Millennial Makeover

Morley Winograd and Michael Hais’s (2008) Millennial Makeover offers an interesting and prescient look at macro level political shifts.  They argue that major political shifts happen at the intersection of a triggering event and new communication technologies.  They site several examples starting at the Civil War through 9/11.  They identify these shifts with generational transitions as well.  In fact, the whole first third of the book is about generational theory.  (Who knew this existed?  But it’s really cool).

The authors focus on a generational theory that places whole generations into four broad archetypes: 

1. Idealist (Boomers)

2. Reactive (Gen Xers)

3. Civic (Millennials)

4. Adaptive (The Silent Generation)

Their argument is that as the Millennials come into their own, a civic movement will sweep through the country.  People will be less focused on their selves and more on improving institutions. Where the Boomers looked to break the establishment and create a new one, the Millennials will look to perfect what has already been created.  And indeed, if the last election was any indication, that is happening.  Although Obama was elected by all generations, as Winograd and Hais point out, his message was fundamentally Millennial.  They highlight Obama’s reference to the Joshua Generation at a Selma, Alabama church during an annual remembrance of the fateful Pettis bridge crossing and beating of black marchers by Alabama State Troopers.  (A service which I happened to attend). 

Obama’s point echoes Winograd and Hais’s generational theories—namely, the Moses Generation (Boomers) gave us the Civil Right Movement and the Joshua Generation (Millennials) will realize MLK’s dream. 

So how does this all fit in with digital strategy?

Winograd and Hais: “[Technology has] oscillated in harmony with [America’s] generational cycles, so that as the nation finds the need to confront new challenges, the ability to debate those questions in wider and wider circle with more and more information has also been possible.”

Today we see just this.  Social networking and social media have exploded communication and information sharing like never before.  Just as the civic generation takes hold of things, communication technologies now allow people to collect just about any information they need.   Large open and democratic groups have emerged as far more influential and powerful than the cabal of protected, moneyed interests.  Open source software is a perfect example of this—its free and its usually better (if not completely sufficient) than its proprietary counterparts.  All of this is based on the idea that together we can accomplish more than alone.

Unfortunately, Winograd and Hais don’t quite address timeframe.  In order to create a valid working generational theory, you need to have a lot of time and data to look at.  Their timeline is limited as it only goes back about 100 years with any real accuracy.  Indeed, the civic generations (the Greatest Gen and the Millennials) certainly have a lot in common.  However, who’s to say that the next generation will be modeled off the Silent Generation.  Perhaps in the long view, “generations” will model a much longer time frame such as the Chinese Zodiac, or, more likely, a much shorter one.   If it’s the latter, then digital strategy will have to adapt to something quite new just as people begin to master what is becoming the status quo.

techpresident.com....sweet.

Thanks to Allan Rosenblatt, I just looked at techpresident.com for this first time.  Interesting site with some cool features and cooler information.   Particularly nice that it attempts to be non-partisan.

This site integrates and integrates and then integrates some more.  Specifically, it integrates data from social networks directly into modules on its site.  For example, it collects data directly from Facebook and plots it on a colorful graph.  This instant visual perspective of “friend” supporters of different presidential candidates is informative, but, more importantly, shows how far ahead of the field Obama actually is.  (Although we need to admit, that Obama’s popularity is far more a function of who he is rather than his ass-kicking digital strategy).

Another nice integration feature is the Politickr which—on one page—shows the feeds from different social media outlets (YouTube, Twitter, blogs, etc.).  In quick glance, you can get a sense of what each campaign (or at this time, I suppose I should say campaign in remission) is writing about.

Another great integration is with Technorati.  On a series of charts, you see a graphical depiction of how often the candidates are mentioned in the blogosphere.

Context is King

Although Person-to-Person-to-Person was completed in 2006, many of the digital political strategies are the same today as they were then.  The main things that are changing are the tools—email, social networking, meta networking, microblogging.  Although each of these tools requires different skills, the strategies seem to be similar to what they were before all these tools were available.

The one key item that these articles don’t really seem to focus on is the item that seems to be the most important: have a cause and a context that people care about.

Eric Alterman’s essay provides the most useful takeaway from the readings when considering digital political strategy over the longer term.  Namely, context is king. 

As people’s tolerance wanes for campaign after campaign asking them to “share” or “sign up” or “join the conversation” the context of the campaign/message will be the driving force for success.  For example, I might love badminton but not be willing to join a campaign by the badminton society to get more high schools to offer badminton as an official sport.   However, if the context were right, my motivations could change.  The campaign could be connected to the Olympics or to a HHS drive to improve the health of kids. 

Take the Obama campaign.  This is widely sited as a primo example of successful online organizing and activism.  Indeed, it was, but that success was in direct proportion to the peoples’ desire for change and the context to channel that desire.  The campaign’s great accomplishment was that it made easy giving money, staying connected, and organizing.  But the fuel was an implicit energy and motivation not only to join the Obama movement, but also to change the status quo.

Things get difficult when you try to gain traction around a campaign that less exciting than Obama.  The methods described by these essays deliver the desired results only if three key prerequisites have been met: 

1. You know how to use the tools

2. People already care about the topic

3. The context is right

This might seems somewhat obvious, but the second and third prerequisites cannot be stressed enough.  My experience has shown, for example, that the association community has not been able to effectively use social media.  What’s odd about that is the association community is a natural pre-formed group who care about specific topics.  Certainly, this could change as society acclimates to these new tools. 

On the other hand, as people grow more accustomed to social media, social networking, etc. they will prove much harder to reach—as they will be more discerning about who they open themselves up to online.  In fact, I would propose that in time it will be as challenging to reach people online as it has been offline.

I’m not even sure if “thinking like a rock band” will suffice.  The fact is that people have a very limited amount of time, and few campaigns will be as interesting as Obama’s.

At the end of the day, context drives the campaign.  In the Obama campaign the context was clear: the chance to be part of something historic—and to catapult the old out and bring the new, the very new.

These tools and strategies can be very, very powerful indeed.  But if the context is not right, it’s like sending out a mailer to a purchased list—not a lot of return.