We Need Service-Oriented Infratructure

Colin Delany makes a crucial point at e.politics (and techPresident) about the importance of (a) integrating new/internet/social media with the rest of the organization rather than siloing it as one department among many, and (b) treating new media as a force multiplier for existing goals.

[Former Obama new media director Joe Rospars said] his department was NOT a part of the campaign's tech team. Instead, it was coequal with communications, field/grassroots, finance, etc., and was in fact just as much a client of the technology folks as, say, the press team was.

His remark jumped out at me because it's true so rarely. More often, online organizers and online advocacy staff are put in the technology box rather than allowed to be communicators ... And online communicators are often the last people consulted when messaging and outreach strategy are being planned, when they should be a part of the process from the beginning. [...]  [I]t's not the tools, it's the people and how they're organized and directed to USE the tools.

The Obama campaign used the internet as well as they did not because they employed tools that were particularly new (database-driven field organizing, email fundraising, online video and social networking have all been around for years) but because they worked out human systems to put those tools to work effectively.

 It is important that we don't put the technology cart before the mission horse.  The internet simply changes the scale at which we can productively do things that people already want to do.   As I've written previously, the Leftosphere is not effective because they can fundraise and mobilize activists.  They are effective because they can communicate and organize people around a message.  Fundraising and activism is a product of communication and organization.

I've outlined the correct course and order for rebuilding the Right as follows. 

• ...better information organization, which helps create coalesce a movement around...
• ...the organizing agenda, out of which flows...
• ...the storyline, narrative, which motivates...
• ...the grassroots/netroots to get engaged, mobilized and donating, all of which is channeled effectively by...
• ...the infrastructure, both online and offline.

Notice that the first 3 steps are really about information organization, ideas and communication.  It's not until we get to step 4 - when people are actually motivated to do something - that new, innovative technology really becomes necessary to turn information into more tangible results.

The key: new media operations need to be service-oriented.

The internet is not an organization, full of people to direct.  It is a market, full of people who already have things they want to do. 

We need to stop approaching the internet with a "what do I want them to accomplish?" mindset.  Instead, our campaigns and infrastructure need to ask, "what do they want to accomplish and how can we help?"