Our own David All was just named a Rising Star by Campaigns & Elections' Politics.

Congratulations are in order! And perhaps a bowl of porridge?

When David All started working in the office of Rep. Jack Kingston at age 24, he hadn't even made his first YouTube video yet. Now he is leading the Grand Old Party into the new Internet era. "I started realizing in late 2005, there were all these bloggers out there that absolutely no one was talking to," All says. He started engaging the online community and helped earn Kingston the moniker "King of the Blogosphere." All spearheaded a workshop for other staffers, and blogs started popping up all over the Hill. "It was like explaining water to people who had only lived in the desert," Kingston says. In early 2007, All founded Slatecard PAC, the GOP's answer to ActBlue, the Democrats' online fundraising vehicle. In less than a year, Slatecard has raised more than $350,000 for Republicans.

Robert Bluey, Patrick Ruffini and Mike Bober are among 25 others have also won the prestigious honor. Congrats to all.

This morning, I woke up early, threw on my "Blog Off" T-Shirt and got ready for an UnConference at PodCampDC. So far, I'm learning many cool things from folks like Christopher Penn & Joel Mark Witt about marketing online and finding a place for social media.

This topic is important to TechRepublican readers. We aim to establish our organization's/campaign's/member's message or brand online, but often our bosses don' t buy the hype.

Maybe The Powers that Be don't always understand the words we use or don't understand how new media will effect the bottomline. We can't assume that it's because they're not using the technology.

Christopher Penn's Talking Points:

Every organization should go where the people are. (Did you know that Myspace currently has a user population that surpasses that of Indonesia or even of the United States?)

When talking to your boss, find the Old Media Analogy:

*Google Reader is your own personal newspaper

*RSS Feeds are online deliveries of your newspaper

*Social Networks are the new water cooler

In reality, new media isn't so much new as it is a different way of communicating to different people, on their terms.

Penn goes on to say that being online is essential, but not enough.

To be effective, you have to be a regular publisher of content.

You have to have something to say.

You have to have a goal.

Otherwise, your boss will not see the big picture.

ID your brand. Penn quoted someone who said that a brand is merely an "emotional aftertaste" that results from a unique experience with your product.

Test market your brand. Get out there.

Joel Mark Witt says, Don't ask permission, just do...then emphasize results.

Social media is like a no man's land in which organizations can open up a new world of opportunities. We need to break out of our comfort zone and snap out of our geek bubble.

Translate new media language into words your boss can understand and relate to.

This is just a snippet of what's going on here. We're having some fun.

Up next: Andy Carvin & Jim Long on "Social Media & New Journalism" -- expect a post on how twitter is changing journalism and affecting information distribution. See Also: Patrick Ruffini's The Year of Twitter.

Campaigns & Elections Magazine has a new look-and-feel for 2008. From a note from William Beaman (editor-in-chief) and Jordan Lieberman (publisher):

Campaigns & Elections has unveiled a redesigned and revamped version of the flagship publication and will now be known as Campaigns & Elections’ Politics magazine.

The redesigned magazine will retain the features that have led to its unprecedented growth in recent years, but will also add new original content, larger trim size and upgraded cover stock.

To help encourage new subscriptions (or renewals), they've reduced the subscription rate to $25 so make sure you get your subscription today.

The re-design looks and feels great. Congrats.

But at least one story in their latest issue is sure to cause sales to decline. You see, included in their latest issue is a profile piece on Robert Bluey, Erick Erickson, Patrick Ruffini, and me.

Read on after the jump for a chuckle.

After the YouTube-CNN Debate, I spent some time in the "Spin Room" talking with folks about their thoughts on the Republican debate. (I did the same thing at the Democratic YouTube debate earlier this year.)

Below, find short vlogs from Ron Paul, Duncan Hunter, Patrick Ruffini, Robert Bluey, Mary Katharine Ham, James Kotecki, Jose Antonio Vargas, Meghan McCain, Charlie Smith, and, wait for it... Chuck Norris.

Ready.
Set.
Go.

(After the jump)

Patrick Ruffini has an important blog post up as part of his dive in to facebook demographics using the Flyers Pro advertising tool. This is the first time I've seen a solid look at the demographics associated with American users.

Essentially, the Flyers Pro tool lets anyone -- regardless of intent to buy advertising -- poke around and identify an advertising universe based on things like location, gender, age, current education status, political views, keywords, and relationship status.

Patrick's spreadsheet of the data is thorough and I'd urge you to check it out.

Further, he asks for users to help him add more data to the project by leaving research findings in the comments of his post. Crowd-sourcing at its finest. I've made my contribution with these three:

Apple Computers
Total Users: 3,540
Liberal: 1,060
Moderate: 540
Conservative: 520

Broken Social Scene (Music: Indie/Canadian)
Total Users: 52,200
Liberal: 21,800
Moderate: 5,200
Conservative: 1,540

Guns
Total Users: 29,100
Liberal: 3,560
Moderate: 3,880
Conservative: 8,320

Since the advertising tool has been made public it's being used widely by bloggers to help find interesting information. In fact, just this past week, Soren Dayton of EyeOn08 and Redstate, sent around a link to Stephen Taylor's blog where Stephen has started to break down data for conservatives and the media in Canada. Over in the UK, my friend Samuel Coates who helps run the hub, Conservative Home (among many others), has used the application to help identify the political leanings/bias of the BBC.

Patrick has also identified a possible flaw in the advertising engine in that it limits your political views search to "Conservative," "Moderate," or "Liberal," excluding identifiers like "Libertarian" and "Other," which are both available political views on a profile. I'd also add that there might be instances where you'd only want to target the "Very Conservative" universe which is not an option.

