What a welcome relief! Unlike recent elections, we had a definitive result by 11 PM Eastern time. A historic victory for those of us who are morning people.
We saw how technology can be used to make small efforts by many people work together. Whether it was raising a significant campaign treasury in many small donations (although a large part of campaign contributions came in traditional, large amounts), or in the technology and imagination that made virtual phone banks possible, we saw a new way of using technology.
Here's an example: an email message received from the Obama campaign at 8:13 PM on election night in the east:
Polls may have closed on the east coast, but we need your help to get out the vote in the west! We know how hard you've been working, but please help us for just two more hours. We know we can win Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico with your help!
Pick a state and get started now:
Colorado: http://my.barackobama.com/callco
Nevada: http://my.barackobama.com/callnv
New Mexico: http://my.barackobama.com/callnm
Thanks for all you do.
Judith
This wasn't a spur-of-the-moment email; it was built on months and months of imaginative work developing a technology infrastructure that made this and other messages (not to mention the victory!) possible.
This morning, there's an intriguing piece in a
Washington Post article.
The transition team is exploring new approaches to communications that could undercut West Wing traditions such as the daily briefings to reporters, including making more announcements over the Internet to ensure that information reaches not only journalists but the millions of individuals who enlisted in Obama's campaign and consider themselves invested in his presidency.
Using the basic principles and technologies as a leadership tool would be an idea as powerful as FDR's Fireside Chats. We have seen how the Internet can be used to motivate and lead a wide swath of people. But if the transition team is truly worrying about trying to "ensure that information reaches not only journalists but the millions of individuals who enlisted in Obama's campaign and consider themselves invested in his presidency," we've got a problem. The transition team must be worrying not about reaching the campaign enlistees, but instead about reaching the public.
It would be possible to take the principles and ideas behind the campaign technology and apply them to a new leadership tool for the president--any president of any party. In addition to the temptation to blur campaigns and governance ("Let's see, which email account do I use for this message?"), the Obama transition team and administration will need to resist the temptation to take part of the massive campaign technology to use in public leadership, leaving the public version a pale imitation of the campaign technology.
Both efforts must be allowed to flourish--but separately. The innovations made in a governance model will be available to everyone, and those made on the campaign side, will be private, as they are now (although most people can easily figure out how things are designed). But neither should be better than the other.
This will be a great challenge. On the one side, the existing campaign may be hesitant to seed a public effort with their technology experiences; on the other side, it is likely that the Obama administration will be accused of using public money to build an even bigger campaign system. But if these challenges can be met (and they should be), we can begin to use our new technological tools as simply and with as much innovation as FDR did with his Fireside Chats.
