Dean And Social Software

Most of you have probably already read this great piece by Clay Shirky on Dean's Campaign. I think Clay makes an important distinction between the movement and the campaign.

In the same way, talking about Dean's third-place showing in terms of 'momentum' and 'character' the P/E and EBITDA of campaigns, may miss the point. Dean did poorly because not enough people voted for him, and the usual explanations -- potential voters changed their minds because of his character or whatever; seem inadequate to explain the Iowa results. What I wonder is whether Dean has accidentally created a movement (where what counts is believing) instead of a campaign (where what counts is voting.)

And (if that's true) I wonder if his use of social software helped create that problem.

The power of this "movement" back to democracy is something I referred to here as well in This Is Not A Political Campaign. I agree that Dean AND JOE TRIPPI in particular, tapped into a powerful desire of many disenfranchised voters to reconnect with democracy -- social movement yes, but I don't agree that social software was as big a player in the game as some might think.

Removing Joe Trippi from the Dean camp was all about that realignment -- away from "the movement" and back to "a campaign". It was a fearless 360 degree turn and it remains to be seen if Dean can decouple from that runaway freight train of democracy and ride the rails to a simple nomination as the leading Democratic nominee. I hate to rain on any social software parade, but I think the operative word of the two is SOCIAL, not SOFTWARE. When you think software is the important part of any radical change in the way people live -- no matter how exquisite and elegant that software may be -- you're focusing on the wrong story.

I often found the Dean campaign software a bit complicated in places. Call me crazy, but if it were willing to step behind the scenes and assume it's subordinate place in the story, that is, simple software simply facilitating social connection, it might prove even more valuable to the Dean campaign.

The mistake the Dean Campaign isn't making anymore is thinking software saves the world. People save the world and software can help people do that.