You can find out more about Zuhal's campaign on the Battlefront website.

Zuhal is also putting on a Piano Recital on 2 April. Please attend and spread the word.

Sam Graham-Felsen Chief Blogger and Director of Blog Outreach for the Obama Campaign. He is a journalist by training enticed away from his freelance journalist work by the Obama Campaign.

For those wanting to learn from the Obama campaign, ECF09 is a great place to do it since Sam will be there not only as a speaker, but as a participant like everyone else (including me).

Leave questions/comments below for Sam to address when he speaks at ECF09.

Apply Now

For all the people who have been emailing, phoning and skyping me about when applications for the 2009 eCampaigning Forum will open, this one is for you. Apply now at http://apply.ecampaigningforum.com

Topic Ideas

The 'shell' of the 2009 event is up, but as usual, it is up to everyone interesting in attending to help shape the event. Some of my thoughts are:

1. Have one focus on 'learning from and for elections'.
   Since ECF08 occurred, we have had national elections in a number of countries, most notably the USA where the winning candidate (Obama) made extensive use of e-campaigning strategy and practices.  In June 2009 there will be EU elections and there are rumours that this will also coincide with a UK election.
   
   So for those preparing to influence political party agendas in the lead up to an election, we can share how you can do it online. Furthermore everyone can learn from the experiences in recent past elections too.
2. Have a second focus on corporate campaigning.
   Corporate campaigning is rising up the agenda for many campaigning organisations again (and never left the agenda for others), so we can revisit this topic last explored in the 2002 eCampaigning Forum.

Given the deep financial crisis everyone is being dragged into, we could also explore a strategy for eCampaigning in the recession.

Beyond Topics

We can also explore some ways of organising the event to make it even more valuable for participants. Some ideas include:

1. Using Mon 30 March for an 'eCampaigning Peer Advice day' (eCampaigning Surgery in British English): a day where experienced practitioners sit one-to-one with more novice practitioners to advise them and experienced practitioners can sit one-to-one with fellow experienced peers to ask for advice.
2. Fringe Meetings: pre and post meetings where select groups of participants meet. Last year, Oxfam and GCAP both held one to have more focused time with others in their network.

As always, the eCampaigning Forum event is owned by everyone who participates and I see my role as ensuring it happens and has a framework to be useful for improving your eCampaigning. so if you have ideas, raise them on the eCampaigning Forum network list, Facebook group or the ECF09 Wiki.

list, the FairSay newsletter, blog and news feed as well as a range of social media and social networking sites.

If you are new to the eCampaigning Forum, you can get an idea of what will happen by looking at past events:

• 2008: Participants | Agenda
• 2007: Participants | Agenda
• 2006: Participants | Agenda
• 2004: Participants | Agenda
• 2002: Participants | Agenda

Input the Agenda Below