Archive for November, 2006

PERSUASIVE 07 – The Second International Conference on Persuasive Technology
26-27 April 2007, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California

Can a web site persuade you to be politically active?
Can a mobile phone motivate you to exercise?
Does instant feedback on gasoline use change how people drive?
Do online rating systems inspire people to behave better online?

PERSUASIVE 07 will focus on how digital technology can motivate and influence people. This event will bring together researchers, designers, and developers interested in computers designed to change human attitudes and behaviors in positive ways.

Key themes of PERSUASIVE 07 include health, education, sustainability, productivity, social relationships, trust, credibility, ethics and more. Technologies of interest include web sites, mobile phones, video games, and electronic devices, among others.

Call for Papers
Submission Deadline: December 15, 2006.

Academics and practitioners are invited to submit their work for presentation at PERSUASIVE 07 at Stanford University, Palo Alto, California on April 26-27, 2007. The conference welcomes original papers based on empirical studies of technologies designed to change attitudes or behaviors. Also welcome are papers that advance theoretical understanding of persuasion dynamics, methods for research, and related ethical issues. We also seek case studies of the highest quality that give insight into the design or distribution of persuasive technology products. We will select papers using a blind peer-review process.

For more information, see http://www.persuasivetechnology.org/ or contact:

Dr. BJ Fogg (conference organizer): bjfogg@stanford.edu or
prof.dr. Cees Midden (paper review chair): c.j.h.midden@tm.tue.nl

Nonprofit organizations often stand on the sidelines during election season. Fears that they could violate IRS regulations and lose their nonprofit status are the primary reason, but the law actually allows 501(c)(3) nonprofits to engage in a wide variety of election activities including voter education, voter registration, and get-out-the-vote activities. There is only one one restriction: the activities must be nonpartisan.

What does that mean, exactly? A nonprofit organization can’t campaign for or against a particular candidate or party, or express a preference for or against parties or candidates who have stated particular positions on issues.

So, what can we do, as a chapter, to get involved in future elections? Here are a few ideas. It may be too late to pursue some of them this year, but we can keep these in mind when setting our chapter goals and programs for next election season.

• Post a voter registration link on our website.
• Encourage our members to volunteer, support, and vote for candidates of their choice.
• Participate as a group in non-partisan voter registration campaigns and ‘get out the vote’ efforts.
• Encourage our members (freelancers, retirees, and those who are able to take a day off for volunteer programs) to work as election inspectors at their local polling places.
• Solicit input from our membership on issues of local and national concern such as health care, social security, small business regulation, and other issues of interest to our members, and send a summary to platform committees, campaign staff, candidates, media, and the general public.
• Issue a candidate questionnaire to foster discussion among candidates, public officials, and voters about the issues that affect us.
• Attend candidate debates and pose questions about those issues.
• Organize educational events in cooperation with other local organizations to raise awareness of issues that affect our members.
• Sponsor a candidate forum at one of our fall program meetings, or as a special event.

None of these activities, conducted properly, will violate our nonprofit status. They do, however involve thought and hard work. Why should we bother? We live and work in a local community, a region, a nation, a world. We share the responsibility to help make those places better.