by Nikki Serapio, Manager of New Media Strategies

Recently my colleague Sarah Audelo and I had the chance to attend RootsCampDC, which brought together over 700 community and online organizers. (Kudos to the New Organizing Institute for spearheading a great event.) We were excited to meet and listen to so many inspiring activists...no doubt, it's not often that you can talk about social networks and old-school advocacy with both a Chavez-era labor organizer and a young tech startup CEO (at the same time)!

Here's what I took away from my RootsCamp conversations.

1) Let's work to bridge "online" and "offline." It's tempting to think of websites and social networks as constituting one separate and isolated sphere. If I tweet about Utah's horrible new miscarriage law, for example, we might expect this to lead to...well...more tweeting. Ultimately, though, our duty is to use online tools in order to promote real-life organizing.

More after the jump! 

What can make us meet with our Members of Congress' offices about Uganda's "Anti-Homosexuality Bill"? What do we need to do in order to grow a powerful network of advocates committed to fighting for comprehensive sex ed? We should keep such "online-to-offline" questions in mind when we're thinking of how to use online tools thoughtfully.

2) Don't underestimate the cross-generational power of new media. The stats themselves prove that Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and YouTube aren't just for the young anymore.

I saw this reality in the flesh at RootsCamp. All kinds of activists -- 20-something AND non-20-somethings -- were spreading the word about the conference via their open laptops. In other words, almost everyone was comfortable with using online tools.

The lesson here? We shouldn't assume that online activists solely equal youth activists. On our part, there's a huge potential "market" of people out there who are willing to take action on the issues that Amplify promotes -- and, fortunately for us, they essentially represent almost the entire generational spectrum.

3) "Respect. Empower. Include." Some of you might recognize this slogan: it was originally used as a motto of sorts by the Obama presidential campaign's field staff.

The RootsCamp attendees reminded me of this slogan. So many of them emphasized the need to build movements from the bottom-up. And in presentations about their successful social change campaigns, they proved that you can only really "do bottom-up" by following the kernel truths of what the Obama field organizers understood so well:

- Respect means that you need to trust your partners to set the tactical agenda: they know how to inspire people in their community on your issues, so you should (to a great degree) follow their lead.

- Empower means that you need to provide meaningful resources to your partners. Whether it's funds, trainings, marketing prowess, or something else entirely, we all have valuable "organizing multipliers" that we can share.

- Include means that you should be open to the possibility that most anyone can be your ally, including folks who you win over from the "other side" of a given issue.

When I organized a Sudan rally on the Golden Gate Bridge in 2006, some of my most zealous promoters -- i.e., those who got people to come to the event in force -- were elderly people of faith who had never been to a protest, rally, or vigil before.

Here at Advocates for Youth and on www.amplifyyourvoice.org, we'll try to live up to all of the lessons mentioned above. If there's anything that we can do to make this a more respectful, empowering, and inclusive community, please let us know!