8 things from 08: social for a cause.

I'm going to resist the urge to write about the Obama campaign itself, and instead focus on what I considered the most interesting part: the use of social media to actually organize people for a cause.

This was hardly the first time this has happened, but it was probably the most sustained and visible example.  Starting very early on with a social network, then adding email and text updates, facebook updates, etc, the Obama campaign kept me fully informed for more than a year, letting me know changes, important news updates, deadlines and opportunities to do something.

This was a clear use of social media not to augment a strategy for organization, or to allow a community to grow within an organization, but social media AS the organization.  The Obama campaign managed to not only secure a massive amount of money from small individual donors, but also to create, manage and inform a massive number of volunteers.

We're talking about a campaign that released an iPhone app that organized your contacts by address, and let you know who was essential to call when.  This was the first time I've seen something other than a charity truly bet everything on human capital.

And it worked.  Beautifully.

Something I've been hearing a lot is how a year ago, every conversation about branding discussed Apple.  Now, every conversation about branding is a conversation about Barack Obama.

There is a clear lesson.  Social media strategy isn't icing - there's nothing to be gained by slathering it on top of, say, Proctor and Gamble without changing anything about the company.  But as an organizational tool, and a method of not only building engagement, but converting those engaged users into a tool for action, I have a feeling we're looking at the most powerful tool for collective effort of my lifetime.

Can it work for consumer brands?  I don't know.  But as a means of 'organizing without organizations', as Clay Shirky labelled it, I have all the proof of concept I need.  The Obama campaign made it more than clear than massive, lasting change to traditional structures is possible through social media, not just new or emerging structures.

As inspired as I am by the election of a Black President of the United States, this validation of my feelings regarding the potential of social media is more exciting from a career / industry perspective.