This past month, I have been reading Eli Parser’s “The Filter Bubble” on my iPad Kindle app – and I must say, Eli has done a bang up job of discussing the impact the Filter Bubble can and will have on our political and intellectual discourse.

As I continue to work on the problem of “influence marketing”, it brings back concepts of control theory to mind, and how tuning the inputs to a system can probabilistically ensure a bounds on response. And, as you begin to learn the “modes” of the “system”, you are able to generate more desirable performance from the “system” overall.

Eli uses the phrase “persuasion styles” (from Dean Eckles at Stanford and Facebook) which discuss the modes on how a person can be influenced to perform an act/action based on how the request is made, not simply by the content. And with so much Social Action data around on the web (and purchasable in large batches from companies like GNIP and DataSift), the ability to sift through the voting records, demographic records and Social Action records will be a powerful mix.

Political Influencer Marketing

So what is “influencer marketing“? As I described in an earlier post, some circles consider the measure of influence corresponds to your perceived expertise in a particular topics or arena. It harkens back to the old E.F. Hutton commercial, “When E.F. Hutton talks, people listen.” But in today’s world of social media focused on driving action – and advertising dollars being spent to drive purchases or brand impressions, influence marketing becomes more of a word-of-mouth advocacy concept – who is able to drive actions from whom by creating reciprocal or responsive actions to the original action.

In Control Theory, we would call the original Social Action an “impulse” and then see what “modes” get “excited” (e.g., vibrate, resonate). This processes is known as System Identification. And while most “systems” are considered from a single-input/single-output (SISO) model, we know that we are bombarded by “impulses” from all sorts of sources (e.g., TV, adverts, Facebook shares, retweets, LinkedIn updates).

And, the “system” (e.g., you and me) are not static linear boxes which are “time-invariant”. We are impacted over time by external factors like weather, emotions, concerns, location, etc. So the linearization of US to determine the “impulse response” has potential for a great deal of “modeling error”. But in a probabilistic world,we can come up with linearized predictive models that help in the likelihood of understanding a “system’s” response to an “impulse”.

How will this help campaigns?

In looking at the problem facing the Presidential campaigns, a new toolset is being created. The first one, staffed by a majority of people on the Obama Technical Team, are going to be the web applications and interfaces you will see everywhere. You will see sites for coordinating, sites for petitioning, the main campaign site, and even the Facebook app site – which is essentially another website – will be collecting all of the click information you do within the site.

You will see the same A/B testing concepts testing on an increasingly smaller and smaller sample size scale to allow for micro-targeting from the campaign at the center hub. But then, they will use the most powerful mechanism of all – your connections – to communicate to you in even better ways.

In a recent article in Slate, Sasha Issenberg discusses the Obama Campaign’s effort on a new system called “Project Dreamcatcher”. From the basic details presented and the interview with Rayid Ghani, my read is that Dreamcatcher is going to leverage text identification solution to determine sentiment and meaning (“listen”) from the conversations going on in the Social ‘sphere. Then with the various people that are supporting the campaign, call them to action to and then to help spread the message.

Consider this drawing (click for bigger view):

By allowing the campaign to have access to their social networks, messages are spread faster and with less friction – as long as the campaign can call upon their supporters to create a Social Action to their calls-to-action. Calls-to-action can be as simple as share a video, like a news article, comment on a status update, retweet a link – things that some people used to call “social media”, but I’d rather call “digital artifacts”.

Artifacts are the digitalization of something – whether it is a moment in time (photo), a physical location (checkin), an opinion (post/article), entertainment (video) or whatever. A digital artifact becomes the centerpoint of what is being acted upon – to the benefit of the Actor and the Audience (e.g., their friends/followers).

As the Social Actions occur on the Artifacts, the networks themselves share the actions and are left for the friends within the network to receive the content. And, as more people in your network share the content, (at least on Facebook), there is an increasing likelihood you will see the Artifact and your friends Social Actions on it. Thus giving you impressions about the Artifact that the campaign desires.

Put out enough Artifacts and have enough of the “right” kind of Social Actions that are in your persuasion style – and you are likely to get involved. Eli even includes in “The Filter Bubble” a discussion about how even with just the slight repetition of specific words like “moon” and “ocean” in a completely unrelated news broadcast, the participants behaviors changed to have an inclination to “Tide” over other similar detergents.

But there is a big problem that all campaigns need to be aware of: using someone’s data without permission can cause a bigger problem that one might expect. Take a look at the backlash that Klout felt when it was discovered that it created accounts for people it never asked to. The challenge is not that the data is publicly available, the problem is that most people do not understand how the data will actually be used. And, if a political campaign does something of a similar sort, I am confident that the Fourth Estate will have a field day on that blunder.

