The Secrets of Obama's New Media Juggernaut

One of the many ways that the election of Barack Obama as president echoed that of Kennedy was with his use of a new medium that will forever change politics. For Kennedy, it was television. For Obama, it was the Internet.

Recently I was luckily enough to be able to attend a presentation in San Fransisco by one of the architects of Obama's online campaign, Jascha Franklin Hodge of Blue State Digital.

Obama didn't win the election just because of his use of the Internet. He was an amazing candidate, with a great team and the right circumstances, but the way he used the web as a tool to galvanize support was crucial to the outcome.

These are 6 core principles on how it was done:

1) Drive Action

If you want people to do something then set a low barrier to action. Keep it simple and develop a number of different tools that allow people to become involved. Set expectations high and move people up a pyramid of action encouraging them through easy steps to a higher level of engagement.

On the Obama website the bottom of the pyramid was a simple site registration form whilst at the top it was about multiple donations, action taking and peer recruitment. Reasons were always given to act such as registering so you would be the first to know the name of the vice presidential candidate.

A very active social network was developed which was similar to FaceBook but with a crucial difference, that whilst on FaceBook there are many frivolous activities - poking and gifting - My.barackobama.com encouraged action orientated social networking. Instead of throwing sheep you were asked to help the campaign by ringing a friend or sending an email containing an Obama message.

2) Be authentic

Obama's team realised that emailing potential supporters a robotic press release would result in an instant redirect of the message to the bin. To engage people you need to speak to them as people and show personality. Personal email messages and behind the scenes videos released on YouTube although not polished are more real and effective because of this.

3) Create ownership

Give people a sense that they own a part of the cause. Why would anyone support a faceless bureaucracy, corporation or political party that they didn't in anyway feel involved with. Obama created ownership by turning people into personal advocates, giving them their own web pages and encouraging them to add their friends to personal fund raising groups.

He also recognised that it is all about the network, he didn't match groups of grassroot supporters with a single wealthy donor as had been done before, he matched them with people like themselves and sent them emails of introduction so they could support and encourage each other.

By keeping it local the campaign created neighbour to neighbour connections. Once signed up on the site you were sent a list of targeted voters in your locality and given materials to door knock, send emails or make telephone calls. This resulted in over six million contacts.

4) Be relevant

Make sure that your message has relevance to the people that you are trying to engage with. If constituents are recently unemployed steel workers then sending them an email discussing the budget deficit may not be appropriate. Also don't just react to events learn to anticipate them.

5) Build a strong open brand

It is vital to brand professionally and apply it consistently across all your communication materials, which in Obama's case was everything from his posters to his jet. However your supporters should be empowered to do interesting things with the brand. The Obama website carried a full list of brand resources (the original artwork) and gave instructions on how to create your own computer wall paper, videos and posters. This freedom led to some novel uses with people illuminating their bicycle with the logo and the creation of iconic art such as the Obama Hope poster.

6) Measure everything

The great thing about the web is it is very easy and cheap to measure the effectiveness of everything. The campaign used this to its full extent testing emails, advertising and fund raising activities on small groups and then adapting the products to be more effective based on this data.

And in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make

There are many more reasons behind Obama's new media juggernaut including the creation of an amazing iphone application - that with with the owners permission - scanned the phones address book finding friends in key states to call so you could enlist their support. Also to be where the people are, be it on FaceBook, YouTube or MySpace, Obama had a presence.

But perhaps the most important lesson to learn from the campaign is that you should never underestimate people and the beneficial results that can be achieved by empowering them.

And if you choose not to believe me then just look to the 44th President of the United States of America, one Barack Obama and how he managed to achieve his historic victory.

Follow me on Twitter: @nelliesk

Book review: Throwing sheep in the boadroom

How Online Social Networking will transform your life, work and world

Published by Wiley
Written by Mathew Fraser and Soumitra Dutta

If the title seems strange wait until you start reading. What you think is a book about how social networking will change corporations begins with the medieval Popes army - The Nights Templar. Weird, but effective as it links the web2.0 revolution with historical and anthropological perspectives. The perpetual conflict between centralising institutions and horizontal networks.

The title of the book is derived from the Facebook feature of being able to throw virtual objects at your friends. It would be unfair to describe this as just another web2.0 business title as it covers how society as a whole and not just corporations is being changed and challenged by online social networks.

The book is split into 3 sections which the authors describe as I.S.P - identity, status and power.

The notion of identity online is more fluid and multifaceted than the physical world where we are constrained by institutional norms and values. In cyber space you have more freedom to be who and what you want to be. Liberating stuff but there is a dark side; paedophilia and cyber bulling are amongst some of the more frightening examples given. Also the idea that your past online becomes an indelible digital tattoo that is with you for life. Those funny moments captured flat on your back at university and posted on Facebook suddenly become a lot more embarrassing when Googled by a future employer.

