Lessons From Fred08

Michael Turk, the web architect for Fred08.com (the Fred Thompson campaign web site) has written an article for techpresident.com talking about some of the things that went right in the Thompson campaign. This is a fascinating read to understand a little of what happened with the campaign, but also how technology can play a significant role in a campaign.

He starts with a history of the web site. In that history, we find out a little about the general campaign. Specifically, they were originally scheduled to announce in July:

Described inappropriately as ImWithFred.com 2.0 by some creative types, the actual site was finished the week of July 9th. We had been asked to shoot for having the live site ready the first week of July (timed to be released with the announcement). The site was delayed by a week. The announcement was delayed by two months.

So they were planning on announcing in early July, as many speculated, but for some unexplained reason it did not happen. He also notes that the campaign turnover happened in late summer, just after the announcement was supposed to happen and the focus on the web site lessened with the new staff. He tells the history of the "Little Red Truck" which was used several times to help with fundraising efforts. It was ready to go on the original FredGiving day:

As we moved through November, we began to hear rumblings of Fredsgiving Day - a third party money bomb effort scheduled the day before Thanksgiving.

It was unclear whether the campaign would support the effort. There were concerns (voiced by many online) that the timing was off - nobody would pay attention the day before the holiday. In the event the campaign decided to jump in, we went ahead and built the little red truck to track contributions that day. It was never deployed.

It was late in December when the little red truck finally saw the sunlight. Over the next three weeks, that little red pickup helped the campaign raise 1.25 million dollars. Had it been unveiled sooner, who knows what might have happened.

Turk has a great section on "Lessons Learned" from the effort. Among the lessons learned were:

• In the first and last days of the campaign, the Thompson Internet operation was second to none
• Fred08 enabled a strong community through allowing comments on its blog. He notes the differences between Fred's site and other Republicans:

  Rudy's blog doesn't allow comments. Romney's gets a few per post. Ron Paul just recently launched a blog (despite the fact that blog software is largely free). He currently gets between a handful and a few dozen comments.
  
  I don't think this indicates a lack of supporter enthusiasm as much as it indicates that the campaigns have created a blog with nothing to say on sites that are so scrubbed of interesting content they're alsmost sterile. Most of the posts are rehashed press releases, rehashed campaign e-mails, or occasionally a video so overscripted it becomes almost completely unwatchable.

• Campaign operations need to build online operations that invite people into the discussion rather than turning them off
• If there is no time for the candidate to blog, use video of the candidate as they campaign. (Fred08 did this extensively during the heavy campaigning of Iowa and South Carolina).
• The interview process for a Communications Director should include their understanding of internet networking--specifically blogs and banner ads