It’s not often that I read or quote Mother Jones, but here is a good article on what the Obama campaign did and where we have to go in the future.
Everything I thought we knew about the campaign’s use of technology and the Internet faded as I spent more time with the campaign. The game-changer in the Obama campaign, as I found in talking to key staff—and through volunteering in southern Ohio myself—was that technology was not an add-on: It represented a carefully considered element of almost every critical campaign function. Most remarkably, technology played a critical role in the one area least understood by the “digerati” and most online campaigners: moving online supporters toward real-world action.
The New Media team’s mantra and focus was “Message, Money, and Mobilization”—three critical campaign functions that their work served and supported.
The next campaign managers must decide: Follow the online-offline hybrid model used by Obama in 2008, or use technology in new ways to scale grassroots and field organizing beyond what has yet been possible.
I would encourage all campaign managers/consultants as well as “new media” and “tech” folks to read this article.
