The Unwired Election Day

It’s an off year, so we know Election Day a year from now will look different. One thing to count on is President Obama’s reelection campaign will innovate. Odds are, it plans on owning the mobile space, just as it owned online advertising in the 2008 election.

The 2012 election will be different. Large aspects of the 2012 election will be unwired. Some news this morning indicates just how that might look. Chances are:

• The canvassers at you door will be thumbing a Smartphone instead of a clipboard. (GU Eday Release.)
• More could be voting on an Ipad touchscreens.

It looks like President Obama will be up for reelection against — well, that’s the big difference between now and then. We’ll know then.  We don’t know now. Keep checking your handheld device for the latest. It’s going to be interesting.

See you at Campaign Tech ’11 in Washington!

Bad Apple

Back in the day, Steve Jobs’ company invented the attention-grabbing Macintosh interface based on concepts developed at Xerox PARC, paying little. Now it will prevent new innovators from doing the same? 

What is the market share for person-to-person communications?

Eighty percent, according to a new study:

[F]our out of the five activities on smartphones with the widest reach involve people trying to make or maintain connections with one another — not with a third party.  (MoBlog)

The story of how ubiquitous handheld computing changed personal campaigning in US politics has yet to be written, but it figures to be huge.

OK, there’s no election hook to this mobile story

It’s Sunday, we’re taking the day off, and the mobility we’re talking about is bikes. If you’re still with me, this video is pretty cool.

In the woods of new mobile ideas, are two paths diverging?

Really interesting case study/feature story in TechPresident about NGP VAN’s social media mashup of voter targeting and Facebook for We Are Ohio.  Not clear from the piece how critical a role it played in the campaign, nor how heavily used. Sounded like more of a test. In order to be effective, though, this approach is clearly a bet that social media is going to be a medium of ubiquity when it comes to reaching voters.  Some tasty data would be nice, such as: Was this approach effective in reaching people where they live, face-to-face?  How would the results using paid canvassers with this tool be different than in a campaign of volunteers? Did it measure how individuals interacted with the We Are Ohio campaign when reached at home?  Also, worth noting for the next TechPresident visit on this issue:  There is another approach out there.

A bull on mobile is bearish on DC

Here’s a colorful, concise quote, but is it too good to check? A DC-based entrepreneur with a startup dream justifies pulling up stakes and moving his business to California:

“Why spend my time convincing someone that mobile is going to be a big deal when I can go somewhere that people already think it will?”

Is the DC scene indifferent to mobile? Let us know in comments if you disagree.

Mobile heroes

Julia Barko Germany, a tech leader whom I admire, is asking for nominations of digital heroes for her upcoming conference on campaign technology. My view:  Some of the greats should unquestionably be in international healthcare, where mobile apps are saving lives.  Here is a heroic example from Kenya. That’s a campaign I can get behind. Is there a hero behind it? (Send your nominations to Julia here.)

Runway Lit For Three 2012-Cycle Media Platforms

“Tower to Salsa, Multiply and Ruck.us, you are now cleared for takeoff.  ”  (h/t Mashable via James O’Brien)

Benchmarking mobile

Almost one year out from the 2012 presidential comes a timely question: How to measure mobile technology’s growth in the coming cycle? What will progress look like?  What are the benchmarks?

It’s not an easy question to answer, let alone make a forecast. Three years ago was eons for mobile devices and the mobile platform. The last presidential is scarcely adequate. Heck, developments since the last US congressional elections, 11 months ago, have moved at a rate far outpacing the election schedule or even the early adapters in politics. Tablet computing? I-Pad 2? Kindle Fire?  Now what about SMS in Egypt and Libya? We even have it on some authority that there are market leaders this cycle in the tech space preparing to lead with Ipod Touch as the device du jour instead of the I-phone, because the Ipod Touches are already in the inventory.

But to measure progress one has to start somewhere.  Some nominees for best benchmarks against which we can measure progress include, from a domestic U.S.  perspective, and from the broader world that NDI, IRI and IFES inhabits.  Fave factoids: 35% of American adults have Smartphones; 28% use mobile and social location services. And 47% use mobile to get some of their news.   Overseas, is SMS still king? Probably, but NDI is heavy in Egypt. So that could change.

Wither mobile for campaigns and elections? Higher adoption rates than the market at large? Or will this market lag? To  be continued…

International Nerds Alert!

Put these together and imagine what this means for ICT in Africa and Asia.    Technology that doubles the capacity of cell networks without having to build new towers sounds too good to be true – but what if it isn’t?  Meanwhile, back here in the states, the cost to consumers of a world-beating tablet computer was halved today.