"On a personal note, I'm a comedian who makes fun of what I believe to be the absurdities of our government. Tomorrow when you go to the polls, make my life difficult. Make the next four years really hard, so that every morning all we can do is come in and go, 'Madonna is doing some Kaballah thing, you wanna do that?' I'd like that. I'm tired." [Jon Stewart speaking to his audience the night before the 2004 U.S. Presidential election] via Wikiquotes.

After the 2006 election, there wil be winners and losers and both will be trying to figure out how to do what worked and dump what didn't for the next election.  The New Organizing Institute, a training and research program created to teach political workers to be tech savvy organizers, is facilitating RootsCamps  Nov. 18-19 for campaign workers to debrief after the election.  Using a similar model to BarCamp, groups will self-organize RootCamps in their city and every attendee will be a presenter in some way, shape, or form.

Here are some of the questions they suggest could be addressed at your RootsCamp:

• Bloggers: How did your relationship with traditional media evolve this cycle?

• Web Team: What was innovative about your '06 online strategy?

• Communications Team: How effective was your online messaging? What kinds of new things did you try this year? Did they work?

• Fundraisers: Did the makeup of donors (big/sm/online/off) evolve in '06?, what kinds of new online fundraising tools are you using? Any new tactics emerge this year?

• Candidates: What informed your decisions about what resources to invest online?

• IT Team: What lessons does the hard data (traffic, response rates, testing) offer?

• Field Team: Does the existence of MoveOn and DFA affect volunteer engagement?

• Party Orgs: How'd that 50-state strategy play out this cycle?

• PACs & Issue Orgs(501c3s and 501c4s): What was your most successful campaign this cycle?

• Volunteers: What worked. What didn't work. Do you have some ideas to improve tactics?

• Press: Did blogs help or hurt Americans' ability to get good info about candidates?

• New Technology: What kinds of fresh new tools are out there and are they good?

• Mobile Technology: How is txt messging/registering to vote going? What's working?  What needs improvement?

• New Marketing Ideas: Did you do something new and creative to get out your message? Did it work? Share.

If you're interested in joining or starting a RootsCamp, check out their wiki.

Photo credit: Municipal Election Voting Instructions by Roland Tanglao.