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Reported today at Dean's official blog:
Recent meetups for Bush, Edwards and Missouri Rep. Richard Gephardt flopped for lack of interest. Carol Darr, a political scientist at George Washington University, says a study found 294 Internet political chat rooms about Dean, five times more than the other candidates combined.

"The Internet benefits insurgents," Darr says. "It is a way for candidates who can connect with people to make an end-run around the established process."
###

I think the last quote is misleading. It implies that Dean's online success is due to his being a voice of opposition. This isn't entirely true.

Any of the candidates, even George W., could be doing this. It helps if your message is consistent and strong. The difference is in the WAY Dean is doing it, or rather the way his campaign staff is doing it. This is a tactical matter. It could be Dean's doing or it could be Trippi's doing. The difference is that the Dean campaign provides the fuel and then gets out of the way. They let the fire burn rather than trying to control the fire.

Playing with Internet fire could be dangerous. It is yet to be seen how it will end for Dean. However, the method has been formed and well-documented over several years within the Internet marketing world. The power of the Internet is in getting constituents talking, not only with you but with each other. Once you get friends talking to friends you begin a chain reaction that can become enormous.

This works especially well if your product or message has a strong appeal. It cannot be faked. ICQ swepted the Internet world several years ago precisely because it was a great tool and because its creators built in easy ways to pass it along to friends and relatives. They launched a great product into the Internet community and then got out of the way (concentrating on staying ahead of the building volume of traffic on their servers).

So far, Dean's staff has done a good job of balancing the need to guide the chaos and the need to let the chaos just happen. They need to really concentrate on refining the message and the candidate. The Dean community will take care of deliverying the message and promoting the candidate.

The reason you won't find the other candidates capitalizing on the Internet is because they can't release their fates to their constituents. They want to control the campaign, control the message, control the election. Dean has tossed his fate to his supporters. He and his small national staff have offered themselves as enablers and servants of a larger movement. That's the story of the Internet. Be a servant of your community (market, constituents) and you can lead the world.


posted by Unknown at 12:17 PM

 
Getting together was all about "good feelings, not just good memories," Jon Ball said as we parted the Tulsa East Central 30-year reunion last night. I think that's a great insight. It isn't just nostaligia. Something endures over the years when you reunite with friends from your idealistic years of youth.

Reunions can also be a great study in the immutability of genetic influence. No matter how different the physical looks, you quickly detect the core personality you loved, hated, feared or admired when just a kid grappling with what life had in store for you. Sometimes the consistency of personal nuances hides much deeper changes in attitudes or philosophies, but the personalities are there as clear as ever.
posted by Unknown at 1:41 PM

 
Doc Searls rants about this NYTimes article today. In the article Matt Richtel claims that the "always-on" world of the Internet may be addictive. Doc's point is made by comparing the network with other forms of media. Nothing of interest is on TV. Very little of value is on the radio. Magazines and newspapers are filled with content you don't want. The value of the Internet is that the user is in control. We get to control the news feed.

His blog on this point has drawn several comments.

Yesterday he issued a challenge to Dean, Edwards (and the rest). He challenged them to get 100% behind the end-to-end design of the Internet. He was referring to this piece by Lawrence Lessig in which Lessig asks regulators to help defend the "neutrality" of the Internet. He points out how different our world would be if our highways were owned by private companies and we had to pay to use them all. What if the electricity grid, he asks, supplied reliable power only to Panasonic TVs? This idea of a neutral platform is critical to the continuation of innovation and invention surrounding the Internet.

This neutrality is a result of the choice to put almost all of the "intelligence" of the Internet at the ends. The backbone is pretty dumb. Its the end units that do the processing. Some have suggested the Internet could be improved by moving some of the intelligence into the middle. When Tim Berners-Lee wanted to create what became the World Wide Web he didn't have to ask permission to use the Internet because TCP/IP is designed to allow just about anything to move over it.

Doc's challenge to the candidates was to come out strong in favor of the current system. It is the foundation on which the amazing progress of the 90s took place.
posted by Unknown at 11:28 PM