Build IT and they will come...
Like a moth to flame, I
was drawn to Howard Dean's seminal pronouncement on
5/28:
You need to support Dean because he has
said the most important thing that any candidate has ever said:
"I'm not unwilling to change positions based on facts,
but I am unwilling to change positions based on polls."
Since then, I've found myself drawn to another flame–the fervor of passionate
people who want to help anybody besides Bush, preferably Dean,
become our next
president.
These denizens of the 'Net think like open source people. Given a problem,
they start coding, and collaborating, and spotting bugs, and improving the
code base, and welcoming positive suggestions and including new voices, and
not paying much attention to the economics of the project, or why something
can't happen.
It sounds a lot like how a society works and nothing like how politics works.
The contributions these guys want to make involves doing real work for real
campaigns to accomplish real change. They want to set up wikis, websites and
WiFi; not press the flesh and position themselves for political appointments.
How can you not do what you can for these guys? So we started imagining, together,
how we might help candidates with lots of admirers but who aren't set up
to sell $2,000
hamburgers.
Specifically, we imagine a specialized sets of open resources for campaigns
that deserve more help than they can afford. We're particularly focused on
the Dean campaign, but the infrastructure is agnostic. As Jon Lebkowsky said
recently:
...the real importance of nodal politics is not in successful support
for specific candidates, but in the successful construction of a more democratic
model, with increased participation and increased understanding of the
process and the issues. We get there by building a network, many connections
and many nodes, and distributing quality information over that network,
ensuring that there is at every node someone who can facilitate understanding
of the messages we're distributing.
Struggling campaigns deserve to have access to A-teams of geeks covering each
area of production
and IT, addressing needs common to any campaign:
- graphic design (flyers, postcards, websites)
- online organizing and communications
- working with local parties
- html emails
- technology advice
The most urgent need is to establish communications & production
support for meatspace functions. Here's where we confront the problem every enterprise
struggles with: sharing the knowledge of its individuals with the rest of the
team. This is where forums, wikis and other collaborative tools are crucial.
This raises an interesting distinction between a big business and a time-limited
campaign, whether military or political. In business, sure there's a sense
of urgency, but it lacks the visceral imperatives of people in mortal danger
or
a looming election.
Tech mentoring/task
completion is a big part of the support picture. Like all of us, campaign staff
will only use tech to the extent they're comfortable with it
and trained on it. Experts need to be on call to help complete a task, take
over the task, or coach completion if the skills will be required repeatedly.
Anvil Chorus
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. I'm embarrassed
and a little amused that I feel like that. Xpertweb's
my hammer, and work is the nail. The more Josh and
I (and Mitch and Jock and
Jon and Doc and Flemming and
others) teased this idea out of its cocoon, I began to see it as a mini-Xpertweb:
An open set of resources available to
whoever the experts choose to serve. Well that really got me excited!
Tomorrow a few of us will meet to see if we agree that our
vision is that the best of geekdom should rally 'round NOW and deliver the
Dean campaign into IT Nirvana. It helps that many in the Open Source movement
would like to prove they can outperform the big guns at conventional projects
AND innovation.
We speak a lot among ourselves of the need to give the campaign an ego-free
zone. We know geeks can get in the way of enterprise, but it ain't happening
here. Our adhocracy will focus on the skill sets every enterprise needs but
few can afford. Once organized and staffed, the capabilities will be described
on websites private to the campaigns - intranets - with forms that campaign
staffs can use to describe needs and their deadlines.
Or, as described in below, they can just just pick up the phone and say
what they frickin' need.
Make sure Campaign HQ runs like clockwork. Find Dean-leaning tech-heads
who can go up to Burlington and make sure their campaign is running like a
swiss
watch
JOB 1: Master the IT basics for the campaign ASAP, whether as flunkies
reporting to a big-time consultant or as professionals prepared to carry the
IT ball
for 17 months. Like any Open Source project, this work can follow the sun around
the planet.
