Tackling Design at the Personal Democracy Forum Conference
The Bivings Group is a proud sponsor of this year’s Personal Democracy Forum conference, being held next Thursday and Friday in New York. This year, we’ll be hosting a panel discussion focusing on critical issues surrounding design in political web development.
As a firm, TBG has worked with dozens of political candidates and issue advocacy groups through the years, and our talented designers have seen it all. “Political Web Design: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” will take a dive into what works, what doesn’t and what we wish we’d never see online again.
Panelists Tom McCormick, senior vice president, creative and production services here at TBG, Michael Turk, CRAFT Media/Digital founder and partner, and Allyson Kapin, a partner at Rad Campaign, will lend their expert analysis to recent trends in political web design.
We’re going with a more interactive panel this year, engaging the audience by requesting their votes on some of this year’s best, worst and ugliest.
If you’re attending PdF, come participate on Thursday, June 3 from 3:30-4:30 and make sure to stop by the TBG booth while you’re there.
Last year, we hosted a panel discussion focused on social action networks, where we used the Pickens Plan as a case study in how to engage users on multiple levels and build a strong supporter base.
Attack of the Obama Clones Part 2: The Screenshots
Last week I wrote a post detailing ways in which the Barack Obama website design has been appropriated by other other political candidates. The post focused on specific elements of the design and how it had influenced others. For the sake of posterity, I also put together a Flickr set of the most blatant rip offs that I’ll update over time. The set is embedded below.
View full screen and click on the Show Info option to view my notes on each design.
@Safeway:You MUST Like This Page to Continue vs. Like @NissanEVs LEAF & Plant a Tree
In the last two days Safeway and Nissan have launched unique Facebook landing pages that take different approaches to accomplish similar objectives. Playing off two very different motivations, both companies want your profile information and status updates in exchange for delivering a reward. In this case, money or karma. Winning the award for the most aggressive approach is Safeway’s landing page promoting a $100 Memorial Day gift card giveaway. Considering the potential to generate a very high number of names, mailing addresses, phone numbers, email addresses as well as Facebook, Twitter and blog postings compared to the relatively low cost of the promotion itself: $500 total in gift cards, plus web consulting fees. I would expect more companies to follow suit. There is of course the added benefit that most people who enter the contest and “like” Safeway’s page will most likely stay fans of Safeway’s for the immediate future, thus giving Safeway additional opportunities to market their supermarkets. (Poorly Photoshopped text added.)
As for Nissan, instead of the chance to win a $100 gift card, in exchange for “liking” AutoNation / LEAF and selecting your choice of locations, you are rewarded with a Facebook status message informing the world that your slacktivism: “Just planted a tree in Brazil which will help re-develop the Atlantic Rainforest that has been depleted by sugar cane production.” Also very clever of AutoNation / Nissan to advertise on the current live stream of TechCrunch’s Disrupt conference. It will be very interesting to see which promotion is more successful. Are more Facebook users willing to give up a lot of personal information for a chance to win $100 vs. the certainty of planting a tree? Current stats are 74,695 fans for Safeway and 1,670 for AutoNation. 
Pakistan’s Media Ban: Limiting Access and Spurring Action
When I traveled around Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital last month on an independent reporting project, all the sources I encountered under the age of 40 asked me the same question: “Are you on Facebook?”
The social networking site is massively popular in the Islamic republic, and this week’s ban – and subsequent banning of YouTube and nearly 1,000 other social sites – stifles the communication of a population with very few social freedoms.
The ban, set in place Wednesday, resulted from an admittedly ill-advised Facebook group calling for celebrations and submissions of “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day.” Depicting the prophet is forbidden in Islam.
While Pakistan is led by a notoriously tight government, they have one of the most open media systems in the world. Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf ushered in an age of journalism allowing dozens of new TV news channels and publications to flourish. While not all of the reporting is responsible, Pakistanis have enjoyed open access to media sources, including websites, for some time.
The Pakistan Telecommunications Authority, which implemented the bans, reacted to the protests of thousands across the country offended by the Facebook group, so the ban is not coming only from the government, but from its citizens.
“I am in favour of freedom of speech and freedom of expression. But there needs to be a fine line drawn. Otherwise freedom of expression can turn into freedom to offend,” Pakistani blogger Kashif Aziz said in a BBC News interview.
Another blogger, however, took the side of many of Pakistan’s young voices, saying although only 8 percent of Pakistanis have internet access, but that it provides a critical means of communication and expression.
"The internet has become a way of life itself. If they continue to block things, this is going to hinder Pakistan’s progress,” said Dr. Awab Alvi to the BBC.
The ban on Facebook could be in place until May 31, and the date for lifting the wall to other sites are being addressed individually.
Do you really digg your town?
Some people really dig their town, and Manor, TX is trying to tap into this passion through its crowdscouring site Manor Labs. The site has many social media features from sites like Digg. It seems fitting that its CIO Dustin Haisler, who is 23, spearheads this effort; perhaps this is what you get when you give a millennial authority. He is doing something bold. Check out the May 2010 Government Technology profile of his efforts titled "City 2.0."
Like Digg, Manor Labs enables people to vote up or down each idea, and the more popular an idea is, the more likely that the town will take action on it if it is reasonable and feasible to do so. Participants are also given "Innobucks" that they earn by contributing to the site. They can cash them in at the site’s store for privileges like the opportunity to serve as a honorary mayor for the day (complete with lunch and dinner with the mayor and city manager), a ride with the police chief in his car for an entire shift, and — my favorite — the opportunity for the town to officially name a week after the person through proclamation. It is important to give participants incentives — even if it is an ego boost like getting a week named after you, which comes at very little cost to the town. Further, I wonder how many boys between between the ages of 3 and 10 years old who are begging their parents for a ride in a police car… Very clever.
There’s little need to touch upon peddling and purchasing influence since the spirit of the effort is to encourage improving the town for everyone. 
Another advantage to this type of crowdsourcing is that it is done in a venue that promotes transparency.
As I have noted before, there are participation inequality issues. Not everyone has the ability (whether access or competency) nor the desire to participate in such an effort. What happens when the digitally savvy and excited over represent themselves? That was the case when the Utah State Legislature passed a school voucher bill back in 2007; many pundits attributed some of the success to a discussion about the bill on the Politicopia wiki set up specifically discuss political issues in Utah. After the bill’s passage, the bill was killed by a voter referendum. Thus, even though people get excited about an idea online, it does not mean that most of the other affected people agree with the direction of the discussion.
However, it is important not to throw out the baby with the bath water. Organizations that use social media to gather opinions and feedback from their constituents must acknowledge that their entire constituency likely does not use one channel of communication and participation. Thus, they must take such feedback and participation in context and solicit feedback through other means to involve a more diverse group of stakeholders. If Manor, TX does this, it likely will avoid what happened to the Utah State Legislature.