If you ask, they’ll help you build it.
I just finished, and highly recommend, Joe Trippi’s book, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. In it, he describes what made the Dean campaign successful - the community behind it. In fact, the campaign wasn’t driven by Dean - it was driven and built by the community. In contrast to the “if you build it, they will come” mentality of spectator politics, Trippi confirms something the open source community, and Amish barnraisers has known for years - “if you ask, they’ll help you build it.”
Our smart, well-versed friend, The Current, is taking the same approach in developing their playlist
“…if you want to you can send us a CD by mail or drop it off at the front desk and tell us which tracks you think we should play and why. We are particularly low on the spicey albums that will add breadth and depth to the playlist. And, if you become a founding member that will help us buy more and more CDs…”
What an amazing way to help the community grow and form the station.
If you’re out of range of their FM transmission - I could reach it well into northwestern Wisconsin - they offer a stream. Once you’re hooked - join the party. In the first week, more than 300 people just like you have.
3 Comments
Hi, not sure what campaign your referring to, but last time I checked, Dean lost his last bid. I’ll try to give it a read.
cheers,
M
Mark,
Dean was a complete unknown. The fact he even had the possibility of getting the bid meant the campaign was successful. Definitely check out the book - Trippi articulately describes this.
Sounds interesting. Similar story happened SD in 2000. Mike Rounds, almost completely unknown, used about $280,000 of grass-roots funds to defeat two multimillionare republican candidates in the primaries who outspent him in an exponential fashion for the governor’s seat. It is hailed as the biggest political campaign success in modern history, but ironically few know about it. Mike’s brother and campaign manager talks of writing a book…. Nice to know that Cinderella stories are still out there…