Tag: online tactics

Big Oil’s worst nightmare is, ironically, big oil

~ Jim Eltringham ~ 1 Comment

Questions may fly about who will pay how much to clean up the latest catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, but the answers affect more than British Petroleum’s cash reserves.  The accident which claimed the lives of rig workers and threatens the coastal environment’s short term health comes just months after President Obama made a big show of opening up new areas to offshore energy exploration.  From a business angle, at risk is the future of offshore oil drilling for BP and any other company that relies on the United States government for exploration rights.  In the coming weeks, the drumbeat to cap the wells and bring the oil derricks back to terra firma will only grow louder, unless BP and their colleagues take the right actions now.

The Action

Eventually, there will probably be a rational explanation of why BP wasn’t entirely responsible for all the economic damage, but as the current debate over financial reform legislation demonstrates, rational explanations will do little to convince populist politicians. In addition to directly funding clean-up efforts, BP would be wise to work through local governments to administer small business development programs to help industries affected by the spill get back on their feet – and possibly even exceed their previous production.

Working through local and state governments is especially key.  Criticisms of BP are most likely to come from those voices, but if they are satisfied with relief efforts, they could be powerful allies.

Incidentally, BP should not act alone in this.  Energy companies have been asking to drill for resources in the waters off the U.S. shoreline for a long time, and the most compelling argument against them has come to realization.  While BP’s visibility and leadership is vital, other companies have a dog in this fight, too.

Messages and Messengers

There are two important themes BP and the industry must advance.  First, they must highlight what they are doing to rebuild – the programs they put in place as well as the results.  The second (which involves the whole industry, is to re-affirm the value of offshore drilling.  In both cases, the people delivering the messages matter as much as the messages themselves.

Toyota’s handling of the safety issues which plagued them earlier this year offers some good advice to follow.  Toyota recognized that not only was the perception of their cars damaged, but leaked emails and memos damaged the credibility of their top executives.  Americans don’t trust CEOs, so  Toyota turned to the two groups that could offer credible, positive messages: the engineers and assembly line workers who make the cars, and consumers.

This is where online communication – and especially online video – will be important.  A video channel featuring commentary from government officials and environmental workers will offer a transparent and compelling chronicle of the relief efforts. And oil industry workers – from those on the rigs to those in the refineries – offer an important insight as well.  For them, offshore drilling is as much about putting food on the table as it is about lowering gas prices, and they are now the best spokespersons for the industry.

The reality is that we live in a time where often, government picks winners and losers in the business world – a proposition that puts BP and their colleagues at risk.  Further, since they are hoping to tap reserves in areas controlled by the federal government, The oil industry will not soon shed their image as a huge, greedy, quasi-government entity.  Americans are traditionally suspect of power.  The best thing they could do is admit some level of responsibility, work to rebuild, and – most important – invite the American people and media in to see the details.

An American Macaca in London

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Just days away from an election, Gordon Brown pulled a George Allen.

The similarities go deeper than off-the-cuff comments caught on tape during a campaign.

In each case, the comments helped underscore the impressions opposing candidates wanted voters to have of the offending candidates.  In 2006, Jim Webb and Co. would have loved for northern Virginia voters to think of their incumbent Senator as a southern”good ol’ boy” with questionable opinions on race.  That’s not the type of charge a serious candidate can credibly level against a candidate without strong evidence; Allen made it easy when he unwittingly uttered a word that sounded like an ethnic slur.

Similarly, opponents of Brown’s Labour Party could have complained that the Prime Minister was out of touch with ordinary Americans (or however that argument goes over there), but Brown has made it exponentially easy by callously dismissing the concerns of a voter. The snide attitude and duplicitous nature make Brown the stereotypical career politician – aloof, self-aggrandizing, and contemptuous of the constituents underneath him.

The only thing going for Brown is that, at the very least, he didn’t know he was on tape.

I pahked my blawg at Hahvahd Yahd

~ Jim Eltringham ~ 1 Comment

(Cliff Claven-to-English translation: I parked my blog at Harvard Yard.)