We assume the campaign is at this point a small business with the conversation
load of a big one. So for now we assume it needs contact management, data bases,
Excel support, outsourced typing, research, writing, graphics, etc. Pros are
expected to volunteer to work the systems as required, using best practices,
free from FUD and vendor agendas. Security's huge here, but sharable to the
grassroots as required.
Make the flow of ideas open and quick and -actionable-. Need to move ideas
from idea-makers to action-doers. Idea processor
The campaign staff, up to and including Dr. Dean, need to be able to shout
out an idea and have others vet it and DO it. This allows good ideas to happen
chaordically and promptly. After vetting, pricing, resourcing and outlining
the project, THEN a go/no-go can be given
whether to proceed. The pricing function acknowledges
that there are always some costs, but not for staffing and implementation.
People have more ideas when they don't have to implement them, and that's
the thinking behind Idea Processing.
Friendly Interface for conversations.
We have a forum tool
with a user-seductive GUI to add to the volunteers' kit for collaboration,
featuring an XML data store. We hope it
will be as useful as a Wiki to the geeks, but more accessible, perhaps
even the staff & Dr. Dean can use it as a dashboard interface to monitor
the campaign's production aspects.
Creative graphics people, get some leaders on board
Tomorrow, Josh and I will define the presumed zones of expertise: copy
writing, graphics - prepress & web. Media development. This is basically
the NYC Creative dream team I had blogged about after the Dean meetup. The
categories
are probably obvious, but suggestions are needed.
At this point, we want to
finger the leaders and project managers in each area - the best we can find.
Then they'll ID the workers and coordinators.
Build the list of talented, vetted, responsible individuals who are ready
to do something for the campaign
Rapid response campaign collateral, print to Kinkos (or Everett Studios)
With
the creative people in place, digital pencils sharpened, campaign staff can
describe requirements, which will then be translated into a task spec by one
of our volunteers, then staffed, created, checked by another and sent through
pre-press or to the media outlet. For print jobs we'll provide a print-to-Kinko's
protocol (or email for media placement), so it's printed in Burlington VT or
Burlington IA as needed, and delivered to the client on time and WAY under
budget. Josh proposes Everett Studios for higher quality materials.
Support for idea generation: talk to the web, leave notes to be perused,
allow the idea makers free reign to pour it out
We propose an 800 voicemail number
with people checking it several times an hour. Campaign people can dictate
their notes to be parsed into communications,
ideas, orders, position drafts, research, whatever. Some materials (after client
approval) will be emailed or faxed to volunteers with good penmanship to hand
write a letter and envelope, lick a stamp and confirm the posting of it - high
tech/high touch.
Provide detailed data to voters based on their specifics; up to the minute
statistics aimed at specific situations
Research can make issues come alive. Compelling facts can be on 3x5 cards
or as sophisticated as a WiFi-equipped tablet computer/teleprompter in the
speaker's
hands, perhaps with
a
technographer speaking
into an ear mike. Obviously this applies to foreign affairs, Bush's Fiscal
Follies, etc.
Allow cross geographic/interest collaboration. Sure-thing blue states
can lend resources to battlegrounds. Isolated talent in sure-thing reds can
do
the same
GREAT idea from Josh and/or Zack: Engage the people in non-swing
states to help from afar in crucial must-win states. Let volunteers from
Idaho and California
help out in Florida or Michigan.
Meet Level, the playing field
IT's interesting and a little heady to realize that there are far more talented
people, fans of particular candidates, waiting to be put to productive use,
than there are workers in even the best-funded campaign.
There's nothing magic in this approach. We're simply going to expose a set
of well-described resources to the campaigns, and let them use those resources
as their imaginations allow. Naturally some campaigns will inspire the volunteers
more than others. If the resources are useful, responsive, professional and
knit together into ad hoc teams that are truly productive, they'll surely be
used. When that pattern is established, a new force will have been added to
American politics: Open Resource Elections.
It's been said that candidates might as have their donors send the money directly
to the TV stations, since that's where it's going anyway. So money, media and
voters are the vital forces in elections. If Open Resource delivers useful
work products and collaboration tools to campaigns, Those workers will be
a new force, leveling a field which seems more tilted than ever.
10:52:50 PM 
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