Step 1 of Obama's Facebook App

Step 2 - Obama Facebook App

Neverending Step 3 - Obama Facebook App

Summary and Prediction

In my humble opinion, I believe the 2012 Election will be about the next step in behavioural targeting using click-stream data and social graph data in a way that allows for influencer marketing to create returns like never before.

Campaigns will use metrics that will drive performance for funding, for sentiment and for votes – but in a more targeted fashion like never before. The Obama Campaign does not only have a technical team working, but a video production team, a slew of copywriters and a host of designers. I can only imagine that they are on the level of a independent studio in creating appropriate Artifacts for this campaign.

Right now, the Obama’s App grabs “basic” data which includes your Facebook ID, name, profile photo, gender, list of friends (read: social graph), networks, locale, age range and anything you have made ‘Public’.
Unfortunately, for now the app simply hangs (see Step 3).

As for Romney – his Facebook app is broken.

Today, Obama’s app is capable of using the social graph data – and when it does, you will see it in the personalization efforts on their targeted messaging.

Note to the campaigns: consider the potential consequences – and play true to the Google motto: “Don’t be evil.”

Jon Huntsman’s site http://jon2012.com/ is a chop off the WordPress template block. And sadly, his campaign seems not to have been updating the site for some time – the major post on his banners comes from a November 3, 2011 NYTimes article and a Lincoln-Douglas debate dated December 12th.

Let’s see what happens after New Hampshire.

Rick Santorium’s site (http://www.ricksantorium.com) is a crappy mess of asking for $1 Million ($1M). And on January 10, at 7pm EST, seems as though the thermometer got stuck at less than $420M. And sadly, you would normally look for the “Skip to the site” link on the bottom of the page – but the page is so wordy and bad, they had to put the link on the top of the page. Oy vey.

When you get to the internal site – someone decided that the right-hand side of the site is where the main navigation should be. I guess that their designer spent a little time at the Gawker set of sites. Problem is – Gawker et al are very different sites (each site essentially an evolving news site) – and the Santorium site is a refugee of websites from 2004. And a blog? No – Conservatives need no such things. And the Facebook signup – seems as though he has a scary signup for the Rick Santorium Facebook app.

I can hear my grandmother exclaiming:

What was your involvement in the 2008 or prior presidential elections? What did you find most challenging?

I was the CTO of the John Kerry Presidential Campaign – providing technical leadership and social media guidance at the time (e.g., blogs, forums, online chats, social network presence for John Kerry).

In 2008, I was working as a consultant for various campaigns but no front-line positions during the campaign. At the time, I was engaged with other non-political clients that absorbed my primary attentions.

In 2004, the most challenging issue was convince the mainstream political machine that online campaigning was more than a ATM and a cheaper form of direct marketing (e.g., email campaigns). Creating a campaign-wide understanding of the power of social media was the greatest challenge. When John Kerry made his first win in Iowa and mentioned his website at the podium, the surge in contributions was so significant that he began to use this mechanism again and again (see http://www.politicalgastronomica.com/2008/01/blast_from_the/)

At the time, social networks were still the pervue of students and technical individuals – and was beginning to make in roads, but the solutions were still not engaging voters in an effective manner. In 2007, Facebook began to focus on the communication aspect of social networks – optimizing their NewsFeed to surface information that they sense you would be interested in – from your network.

As more information began to surface regarding what their friends were doing regarding politics – and how geography shrank – people were becoming more informed through the social networks because the social proof of being involved was demonstrated on your NewsFeed. This acceleration of information and social proof made social networks THE preferred information channel for the Obama supporters.

MySpace and other social networks did not provide this kind of informational filtering – which is why at the time, I believed social networks were not going to be instrumental in the 2008 election.

Some people point to the myBO.com site as a success in the 2008 campaign. I would suggest that it was used as an advanced house-party tool for supporters to coordinate for other events. But as a source of unbiased information like Facebook was providing (e.g., the algorithm determined what you would like) or Google (e.g., the algorithm determined what the public thought was relevant for what topic), myBO was all-Obama, all the time. If it was integrated with the NewsFeed more effectively, it would have been even more effective.

In retrospect, what would you say was the 2008 presidential election best device in marketing the candidates?

Best device was YouTube since Americans (and others) rely on their assessment of a candidate on what they see and feel. As a source of information and content open 24/7/365 where both the professional content creators and the novices could comment and communicate with no filters.

