working in online fundraising, the fact that the end of the year is coinciding with the complete and utter collapse of our economy is casting a bit of a pall on what would otherwise be a festive time of the year.

this minor set back (alone) could have be taken in stride … but, when our philanthropy department neighboors started getting all up in our grill about how they were going to out “festive” us for the holidays, it was game on.

i mean, we can handle trying to compensate for the decline of western civilization, but to be called out for decorating supremacy was just a bridge to far.

we responded to this tyranny with resolve. we raided our collective attics, mobilizing all sorts of lights, ornaments, bows and garlands towards the decorating war effort (photos of the mobilization above).

but, in the end, it was over before it really even began … and philanthropy surrendered before we had the chance to get much past the “shock and awe” stage:

ok ok, you guys win this one. you really went above and beyond. I apologize for the trash talk and concede the title to you guys.

i’m a tiny bit sad they caved so quickly, because we had one more salvo of decorations we could have deployed had we needed the reserves to secure our merriment objectives.

i love the smell of trash talk in the morning.

hung out with a great group of greens tonight, drinking beer and otherwise promoting “good will” among eco-tweeting hippies (jcolman, starfocus, KSuzJ, and salsus … with special appearances by beautifulthangs and holdie1).

all of this camaraderie should have amped me up to go to work tomorrow morning (and it did), but it mostly reminded me that i need to polish-up a presentation on engagement for the d.m.a. conference the first week of november.

got pleeeeeanty of material, just need the time to put it all together … and work on my jokes. (“if you’re like me, and i am ….”)

Presented at a day long “Master Class” on opt-in email lists, organized by a colleague from Convio. My part of the conference was a bit of a rehash from last fall’s presentation at the Convio summit, and again centered on all sorts of acquisition testing (use of premiums, donor database analysis, engagement campaigns and email appends).

Spoke at the Convio Summit, about how to use a gated community (our Great Places Network) to acquire and engage non-profit supporters online. This includes everything from registration forms, to offline marketing of online resources, to five or six different types of tests around engagement and acquisition strategies.

I was responsible for online presences for a number of political offices including House Leader Nancy Pelosi, House Whip Steny Hoyer, Rep. Dick Gephardt, Rep. John Lewis, and Rep. Nick Lampson.

i launched over 75 efforts for progressive non-profit causes, including campaigns for the Planned Parenthood, Campaign For America’s Future, True Majority, US Soccer Foundation, National Parks and Conservation Association, Common Sense about Kids and Guns, and the Communication Workers of America.

but, one of the great perks of the job was being allowed to host my personal web servers on a company IP address.

God, I love hippies.

Now that I am leaving (to join a progressive non-profit cause no less) however, I am screwed.

Way back, when I used to have a house and a reliable internet connection (versus living in a 500 sq ft basement apartment) I served up pages from a server in my house.

Now, I have to sign contracts with scary hosting companies whose websites make them seem like fronts for the Russian mob.

So, I chose blindly. I think mt stab in the dark was called Exabytes. They have servers in Texas … and Banglore (India, not Maine) so I am guessing I won’t get a lick of support that isn’t in Hindi.

wonder if they have conservationists in India.