What Obama Can Teach You About Your Business

John Della Volpe

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Memo to CEOs: Yes You Can. The Obama campaign can teach businesses a few things about using technology. The campaign changes the game just as much as the introduction of tracking polls or focus groups, and is perhaps the most prominent example yet of Net Roots, a combination of Internet and grassroots strategies.

How well has the Obama campaign used technology compared to others?

Obama's use of and understanding of technology is better than any campaign I've ever seen -- ever. Certainly better than any campaigns in this cycle.

What are some lessons we can take away form the way the Obama campaign has utilized IT?

There's a lot of up front expense to building the databases and building the infrastructure to run campaigns. Most campaigns think of that as an expense. They think, "What can we do to save as much money as we possibly can until the final week of the election so we can run TV ads?" The Obama campaign looked at it completely different. The Obama campaign says, "We have an asset, which is technology and IT. How do we leverage every ounce of this asset to meet our goals?" The goals are raising money, organizing people and communicating. They handed over the reins of this technology to every aspect of this campaign. It wasn't just the IT department; it was the communications folks, the interns -- everybody was involved in all aspects of using this technology.

How the Obama campaign used social media to engage with voters and what's the lesson for business?

The first example is the easiest to do but is not often done, which is e-mail. The way the Obama camp is using e-mail is brilliant. Regardless of which side of the aisle you're on, subscribe to his e-mail and look at it.

The way in which personas precondition people around his e-mail is brilliant. I'm living in Massachusetts and I typically get three kinds of e-mail from the Obama campaign. I get e-mail from the state director in Massachusetts, Jon Carson. He's going to ask me to volunteer my time in phone bank or to walk a precinct. I get e-mail from David Plouffe, the campaign manager, and that's going to be about letting me know there's a debate coming up, a major speech or what his strategy is going to be. Or I get e-mail from Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, or Joe Biden and that e-mail is typically going to be about raising money. So the first thing they did is just personalize and build a relationship with the campaign. Most campaigns, most businesses, most customer service operations and most marketers still send e-mail from info@ their company and it immediately goes into the delete box.

More important, the Obama campaign really understands the social media landscape in terms of the blogs and the communities. They really understand the impact that the big three progressive blogs have in shaping campaign news: Daily Kos, Talking Points Memos and Huffington Post. They understand now that there's really no line drawn between traditional and social media. They understand the impact of it, they leverage it but they're not beholden to it. Understanding the way in which information is processed and information flows in the social media universe is key to any business, and that's been played perfectly by the Obama campaign.

What is Obama doing that's innovative on the social media frontier?

The use of user-generated content has changed the way campaigns will operate forever. Facebook, MySpace, and other kinds of social networks can help feed this idea and there are also other platforms as well. For better or worse, Facebook is now a news portal site for millions of people. Creating groups and empowering people to share information has gone a long way to help communicate and persuade a significant segment of the electorate. Probably among the top three best-known commercials for this cycle were Paris Hilton ads by McCain, the red telephone ad by Hillary, and the Yes We Can ad, not by Barack Obama, but by Will.I.Am, that had been viewed at last count over 17 million times. I don't believe it was written or even authorized by the Obama campaign. His supporters using Facebook, YouTube, and other social networking platforms were responsible for spreading the one of the most effective messages that he had.

Web 2.0 is about letting go of central control and empowering the edges of your organization, right?