Reboot
OK, the system is flexing, both visibly and not. Joe Trippi,
the man who planted the seed, is out and Roy Neel will now try to grow it.
I assume they'll let me retain my corner office (corner of a folding table
in the volunteer bullpen), but I'll let you know in a couple of weeks.
This should make the Digital
Democracy Teach-In on Feb. 9 even more interesting. For starters, Trippi should come as the patron saint (along with co-saint Joi)
People seem to be looking for insiders to comment on this,
and Jim Moore said
a lot about this transition just before the announcement,
perhaps preparing us for it. Jim's point is that the campaign has
in
many respects been about its momentum rather than its accomplishments.
Back in the dotcom days, there was an awful lot of "momentum
investing" where a stock was seen as valuable because of its rate
of gain in value. Sort of like being famous for being well-known.
The Dean campaign is no longer a momentum play. Momentum
investors are going to go toward Kerry, or stay with the ultimate momentum
stock, George
W. Bush.
The Dean campaign, meanwhile, is now either going to
become a solid contributor to our political landscape and society--bringing
real
value and a return
to investors who want to make a difference, or the campaign will wither
away.
Pretty candid words from a Dean insider who happens to blog.
The marketplace of political ideas is the fastest
moving marketplace in which I have ever personally participated. This
week, this day, feels different from last week, and from yesterday. Organizational
learning is paramount.
So what does this mean for the Dean campaign?
We have been criticised of late by our supporters for not telling the
news, bad as well as good. Supporters
feel betrayed when they are told things are fine, and then find out
otherwise when the votes come in. "We could have helped" they
say in distress, "but you didn't really ask us!"
Truth and
learning is vital--as an organization and as an extended community. Learning
must be built into our values, our practices, and our information and
Internet systems. We need to get the feedback going with our
marketplace--a marketplace that truly wants us to exist, and has
many many ways to help.
Postmorteming
There's been a lot of back and forth about what
to do and what Dean's non-winning streak means. Today, Mitch posted some
of the stuff he's been sending to an ad hoc email group formed around Clay
Shirky's Many
2 Many post on the possible failures of social software and my responses.
It's led Mitch to wonder where the Dean effort might go from here:
Here's a crazy thought: Could the widespread discussion
of the Dean campaign's current challenges produce a retooling of its
software (both the code and the ideas in people's heads) fast enough
to yield an astonishing turnaround that out-turnarounds John Kerry? Not
if Dean and camp are defensive about the critiques and refuse to internalize
them. If it is true that no corporation can access all the intelligence
in the world if it is closed off from the world, it is certainly true
that a campaign that sees criticism of its strategy as an attack on the
candidate will grow dumber by the minute.
Could the Dean campaign turn
on a dime, like Microsoft reacting to the Web browser or Roosevelt's
America, which quadrupled production capacity of planes
and ships to win World War II?
Mitch also recalls a discussion he and Doc and I held in Portland
last summer (I've reversed these graphs for flow):
Last summer, Britt, Doc and I were sitting talking at
Powell's Books in Portland about
the Dean campaign. I said I wanted to have a real impact on the campaign,
which I think might have been taken as meaning that I wanted to run or be
a top advisor to the campaign, but my point was that I wanted to see the
campaign take me seriously enough as an individual citizen to argue with
me. That's clued. As a creator of publications and events, I can say with
authority that this can be done in a very efficient manner, but when I pointed
out this idea, it was ignored by the campaign. They weren't interested, because
they had completely hacked the fund-raising mechanism, which felt like enough.
It wasn't.
Engagement means arguing with, convincing and compromising
with your constituency. The Dean system, which emphasized bottom-up organization
of a network, but top-down delivery of policy (through a system of
small
advisory groups that presented the candidate with policies that, once
approved, were unveiled to the electorate), remained relatively aloof
from the individual voter. Britt may not see it that way, but he was
involved day-to-day as a true believer. That's a great thing.
At our meeting in Portland I described my imminent Steal
this Campaign post, a meme whose time may just now be ripe for the
picking. I learned a long time ago to listen carefully whenever Mitch
Ratcliffe speaks. But I've also learned that a trusted observer on the ground
is worth a squadron
full of conjecturers.
The real reason is far more simple. One thing that's not obvious
from out here is that the campaign is not just some half-assed pickup game.
It's run by real pros with decades of service, who share the values and mutual
respect with the programmers and web designers.
