For a national political party, a nominating convention is an opportunity to communicate the value and importance of the party’s leadership at every level of government. For American voters, it is a celebration and reaffirmation of the democratic process. For the participants - candidates, delegates and the media - it is a potent mix of excitement and substance. We directed a team of designers, producers, technology experts, technical crew and political consultants to produce “America 2000,” the Democratic Party’s Presidential Nominating Convention.

In this first national party convention of the twenty-first century, one of the key challenges was to make progressive use of state-of-the art technology in a new, free-flowing media environment. With more than 500 digital broadcast channels and an ever-expanding Internet world, we were able to produce and deliver the event in more creative ways and to a wider, more diverse audience than in the past.

Our approach combined concept and content management with distribution technology to structure a communications operation that worked well for a variety of audiences - the media, the public, the Democratic Party, and the myriad national and local entities seeking to use the convention to communicate with their constituencies. This operation featured a unique set of programs:

• Convention Broadcast Network
• E-mersion camera coverage
• A Digital Stills Gallery
• Democracy Live!
• The Democratic New Service

In short, the party and all its constituencies had at their disposal a flexible communications architecture for conveying a variety of messages with dramatic effect, both within the hall and to remote audiences.

This included a wealth of visual material, loosely packaged and distributed via satellite for use by local stations with limited funds and resources - providing them with the visual content they needed to talk about Democratic issues that resonated in their communities.