"Distributed Phone Banking"
Politics and Technology has an interesting post on (former GOP candidate for NJ governor) Bret Schundler's development of "distributed phone banking":
Now renamed Team Volunteer, the software allows call volunteers to access phone scripts, contact names and numbers, and customized questions and polls via the Web from wherever is convenient. Because volunteers enter responses into an online database, aggregated response results as well as volunteer progress can be viewed in real-time.
Schundler and People Power America have filed for a patent on this technolgy. But, as P&T says,
That's right, folks, the good folks at MoveOnPAC did just this sort of thing waaaaay back in 2003 during the Gray Davis recall campaign. ...If I remember right, some folks did this for Dean too - under DialingForDean.com (gone now).
Read the whole post at Politics and Technology: Bret Schundler's Patent Power Grab