“Wow! Impressive!” Those two word sums up my reaction to seeing Ryan Davis speak at ArtezInteraction in Toronto who until recently was working as Social Media Director at Blue State Digital (BSD is best known for helping to elect a guy called Barack Obama).
I had never heard of him but his presentation was rapid and filled with great takeaways on how to use social media to change the world. Better yet, he shared how he was in the midst of helping to change history in four American states. I’ve captured some of his talk in this Storify version of the conference.
But how else would you describe someone who at age 20 was part of presidential hopeful Howard Dean’s innovative web team-widely acknowledged as the breakthrough for using the web in American politics. It’s no wonder that 11 years later, he’s still using digital media to change America.
To my surprise, he started to follow me and we engaged in a bit of conversation on Twitter. I mentioned that I was considering hosting my own conference in Waterloo Region and was thrilled when he said he would be interested. So when I started firming up plans for Social Media inspirations! on June 10 I contacted him and arranged for him to come.
Be sure to be there! Get your Social Media inspirations! ticket now. It promises to be Waterloo Region at its most awesome and worth the drive from Toronto, Hamilton or London.
Coming from New York City, Davis is sure to captivate his audience. He’ll be speaking on how to engage digital natives with social media and promises to include examples from his work in politics and as an activist. I’ve been politically involved for many years and more recently have been using social media to advance my community building ideas so I’m very excited to have him as one of the top experts sharing their knowledge. I’m confident that everyone will have a similar reaction to his presentation as I did.
To give you a taste of what to expect, I’ve included a video of a presentation that Ryan made to Social Media Week in Milan, Italy and his responses to a few questions from me.
Ryan Davis presentation in Milan, Italy
Ryan was invited to present to Social Media Week in Milan. Here is a video version.
My brief interview with Ryan Davis
I saw an interesting tweet about why you went to work for Howard Dean. Could you expand on that a bit? And include what you did on Dean’s web team?
I worked for the Howard Dean campaign for eight months as part of the webteam. I took pictures, wrote blogs, and edited videos used on the Dean website. I was also the co-organizer of a 36-state grassroots tour called The Drive For Democracy, where we visited Meet Up groups around the country to teach them how to go from online action to offline action.
Have you done any political work since then? How is social/digital media changing the way people are engaged?
I’ve done quite a bit of political work, running digital for New York City & State campaigns. This past cycle, was co-founder and digital director of The Four 2012, an award winning social media campaign dedicated to winning marriage equality ballot initiatives in 4 states. People are much more engaged now in politics online than any time before. This has to do with new generations being “born” comfortable with these new technologies and more and more people adopting social media later in life.
Based on your experience, what advice do you have for individuals or organizations who want to use social media to change the world?
The most important thing you can do is produce quality content that’s worth sharing. You can’t get away with poorly designed images or bad copy anymore, users are sophisticated and there is plenty of content out there so they don’t have to share things that aren’t worth it. Spend time making your creative pop.
How important is taking risks to effectively using social media for change?
It’s really important to stand out, by being bold and creative. There is so much noise on social these days, that bold content is the only kind that consistently gets attention.
