Low-tech problems
The problems in the Kerry campaign that James Verini describes in his Salon article are remarkable in their low-tech-ness. According the Verini, the campaign didn't fail because it didn't have the capability to automatically update it's voter targeting database every day, or the webpage was poorly designed, or his online outreach strategy was faulty. No, the biggest problem was uninformed and directionless volunteers. Anyone who has coordinated volunteers for a campaign knows that this is a common problem. However, it's a failure of people, not of technology.
The solution to bad volunteers is better training, more staff, and a good volunteer coordinator who knows who to send door-to-door, who to put on the phone, and who to keep in the back corner stuffing envelopes. Technology will only solve so many problems for campaigns; an experienced and competent staff will take care of far more.
1 Comments:
Good call. The best technological tools in the world won't save you if your overall strategy is basically non-existant. Just goes to show that you need to start with a strategy, and then use the tools available to enhance that strategy. The Kerry campaign clearly didn't put enough resources into their volunteer strategy, and--as many of these articles have shown--that lack of planning doomed the volunteer effort, regardless of the tech tools that were used.
Post a Comment
<< Home