CRAFT | Media / Digital is seeking an experienced front-end web developer for full-time, contract-to-hire work starting immediately.

CRAFT is a new and growing firm that specializes in campaign communication in every channel for political and public affairs clients.

The qualified applicant has at least 3 years of experience and has complete mastery of the following languages and software platforms:

• XHTML
• CSS
• JavaScript
• PHP
• Wordpress and other open source CMS platforms
• SOAP and/or REST API
• Adobe Creative Suite

Applicants must be able to thrive in a fast paced environment with constantly changing direction and little direct supervision.  The ideal candidate has excellent communication skills, a good sense of humor, and the confidence and savvy to interact with clients as easily as co-workers.

Applicants must have demonstrable experience with the following tasks:

• Building websites from scratch
• Cutting designs into standards compliant HTML code
• Creating custom themes in Wordpress
• Creating plugins for Wordpress
• Integrating database and communications platforms via API

CRAFT political clients are Republican political candidates and conservative organizations. Candidates must be comfortable working with and promoting such clients on a consistent basis.

Salary commensurate with experience, benefits available for full-time employees.

To apply, please email a short cover letter, link to an online portfolio, and your resume as a PDF to jobs@CRAFTdc.com.

CRAFT is proud of the work from our team and, especially, Justin Germany for producing such a profound video piece on the subject of the creation of the Ground Zero Mosque. On behalf of Keep America Safe, Justin Germany filmed those most personally affected by the terrorist act committed by 19 Islamic extremists on September 11th.

In this video, the families of those who lost loved ones and the first responders at the Trade Center make the most profound and touching argument against opening a mosque so close to this sacred ground. Their voice alone, captures the deep sentiment felt by so many who are against those who wish to proceed with the development of this mosque.

Since going live on Wednesday, August 18, this video was featured on the Drudge Report for two consecutive days. It has been viewed over 200,000 times on YouTube, and was the most viewed and discussed video among Non-Profits & Activism on the site. It was the 18th most viewed and 23rd most discussed video on YouTube overall. 10,527 people shared it on Facebook. It was shared on mobile devices by over 12,000 individuals. It was the 9th most trending topic on Twitter and was Tweeted by several influentials such as Sarah Palin. Good Morning America, Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bret Baier, Andrew Breitbart, the Weekly Standard, Real Clear Politics and the Huffington Post featured the video in the past several days.

Regardless of your personal opinion on this subject, our freedom to openly express opinions, discuss and debate issues like these is what defines our nation.

There was no discussion, however, of how these companies use their blogs to engage in public policy debates.  I decided to write a post that looks at a good example of a corporate blog focused on policy debates.

Around the time of the Mashable post, news of the Verizon-Google net neutrality proposal surfaced and many of the free culture bloggers were apoplectic over the wireless exemption.  In response, Joan Marsh wrote a piece for AT&T’s policy blog explaining why VZ and Google were right – wireless is different.

Reaction to Marsh’s post ranged from the reasoned to the spastic.

AT&T just doesn’t want consumer protections for wireless. Why? They might prevent AT&T from crippling vendor handsets so users are forced to use AT&T bloatware, or forcing users to pay more for certain services. Consumer protections also might prevent AT&T from blocking applications that either compete with their own services, or say the services of a giant preferred advertising partner with a colorful and whimsical logo. Such protections might restrict AT&T’s shiny new pricing model as well, which involves fairly unreasonably-low caps of 200 MB and 2GB.

For most public policy blogs, that might have been the last word in the story, however.  In this case, that was just the beginning.  Yesterday, Marsh took to the blog again.  Not only did she acknowledge the critical reply, she challenged it directly.

I got a lot of reaction to my original blog entitled Wireless is Different.  Some good, some critical, but all of it important to the debate.  I welcomed it all, especially the responses from those that disagreed, because it creates an opportunity for a better explanation, a more detailed understanding of what’s actually happening out there on our wireless networks.