I also found another area for possible improvement in the advertising engine during the "Apple Computers" search example (which helps explain the small universe). The problem is that the tool limits keyword searches with what appears to be a facebook-selected, pre-loaded list of terms. The problem of course is that for those Mac users who might be inclined to list their computer preference as an interest, including this one, we don't list an "Apple Computer," but rather something more personal like "My MacBook Pro."

It would be helpful if you could add as many terms as you want to help make the largest possible universe regardless of which term someone uses to describe their interest. In the "guns" example, I'd also like to find people who list terms like "Second Amendment," "2nd Amendment," "NRA," "National Rifle Association," "Concealed carry," etc. Those individuals are clearly people I might want to send a particular message.

The power of this tool is perhaps just now being realized by advertisers and the political world. However, I think Patrick's on to something when he asks, "Could Facebook be the greatest microtargeting engine ever built?" It's certainly heading in that direction.

The Heritage Foundation has graciously posted the video of last week's Modern Media Strategies workshop in Washington. For those of you who missed it or couldn't make it to D.C., I'm reposting the video of my presentation with Romney 2008's Mindy Finn on how to build and activate a mass movement using e-mail. Here is the accompanying slideshow.

I hope you find it useful. Please let me know if in the comments if this presentation (or any of the ones last week) caused you to make a change in your online strategy, or even in how you look at the online world. Now that we've reached 160 eager young conservatives in person -- and hundreds more by posting these videos -- we're hopeful that this will have a real world impact in the strategies conservatives are using to reach their core audience.

Patrick nailed it when he wrote earlier in this space, "...this is the summer it started to happen."

It is happening. I can feel it. I've heard it from the 150+ conservatives who attended the inaugural Modern Media Strategies Workshop. I see it in the growth statistics of TechRepublican. We see it with the emerging competition to be the counter to ActBlue.

The it we speak of is our Revolution. The Revolution of conservative politics.

The fact of the matter is that this is the summer when modern conservatives and Republicans decided to quit bitching, and decided to "act like a Web 2.0 operation," and simply do something about it. You and I are grabbing the bull by the horns and we're digging in.

And it's happening all over the nation. I receive countless emails and facebook messages from people who tell me that they're taking what they've learned and are evangelizing to their peers, friends, bosses, and elected officials. They're listening to you.

While Republicans and conservatives are starting to turn the corner online, we can't rest now. The fight is just beginning. We need to continue to push onward to win the battle every single day. We need to continue to work together and promote the projects that are making a difference.

The moment we let up or lose an outpost in the Revolution, the battle could be lost.

Take for example the guys over at the Majority Accountability Project (a DAG client). They've been fighting tooth-and-nail to hold the Democratic Majority accountable for their actions. And now the liberals at DailyKos are looking to "expose" them (whatever that means).

The ironic thing about the DailyKos attack is that they didn't even do cursory homework on the MajorityAP before they attacked (like a simple Google search). For example, in the MajorityAP vlog, the project was already "exposed" for what it is. But, no mention of that in the Kos post.

The guys over at the MajorityAP know that the work they're doing is critical to helping level-the-playing field, but it's tough to keep the lights on at a project like MajorityAP when so few understand the dire importance of the project and are willing to financially support it. They risk closing down if the tide doesn't turn.

So if you agree with me that the MajorityAP is a valuable outpost in the Revolution, you should send them a contribution today. Every single penny will help keep their operation running.

Think. Listen. Understand. Participate. Share. Act.

We're in this thing together. Whether they like it or not, we're in it - and we're in it to win it.

Revolution.

The well-respected co-founders of TechPresident, Andrew Rasiej and Micah Sifry, have a column in today's Politico which looks at a number of online indicators and conclude -- once again -- that the outlook isn't too good for the GOP. TechRepublican contributor Patrick Ruffini is quoted throughout the piece.

Rasiej and Sifry, both individuals I'm proud to call friends and colleagues, are right in their assessment of the current situation. In fact, it's almost the exact same argument and conclusion I made a few months ago in the same publication.

Look, we know we're losing. We've said as much a few months ago.

But what are we going to do about it?

Should we just mail it in and call it a cycle? Should we cede victory to Hillary Clinton and focus on 2012?

For me, the answer is no. I'm not willing to give up. The stakes are too high.

And I've made the decision with many others to "put some skin in the game."

In fact, I'm personally working on four projects -- some you know about, some you don't -- that I hope will help right the ship before we hit the iceberg. And there are at least half-a-dozen other projects out there that friends and colleagues are working on that might help. There are probably more.

We're out here. Fighting in the Revolution because we know what will happen if we don't. Win or lose in 2008, it won't be from a lack of trying.

Jonathan Martin of the Politico is reporting that TechRepublican contributor and modern media guru, Patrick Ruffini, has left the Giuliani campaign to start up his own consultancy. Best of luck Patrick.

In other news in the growing field of online political operatives, Jon Henke, New Media Advisor for the Senate Republican Communications Office, has also jumped ship for a gig which he won't tell me -- even after three emails.

Via email:

This past six months has been a hell of a ride, but I’ve been offered an intriguing opportunity elsewhere – about which, more in due time -- so tomorrow will be my last day in the Senate. I owe you all a great debt of gratitude for your help, your kind words and your patience. I hope this office has been of some help to you; I believe it will continue to do so. This role will be filled by somebody else before long, and I intend to help them – and you – in any way I can.