BC politics and social software platforms
I read with some interest this week, that the two dominant political parties are both taking a page out of Obama’s campaign book with their approach to online politicking. The governing BC Liberals open platform is going head-to-head with the BC NDP’s rapid responders to engage the clicking fingers (and hopefully, minds) of British Columbia’s voters, who may have severe election fatigue by the time May – and the next provincial vote – rolls around.
On the surface, there’s very little to distinguish these two sites. The Libs open platform promises that, by joining:
you can share your thoughts and help make an important difference for our province. You can participate in surveys, web panels, social networks, digital “town hall meetings” and policy forums on all sorts of topics. You can also submit videos, photos, art and music that will showcase the beauty, strength and diversity of our province and its people and cultures. Many of those submissions will be selected for use on this website and profiled in various ways throughout the upcoming provincial election campaign.
For their part, NDP’s rapid responders are:
people like you who care about the issues and want to make a difference. Here’s a quick list of the top three things you can do as a Rapid Responder (scroll down the page for more options):
* Write a letter to the editor about a hot topic and help us get our message out.
* Add interactive tools and BC NDP content to your blog or Facebook profile.
* Use social networking tools like Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr to connect with other BC NDP supporters and share information with your friends.
In other words, while both parties have built their own social platform, the NDP are leveraging existing tools more as the Libs want to frame the discussion. It’s hardly surprising that the underlying strategy is that Gordon Campbell wants a little more control over how the content is developed, while the NDP are more about sharing what’s going on on existing sites, including your own. The NDP are tracking issues but want you to take action and share what you’re doing. The Libs want to define what you talk about.
Libs provide a dis-engaging user experience
I can’t tell you what the actual Liberal social platform is like, but signing up was pretty bad. Right on the landing page, it asks me to provide first name, last name, email address, and to choose a user name and password (which wasn’t hidden as I entered it). I obliged and was redirected to the same page with my user name pre-populated. I received no email confirmation, logging in with my password did nothing and I have no idea if I have an account at all. I’m guessing not, because clicking on the topics they’ll let you talk about reveals nothing.
A little advice to the Libs? When you ask for information and presumably provision an account, confirmation pages and/or emails are crucial cues to your audience that something has happened. Worse yet, I couldn’t find anything telling me what to expect and, as of this time, have no idea if there’s an account in the works or not.
NDP don’t seem to really get it either
While I like the fact that the Dippers seem to want the swell to grow organically and not carefully control it, signing up for an account was awful. They offer the ability to do so, built on Drupal, but I can’t tell you what that looks like, either. It threw a bunch of SQL errors my way when I signed up. It gave me the standard Drupal welcome message with the one-time account confirmation link, but because of (I’m guessing) the SQL error, the link wouldn’t allow me to finish signing up. Then again, there’s some conflict in the messaging, so who knows?
Other than that, I can sign up to stay in touch, but most opportunities to engage seem to happen by design off-site. I’m glad they’re giving me lots of places to go and ways to follow them, but a simple discussion forum on the site would turn rapid responders into interactive responders (which I’m hoping the Drupal instance provides). It has to be about more than email and postal mailing lists, if you’re really going to leverage social media. It’s called social for a reason.
Do something with your social capital
Excuse me if I don’t believe Gordon Campbell, when he says, "This is a chance to have your say and help shape the policies that Premier Campbell and your BC Liberal Team will put to the people as part of their election platform on May 12, 2009." Campbell has shown a flagrant disregard for any opinion but his own in his tightly controlled approach to governing. Again, though, I have no idea what the tools look like or how they are possibly being used to develop policy going forward.
In the recent US election, Obama did a marvellous job of engaging his base through a solid online strategy. In his promise of change, he suggested the status quo will no longer do. However, as Charlie Smith of the Georgia Straight says, it’s still about keeping your promises, regardless of how cutting edge you try to be when you make them.
Can we trust Carole James or Gordon Campbell to develop policy in an open and accessible manner and then do what they say they will?
November 25th, 2008 at 12:33 am
[...] A little advice to the Libs? When you ask for information and presumably provision an account, confirmation pages and/or emails are crucial cues to your audience that something has happened. More [...]
November 25th, 2008 at 8:46 am
[...] Another fellow blogger put an intriguing blog post on James Wanless » journal » BC politics and social software platformsHere’s a quick excerptIt’s hardly surprising that the underlying strategy is that Gordon Campbell wants a little more control over how the content is developed, while the NDP are more about sharing what’s going on on existing sites, including your own. … [...]
July 15th, 2010 at 8:53 pm
[...] I’m not sure, though, that the usefulness I see in a lot of social software extends to using every new tool that comes along and taking the time to keep using it, particularly when none of the systems will talk to each other. BC politics and social software platforms [...]