Interview with Marshall Ganz, Designer of Obama's Organization

Featured. Posting written by njacknis over 3 years ago.
Last comment 7 months ago, 2 Comments.

The link and summary below is an interview with Marshall Ganz of Harvard's Kennedy School, who helped build the organization for Obama's election campaign.  In a few minutes, it is one of the best presentations of what really happened organizationally.

I found it interesting in the way he discusses themes we have emphasized and in the intention to take this approach inside the government of the new Obama administration. 
 
In my own presentations to public leaders,  I have been stressing two related points:
 
1. Social networking tools are useful organization tools within a government, especially for a new reform-minded chief elected executive.  By using these tools, he can enhance the collaboration among those in the government bureaucracy who wish to join in his innovations -- almost a virtual "fifth column" to counter the weight of traditional bureaucratic inertia that stops most Presidents from achieving their vision.
 
2.  In the same way that the introduction of computers into business more than two decades ago resulted in a disintermediation -- i.e., middle management jobs were eliminated -- so too, with ubiquitous networks and PCs/smartphones in the hands of citizens, there is the possibility of a new disintermediation.  This time it would chip away at those institutions in society that filter communications between leaders and citizens, including the paid professional civil service.  Leaders can now use collaborative tools to cause public goods and services to become available through coordinated citizen action.  This would especially threaten the elimination of those jobs in civil service that are the first line of interaction with citizens and which do not require any more expertise than any experienced citizen might have.
 
Lots of food for thought here.
 
Norm

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http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2008/11/07/04

Net Routes

The Barack Obama campaign's winning web strategy employed the latest in social networking to create a highly efficient update of old-fashioned politicking. Marshall Ganz designed the field-organizer and volunteer training systems that turned Obama's campaign volunteers into organizational leaders.

 

Comments

Martin_medium msweeks

Love the idea of a 'fifth column' actually inside government - has that slightly wry sense of the need to spend at least some time working out how to fight people who are meant to be on your side!  The really powerful insight from these comments, and the interview with Marshall, is just how subversive, at least potentially, these new tools might be.  The idea that people will start to use these tools to create public action or public value without reference to government is intriguing...people will find themselves increasingly in the position where they won't have to wait to be invited to 'participate' in a process still largely run by government. 

posted over 3 years ago

113_1356_medium Paul Johnston

Interesting piece. The key change seems to be going for mass involvement and then not treating the volunteers as cannonfodder! I like the idea of encouraging them to use their own stories as a way to reach out to people and of giving them greater access to the organisation's information so that have more leeway to get the best value from it. My only question would be: where is the real empowerment? Its campaigning with a more personal, friendly feel, but how am I (or the group of friends I recruit) more in control? Hopefully President Obama will want to maximise the use of Web 2.0 to keep in touch with supporters (but also presumably with all citizens, i.e. including those who did not campaign or even vote for him) but presumably this is about more than style, tone and frequency of communications from him to me the citizen?

posted over 3 years ago