« Register for Wireless Future | Main | Orkutting Up » Dean, Software, and DemocracyMitch Ratcliffe and Britt Blaser have posted insights about the Dean campaign's recent primary losses and Clay Shirky's comments in his post "Is Social Software Bad for the Dean Campaign?" Clay has followed up with a post explaining that he wasn't dismissing the use of social software, just trying to understand why the campaign didn't sustain its apparent success in establishing early leads in the polls. My thought is that the campaign did very well using social software where it would be most effective - bringing people on board, creating a community of supporters, raising funds. However the campaign didn't organize effectively on the ground, and that's what mattered most in the Iowa and New Hampshire contests. In retrospect I don't think it was a good idea to bring 3000 strangers into Iowa to solicit support – Kerry focused more on locals, and made sure they had local support to get people to the meetings. Whatever the case, it's clear that Dean still values the online campaign tools and will continue to use 'em. The Deanspace team's still working away. Social software and Internet communities promise to bring us closer to democracy by bringing more and more citizens to civic engagement. (Not everybody wants democracy - someone was telling me today that we are a republic and should hope to stay that way. Is a republic more practical and scaleable than participatory or direct democracy? Something to discuss....) jon posted this at 9:16 PM |
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