Some just are not convinced that wireless is in fact different in any way that matters to the net neutrality debate.  While they didn’t rebut the fundamental points I made regarding the finite nature of wireless network capacity, they viewed the argument as a strawman for some underlying intent by wireless network providers to block apps and services at their whim.

The exchange illustrates four points I think are critical to corporations looking to engage in policy blogging.

There Are Few Experts More Knowledgeable Than Your Company

The fact is, for all the armchair quarterbacks running blogs that are critical of any industry, the people that know the most about that industry are the ones making it run.  If your company takes those people out of the debate because they are afraid of what they might say, your side has just lost the best defenders it will ever have.

In the case of AT&T’s blog, they have created a platform for their senior people to directly address, and challenge, the misinformation so often present in reporting of any kind.

Let’s face it.  Your average blogger/reporter may cover a beat, but chances are pretty good that they’re a liberal arts major looking at incredibly challenging engineering discussions.  It is rare that engineers start a blog, but when they do, they often have a depth of experience or understanding that will only be matched by your people.  Let them speak.

That advice, by design, raises the question of how to balance the communicator’s desire to speak with the lawyer’s desire to mitigate risk.  The balance between allowing someone to talk, and making sure they stay on message is a delicate one.  Accepting some level of risk is necessary to engage in the debate.

Avoid “Fire and Forget” Policies

As I said, on many policy blogs, corporations would have been content to provide the initial post and then would have walked away.  If their piece generated an article in a mainstream publication, that would have been seen as a success – even if it generated heaps of criticism online.

This is a misguided approach for a simple reason.  Getting that hit in the Wall Street Journal is great for today.  But what is left behind on the Internet tomorrow will be all the blog posts challenging your position.  Those are the articles web users will find when they look to get educated about the debate.

Build Credibility By Being Engaged

There is a saying in the social media world: Media is easy, being social is the hard part.

Anyone can create a blog, or Twitter account, or Facebook page.  Getting people to pay attention requires vigilance and sincere engagement in the online discussion.  Talking with, reacting to, and noticing other participants in the debate is how you give credibility to your own views.  You must be prepared to discuss and defend your ideas.

Marsh shows great form by not only acknowledging her detractors, but linking to their opposing view, and addressing it directly.  She held her ground, while engaging in respectful disagreement.  While that isn’t always the way things work in a land of trolls, she keeps her focus on the debate.

This Discussion Doesn’t End At The Water Cooler

I have heard the comparison of the Internet to a digital water cooler, where people gather to discuss hot topics. I take issue with that, to some degree.

While we do, indeed, use the Internet to gather and discuss, the Internet is different in one critical way.  When you finish your conversation at the water cooler, the faint echo of your words off the closest cubicle wall is the end of it.

Online, every such discussion is a part of the permanent record of our people.  When historians look back at the discussion and debate over public policy, they will find the academics, the opposition, the elected officials, and the public discussion fairly represented.  They may not, however, have an accurate record of the arguments made by companies in defense of their policy positions.

They may find talking points and carefully parsed legal language, but they will not hear the voice of your company.  For that reason alone, using your policy blog to make your case, to both your audience and to future perspective, is critical.

The AT&T case is a good example of the type of discussion companies can foster using their policy blog.  On all four of these measures, the defense of the wireless exemption provides a window into the company’s thinking.

In coming weeks I also plan to provide a list of the best policy blogs operated by companies – highlighting those that effectively communicate the company’s agenda and contribute to the larger discussion in a productive way.

(Disclosure Statement: One of CRAFT’s partners is a paid consultant to an organization of which AT&T is a member.   AT&T is not a CRAFT | Media/Digital client. CRAFT was not compensated in any way for this post, nor was AT&T aware of it before publication.)

#5 Drew Carey – One of America’s jolly fat men, Drew Carey had a huge smash with The Drew Carey Show, but like most got his start doing stand up.  While he sold out to take Bob Barker’s place hosting The Price is Right, he’s still funny.  If you don’t believe me, visit Showtime on Demand and watch the episode of The Green Room with Carey.