Scaling Challenge
The campaign grew by a half million registered users in about
5 months. Simultaneously, it was hiring staff and adding field offices in
about 15 states. Simultaneously, it was creating an entirely new software
space, with most of it built by volunteers or underpaid virtual volunteers
working even harder than in startups, and building tools in response to
a fast moving target market that had never existed before. Jim Moore is correct
when he tells us (above) that The
marketplace of political ideas is the fastest moving marketplace in which
I have ever
personally participated. Jim's been a world-class consultant
for a long time. My limited experience tracks his, and yes, I've stayed up
all night with the troops to finish before the trade show opens.
Everyone
knew the field staff was vital and needed primary resources. Everyone also
knew that we should do whatever could be done to
have
a perfect user interface on the software side, but the resources had to
go to the field first. Life is choices. Mitch continues:
Now, given that the system as it is designed now has
failed to produce a campaign win, what needs to be improved? I think
I've made my ideas
clear: Build for engagement. Debate with your own supporters and by
converting them to your opinions when you are right and adopting theirs
when they are or compromising when you can to extend your coalition
to create an enduring movement that will get people out on the streets
and to the polls. If not this year, then next time. Better, do it for
another candidate--there is a political eternity between now and November.
Mitch repeats what many have said. "Take the time to listen;
don't ignore my ideas."
News flash, gang, the campaign ignores my ideas too, and I'm
there a week a month. (I'm not as smart as Mitch, but I have my moments.)
It also ignores most staff ideas,
from a better idea pool
better than
any you can imagine.
There is simply no time to listen and, like any company, most
ideas from the team itself are not acted on, even if they're discussed.
I sincerely believe that Mitch does have much to offer, and I'm pleased to
be writing a chapter in an O'Reilly book that Mitch and Jon
Lebkowsky are
putting together. But without putting his fanny in a seat up there, his
ideas cannot be appreciated.
We Have Met the Campaign and It is Us
Joe Trippi, R.I.P., said it best: The campaign's out here,
not in there.
Mitch does have the experience, knowledge and skills
to hatch a great plan, but he needs to tell us about it and ask us to help
shape the plan, scope it, resource it and make it work. So do Clay
and Dave and Micah
Sifry and
Joi and Ben and Doc and Weinberger and
all of us. And me, with earlier commitment and better access and absolutely
no real results so far.
The failure of "the campaign" to do
all the right things is our collective failure out here to generate, vet
and deploy a superior expression of the social software that Clay feels has
hurt the Dean effort. We have far more resources and ingenuity than the campaign,
and we're free from the obligation to wait for permission, which will be
even harder to receive, for a while, even if Roy Neel is the answer to everyone's
prayers.
And Logic, Not Or
Could the Dean campaign turn on a dime, like Microsoft
reacting to the Web browser or Roosevelt's America, which quadrupled
production capacity of planes and ships to win World War II?
— Mitch
Ratcliffe
Never
doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change
the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
— Margaret
Mead
If we pool our resources and find our own inspiration we can
combine our strengths as a model for the future. We can invent the next America
starting now, bolstered by how far the Dean campaign has come, not despairing
over its interrupted crescendo. There's nothing missing from the equation
except a declaration we make, writ large so that King George will not need
his spectacles to perceive it.
In doing so, we'd combine our strengths rather
than piling on our mutual detractions.
The Dean turnaround is imminent, inevitable and overwhelming
with simply our commitment to make it so. That commitment will succeed,
staffed by so many smart, committed people. It's time, money, brains and
long hours.
It's deploying the capital we've sunk into the extra bedroom for these
wonderful machines and immense copper pipes and glowing frames of shared
enlightenment
before us.
The will, commitment and follow-through are the kind of hero's
journey Joseph Campbell described, Luke's force and Neo's skills. It will
take us as much courage as any Lord of any Ring in any age, even though it's
not physical. Trust me: what looks epic later is just a mental
leap at the right moment.
The planet is watching and wondering why we're waiting. The
people at Davos last week can't do what we can – just ask Joi and Jay and
Loïc. And if we social software designers start, the world will never
be the same.
Or we can just keep dissecting what went wrong.
Shakespeare said it better, but mythic warriors never
had such a bold challenge with such an unforeseen outcome as we can work,
simply by deciding to.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.
6:30:49 PM 
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