Darwin would have predicted last night's election this way: "It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change."
And we're not talking about a change from the Bush administration in this case. My world isn't politics, it's communications: marketing, public relations and advertising (or the blurry mess the three have become in today's social media soup). Barack Obama adapted to changes in culture and communications to redefine how word is spread and, specifically, how campaigns are run.
And, if ever the medium were the message, so it is here. By embracing the full-scale cultural shift in how people interact with each other, how companies interact with consumers and how institutions interact with constituencies, and how the world interacts with itself, Obama has shown himself as the very embodiment of change.
Oh, come on, cry many voices from the back pew. Enough of the techno babble. Facebook-this, tweeter-that. If you dare use the word blog, I'll immediately place this paper at the bottom of the bird cage.
It may be precisely that perspective that made Obama so successful. The idea that social media are a fad is a mistake far too many marketers continue to make, second only to the notion that social media are "a techie or a youth thing."
Obama's camp made neither of these mistakes. It understood that humans are -- and have always been -- social creatures, and that social media are nothing more than a powerful accelerant to human interaction. To suggest that they are new is akin to suggesting that chewing our food is a modern concept or that the love of warmth is a fad activated by the discovery of fire. Social media are the continuation of our species' drive to connect, communicate and collaborate. Obama embraced this reality and, with it, propelled a network of mobilized, purposeful advocates the likes of which no marketing effort has ever seen.
To do so, Obama hired people who understand this cultural change, including Facebook cofounder Chris Hughes. Tactically, he identified a brilliant technological infrastructure of organizing, rallying and fundraising tools: social networks, text-messaging campaigns, geotargeted e-mails, database sorting to push information out with pinpoint accuracy, and the almighty widget.
Think of a widget as a tool -- in Obama's world, the collection plate at a place of worship. When the plate is passed around, it's easy to drop in a dollar or two, no? Now, pretend the faithful "congregate" on the Internet -- a far larger congregation from which to coax dollars. Furthermore, instead of a Sunday service or two, pretend church is always in session and that the collection plate is everywhere, for the Internet is always "on." Finally, this virtual collection plate could live on all blogs, all Facebook profiles and on a range of online venues. In short, there are collection plates and drop boxes everywhere.