The section on status moves away from the social individual and into the corporate world where there is a command and control model or as the book describes it a vertical structure. Social technologies are horizontal in nature and have a bias towards performance and efficiency. This allows the smartest ideas from whoever and wherever to rise to the surface. Middle managers in particular view this as threatening as they see their ascribed status and position as gate keepers of information undermined.

Power is fundamentally about who is the boss. Social technologies are pushing power to the margins rather than it being monopolised. The old command and control dynamic is dying, now anyone can contribute as the barriers and cost of entry is almost zero. This is resulting in new commercial realities.

In the music industry the revolution of social networking sites and peer to peer networks has forced the development of a new business model.

In corporations the adoption has been slower but web2.0 tools are now being used for communications functions that don't necessitate organisational change.

In Politics, Obama's victory in 2008 is the first Facebook election and a vindication of the power of grass roots technology. The same social tools he used to sweep to power now offer an opportunity to reconnect Government to the people.

The authors conclude by examining the issue of trust and state that the web2.0 revolution may depend on the capacity to find a proper balance between loosening controls and losing control - between self regulation and legal constraints.

Overall this is a good book that is stuffed with well researched examples and is written from the perspective of the realist rather than the evangelist. It knits together the past, present and future in a highly readable narrative.

It's the content - stupid: The future of newspapers is digital

I'm a self diagnosed addict - crack, alcohol, sex (?)... no something far less interesting but equally as seedy, newspapers.

Full of gossip, outrageous opinions and oh yes, news. Cheap and totally portable, you can read them anywhere; tube, plane or bath. With each page throwing up something new, interesting and just plain weird.

Yes I know I need help...

On reading the headline "Web overtakes newspapers as source of news in US survey" I began to stare into cold turkey hell. The Internet and its instantaneous communication of news stories, free to user and the destruction of the newspapers advertising business model is Napoleon's Waterloo for once mighty titles.

Or that is how it seems - if you have been reading the commentary on the subject in newspapers. As Rupert Murdoch pointed out in a recent speech, many journalists are too busy writing their own obituary and trying to protect their outdated interests to be excited by the opportunity offered by the web.

Love him or hate him the doyen of News International is correct when he says that journalists must not be so fixated on the paper - it's the content that matters - and there will always be a market for well written, edited, fact checked, filtered copy with commentary.

In the 90's I set up a small travel magazine supported by advertising and most of bills were due to printing and distribution with a relatively small amount spent on the thing that really mattered - the content. Today the web has solved my major headache having democratised distribution making it quick, easy and relatively free to reach a potentially huge audience.

The barriers to entry are much lower now than then when I was pushing bankruptcy with every print run. I was caught up, all be it on a smaller scale, in the same insane cycle that our newspapers are today i.e the cost of paper, the finite nature of paper, the cost of delivery and selling as many ads as possible and fitting the content around them.

The web is diffusing power away from the old press barons and their bureaucratically organised forms of journalism that, traditionally, have required massive capital investment. The cost of online advertising is far lower than for traditional advertising and the revenue generated would struggle to fully pay for today's professional media organisation with its army of journalists, editors, sub-editors, production editors, photographers, administrators, etc.

As we bail out bankers from their mismanagement the same logic can be applied to helping ailing newspapers survive. They too can point to being a vital public service.

However this would merely slow down the inevitable, beyond all the arguments about what it would do to the concept of a free press.

If today's news titles are to survive they will need to rethink their business model. Power is now shifting towards spontaneously organised journalists who can gather and disseminate news with little or no barrier to entry.

As popular as citizen journalism and it's peer reviewed content is, it can never fully fill the breach left by the demise of professional reporters working on a well funded newspaper. There is and will continue to be a demand for high quality journalists and the titles they work for to prevent misinformation. Although to professional journalism's discredit in the UK only 23% of the public count newspapers as a highly trusted source of information.

Citizen and professional journalists need to recognise and utilise each others strengths to counter the spin of corporations and governments. We need these vital services as a society, so that we can make decisions about important things, such as the economy, the environment, healthcare, education and war.

Newspapers will not vanish overnight but there is going to be less print in the future, and the old pecking order of online being the poor man's print will be reversed with an accelerating seepage of readership from print to the online editions. Physical objects—newspapers, books, magazines, discs—will no longer be the primary or most profitable means of delivering and interacting with media: news, fact, entertainment, or education.

It’s not that print is bad. It’s that digital is better. It has too many advantages not to succeed (and there will only be more): ubiquity, speed, permanence, searchability, the ability to update, the ability to remix, targeting, interaction, marketing via links and data feedback.

Hopefully, it won't be too long before I can receive my daily news hit through a subscription to a cheap, strong, light flexible “e-paper” screen which I can stuff in my bag and will combine the best of citizen journalism with professional journalism. This device will offer a true multimedia experience and update constantly by wifi. By doing so it will overcome one of the major drawbacks of toady's newspapers which is that they are static, whereas news by its nature is dynamic.