#4 Adam Sandler – America’s favorite egg-shaped head also leans right.  Like many Republicans in Hollywood, he’s not overt about the lean, but he’s still funny (Little Nicki aside).

#3 Owen Wilson – Wilson, like our number two funny man Vince Vaughn, is unquestionably funny.  If you don’t buy that, rent Wedding Crashers or Zoolander again.  Wilson and Vaughn reportedly crashed a Texas Young Republicans event while in DC filming Wedding Crashers.

#2 Vince Vaughn – Arguably, Vaughn should be number one on this list.  Most people would probably put him there.  While I have been a big Vaughn fan since Swingers came out, if we’re talking political humor, I have to give the top spot to someone who covers it a lot.

#1 Doug Stanhope -  Stanhope probably isn’t everybody’s first choice, but he’s definitely mine.  This riff on the pledge of allegiance is a classic example.  As he says, good products sell themselves… So here’s my argument for Doug. (Fair warning, Stanhope is no stranger to profanity.  If you’re turned off by that, you really shouldn’t watch the video – especially with the volume up loud at the office.)

Honorable Mentions:

• Robert Downey Jr. has said his personal challenges forced a change of political views and he’s now a Republican.
• Bill Engvall, Jeff Foxworthy and Larry the Cable Guy – I’m not a fan of redneck humor, but they make a lot of people laugh.
• The Rock – Tooth Fairy was unintentionally one of the funniest movies ever. (It still counts)

I could go on… John Ratzenberger, Larry Miller, Penn & Teller etc.

Olbermann hasn’t been funny since he left Sports Center, so I’m guessing he didn’t take his writers with him.  For him to make ridiculous blanket assertions is really kind of weak, as this list demonstrates.

However, Caffeine does not change Google’s search algorithm, so when the number of backlinks displayed in Google Webmaster Tools recently expanded for many sites, SEO masters were left scratching their heads.  It turns out that Google decided to increase transparency in this area and has made available many more if not all backlinks for analysis.

Backlinks are important to SEO because they speak to a site’s authority and popularity on any given subject matter.  In theory if a site has the most authoritative, freshest content in a certain area, the web will reward that site by linking to it.  Thus knowing what all of a site’s backlinks are is key to understanding where a given SEO strategy is succeeding or failing.

Case in point, browsing through CRAFT’s newly expanded set of backlinks revealed that the firm had been mentioned in a story, “Tips for Political Marketing and GOTV Strategy in the Cloud,” that got picked up by PR Newswire.  No one actually interviewed anyone at CRAFT for the piece, and while it did generate significant traffic to the site, the resultant spike wasn’t big enough to draw attention in and of itself.  However, the story was syndicated through several major news sites and political blogs, representing serious positive exposure for the firm.

Armed with this knowledge a webmaster can further exploit incoming traffic to a set of content, seek out the source of recurring inbound links to establish strategic relationships, and also realize what site content is potentially falling flat or failing to be recognized.

In the ad, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis introduces herself and makes a few statements regarding how workers need to be paid fairly for their labor – points that are all well taken. Her notorious statement comes towards the end, when she says, “Remember, every worker in America has a right to be paid fairly, whether documented or not. So, call us. It is free and confidential.” A toll-free phone number is then provided and the ad closes with, “We can help.” Solis openly welcomes illegal immigrants to take advantage of U.S. government services if they feel that they are being exploited in the workplace. Another ad in the campaign encourages “exploited” illegals to report their employers to the U.S. government. What these ads fail to address is why these undocumented workers are entitled to taxpayer services when they are breaking the law by residing here.

Representative Ted Poe, a Republican from Texas, made a good point when he told Fox News that “maybe they should focus their attention on protecting American jobs and enforcing our labor laws. After all, it is illegal to hire workers that are in our country illegally.” This raises the point that this type of endorsement de-legitimizes the authority of the Labor Department to an extent, insofar as it is violating its own rules.

