Technology and The Barack Obama CampaignThe Anchor, The CTO and The Political Writer

A week before President-Elect Barack Obama enters the White House, The MIF Enterprise Forum hosted a unique event last week that was entitled, 'Innovation and the 2008 Presidential Campaign'. Moderated by ABC7's Ravi Baichchwal, the guest panelists included former Obama Campaign CTO, Kevin Malover and Beachwood Reporter founder, Steve Rhodes. I used to work with Kevin at Orbitz and am a fellow NBC5 Street Team member with Steve. I was looking forward to seeing what tech learnings came from the chat.

Ravi kicked things off with his stories about covering the election and how some Chicagoans thought ABC7 was too pro Obama (I didn't understand how this had anything to do with technology, but figured this would change).  From there, Ravi did touch briefly on the importance of technology with the Barack Obama campaign, but also made a point to tell the audience that 56% of what people learned about the news and the election came from television.  Again, I wondered what this had to do with technology and was eager to hear Kevin speak. 

Kevin is now the CIO at Golder Rauner. Similar to other Chicago tech opportunities, Kevin knew a guy from Orbitz (Kevin was Orbitz' CTO and led the company post launch) 'who knew a guy'. The next thing you know, Kevin was the CTO on the Obama for America campaign and quickly went to work.  At first glance, the campaign was critiqued.  Outsiders thought things were moving too slow and that Obama's site was too 'brochure-ware'.  This was done on purpose. The campaign didn't want to waste any unnecessary development dollars.  Next, Kevin told us that it was decided that the campaign would function like a business - everyone was to have a Blackberry.  The group knew that the money to purchase Blackberrys was an investment into keeping close communications across the entire campaign - a smart decision indeed. 

Next up was social networking. Kevin mentioned that he immediately was sent to DC to find a social networking partner.  The name of this partner wasn't mentioned, but I do know that DC firm, Blue State Digital, played a large role with the New Media aspect of the campaign. 

From there, Kevin briefly touched on the need for server space - and many tech partners signed on to assist the team.  As much as the campaign planned in advance, the site still crashed the day it launched.  

Steve spoke next and immediately applauded the synchronization between the marketing, financial and product strategy teams. From the color and font choices of the site to the way people felt as if the emails spoke directly to them, Rhodes thought it was artfully crafted. 

Steve then went on to point out four campaign tactics that helped move Obama's popularity forward:

1. Online advertising - Carefully placing positive ads within those news sites that included articles that spoke unfavorably of the Senator's actions (aka Tony Rezko). Steve thought this was a skillful way to make the media and consumers not focus on the negative publicity Obama received.

2. Video games - Placing ads within video games - capturing the attention of the younger demographic by 'placing a billboard of Obama along side a road in the game'.

3. Making it 'About You' - Enabling voters to win a chance to meet Obama through donating was a decisive tactic to 'make people think it was about them'. Steve believes this was a bit misleading, as he didn't believe that what voters wanted, platform wise, was addressed.

4. Oprah - Folks that signed up to the Oprah event in Denver had to dedicate time to volunteer for the Obama campaign.  

From here, the panel discussion swayed more towards the 'whys' of a campaign versus the technology and innovation behind the scenes. Audience members asked questions about campaign tactics, some of which Kevin could not answer. Kevin was the CTO and a smart as a whip technology professional - many of the folks in the audience were asking marketing questions that no one on the panel could fully answer. Rhodes did a wonderful job challenging what Obama said he would not do if he ran for President, yet I sensed the conversation swinging slightly towards what one would see on "Chicago Tonight" (a show which I happen to be a fan of ).

Fellow audience members did ask technical questions, including how e-mail was used and how the site was served (the tech crew was small, nimble and took care of multiple satellite offices, amazing).  I finally had the opportunity to ask the question that was burning in my pocket for months: "Since the Obama campaign relied heavily on technology to share information about the election, did anyone determine who had access to this technology and who didn't?"  This question relates to a topic near and dear to CTR - The Digital Divide.  How can we ensure that everyone has access to the Internet from their very own homes?

Was my question answered? No. Kevin left the campaign before Obama was elected,so of course, he didn't know.  Steve didn't answer and Ravi said that the majority of voters received their information from the television.  Meanwhile, audience said that I should look up the Rural Broadband bill, yet does this answer the question of getting folks in urban areas 'net access? After the discussion five people came up to me and thanked me for asking the question, because they too would like to know how technology was made accessible to all voters.

Takeaways:

The Obama for America campaign was comprised of an efficient and experienced team that used the latest collaborative tools to get things up and running smoothly. The initial investment in communication tools led to consistent messaging that made everyone feel that the campaign was about them. Pundits would say that these 'togetherness' messages weren't genuine, but others say they were, including listeners in the audience who were campaign volunteers.

Another takeaway? TV is here to stay and continues to be the way most voters learn about candidates and their platforms. I was tempted to ask Ravi what he thought of Twitter, since ABC7 just did a feature on Twitter usage in Chicago, but time ran out.

What do you think? Would you have done anything differently if you were leading the charge with the Obama campaign? Let us know in the comments.

Comments

[Jim Cunningham]

http://www.bluestatedigital.com/ used Zeus Technology Load Balancing to deal with the unusually large amount of traffic the Obama sites were getting. www.zeus.com The US system integrator for Zeus is right here in Chicagoland. TechPro Inc. www.techpro.com
(Zeus just landed Mozilla too!)

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