
The Democratic National Convention, and the Obama-bump that followed,
may seem far in the past, but the event will surely live on in history. I got a chance to ask a few questions to Mark Squier,
an executive producer of the extremely successful (and fun) Democratic National Convention. When he's not coordinating massive political pageantry, Mark masters smaller-scale political messaging.

What's so interesting about John McCain's speech at the Republican National Convention
bringing in slightly more viewers than Barack Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention to geeksugar? It's interesting because this election has involved the Internet in an inextricable fashion — so much so that this data, the viewing habits of live broadcast television only, could be kinda skewed.
What I'm getting at is that I know a lot of people who didn't tune in to their regular broadcast to watch either speech, and instead watched videos of the speeches online.

Phew. I've run into quite a few people over the past few weeks who've seen both conventions top to bottom, and the question came up last night after the last balloon settled: Which convention was the best? In my mind it can be answered on a couple of levels — which convention looked the best, or which was more fun — but when it comes down to it, I think the real question is: Which convention did its job the best?

Now that it's all done but sweeping up the balloons, the New York Times, ever the data-doyenne, has a different way of
looking at who said what these conventions. Bubbles of varying sizes show the amount of times per 25,000 words uttered, that certain phrases were used.
Interestingly, the "opponent's name" count varies pretty wildly — the Democrats used McCain's name 78 times to the Republican's use of Obama a mere 25 times.

In Denver we got a chance to check out both the blogger tent set up by Google, YouTube, Digg and DailyKos, as well as the traditional media tent set up right outside the Pepsi Center. And believe me, these two tents could not have been more different.
Over in the Google tent bloggers and laptops crowded together at long tables or comfy couches set up in a tent kept dark to make up for the lack of air conditioning.

I checked out a panel on combating global poverty this week, filled with a diverse set of people ready to talk about their experiences surrounding the issue. I was super excited to see panel members like ex-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, and the bearded and articulate Ben Affleck.
A humble Ben noted that he felt a bit out of place, but then shared what he's learned from his time in Africa.
We're back from Denver! Ah, air that's not mile-high — that's some killer altitude. While I was unpacking I found this clip that was too good not to share.
Now that the Democratic convention has come to a close, one question remains. In his big speech this week Democratic vice-presidential nominee, Joe Biden, tripped over his words in the most elegant way. So elegant, it's left us wondering if it was scripted or in fact pure gaffe.
The Morning After: Our Reactions to Obama's Change Promise Last night I saw Americans who have been hiding in the shadows of apathy or cynicism come out and get excited about the future of their country. Americans who showed that they can wait in a line for hours, just to participate in a celebration of their power to make a difference.