This is an especially sore subject for American citizens at this time, with federal unemployment rates lingering around 10 percent, and the real rate including underemployed workers and those who have stopped looking for work at over 17 percent. Americans are frustrated that they are out of work and are struggling, yet the Department of Labor is less concerned about those hardships and is focusing on paying illegals fairly.

Representative Steve King, a Republican from Iowa said in a statement, “It is shameful that Secretary Solis has to be reminded that her primary duty is owed to the American people, and not to those who have illegally entered our country.” It is time for Solis and those who support this campaign to recognize just that – American workers should be the main priority at this time, especially the millions that are currently out of work. Also, the Department of Labor needs to reevaluate its claims on fair pay for undocumented workers given the rules it supposedly works to enforce.

Aside from these advertisements’ blatant disregard for the legitimacy of the U.S. legal system, the message being sent perpetuates a relentless propaganda machine that is driven by the current administration. Throughout Obama’s presidency, Americans have been subjected to relentless propaganda, whether it be in the form of emails sent out by the White House website prompting citizens to adopt the president’s health care overhaul, or a street sign placed at Roadwork projects throughout the country endorsing Obama’s Reinvestment and Recovery Act. It seems like whenever the administration is unable to get the support of the American people, it resorts to producing taxpayer-funded advertisement campaigns, which only increase the hostility and distance between the wants and needs of citizens and the ultimate agenda of the federal government.

In the beginning of the ad, Hayward’s voice is heard as a photograph of the oil in the ocean is shown. He says, “The Gulf spill is a tragedy that never should have happened.” He goes on to introduce himself and admit that BP takes responsibility for the disaster. The ad primarily focuses on clean up efforts and volunteerism, with a series of photos displaying the clean up. Hayward directly apologizes to the viewer and closes with, “We will get this done. We will make this right.” The ad is effective in that it conveys a feel-good sentiment to the viewer. The creators were also smart to include a Louisiana native employee in a second apology ad to send out the apologetic message, which translated as sincere, as opposed to a distant British board member apologizing, who is most likely not personally affected by the disaster.

What’s missing, however, is any mention of a plan to move forward with actually stopping the oil from spewing into the ocean. Currently, it is estimated that if the wellhead is removed and not capped, up to 100,000 barrels of oil could leak into the ocean every day. What is needed is a plan of action, not just pledges to clean up the mess.

It has been reported that BP spent $50 million for the advertising campaign, another number that has angered many people who believe that money should be spent on relief efforts. These ads also aired almost two months after the spill started – quite late for an apology. The ads probably would have stemmed criticism of BP if they had been released in a timelier manner.

All in all, the most important element of the “apology” is missing: a plan of action, which does little to comfort those who are being directly affected by the spill. Jobs are being lost, animals are dying, and the environment is deteriorating; all of this could continue for at least two years if that wellhead is not capped.

It’s all well and good that Hayward comes on the television and says he’s sorry, but that does not change the reality that tens of thousands of barrels (millions of gallons) of crude oil are going into the ocean twenty-four hours a day, and have been for the past 70 days. People are starting to ask questions, and this vapid attempt by BP to assure people that the mess will get cleaned up is undercutting and underestimating the intelligence of the American people. We want to know what BP is actively doing to stop this spill, not simply that waste is being collected as it washes up on our shores.

BP needs move forward in devising a plan that will stop this disaster, rather than spending tens of millions of dollars on advertisements in attempts to reconcile the backlash and hostility it’s receiving. Apologies, whether sincere or not, will not fix the situation. BP needs to stop putting out ads saying they are sorry and run something that tells the American people what they are doing and what they plan to do to stop this crisis.

Several women won high profile primary races, including Carly Fiorina for California Senate, Meg Whitman for California governor, Sharron Angle for Nevada Senate, and Nikki Haley for South Carolina governor. Americans are fed up with the status quo and are selecting candidates who can offer the American people something new, something fresh. Women are a minority and the Tea Party movement represents something radically different from the current administration’s game plan. Perhaps these wins are representing the need for change from Obama’s “change.” It remains to be seen whether or not these candidates will be as viable in the fall.