Harvard’s Berkman Center for the Internet and Society released an extremely flawed study of influential political blogs that found some interesting contrasts between the ones on the left and the right.  In sum, liberal blogs are more communal, set up as digital campfire “Kumbaya” sessions that invite multiple users and issue more frequent calls to action.  Conservative blogs tend to be solo acts.

As highlighted by The Nation’s coverage, the study floats the idea that the difference could be as political as it is technical:

The right’s relatively limited integration of user contributions is consistent with readers or users who seek the stability of authoritative voice, consistent with claims… about the kinds of psychological needs that conservatism serves. Similarly, the more egalitarian, participatory practices on the left require tolerance for the unpredictability of open and fluid discourse.

The concept that conservative philosophy leads to more individually-themed blogs makes sense, but for the complete opposite reason outlined here.  In just about every domestic policy debate over the last 30 years, conservatives have argued for a reduction or limitation of government programs, while liberals and progressives have argued for an expansion of government programs.  It follows, then, that a conservative is more likely to start a blog by himself or herself than to round up a bunch of friend; a liberal might be more inclined to look for collective action. I don’t necessarily buy it, but I can understand the argument.

The paper also presents a second, much more plausible explanation: that leftist online political discourse came of age in the mid-2000s, when liberals saw Republicans in power and a Democratic party that boasted dynamic leaders like Tom Daschle, Dick Gephardt, and John Kerry.  Remember at this time, John Edwards was the breath of fresh air that was supposed to bring new life to the party – that’s how hopeless things looked for the Democrats.

This explanation,though it may be closer to the truth, highlights the major problem with the study: it’s based on data collected in 2008.  That’s before Twittering conservatives started holding local tea party protests last year to protest government spending – and well before those protests became a national organizing flash point.

The openness of the tea party movement – and its base of activists who are frustrated by both parties – seems to bolster the latter conclusion on the nature of 2008’s conservative blogosphere, but it begs two more questions:

  1. At the rate technology and tactics develop online, how can you say you have credible current findings about the nature of online activism with two-year-old data?
  2. If a UMass guy can understand that, what the hell is going on Harvard?

Location, location, location

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

The 2012 Presidential race is still a couple years away, but the early contenders are already beefing up their online efforts.  That makes it a good time to start asking what the 2012 online campaigns will look like.  The National Wildlife Federation is doing some cool things with location-based technology, and the contenders to the Oval Office would be wise to take notice.

Between social networks based on where you’re at (Foursquare, Gowalla) and the GPS-enabled smartphones that make these applications portable, location data will be important eventually to the campaign that invests the intellectual resources in it.

E-commerce dawned in the late 1990s, and in 2000 John McCain became the first candidate to raise significant amounts of money online.  In 2004, the internet offered a way to link people with common interests; the Howard Dean campaign (and later the Bush Campaign) responded with programs that helped activists find each other and organize local events.  In 2008, MySpace and Facebook allowed people to easily share content with friends; the Obama campaign’s online efforts were based around that same concept of virality. Successful campaigns change to reflect internet trends.

A campaign might use any number of location-based tactics.  Activists could be alerted to events in their area.  A campaign could offer contests for volunteers using Foursquare to check in at  headquarters or to recruit friends to attend rallies and other activities (not the least of which is voting).  Advocates could request campaign materials (like lawn signs) or instantly share stories through smart phone applications.

There’s no guarantee that the first campaign to take advantage of this technology will win, of course – McCain, Dean, and more recently Ron Paul  all proved that success online doesn’t always translate to the ballot box.  But for those looking for emerging technologies to gain an advantage, this is one place to be.

(Get it?  Place to be?  Location?  Aw, shut up.)

Sorry, that Twitter isn’t yours…

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

David All of TechRepublican has a really good post following up on the Poltico story about the early online organizing for 2012 Republican presidential candidates.  All, who was quoted in the story, chronicles a brief back and forth between himself and some Sarah Palin backers over the former Governor’s Twitter account. All had criticized Palin’s online team for starting a new Twitter account when she left office (and thus having to rebuild her substantial follower list).  Apparently, when she left office, state officials claimed her Twitter handle was state property, forcing her to sign up for a new account.

