Lessons in Networked Persuasion: Obama 2008

With just three days to go before the 2012 presidential election, it feels like as good a time as any to revisit Obama’s 2008 bid and remember why he resonated with many voters across the U.S. I’m a strong believer in the idea that a message is only as effective as its medium. You can’t mobilize thousands, let alone millions, just by parroting platitudes. The level of civic action we witnessed in 2008 came as a consequence of living and breathing the message from the bottom up.

Zack Exley’s HuffPo piece, “The New Organizers,” clearly proves this point by diving deep into the inner workings of Obama’s 2008 field campaign. Exley reveals how organizers realized the dream of a truly effective netroots campaign. Bound to the motto “Respect. Empower. Include.,” the campaign builders succeeded in synthesizing traditional, disciplined organizing with new technologies that leverage decentralization and self-organization. Obama’s campaign messaging and organizing activities thus integrated seamlessly into a potent mix.

Perhaps one of the most striking insights from Exley’s piece is his observation that the 2008 field campaign achieved what is arguably the most challenging task of persuasion in politics: convincing voters that, together, they can build a better future. Beyond mobilizing volunteers for voter registration drives, canvassing, and GOTV, the campaign didn’t just persuade folks; it fundamentally changed them. Exley relates the story of Jennifer Robinson, a neighborhood team leader, who expresses that she is a different person six weeks into the campaign—through the work, she realizes her passion for organizing in her community. It’s not just her—there’s an entire generation that has come of political age with the Obama campaign. That’s scores of leaders in training who, win or lose, are bought into the transformative power of grassroots organizing.

How did this unprecedented type of campaign succeed? Exley goes into the nitty gritty details around implementation, but for my personal learning purposes, I think Obama 2008 provides a compelling case for the strength of weak ties—what’s more, it demonstrates the incredible power of technology to lower the transaction costs of converting those ties into meaningful action. As someone who is still hopeful that Web 2.0 can help us become more conscious consumers and push businesses to become more socially and environmentally responsible, the overarching message I take from Obama 2008 is that technology alone isn’t a solution. Especially when it comes to advocacy and mobilization, the tech is only as good as your organizational discipline, which is again reinforced by the clarity of purpose communicated in your message.

I’m reminded of Fairtrade International’s campaign earlier this year to mobilize consumers around Fair Trade purchasing. They produced a highly interactive video entitled “A Fair Story,” which they described as “a short film that gives everyone the chance to be part of a global story and connect with people around the world to celebrate fair.” In less than two minutes, an ideal length for Internet distribution, the video invited the viewer to choose to make tomorrow’s stories better than today’s by doing “the right thing” and making Fair Trade “your story as well.” “A Fair Story” played with the idea that Fair Trade begins with a small story that can grow into a big story about “people connecting for a better world.” By joining the movement and amplifying the story, the viewer would be empowered to help create better choices.

Did it work? I don’t know. In my mind, there is a world of difference between talking about Fair Trade and actually making it the rule, not the exception. Does one lead to the other? Not necessarily, Gladwell would say. In fact, this is probably exactly the type of slacktivist application of Web 2.0 that he would bemoan in the context of trying to drive social change. But given the lessons of Obama 2008 (and, more recently, of 350.org), I can imagine how you could develop a real, grassroots campaign to drive Fair Trade purchasing behavior (or recycling, or whatever!) through our social networks in a way that identifies the most promising evangelists or “leaders” at local levels; empowers them with organizing training, tools, and tech; and holds them accountable to mobilizing benchmarks.