Comments on: More Excitement About Social Networks in Government: Obama’s Fault?

By: Do Not Get Carried Away By Obama’s Attitude About Social Software

Do Not Get Carried Away By Obama’s Attitude About Social Software — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 05:12:02 +0000

[...] encouraging to see the new US administration breaking new ground. However, as I said in a previous post, using social software for campaigning and for actually governing are two very different [...]

By: Chris Parente

Chris Parente — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 18:42:12 +0000

Andrea — interesting question. I think it comes down more to how involved citizens what to be, versus the tools needed. The tools exist, the test will be how participatory the public wants to be:

Blogged on this recently, in response to Newsweek article:
http://cparente.wordpress.com/2008/11/26/government-20-goes-mainstream-are-we-ready/

By: Stessa Cohen

Stessa Cohen — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 15:02:59 +0000

I live in one of those key US states that had to turn for Obama for him to win the election. As much as I love online social networks, I have to admit that Obama won because he did use both online and offline strategies in what seems to me to be unique combination to accomplish several things:

to collect & organize volunteers
to encourage people to register to vote and to vote
to deliver campaign messages
to communicate with non-volunteers and non-supporters
to bring online and off-line communities together.

In my community, for which there was a lot of support, it would be impossible to say where the online and offline networking stopped/start. We had a lot of TV & radio ads, local offices, posters, etc. as well as local social networks, emails, etc.

By: Donatella P.

Donatella P. — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 17:18:43 +0000

I am referring to Anthony’s comment. First of all, I don’t think this is the same community: the two communities may overlap, maybe in the future may become one, but they are not at this moment. When writing “The ground game was scaled in large part by the ability to mobilize the on-line community”, IMHO you don’t consider Obama’s great ability to involve and motivate people from different generations, with different languages and different ways to act and communicate. Of course it is impossible for ONE person to shake millions hands: the real question is how to organize, as Obama did, on the ground (a huge and diverse territory!) thousands people who have gone door-to-door for months to promote their candidate. A quasi-military strategy, where all the grounds, physical and virtual, have been taken. Actually Obama has had both a wonderful strategist (thanked in his first speech as President elect) and an extraordinary organizational “war-machine” (look at the date of this article: http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10608791) which has been able, among other things, to organize all the “troops” on the ground (volunteers included) and to use different communication tools for the maximum effectiveness. No tool or channel was the best , but each was effective according to the target and when it was used (for example, the Internet has been terrific for Obama fund raising). That’s marketing, baby. Marketing!

By: Anthony Bradley

Anthony Bradley — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 14:32:24 +0000

You can’t divorce on-line and on-the -ground. They feed and fed off one another. The ground game was scaled in alrge part by the ability to mobilize the on-line community. On line community, of course, doesn’t replace ground efforts. After all, it is the same community. The main difference is scale (mass collaboration). It is simply impossible to shake hands and maintain physical social contact with milions of people. It can be and is done on-line. The question is not the value in general the question is the value in specific meaning exactly how can Obama engage the general value of the large on-line community he has formed to add specific value to his presidency.

By: Andrea Di Maio

Andrea Di Maio — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 12:11:43 +0000

Here’s a comment I received through email from an Italian friend, who claimed to be unwilling to post a comment in order to resist to all this web 2.0 excitement (isn’t it weird to think about email as vintage?).

“First of all, your neighbor seems moved by good intentions, is willing to achieve something locally, but may lack concrete social contacts on the ground and aims at replacing those with virtual contacts, which are also so much more fashionable. It is just a guess but if he had a concrete network in the jurisdiction, he’d be much better off cultivating those and remaining pretty much down to earth.
As usual we take from America what fits best our views. Everybody mentions how Obama used Internet and social networks, but almost nobody highlighted his ability to engage very different demographics through a campaign that has been primarily conducted on the ground, at a very very local level. Actually he acknowedged that in his first speech after election, when he thanked the many elderly people who campaigned for him door-to-door. But, of course, this is not enough trendy to mention.”