No other mechanism communicated with as much IMPACT – not blogs, not TV – the self-service capabilities of YouTube coupled with the explosion of high-bandwidth services to the home and office is the reason why I make such a claim.

How is internet-accessible information for internet-ready devices important to a presidential political campaign?

Tough question here. All campaigns rely on a couple of issues:

• How to generate donations
• How to get their message out for the media to generate donations
• How to get their volunteers out to events to generate donations
• How to generate earned media to generate donations
• How to mobilize their voters to win the election

I would suggest that any campaign that assumes that the desktop is the only mechanism for consumption of political content is as bad as the 2004 consultants who still believed that the 6pm Nightly News was what effected votes. These campaigns need to be prepared to serve their content on tablets, smart-phones, laptops and desktops – and had better understand how syndication of their content will improve how their supporters will receive and respond to their needs.

Do you think that text messages or MMS (picture messages), and a website for candidates should replace traditional methods, such as telephone calls, flyers, television ads, mailers and the like?

Replace – no. Augment – yes. Retail politics is about voters connecting with the candidates. Note I did not say candidates connecting with the voter, since broadcast mechanisms can somewhat perform this process. But the ability for the voter to connect with the candidate is a trickier proposition since there is only one candidate and infinite-number of voters.

Using tools from social media and exposing the candidate to tools that allow their voice to connect with others – and the ability to respond to comments and commentary via these mechanisms allow for the more engaged voters to “connect” with the candidate and be the proxy (e.g., evangelists) for the candidate. That is how these technical methods will augment the standard retail methods.

What do you believe is the role of social sites, such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn in the 2008 presidential elections, and do you believe that candidates should utilize these social sites to promote their campaign?
I assume you mean the 2012 campaign. Yes – I believe the candidates should utilize these sites – but in an intelligent fashion.

Twitter is a potential broadcast and conversational mechanism – and the ability to engage voters on this channel – especially ones that are very interested and engaged is a boon to the candidates.

Facebook is more of a challenge since the use of Facebook Pages is not a very effective mechanism because of the way they handle how messages are surfaced on the user’s NewsFeed (they are rarely unless other friends act on the social actions) or in the Inbox (they are hidden in the Other folder). Since Facebook is about your friends engagement on various social actions, it is about be a person – not a Page. By friending as a person – and having other surrogates like family members or other endorsers, the candidate can make use of their Facebook presence and increase the awareness of their activities through they and their surrogates.

As an expert in new technologies, is there a technology that you feel is not adequately used or should be used in a presidential election campaign?

Yes – the technology is click-to-dial and VOIP. Because networks are easily available everywhere (e.g., wifi, cable, DSL), the ability to have community call centers allow for the use of the telephone and community to build and bond supporters together. Nothing forms bonds of loyalty better than working through the growth phase of a campaign. As more people join, the better the connections often.

Aside from that, the advent of using Big Data solutions to chunk through data on the voters and their interests along with mapping technology to help determine canvassing routes are two other technology advances that could (or will) make a big impact.

I seriously, not-joking, really-do-want-to-hear-your-answers don’t understand how people who profess to be conservative (and especially those who profess to be conservative Christians) can vote for Republicans. I’d love to hear answers only to these three questions (and please don’t answer with “the Democrats are worse,” this is tantamount to saying “yeah, I’m a herion addict, but at least I don’t do meth!” Yeah, OK, but you’re still a herion addict and that’s disgraceful).

1. For Fiscal Conservatives: Paul Ryan’s plan doesn’t balance the budget; it just shifts wealth from poor to rich. If you’re truly intersted in deficit reduction, why not vote Democratic, and see taxes go up on the rich, thus both to stimulate the economy and pay down debt? In short, tax cuts, especially those being peddled by the current republicans, will not enhance our GDP. Nobel Economist Paul Krugman sums it up: “real revenues per capita grew only 19 percent over the same period — better than the likely Bush performance, but still nothing exciting. In fact, it’s less than revenue growth in the period 1972-1980 (24 percent) and much less than the amazing 41 percent gain from 1992 to 2000.” How can you vote for such a fiscally irresponsible party (and again: you can’t say “Democrats are worse!” – you have other options, like not voting.)
2. For Libertarians: I honestly don’t know which should be the main sticking point for libertarians, but the underpinning of all the particulars (drug laws, blue laws, abdication of responsibility to regulate industry resulting in curtailment of liberties by unaccountable corporations) is the extension of government into our personal lives and the refusal to regulate the corporations that increasingly impinge upon our commons (water ways, air waves, landscapes) without proper recompense and often without regard even to our lives. How can you vote for a party whose ultimate policy success would see the curtailment of liberties for all but the very richest Americans?
3. For Christians: How can you vote for a party that is now literally seeking to take food away from the poorest Americans so that the very richest can amass more wealth? That is what the Republican House just voted for. That is what you will support if you vote Republican in 2012. Not to put too fine a point on this, but you will be voting expressly against Jesus’s teachings.
   • Your Christ did not say “what you do unto the most powerful of them, you do unto me.”
   • Your Christ did not advocate on behalf of the merchants in the temple.
   • Your Christ did not suffer and die on the cross for a tax cut.

