Technology and The Right

Since getting their behinds handed to them in the last two election cycles, people on the Right have been taking a long hard look at why they've turned into such losers. One of the areas of concern that have popped up as a result of this introspection has been the role of technology in politics. Technology, many are now convinced, is super-terrifically important. "After all," they argue, "just look what Obama did with his web site. We need to do that!"

So now, the politicos are all jumping onto the technology bandwagon. Being good politicos, they are going about it wrong.

There has been a rush of political consultants to learn technology, so they can bill themselves as "technologists" (They aren't). There's been a stampede to get Twitter accounts and Facebook and MySpace profiles. Everyone is throwing around cool-sounding terms like "Web 2.0" and "Social networking software".

All of this generates a lot of heat, but, unfortunately, very little light.

Primarily, that is because the people engaging in this discussion, for the most part, don't have any clue about technology. Oh, they know the buzzwords, and they have a grasp of what some current technologies do, and maybe even have some good ideas about how to use tech here and there.

But they don't know technology. What they know, to some greater or lesser degree, is how to use some products of technology. But how to architect it, design applications, or how to implement them…they don't have a clue.

On the other hand, I don't look at technology from a political point of view. I've worked with computers for twenty-seven years, starting programming when I was a high-schooler. I've been a full-time, professional developer, database architect, web designer, and systems analyst for the last 12 years.

So, from that point of view, I offer up the following bits of advice to the politicos.

MANAGEMENT BY MAXIM

Outside the pure tech world, technology is never a driver. Technology is a support function. It can tell you how to do something. But it can't tell you whether you should do something.

The first step in implementing any technology should be the requirements of your business or organization. What problems do you face, and how do you overcome them? What processes should you implement? What information would you like to store or query? What strategies would you like to implement? What objectives support those strategies? What business tactics will allow you to achieve those objective?

Note, please, that none of these questions have anything to do with technology at all. These are all questions about the goals and means of the organization. If you don't know the answers to these questions technology is useless. To the extent that it helps you, it's a result of luck, and nothing else.

Jon related an interesting and amusing tidbit to me over the phone this morning. He noted that everyone in the politics business was getting Twitter accounts.

Why?

What does getting a Twitter account do for you? How does Twitter achieve your organizational goals? How will you use it to further those goals? What is the desired outcome of using Twitter? It's not enough that all the cool kids have a Twitter account. Its use has to be in service of some organizational objective, or it's just a waste of time, no matter how much fun it might be subjectively.

Business requirements are always the driver for technology, not the reverse.

You must construct the business maxims you desire to implement first. These are derived from the strategic goals and objectives of your organization. From those business maxims, you and your technologist then derive IT maxims that describe the information you need to access, the software and hardware you need, and the human and physical infrastructure to support it. This is known as Management by Maxim.

The nice thing about this is that you don't need a technologist, or even have any deep understanding of technology to oversee this process. You do, however, need to know 1) what the organization's strategy, goals, objectives are; 2) the problems your organization faces; 3) the business processes you'd like to implement; and 4) how to document them clearly.

The job of the technologist is to take that documentation, and design the hardware and software technologies that support your business requirements.

If you aren't implementing technology this way, then you're doing it wrong.

A good primer on management by maxim can be found in Broadbent and Weill's article from the Sloan Management Review, which is available for free online here, in PDF format.

WHERE THE BOYS ARE

The technology boys (and girls), I mean. 

Let me be frank. 

If someone has spent 20 years as a political consultant, and the last four years as a web designer/programmer on the side, then that person is not a technologist. If you're looking for a technologist somewhere inside the Beltway, then you're looking in the wrong place.

Real technologists work in the field full time. Real technologists have a history of creating IT/ IS solutions in fields other than politics or government--and that includes the beltway bandits. Real technologists have probably done very little, if any, work in politics at all. Real technologists work at Yahoo! or Telligent, or at private consultancies in Omaha (and San Diego!). They do nothing but technology, and they do it for all kinds of organizations.

That means that, to find effective tech guys, you are going to have look outside northern Virginia and southern Maryland. You will not know these people personally. They may not, in fact, particularly care about or support your politics. And you should not care.

They don't need to know politics. What they need to learn, they will, because that's what they do. They go into a retail sales or construction business, and they learn as much of the business as they need to learn to provide technology solutions. They are professionals at it.

You don't need activists to create your IT solutions. You need professionals who will implement your business rules, and support your strategic goals with the appropriate technology. You don't need to care what they believe, only that their solutions work to effectively promote your organization's strategy.

Be warned: You will have to pay them real money. They are worth every penny.

CONCLUSION

Technology is massively useful. But only if you harness it to support your goals. Without a strategic vision, you're implementing technology in the dark, without any guarantee that it will ultimately be helpful. Technology is merely a tool to help your organization succeed. If you want to use technology to get you to where you want to go, you need to have a very clear idea of where you want to go in the first place, and to map out the process for getting there. Only then does technology have any real use for you.

Anyone who tries to sell you technology without forcing you to go into details about your strategy, processes, and objectives, isn't someone you want to buy technology from.