The MIT Enterprise Forum meeting on January 13 offered two views of "Innovation and the 2008 Presidential Campaign". Former Obama Campaign Chief Technology Officer, Kevin Malover, provided the insider's view, while Steve Rhodes of the Beachwood Reporter provided an unvarnished, sometimes cynical, reporter's view of the campaign innovations. This panel was moderated by Ravi Baichwal, Emmy Award winning news anchor and reporter for WLS-TV. Baichwal opened the panel by commenting on the experience he had of witnessing and reporting on a story that had a global connection and historical significance. This significance came from the intersection of three elements: the candidate, the global situation, and the innovations used to engage the public in the campaign.

Malover was quick to attribute the true innovation of the Obama Campaign to the campaign's New Media group, which did not report in to the Technology group. He spoke instead about the innovative leadership of the Obama campaign. "Campaigns are start-ups. They move quickly and last for a limited duration." The Obama campaign approached Malover, wanting to run the campaign "like a business."

From the start, the campaign established a collaborative "low drama" work environment. Malover was asked to create an infrastructure that included things that one would normally do in business, but were new to politics. For example, everyone would have a Blackberry. They also wanted to leverage online tools: social networking, collaborative platforms, video streaming, and text messaging.

Malover joined the campaign in February, 2007. They had a month to launch the social networking platform with solid, scalable email capabilities and to assemble a team that could expand their ability to grow at the needed pace. Their success was beyond anything they could have planned for, and they, along with service provider Blue State Digital, were able to keep operations running without significant service failures.

Steve Rhodes followed the Obama campaign for his online publication, the Beachwood Reporter, as well as other well-established, more traditional media publications. He complemented the campaign for delivering a "solid brand" with "remarkable consistency." There was "no sense of zig-zagging." He observed that Obama's New Media team "used technology to get closer to 'the customer'".

Rhodes said that so many web sites end up creating a barrier to the candidates, while the Obama campaign created the feel that "it's 1 a.m. and David Plouffe is sending me an email!" They were masters of both the medium and the message. They used celebrity, media, and advertising to counter any negative coverage.

More importantly, they conveyed the sense that "this is your campaign," with promotions like "we're going to pick five people to have dinner with Barack" and allowing supporters to publish dissenting opinions on the Obama web site's forums. But to Rhodes, this was a "false sense of inclusion." The Obama campaign talked about "the cynical way Washington insiders sliced and diced" the electorate, but, Rhodes pointed out, that's exactly what the Obama campaign did! That's what all politicians do. He gave the example that Jesse Jackson Jr. has a "war room" in his basement.

Rhodes and Baichwal both agreed that the campaign's handling of traditional media was a necessary element for the campaign's success. Baichwal pointed out that his media, television, still reaches the broadest audience and largely sets the tone for the national conversation.

Rhodes' opinion was that, ultimately, the Obama campaign didn't transform politics or the process, but did apply an innovative use of technology.

Our research at Metrist Partners into how the Obama campaign used new media showed many lessons that will be used by candidates for a long time to come, and can be used by businesses as well.

As Rhodes observed, the Obama campaign delivered a consistent brand message and brand experience. The vision for Obama's online campaign can be expressed as: "Connect with our people and get them to talk to others." This simple and well-defined vision turned out to be essential to the success of the campaign. Chicago-based analyst Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com wrote that for the presidential race, "each 10-point advantage in contact rate translated into a 3-point gain in the popular vote...."

In a way, Rhodes was correct. The strategy followed by the new media team, as described by Chris Hughes, Facebook co-Founder and member of the Obama campaign leadership team, "When computer applications really take off, they take something people have always done and just make it easier for them to do it, and maybe bigger."

We describe the campaign's online strategy as "Motivate people and give them the tools to easily take action." Email was the backbone of the campaign, providing regular contact between supporters and the campaign. The emails helped to define the candidate, circulated talking points, invited participation and donations, followed the news cycle and fought back quickly against disinformation. It was through the emails that the Obama campaign did the most to make people feel that they were part of the campaign.

The Obama web site functioned as the community center, writ large. The new media team effectively utilized social media, search, blogs and public relations. They innovated in the use of mobile text messaging. The "Get Out the Vote" tools on the Obama web site put hundreds of thousands of people into action on behalf of the brand while a room full of people did the web analytics work needed to make a campaign of this scale succeed. The internet, because it is interactive, can give people the tools to take action in a way that television , despite its wide reach, can not.

While Rhodes' cynicism may be well-founded, his concern that the campaign was not as innovative or authentic as they are generally credited is, in our opinion, misplaced. The Obama leadership approached the campaign with clarity of vision and mission and executed flawlessly. Malover's technology team (and his successors) were nimble in providing an infrastructure that supported this level of innovation. But it was Obama's new media team that delivered the "Obama brand experience". Good ideas are one thing. Great execution creates legends.

More coverage:

Chicago Sun-Times: Obama web team performed more like Google than earlier dot-bomb duds

Labels: Barack Obama, campaigns, innovation

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