   He spoke to and about the poor. He scolded the powerful and exhorted them to feed the needy, to turn their attention to the downtrodden. He did not rail against homosexuals, he did not exculpate his disciples of murder if their victims were doctors who performed abortions. How can you vote for a party that pursues policies that are in direct contravention of the teachings of your God?

When do we start really cutting?

You ask: how did I come up with that number? Well – based on what is on Wikipedia, the 2009 budget was $164M in total. And in an article in the Christian Science Monitor, the CPB contribution to NPR makes up approximately 2% of the NPR budget.

So, keeping with the mission of the CPB and the overall effort to keep a free-and-fair programming, the “deficit hawks” are going after essentially $32M in that grant. The good that NPR and the CPB does for our country – especially across the rural parts of our country – is incredibly valuable. When are the Congressional “deficit hawks” going to go after the real portion of the pie that is gauging us?

Take a look at the graph to the right. We are going after less than 1% of the Discretionary budget. Something seems wrong with this picture, right?

• Ann Curry (@anncurry)
• Andy Carvin (@acarvin)
• David Clinch (@davidclinchnews)
• Joshua Harris

I recently spent some time at the Social Media Week event on the Future of Real Time Publishing – where we were watching the tweets coming from Storyful’s Egypt feed. The four characters on stage were going over some of the challenges for the real time publishing issue – which was extremely entertaining. But then the moderator asked a very simply question: “Is all there is but twitter and Facebook? Is there nothing more?”

The panel got into a discussion about the longevity of the services, the many masses of people on the services (read: audience) and the systems themselves. The next question was whether or not the Tunisia uprising would have happened if not for twitter and/or Facebook. One of the panelists suggested that it would have, but much slower and much more bloodier.

As I listened, I wondered if there was a fundamental misunderstanding of what social networks and the connection between Facebook + twitter + mobile phones means to the political process – both in political campaigning AND governing.

We Live in Lower Friction Times

About three years ago, at a BarCampNYC event, I spoke on the topic of “The Speed of Memes” – the idea being that memes are carried across the knowledge-sphere a lot faster than they ever did before. And with each new improvement on communication technology – we have seen changes in how events unfold in our lives.

With the advent of the telegraph, election results were transmitted faster than before. Lincoln’s speech at the Cooper Union Great Hall became news (along with the Gettysburg Address) through the speed that had heretofore not been possible without the technology.

With the advent of radio, the nation could not have gathered around and mobilized in the same fashion without those fireside chats from FDR and the news and information that was communicated from oceans away to mobilize our nation to fight against the Nazis.

With the advent of television, the Vietnam War would have been just another war “over there”, but with vivid pictures of action splashing across the screens of millions of Americans, a movement rose up to fight against the war. The anti-war movement was spurred on over time, but much faster that the pro-war movement of 1939-41 since the speed of the memes were not able to travel as quickly.

With the advent of the Internet and particularly blogs, information began to get disseminated much faster – and with the help of google, people could easily find information out and connect the news sources to the stories they were creating and become their own blog network (see the old blogrolls for confirmation of where the web existed). Google guaranteed speedy search, and blogging guaranteed quicker publishing that waiting for editors and machines to churn out the papers. The sudden demise of Dell’s influence with a single post by Jeff Jarvis became the inflection point for how powerful a meme could be.

Informational Friction Coefficient going to zero?

And now twitter and Facebook. But we should actually connect it to mobile phones and high speed/high throughput networks. With the advent of these technologies, and then the standardization of memes into 140 characters with shortened links or the standard structure of a news story on Facebook and the algorithm that determines who sees what on their Newsfeed – we are seeing an acceleration of information dissemination. A speed of memes that is much greater than people are used to.

