Last week, Alan Rosenblatt of the Center for American Progress (a fellow Tufts alum, I might add), hosted another terrific round table on the impact of technology on this election and what the future might hold. His panel included Andrew Rasiej and Micah Sifray who I quoted in my last blog post and Jose Antonio Vargas of the Washingon Post who covered the election from a tech perspective. Much has been written about how Obama used technology so successfully in his campaign to organize his constituents and raise money, but two questions came up that bear much discussion going forward:

1. Is what Obama did with technology replicable by other candidates or advocacy campaigns? and
2. How will what Obama did in his campaign be transferred to governance and grassroots?

My answer to the first question is a yes/but. Yes, Obama has provide a road map for using social networks to organize, emails and text messaging to mobilize, and micro donations to raise tons of money. He has also once and for all, I hope, shown the advocacy community the power of a database. All those politicians and interest groups who have a fractured databases held together with scotch tape with little information about constituents have to now wake up and get organized there if they want to compete for money and activists in the future.

The but, is that the message and the messenger still matter most even in the age of technology. Rasiej made the point that Obama was the right politician at the right time with the right message, which fed into new media and the demographic using it. The "hope and change" message and Obama's great oratory gifts created a "movement" that worked online. Not every politician or advocacy campaign has that. Remember, Hilary tried using the online videos as well but no Wil I Am type video went viral for her -- instead she got Big Brother. Campaigns of all types have to work much harder on their message in terms of wider appeal -- not just to the old pigeon holed groups of the past. Obama and the internet showed that people are now empowered and informed by technology and cross party and demographic lines for the right message. The same boring messages delivered by inarticulate messengers will not fly in the future.

Second, how will technology be used for governance? My answer is transparency is needed and Members of Congress and the agencies need to be willing to hear directly from constituents -- both the good and the bad. In addition to a weekly You Tube address, Obama needs his agencies to fully disclose their documents and proceedings online with summaries and invite public discussion. And, Members of Congress need to put their floor speeches, committee remarks and draft legislation on their websites and invite respectful discussion. They should want to know what their constituents think in real time and be forced to act accordingly -- either accepting or rejecting what they hear and explaining why. Remember, Congress has a lower approval rating than President Bush and they should welcome an opportunity to hear directly from the people.

These topics require much greater discussion as well as how we plan on conducting grassroots in the future with web based tools and social networks -- my favorite topic! I look forward to having it.

Neil Hare
Global Vision Communications