Takeaways from Politics Online 2009 April 24, 2009
The Bivings Group attended the Politics Online 2009 conference in Washington, DC, earlier this week to listen to and participate in a large-scale dialogue on how technology is and is going to change the political landscape. Here are a few important lesions I learned.
1. Politicians are getting technical
Actual politicians, not just their IT and communications departments, are learning how to use web tools. Secretaries of State and members of Congress addressed conference attendees on how they’re using new technologies to make their jobs more effective and to improve communication with constituents. Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner is working with Google on the Google Voting Information Project.
California Secretary of State Debra Bowen manages her own Facebook and Twitter accounts, rather than handing the task off to an assistant. The cost of stressing out her communications team a bit is worth it for Secretary Bowen to connect directly with Californians.
2. Technology is changing the campaign game
There was some disagreement among panelists on whether technology itself is changing elections. Michael Palmer, head of the JohnMcCain.com, asserted that new media technologies are simply new tools in a tool box but the fundamentals of an election remain the same. Others, such as Matt Lira, who runs web communications for Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., said, “every cycle, the new media gains increasingly more influence in the actual election itself.”
MIT Media Lab’s Judith Donath made some interesting points on how our social groups are changing communication, and Nicco Mele of the 2003 Howard Dean Web site spoke about coming changes over the next few decades.
3. E-mail: Never sexy, always effective
Mele also mentioned that in a rapidly growing list of technological tools, “e-mail remains the highest return on investment tactical thing you can go, but the least utilized and the least sophisticated.” After a presentation by graphic designer Rob Kubasko on the history of break-through technological tools over the past few election cycles, My.BarackObama.com and BlueStateDigital’s Sam Graham-Felsen added a note on the importance of e-mail.
4. Get mobile or miss out
I might be the last person in Web development, or in Washington, for that matter, without a BlackBerry or and iPhone, and apparently I better get on that pretty quickly. Even Palmer of the McCain campaign said though his team didn’t have the resources for it, mobile dissemination is becoming crucial. Kubasko and Don Seymour of the Freedom Project predict that the mobile floodgate is imminent.
5. Make your supporters the stars
2008 was a banner election year for many reasons, not least of which was a starring role for not politicians, but voters. Kubasko noted the buzz words for 2008 were “speak out! Share your thoughts!” Graham-Felsen and The Bivings Group Director of Client Services Andrew MacDowell, who works on the Pickens Plan and its social action network, spoke to the power of the people.
