National Yes Registry coordinator Jason Baird says Yes campaigners need effective technology to organise – and win
WE ARE a non-party political communications platform designed for the use of Scotland’s entire grassroots independence movement. A platform where ideas, equipment, campaign strategies and social events can all be easily co-ordinated and shared across the movement’s community group network – locally, regionally and nationally.
We currently have 107 participating groups on the IndyApp platform and that number is growing all the time. Now that we have completed our latest version 1.1 and the groups are beginning to log in their memberships, our urgent task now is to complete the platform to provide each of the groups their own local forum for discussion, planning and self-organisation.
It is this local forum system that will allow the groups to network with one another as autonomous members on the ‘national forum’.
To save time explaining what has already been created, why not watch our latest user demo and download the new IndyApp version 1.1 for free? You can get networked and judge our progress for yourself.
What I will do in this article is concentrate on some of the newly developed strategic and organisational capabilities latent within version 1.1, but that will still require the full completion of IndyApp’s final 2.0 phase to actually become grassroots campaigning reality.
This potential functionality, along with the previously explained national group-to-group networking capabilities, is what our new crowdfunder will make possible within our new four month timetable.
Encouraging new group formation
As each user downloads the IndyApp, they register using the first half of their postcode. This allows us to locate each download within a general postcode area while still ensuring all user addresses remain completely anonymous.
Understanding of our user distribution across the country allows us to
compare IndyApp download distribution with our local group network, as it
develops during the new indyref camapaign.
This cross referenced geographical user information can then be used to encourage new group formation wherever there is the potential local IndyApp support to sustain those new groups. By encouraging mass download of the IndyApp among all Yes supporters throughout the country, areas of high download, but without a local group operating, can be easily identified, so this situation can be easily remedied by contacting local activists and arming them with the information to open a new group.
Communicating directly with all Yessers
Combining our user distribution capabilities with the IndyApp’s private messaging function will allow ourselves and our participating groups (through their regional admin system) the ability to keep in contact with all those pro-indy supporters who download the app, but are not yet members of a local group or involved in campaigning.
These functions will make it possible to target all Yes supporters who download the IndyApp, with very specific local pro-indy campaign messages and friendly encouragement to come get involved. It’s an incredible practical advance on indyref 1 grassroots campaigning.
Magnifying local campaigning power
These new capabilities alone (never mind the many other communication advances provided by the app) will obviously increase the local reach and community campaigning power of the independence movement.
It will help encourage early participation in campaigning from all those new supporters who want to help win but are unsure of how to get involved – especially during the heat and organised chaos of the closing stages of indyref 2.
A national convention
It is also our intention to hold a national convention of all participating groups, approximately five months from today. This means, under our current rate of growth, we could easily be up to 150+ groups on the day (plus the general public), making this a fantastic face-to-face grassroots networking opportunity for everybody, as well as a great publicity centrepiece to collectively launch ourselves.
Changed political circumstance?
Snap election or not, Holyrood has declared the new independence referendum will be held in 18-24 months from today. Nothing has changed that fact and helping the grassroots to win this referendum is our complete focus.
So, bearing this in mind, it is now a matter of urgency that the entire IndyApp national forum structure is fully completed, working and downloadable as quickly as possible. We propose achieving this within three months of our crowdfund successfully ending (four months from today).
If you want to see the grassroots equipped with the networking capabilities described in this article, if you like what we have created so far and trust us to deliver again on what we are promising, then please, give whatever you can to our crowdfund and help make it possible.
You are our only source of funding and nothing can be achieved without your committed help.
Thank you for your generous support.
Check out what people are saying about how important CommonSpace is: Pledge your support today.
