Last weekend, I had the pleasure of attending a conference for online grassroots professionals who work in the advocacy/political fields.
What struck me the most at this conference was how the discussion had changed so much from just a year ago.
How so?
A year ago, as people were basking in the much-ballyhooed success of the Obama online effort, the political world (both sides of the political aisle) was focused on tech — and how they could build better tools to help them win online.
One year later, they are rightfully focused on content.
How did this happen?
Well, as the media elevated the Obama online effort to legendary status, folks were focused on his proprietary tools, such as My.BarackObama.com.
However, as we wrote in this post back in May, the key to Obama’s success was using existing technology to effectively deliver compelling content to a very intense base of supporters. It wasn’t just his proprietary tools like MyBO.com — it was use of existing tools, such as Facebook and Twitter.
The content and style of his emails was far superior to McCain’s. Instead of delivering useless “weekly e-updates” (like McCain), the Obama campaigns delivered short, personalized emails that were short, focused, with a clear call to action.
Fast forward to today. Online advocacy is playing a major part in the current health care debate. But it’s not the dawn or use of new, proprietary tech tools. For the most part, it’s the use of YouTube by citizen journalists who are video taping town hall meetings.
For example, the value of a citizen recording (and posting on YouTube) a few moments of a congresswoman taking a cell phone call while a cancer survivor asks her a question at a town hall meeting is … well … priceless.
As is the value of a blogger uncovering the false identify of a self-identified “physician” at that same town hall meeting … who was actually not a physician, but a known partisan political activist.
Content wins every time.
As we post here, here and here, we believe that citizen journalists empowered by new online tools is where the power of the Internet really lies. And the foundation of that power will always be compelling content.
New technology, of course, allows us to more efficiently and effectively deliver that content. But without the strong foundation, the technology really doesn’t matter.