All correctly identifies that whether or not Sarah Palin could have (she could have) or should have (she should have) laid claim to the account name, a bigger issue is at play:

The state-level IT folks, likely a problem in every state, pushed back on the account ownership question because they don’t understand how best to treat emerging situations that are not black and white technically, legally or politically… But we’ve now identified a problem which we should work to address collectively: How should the accounts of government officials be treated once they leave office?

This is no small question for governors who chose to run for President.  Could Democrats in the Minnesota state legislature start calling for an investigation on Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s Facebook friend list to make sure the governor doesn’t pull the modern media equivalent of swiping office supplies?  Would Republicans in Montana have a right to do the same if Gov. Brian Schweitzer started to make waves with eyes on the 2016 ticket?

It would be wise for states to figure this out seriously while the issue is still non-controversial.  In the absence of a policy, politics are sure to fill the void.

A glimpse of the future

~ Jim Eltringham ~ 1 Comment

Politico today details the early spending of possible 2012 Republican candidates in building up their online infrastructure.  The groundwork the contenders are laying now gives a good glimpse of how online race for the nomination might play out in two years.

The online campaigns of Obama in 2008, Howard Dean in 2004, John McCain in 2000, and even George W. Bush in 2004 were about creating channels that would most effectively target voters’ enthusiasm through various activities like fundraising, creating campaign events, and recruiting others to support the candidate.

In the context of 2012, that means Newt Gingrich, Gov. Tim Pawlenty, and Mitt Romney are leading the pack: all three have made heavy investments in online consultants, and have a strategy for building lists and maintaining targeted contact with each person on that list.  Online operations, just like offline operations, depend on recruiting and communication with individuals on as individual basis as possible with the hope that each will later participate in a collective action (i.e., voting).

There are plenty of graphic designers who can make a pretty website and lots of videographers who can make funny or entertaining web videos.  Winning online campaigns are all about the data.  A spokesperson for Gingrich’s 527 sums it up well:

“One of the things we’re really big on here at American Solutions is sending the right message to the right people,” said Tim Cameron, the group’s director of digital operations. “We put a lot of money into our back-end infrastructure.”

Gingrich is deploying online ads across the internet.  Pawlenty is turning his PAC into a portal for supporters to give to other candidates – giving Freedom First good information about what issues matter to which donors and forming a good base of information for Pawlenty’s 2012 run.

Sarah Palin continues to attract excitement, but her online efforts, like her messaging, appears to lack focus; despite large numbers of social network followers she is not investing heavily in data management.  Ditto for Mike Huckabee, whose outreach strategy consists of, according to Politico: “deputizing a volunteer in every state to run a state-specific account for it on Facebook, Twitter and Ning, a smaller social-networking site popular with grass-roots political activists.”

(Note: Ning is no longer a free service.)

This isn’t just about online presences, either; understanding the potential of online outreach is part of understanding what it takes to build a winning campaign.  If these trends continue, look for Palin and Huckabee to have online campaigns that look shiny, draw good support numbers, but fail to launch them out of second tier status and into the midst of legitimate White House contenders.

How do you like that? Facebook and microtargeting

~ Jim Eltringham ~ 1 Comment

This was a big week for Facebook, which stepped up its presence in the battle with Google to control the internet on computers.  (This is slightly different from the battle to control the internet through your phone or the internet through your TV or the battle control the internet through the cord surgically affixed to your brain stem.)

By spreading tentacles throughout the web, Facebook will latch your profile more closely to your online activity.  Sure, it’s a little creepy, but it’s also voluntary; no one has to have a Facebook account after all.

Setting aside privacy concerns, this is a really big [BIDEN] deal in a year when political insurgency is all the rage (no pun intended).  In a great post at TechRepublican, Jordan Raynor outlines how establishment political support (such as Florida Governor Charlie Crist enjoyed a few months ago) can be trumped by a campaign which connects directly with supporters and leverages that energy to create its own momentum.

