So many trainings and talks focus on how to build your website "right." We wanted to take a look at what many big name websites do wrong. Learn from our mistakes to build better experiences and more effectively communicate the progressive movement online.

Chris Doorley (Velocity Strategies) created this panel and invited Ryan Ozimek (PICnet) and me (Julie Blitzer, Advomatic) to join in on the fun leading the group discussion. We packed Room M100E to the brim, with many attendees standing through the entire session and spilling out into the hallway.

We broke down the #badwebsite mistakes into three categories: planning, interface and content. And what else can you do besides avoid the big mistakes? Don't reinvent the wheel, best practices are exactly that—best practices. Our favorite resource for best practices is Alertbox from Jakob Nielsen of Nielsen Norman Group.

Next up, we discussed Section 508 compliance and accessibility on the web. About 25 percent of web users have a disability of some kind and we need to support them. That's way more users than on Internet Explorer 6. And a big block of voters. Consider adding alt tags to images, focusing on font size, contrast in font color and text for navigation elements rather than images. Want to dive deeper into Accessibility, follow the #a11y hashtag on Twitter and check out this presentation from the interaction11 conference.

Next up, we asked the room to help us through an interactive exercise and review some notably bad websites, in particular, http://www.hermancain.com, victim to ineffective form design, Brady Bunch-style layout and poor readability.

Today’s Breaking Down Barriers on the Road to Prosperity plenary session dug deep on inequality. The session started with an introduction from DNC Chair Debra Wasserman-Schultz, who commented that progressive victories in places like NY-26 wouldn’t happen without the netroots and demonstrated that the American people have clearly rejected the conservatives’ agenda.

Moderator Barry Kendall set the stage, reminding the group of our obligations to one another and the challenges of achieving equality. Hew argued that we are, in fact, not much further along than we were 100 years ago, especially in terms of economic equality. The growing divide between the rich and the poor not only disrupts our economy but also our democracy.

Kendall introduced renowned artist Rha Goddess, who spent two years traveling throughout the U.S. interviewing and engaging with some of our most marginalized communities. She performed a spoken word story of a 63 year-old woman raising her three grandchildren, driving home how budget cutbacks drastically changed a two-hour daily commute into a five-hour commute. It drove home the reality of the battles we fight. Real people are impacted. She challenged the group to take this opportunity now to fight for a new, more just economy—not just a different shade of the old problems.

Does it seem like Minnesota has a penchant for exporting crazy politicians? Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak says Representative Michelle Bachmann and former Governor Tim Pawlenty fall into that category.

Watch the full-length video here.

Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean says the future doesn't belong to the Tea Party. He says the Republican Tea Party is rolling us back to the 50s. The 1850s. He calls the Tea Party a desperate minority that is growing more desperate as they shrink. Dean says the hate and anger of the Tea Party will never win.

Watch the full-length video here.

Keith Olbermann addresses the crowd at Netroots Nation 2011 by video to discuss his new show on Current TV. We're pleased to announce that Olbermann is our first confirmed keynote speaker for Netroots Nation 2012 (location to be announced soon).

The struggle for civil rights, immigration, the environment and basic principles of fairness that are under attack by Republicans and Democrats alike. Republicans attack by loud proclamations while Democrats attack by fear to advocate.

This panel explored the roots of our frustrations, and visions for our future participation in making real change happen. Attendees drew from the experiences of panelists who have seen the struggle first-hand: Felipe Matos, the fearless immigration activist who marched thousands of miles for the DREAM Act; Dan Choi, who faces federal charges for protesting Don't Ask Don't Tell at the White House; Jane Hamsher (Founder of FireDogLake.com), who advocated vociferously on Bradley Manning's treatment; and John Aravosis (Founder of AmericaBlog.com), who tirelessly holds the powerful accountable. Joan McCarter moderated what became a critical discourse on political involvement in the Obama era.

It has been a tumultuous journey for all of us who fought to find our voice in a political field where three percent of the wealthiest Americans control 100% of the agenda. Developing new ways to affect policy, from the gay donor pullout known as "Don't Ask Don't Give," to risking arrest, deportation and continued prosecution by the Obama administration did not come without painful disdain and ridicule at times.