Less than a month ago – if you had asked any Joe/Jane on the street, you would not have heard a harsh word about Mubarak. Even on January 25th, when the first 30K marchers rose up, we still would have not paid much attention. But as the crowds swelled, and the community rose up – it became more and more obvious that the fury that had been simmering and the validation that came with the first protesters showed up in the inboxes, Facebook newsfeeds or SMS messages on their mobile phones emboldened an entire community to rise up and take back their country.

The speed of the meme is what politicians, political operatives and governments are awakening to. No more are the Facebookers simply an entertainment. No more are the tweeters simply someone to deride because they talk about things that you are not interested in. The networks have become more enmeshed and the speed of information transmission has increased to what the telco world would call “the last mile”. Now, the last mile is in the hands of regular people – on their mobile phones, on their laptops connected either via wifi or by high speed mobile network connection. And yes, countries can “pull the plug” as Egypt did – but work-arounds are always possible.

The friction that used to give people and companies time to respond/react has disappeared. And this is something we as a culture have to begin to appreciate. Funniest thing I read the other day was Zoe Pollack commenting on another post on the professionalism of the web and how it is not the source of “shock” anymore.

But as long as the networks exist – and they may be for a little while longer – these issues will continue to grow. The utility of twitter with its API and ubiquity on all mobile phone platforms (both smart phones and normal) and the thrall of Facebook to our information-hungry communities combined with the social network graph and the APIs that allow for even further fine-tuning of our interests when we need them – this is a challenge that governments both here and abroad are going to need to address.

After I got home watching TRON: Legacy, I turned on the DVR and started watching the last Daily Show of the season. And what I saw sickened me.

In the 111th Congress, the Senate Republicans are still filibustering over the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act. After their continued use of 9/11 in the past nine years, I am sickened at the acts of the Senate Republicans and their insane delays. And then to note that none of the major news outlets even set any time to this particular outrage.

Maybe they are being smart, since the Repugs could be thinking that they will only stay for this bill but avoid the DADT? I assume they are afraid because if it comes to the floor, the Dems might add an amendment to that bill that the Repugs would not want – such as DADT.

Can someone get their head out of their a$$ and get this issue resolved? At least before the Repugs could use this as a big deal in the 112th Congress next year?

UPDATE: looks like things worked out in the end.

Instead of trying to focus on the next election and triangulate (as Clinton would have done) making the next two years more about political pandering versus repairing our country, President Obama may actually think it would be a better the idea to announce – in the coming weeks – that he is not going to run for re-election.

Incredible thought? But, consider the benefits:

• President Obama would not need to expend all of his energy fighting the election battle for the next two years, especially when we need to focus on the matters at hand – in terms of the economy, job growth, our deficit, climate change, etc. Rather than pushing the political water uphill, he could focus on fighting the good fight in Congress.  Without an election looming over him, he could build upon the legislative victories he has accomplished and then continue to the betterment of his “legacy” – and our country’s future.
• With President Obama fighting on in Congress, it keeps him above the political fray and allows for other players like Sec. of State Clinton and VP Joe Biden to take the brunt of the battle of the election.  Both battle-tested and extremely experienced in running government, they would make for a powerful force.   Today, the Republicans are going to cause all sorts of problems to make Obama look bad as President for 2012; they would fall short of a Presidential election cycle where the Democratic President was pounding them on one side and the Democratic primary candidates would be hitting their standard bearer from the field of battle.

Given the recent support by former President Clinton on President Obama’s tax deal plan and the sharp analogies people are pointing out between the Obama Administration and the Bush 41 Administration, I am beginning to wonder if something like this is becoming true?

Or could it be that Hillary might be Obama’s running mate in 2012?  Not too sure.

I am still a big Obama fan for the simple reason that McCain and no one on the Republican side of the isle seems to have a wherewithal to truly run the country and make some hard decisions (with maybe the exception of Chris Christie, but he likes making decisions – not solving problems).  Obama has had to face some incredible challenges – and I am nothing but pleased that he is my President – especially when you look at what might have come.

Related article: Will Barack Obama Be a One-Term President?

UPDATE: No, I did not read this article from November 14th at the Washington Post, but I was surprised that my thoughts dovetailed with them.  And you can see some rebuttals to them in the Letters to the Editor.

I wish that Obama and the DNC/DCCC/DSCC spoke on what the last two years have accomplished for us.

Take a look here: http://whattheheckhasobamadonesofar.com/

And then, take a look at what the next fight will be about:

Above image from Ezra Klein at the Washington Post.

Should we keep the Bush tax cuts or drop them? Can someone on the right please tell me how our country moves forward with this debt?