to Vertical Networks in which voters can connect with other people and rally around niche interests. This is only going to make our job more difficult as we become less able to penetrate those silos of networks.

Thoughts?

I’m interested to know how you think the conservative movement can work together to address these issues to be more effective online.

Leadership Institute grad & Co-Contributor to the Virginian Federalist shares a recent success.

The WaPo blog, The Fix, ran a story entitled Blog Roll: The Best of the State Political Blogs. I am very pleased to learn that The Virginian Federalist was chosen as one of two blogs to represent Virginia.

Also, Danny Glover of the Media Research Center, nabbed a spot to speak at my Internet Activist School. Danny will tell MRC's Modern Media Story and how he is using eyeblast.tv to reach his organization's goals.

The conservative movement is full of Modern Media MVPs.

Keep 'em coming!

I want your opinion:

What makes a truly modern candidate? Is a candidate born ready for YouTube moments? Can he or she learn to resonate with an online audience?

Last week, Patrick Ruffini started this discussion and offered several attributes that make a candidate pop online.

Candidate 2.0:

*Is Authentic

*Is able to generate an offline narrative that translates well online

*Demonstrates respect for the blogging community and understands the modern user

The conversation continued at this week's Politics Online Conference at a panel on how online video is changing political conversation. Speakers like Jason Barnett of The UpTake, talked up the relationship between the camera and the candidate and the user experience.

Certainly, video is the number one way a candidate can connect with a voter online. I hope to continue to discuss ways that candidates can connect with voters at the Leadership Institute's Internet Activist Schools next week.

Are you connecting?

Rep. Jeff Flake wasn't appointed to the Appropriations Committee, but Freedomworks came out on top in the organization's bid to appoint him.

Brendan Steinhauser and Rob Jordan spoke this morning during a candidate training session about how Freedomworks was able to maximize results and identify support using online petitions during the campaign. Brendan's Bottom Line: Online petitions, when combined with offline activism, have the potential to identify supporters, motivate leaders and spread a conservative message virally.

For any campaign one of two outcomes is ideal: Win your campaign or build your membership.

To me, building organizational membership early is crucial for grassroots activists who wish to run for office in the future. Petition signers, in the long run, become a candidate's voters, donors and most treasured volunteers.

Kudos to Brendan and Rob for innovative thinking and an excellent presentation this morning. Up next is Patrick Ruffini's take on how candidates can use all aspects of new media to advance a cause or message.

I look forward to continuing this discussion at the Leadership Institute's Internet Activist Schools in March. Training of this magnitude is helping conservatives learn how to get ahead online and the movement is in debt to the speakers who volunteer their time to make this training possible.

The Leadership Institute, of which I'm a regular instructor on how to effectively campaign in the modern world, is holding an Internet training seminar November 12-15.

If you're on a facebook, which by now every TechRepublican reader should be, you can find all the details here and gain access to a student discount rate for the seminar.

As an instructor, I'm allowed to send one guest to any or all of the schools gratis. So I figure, rather than draw a name out of a hat, why not offer my seat up to someone who really wants it: You.

The Rules:

1. Be creative and use your imagination.
2. In 50 words or less, choose a Halloween costume for your least favorite Democratic Presidential candidate and describe why that costume would be more appropriate (and less scary) to the American public than their liberal, tax-and-spend policies that they'd implement as President.
3. Leave your entry as a comment on this post.
4. Keep it clean and respectful of both the target and our community.

Here's the line-up for the seminar which includes quite a few TechRepublican contributors:

Blogging Workshop: Monday, November 12th

* 6:45 to 7:45: So what are these blog things anyways: How to Start a Blog (Free & Paid Sites), Matt Lewis, Townhall.com
* 8:00 to 8:45: Generating Content People Will Read, Vincent Harris, Tooconservative.com, Huckabee
* 9:00 to 9:30: If you blog it, they will come: Keys to driving site traffic, Jon Henke, New Media Strategies
* 9:30 to 10:00: Helping Bloggers help you: Building an Online Community & Activating Readership, Mike Krempasky, Redstate

Technologies Workshop: Tuesday, November 13th

* 6:45 to 7:45: Social Networking Online: Getting Tapped In, Joe Mansour, David All Group, Slatecard.com
* 8:00 to 9:00: Search Engine Secrets Exposed: Cracking the Code, TBA
* 9:15 to 10:00: You’ve Got…a Gold Mine: Building Effective Email Lists, Patrick Ruffini, Ruffini Strategies

Technologies Workshop Wednesday, November 14th

* 6:30 to 7:30: Macaca No More: Understanding Online Video, David All, David All Group, Techpresident, Slatecard.com
* 7:45 to 8:45: Our Modern Media Story: Club For Growth: Andy Roth, Club For Growth
* 9:00 to 10:00: Out with the old, in with the new?: Integrating Modern & Traditional Media, TBA

Fundraising Workshop: Thursday, November 15th

* 6:45 to 7:45: The New Generation: How Int. fundraising differs from Traditional Fund., Justin Hart, Lighted Candle Society, Mymanmitt.com
* 7:45 to 8:45: Show Me the Money: Latest Internet Fundraising Tech., Steve Stapleton, KMA Direct Communications
* 9:00 to 10:00: How Two Become One: Integrating Int. Fund. With your Traditional Strategy, Nathaniel Ward, Heritage Foundation

This should be interesting.