But our political empowerment has evolved rapidly, in no small measure due to the election of a charismatic president. The evolution is a confusing one when members of our own community upbraid new tactics in favor of more traditional ones. Direct action tactics visualized oppression and discrimination, serving as a "gateway drug" to deeper education. Online activism served a valuable purpose in rallying new readers in to the discourse. The lesson of 2010 was made clear: even in our suffocating system of power begetting power, every citizen has the inherent power to change the course of history so long as we do not compromise or quit the battle before achieving what we set out to accomplish.

—Dan Choi

Protecting Reproductive Rights in Your State showed both statistically and emotionally that this has been the worst period of attacks on reproductive health in modern history at the state level.

Panelists Jordan Goldberg and Elizabeth Nash pointed to the loss of several legislatures and governorships as well as the bolder, more aggressive agenda of the anti-choice movement as some of the key causes, and Representative Erin Murphy (D-MN) noted that a lot of voters were blindsided by this focus of newly empowered Republicans who ran on platforms of jobs and fiscal responsibility. Pam Merritt of Missouri's Planned Parenthood discussed the challenges facing the movement as it tries to become more proactive, including the importance of working more closely with communities of color, as well as success stories like the eradication of racist anti-choice billboards from Georgia to Missouri.

Despite the numerous setbacks the reproductive health and justice movements experienced in 2010-2011, panelists also expressed hope that the increasing awareness of the importance of women's health issues among the broader progressive community would be one of the keys to turning the tide in the years to come.

Some chatter on Twitter from Life Since Vegas: How the Netroots Forced Action on DADT and DREAM:

Panelist Felipe Matos began by talking about why he started the 1,500 mile walk from Miami to Washington, D.C. known as the Trail of Dreams, and how he had prepared mentally for not coming back, as it was dangerous to walk through the South as an undocumented person. Then Heather Cronk shared how her staff meetings had started with checking the status updates from the Trail walkers and how the DADT movement had been influenced by DREAMers.

@Raylab: H Cronk: 'it was the DREAMers who had raised the bar around what direct action looked like when we were thinking about #dadt'. #NN11

Another key theme was storytelling—both the DREAMers and the folks fighting for DADT relied on the power of "coming out" with their personal stories, which they put online and spread through progressive and pro-migrant blogs and social media. Trevor Thomas relayed the story of how difficult it was to get into the traditional media, but by publishing a story a day as a letter to Barack Obama, he was able to create movement and momentum at SLDN for DADT repeal, which had stopped moving. For both movements, they had gotten to a point where they "weren't supposed to happen" and the cynical DC media knew it.

At Numbers and Sense: Communicating About the Economy, attendees heard insights from four communications experts around: how not to reinforce right-wing ideas in the words you say about the economy, how to integrate narrative ideas into an organizing campaign, and how to get your message heard in a saturated media environment.

Moderator Jenifer Fernandez Ancona said while we have come a long way from where we were in 2008, progressives still have a lot of work to do to coalesce around an economic narrative that is clear and compelling enough to seriously challenge the dominant conservative “common sense.”

Linguist and cognition expert Anat Shenker-Osorio revealed new findings of a recent study she did to determine which frames were most likely to privilege progressive assumptions about the economy. Her main takeaway point was that we created and control the economy, and we need to stop talking about it like it’s a natural force beyond our intervention.

Tracy Van Slyke of the New Bottom Line talked about creating a shared analysis of the enemy—namely the big banks—and showed what happens when ordinary people are put back front and center into the conversation. And Erica Payne of the Agenda Project used the example of her “Granny Off the Cliff” ad about Medicare privatization to show how progressives can use right-wing media outlets like Fox News as unlikely distribution channels for our messages.

While we will always be vastly outspent on paid advertising, by being creative in how we choose messages and messengers, we can get Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity repeating our talking points.

ThinkProgress has compiled a Green Guide to Netroots Nation, with various events, films and parties that involve the intersection of climate change, environmental justice and building the clean energy economy.

Check it out here.