http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/MikeWalsh/
Thanks to Mike Walsh for his commentary about DFA's shortcomings. Mike has helped me here to understand what has happened to Dean in the last few weeks that has added to his woes: His system is out of date.
Dean began this race as a small-state governor with young volunteer staff that used popular recreational web software to create the most sophisticated and organized system that could be built with the afore-mentioned tools, and that has now reached close to it's operational limits. I've wanted to go to New Hampshire the last few days, and couldn't figure out how from cluttered interface.
Don't get me wrong, I like the home page. It's cool, it exudes excitement and lots of stuff going on, but unless you want to donate or attend a meet-up somewhere, it's kind of confusing.
What if I want to go to New Hampshire and canvas super markets for them, and just need a place to stay in the neighborhood? What if I'm a busy, overburdened family, who can't donate cash but like Dean's health-care angle, with couch space for a campaign worker for a few days right before the election? I could have, and would have, been in New Hampshire since sunday morning if I'd had a lodging, even a floor in a partially heated YMCA. But expecting me to go to New Hampshire and sleep in my car in -15 is ridiculous. There's resources their not tapping.
I know, I know, it said "Just go!" but that was a great answer to the 4500 kids, in the beginning of the campaign, but it's a lousy answer for a middle-aged but still vital and highly experienced organizer. They're unknowingly filtering out a fairly large number of the people who would be volunteering at this stage of a campaign. A minority, I'm sure, but a large one, probably at least 10% of their potential resources. They have the 20-something vote sewn up, but to win they need my age-groups vote. And they need to give me a place to become involved on my lunch break, or when a weekend opens up unexpectedly and I suddenly have time if they want that from me. You've shown the kids what they will get from your administration pretty well. Hip hop, slumber parties and road trips. Cool!! I like it! Wish I was younger! Actually am, but can't prove it on paper, sadly. So, show me what's in it for me? What are we doing for brunch, this weekend, DFA? Who's debugging your html? Need a sys admin? Have laptop, have pro graphics skills, some programming, good unix admin, will travel.
DFA isn't a start-up anymore, they're the market leader.
What's happening too them is what happened to Intel at one point, and to Apple before them. They went from being a low-volume Wunderkind to being the one everyone was looking at. I've heard Dave talk about this moment. This is what happened to Netscape, too, and I was watching up close for that one. Internet economies of scale creep up and pounce, and if your infrastructure is buggy, you're going to find out, and you're going to find out just how fast volume can vanish. Ask Gilbert Amelio and Jim Clark, and Jim Barksdale and oodles more if you don't want to take it from a light-weight like me.
If they catch the bug when it hits, and they acknowledge it (they haven't really done this), and then really (and publicly) dig in and fix it well, and reasonably quickly, people will forgive them and come back. I have no doubt Dean will win on Tuesday, or come so close as to be able to claim comeback.
But he's not going to go much further if he doesn't learn some lessons from the past three weeks:
Lesson one: It's not just the kids anymore. You've won your place in the 20 something hearts and minds, now win mine. This is the 21st Century, and in spite of Vermont's demographics (mostly folks with kids up here) There's a lot of middle aged singles (like me) or semi-parents (LOTS of my friends) who would love nothing better than to meet some new people like themselves, and to get to cross generations a bit, too. Some will love you even more if they can do it on the weekend that they have the kids and they can make a field trip out of it to teach their kid about politics. Thats one of the great things about community politics, and about Vermont, too: you get out of your bubble and your house, and meet people just like you but wh you would never have met at work or at home.
Reach out to us. This will serve you SO WELL in places like NYC and Southern California and the Bay Area.
Lesson 2: Building your campaign around the internet means that in addition to building your campaign around the usual elements of people, office space, car pools, and money, you're are building your campaign around software, too. And the software needs to scale. Dean's is at it's limit. It needs people too, and very experienced ones. Everything else in Deans battle strategy rests on it and it's been down a few times in recent weeks, and it's clanking. It needs budget, it needs people, it needs expertise. It needs to get tighter, more diverse, and more responsive.
My guess is that he has a bunch of people who've done small to medium size business sites, or academic sites (could be wrong, but I know what campaigns are like and who usually does them) and maybe some smaller banking sites or catalogs. Something that doesn't grow and change quite as rapidly and drastically as a major political campaign, or a software developer support web.
He needs an upgrade, that's all, but he needs it fast.
1:38:28 AM 
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