For this I would be happy to forgo my inky fingers.

PS:
For those with a morbid interest in the newspaper industry’s death rattle in the US (and what happens there often is the next step for everyone else), there is author Paul Gillin’s “Newspaper Death Watch” site, which tracks the agonizing process of their economic decline like a running autopsy.

PPS: There is a rumour posted on the influential Silcon Valley Watcher blog on the 22nd December 2008 that The Independent, one of the large national UK newspapers, is considering moving to an Internet only edition.

In the US The Kansan City Kansan - the only paper covering Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas - is turning off its presses and going online.

Bar Humbug to cinema-style age ratings for websites

Dear Andy Burnham (UK Culture Secretary),

After reading your comments in the Daily Telegraph about the "dangerous internet" and bringing in cinema- style ratings for websites to protect not only children but adults, I'm not sure if you have been enjoying the office party a little too much or whether getting into the festive spirit you have decided on a Christmas makeover as Scrooge.

Bar Humbug!

Ideas such as this make me despair that this Government really does not get the web at all.

One minute the Labour Government talks about our creative industries being one of the engines that will pull us out of the recession. The next minute it is threatening to snuff out one of the last bright flames in the economy by talking about ridiculous legislation.

Some questions Andy:

• Do you plan just to apply this to UK based sites?
• Does the Government not realise that the web is not a walled garden and it cannot force these regulations on sites that do not originate in the UK?
• Or does the Government plan to make the UK like China and bring in heavy censorship of the internet blocking sites that it does not approve of?
• Also Andy, is it not a worrying trend that a government minister in a democracy says he knows what people should and shouldn't be allowed to read and see?

There are so many web initiatives that the Government should be spending its time developing rather than on producing regressive legislation that won't work. The use of collaborative tools, communities, crowd sourcing etc that would help to reinvigorate our democracy.

So Andy, I hope this was merely a throw away comment aimed at pleasing ill informed floating voters in a quiet news period and not a real attempt at a policy suggestion.

If so you could still be one of the the brighter lights on Gordon's Christmas tree.

Merry Christmas and let's hope that like Scrooge you see the error of your ways before it's too late and that you revert back to the generous, kindhearted soul you were in your youth.

Yours
The Ghost of Christmas Present

PS - You can tell the Government what you think of this ridiculous policy suggestion yourself here.

2.0 Democracy

Quick quote from Joe Trippi's book the revolution will not be televised. It sums up the changes that we are seeing in the world's democracies in the webb 2.0 world.

The ideal democratic process is participatory and if the Web 2.0 phenomenon is about anything it is about democratizing digital technology.

There is now a chance for people to not just vote, but to become involved again, to write the agenda, to contribute, to affect more than numbers.

US NOW - Web 2.0 documentary

I went to see a new documentary by Banyak films called Us Now which tells the stories of online networks that are challenging the existing notion of hierarchy.





In his student flat in Colchester, Jack Howe is staring intently into his computer screen. He is picking the team for Ebbsfleet United's FA Trophy Semi-Final match against Aldershot . Around the world 35,000 other fans are doing the same thing, because together, they own and manage the football club. If distributed networks of people can run complex organisations such as football clubs, what else can they do? Us Now takes a look at how this type of participation could transform the way that countries are governed. It tells the stories of the online networks whose radical self-organising structures threaten to change the fabric of government forever.

Us Now follows the fate of Ebbsfleet United, a football club owned and run by its fans; Zopa, a bank in which everyone is the manager; and Couch Surfing, a vast online network whose members share their homes with strangers.

The founding principles of these projects -- transparency, self-selection, open participation -- are coming closer and closer to the mainstream of our social and political lives. Us Now describes this transition and confronts politicians George Osborne and Ed Milliband with the possibilities for participative government as described by Don Tapscott and Clay Shirky amongst others.

It is a thought provoking piece of work that accurately describes the opportunities and challenges that web 2.0 presents. There is a particularly good clip where Ed Milliband (UK cabinet minister) states that we don't want government by DIY and totally misses the point that a government is or should be there for the people and in a democracy has a duty to engage with the electorate more than once every 4 or 5 years.

George Osborne ( UK Shadow Chancellor) seemed to have a much better understanding compared to Milliband about how government should use web 2.0, which surprised me.

It was also good to see a web2.0 film that was British produced and used British examples. Sometimes you get the impression that web 2 .0 is only an American phenomena.

Worth seeing. 7/10

The revolution will not be televised

Currently reading the revised edition of Joe Trippi's book the revolution will not be televised. It's about Howard Dean's 2004 presidential campaign on which Trippi was the campaign manager. This book has been read very closely by Obama's team as much of what he says they have put into practice.

Only one chapter in so far but like the comment he makes about the web being about more than about technology or communication but rather empowerment. How right he is as for the first time in history humanity now has the the tools for easy mass collaboration.

With Obama reinventing democracy by using web 2.0 to listen and learn from the people this has never been truer.