In Nevada, Sharron Angle, the Tea Party-backed candidate, was victorious over the more established and once-ahead candidate Sue Lowden. Angle will face Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. It has been reported that Democrats, who were once fearful of Reid’s ability to win in November due to nationwide frustration with the direction in which he has led the Senate, are relieved that Angle won because of her conservative views. Angle has a lot of great ideas in terms of taxes, our involvement with the UN, and Social Security. However, some of her other ideas, like bringing back prohibition will be an easy target for Reid’s camp when it comes to attack advertisements. Her association with the Tea Party’s negative image perpetuated by the mainstream media could have detrimental effects on her performance in the general election.

As the election slowly inches closer, advertising for all of the candidates will become more heated and competitive. It is certain that the gender of the candidates will not be attacked in these advertisements, insofar as that would certainly be the kiss of death for the perpetrator. However, many of the women won because they chose to tact very far to the right in order to win their primaries in swing states. It will be difficult for them to tact back to the center when it comes to the general election.

It is likely that the Democrats will also target the Tea Party movement in an effort to distort the Republican record. One characteristic of the Tea Party movement is that it is a very loose conglomeration of local groups without a central control mechanism, and therefore if a Tea Partier shows up to a rally with a sign displaying Nazi symbols, it is difficult for the group as a whole to fend off those types of negative associations. Democrats will likely blanket those associations across the entire Republican party.

The “anti-Tea Party” mantra will become one of the focal centerpieces to the liberal advertisements that will surface as the election draws nearer. Will it work? It could have a negative effect on Republicans running, even if they are not associated with the Tea Party. It will be up to those candidates to remind Americans of the harrowing situation the Obama administration has placed our nation in and to show Americans that the few extreme stereotypes associated with the Tea Party do not represent them, nor a majority of the movement’s members.

In the 2008 presidential election America put the first African American into the White House – a truly remarkable and historical event. This election cycle, we have the opportunity to put more women and more candidates that represent the grassroots in office – an equally exciting prospect. Time will tell as the elections move closer whether or not America will embrace that opportunity once again.

*Photo Credit: Magana/AP

The New York Times recently wrote a terrific, if not horrifying profile on the affects of technology on humans. It concluded that our brains were not built to multitask, in fact, just 3 percent of the population is. According to the Times, those folks are deemed “supertaskers.” As a result, our society has been changed in ways we never could have imagined. A 2008 study found that people consumed about “three times as much information each day as they did in 1960.” And that “computer users at work change windows or check e-mail or other programs nearly 37 times an hour, new research shows.”

This information, while shocking, isn’t completely surprising.

Think about it: e-mail, cell phones, iPads, MP3 players and yes the Internet have all contributed to a society that is transfixed on the need and want of being busy. People more so than ever crave information and the “dopamine squirt” resulting from the new information coming at your fingertips can be addictive.
Understanding people’s attention spans can be helpful for how political and communications consultants communicate to our audience, the voters.

Jon Henke, a Partner here at CRAFT wrote back in March “we read differently online. The mental cost imposed by marketing language is just too high” and that “online communication has to be fast, personal and authentic.” Point is, whether it’s online communications or direct mail and TV unless you are targeting your message and doing it in a way that reaches people quickly and in a catchy way you’re losing.

Political consultants have to always be thinking about engaging voters in a way that is conscious of their attention spans, or lack there of. Doing so means being fast, engaging and edgy if need be. Here at CRAFT we’ve created dynamic advertising content. These ads catch viewer’s attention by tying the ad directly to the viewer and reminding them how it affects them. This is how you keep your audiences attention not by using cheap gimmicks.

The challenge going forward is finding new and creative solutions for connecting with an increasingly attention deficit audience. And with greater media platforms arriving day by day expect the audience to be even harder to engage. Point is this: if you blink you may just be missing the next big thing.