Being the political junkie I am, when I was asked to speak at a conference on using new media tools for campaigns in Manchester, New Hampshire I jumped at the chance – even if it was at the end of January. Having been to Des Moines and the state fair this past summer, a trip to Manchester would round out my visits to primary locations nicely.

First and foremost I want to thank Pat Hynes and everyone at Steward for inviting me. I also want to thank everyone who sat through one of my two sessions on using Facebook and Twitter. I know learning how to use these tools can be overwhelming, but I hope I gave a few tips to help. To see my presentation again and the handout please click here. I was also asked in the first session to provide more information on Facebook’s privacy settings which you can find here from allfacebook.com.

Friday night started with a dinner with the who’s who of New Hampshire politics. I wish I had done a bit more research on who everyone was, but I had a great time talking to the folks there. Friday night is also when Jeff Grappone (a co-worker from Rudy days) took me on a brief tour of Manchester to see some primary landmarks – including the Red Arrow Diner, which I took a picture of below.

Saturday was the conference and the morning consisted of speeches from Newt Gingrich, Andrew Breitbart of BigGov fame and Stephen Gillett from Starbucks. Amazing morning. All three speeches were informative and different so not to as bore the audience. It was refreshing to hear someone like Speaker Gingrich who’s been in politics forever talking about how he’s changed to use new media to get his message out at American Solutions. I can see why there’s all the 2012 talk with him and even if he doesn’t run I think he should be drafted to be RNC chair. You can see the Union Leader story about his speech here.

Brietbart really hit home on the need to stand up to Liberal bullies and the main stream media. Then Stephen hit on how Starbucks managed to change it’s corporate culture to embrace social media and the customer and how candidates can do the same in politics. Biggest lesson from all of them? Listen to the voter/customer. Listen and engage with them and be authentic and you’ll be amazed at what happens.

Thanks again to everyone for inviting me and listening. Despite the temps hovering around zero I had a great time and can’t wait to go back.

Red Arrow Diner