Facebook is going to become a better and better place to do that – providing in 2010 and 2012 what the concept of microtargeting was in 2002 and 2004.  In those years, Republicans used consumer data to identify potential supporters – if you shop at a certain place and subscribe to certain magazines, for instance, you might fit a profile of a Republican voter.

Now, you can profile your supporters (who may or may not belong to your party) and directly serve them online ads.  The possibilities are pretty exciting – unless you’re sick of political ads.

You will be.  You will be.

How deep is America’s distrust of Washington?

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

This ad showed up next to an online news story today:

Running for Congress by running against Congress is nothing new.  But running for Congress because your opponent brings too much money to the home district?  National politicians love to talk about pork barrel spending, but their tune changes when the conversation turns to their own district.  The battleground for Keith Fimian’s challenge to Rep. Gerry Connolly is VA-10, my current district of residence and one that probably gets a lot of money in federal funds.  Connolly is also a targeted freshman member of Congress, so Democratic leadership is probably eager to help him buy votes.

Of course, even if Fimian wins, he might not be any different – but the rhetoric of going to Washington, D.C. and sending less money home is still pretty notable.

iContribute’s shot to ActBlue

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Online campaign consultancy Engage – who, helmed by Patrick Ruffini and Mindy Finn, helped out on Scott Brown’s upset in January – released a new wrinkle to their iContribute platform today:

Through iContribute Slates, political action committees can now raise money for directly for a slate of endorsed candidates. PACs can easily set up their pages, pick the candidates they want to highlight, and offer supporters a chance to support selected candidates with a contribution of whatever amount they wish.

Last month I discussed why the right doesn’t really need an ActBlue-esque clearinghouse for online fundraising – and Slate is a good example of why (despite Ruffini’s contention otherwise within the post).  Slate isn’t as much a fundraising tool as it is a chance for a PAC to become transparent and helpful to other campaigns – it’s more about communication than money.

Tim Pawlenty’s FreedomFirst PAC, which Ruffini cites in his post, is a good example.  A donor could cut the PAC a check of up to $5000, which would then be distributed among various candidates.  Or, through Slate, that donor could give $2,400 each to eight different candidates.  Not only does that add up to a lot more, but it lets the PAC share contacts with the campaign – and someone who donates $50 today may be able to donate another $50 in two weeks, or may be interested in helping out in other ways, like making remote GOTV calls.

When ActBlue launched, it transformed passion into money.  Slate transforms donors passionate about one candidate or committee into potential activists for others.

W: Redemption through revolution

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

The George W. Bush Presidential Institute will host a conference on online dissidents next week.  For a President who left office after two terms with enemies on both the right and left, this is a possible preview of how Dubya plans to brand his time in office.

President Bush’s eight years were defined by September 11; Bush responded to those attacks by advancing the idea of expanding liberty throughout the world. But with the Iraq War grinding along with no end in sight on January 19, 2009, critics on both sides of the aisle viewed Bush as one of the least competent two-term Presidents in history.

Faced with this, Bush made a smart post-Presidential decision and stayed out of the public eye (save for his humanitarian efforts in Haiti and a pretty good ceremonial first pitch on the Texas Rangers’ opening day).  During his radio silence, the Iran election protests and the China/Google flap demonstrated that freedom-loving people around the world were fighting freedom-hating regimes.

Suddenly, the conversation on world affairs was ripe for W to dip a toe back into the water.  Tech President pointed out that this is a good fit for Bush:

While “George W. Bush” might not be the first person that pops into your head when you think about cyber dissidence, there’s some sense to it. For one thing, you can see this approach mesh well with the sort of hand-on democracy promotion he leaned towards at times during his terms.

Along with a good cause, Bush’s post-Presidential messaging has another smart element: activities like this cyber dissident conference are forward-thinking rather than retrospective.  It doesn’t tell the story of Bush’s foreign policy, it adds to it in order to create the recurring theme of extending freedom.

Bush himself might say, “Even if you don’t agree with me,you know what I believe and where I stand.”  Last time he used that line, it worked out ok for him.