Politics Bio

Playwriting led to speechwriting, which was a springboard to strategy consulting – where I focused on new media innovations. I wrote speeches and strategy for an array of clients and causes.

During most of my time in politics, I was Director of Strategy with Advomatic, LLC – an award-winning boutique agency in New York and D.C. Founded by Howard Dean for President alumni, Advomatic clients include labor unions, progressive causes, and candidates ranging from City Council to U.S. President.

on stage behind Joe Biden speaking

Most past projects are acronyms: ACLU, UNITE-HERE, SEIU, PFAW, NRDC, UFT, Sony BMG, as well as Progress Now, The Courage Campaign, Empire State Pride Agenda, New York State Senate, New York Observer, Chris Dodd, John Edwards, and many more. With Advomatic, I also created a Click-to-Call advocacy tool for people to lobby Congress online.

I pioneered using online social networks to conduct volunteer recruitment and political coordination in 2005. By adapting educational and marketing theories to online social networks and focusing on the storytelling aspect of politics, I was able to conduct audience generation, targeted message delivery, and political coordination in a decentralized fashion. Online leads were carefully mobilized for multiple offline purposes… like winning elections.

I presented these research and strategy innovations at PoliTech conferences across the country. Some of these strategy innovations appeared in journals such as “Person to Person: Harnessing The Political Power of Online Social Networks and User-Generated Content,” Institute for Politics Democracy & The Internet —George Washington University. My campaign tactics have been reviewed by MacArthur Foundation Reports, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Nation, and others. I still write sometimes about advocacy and cause marketing here and at Huffington Post.

Several election cycles of experimentation and refinement later, a decentralized team-based network organizing model, powered by internet tools, was famously adopted by Senator Barack Obama’s campaign. It worked okay.

Look at my Media Bio.