Fulfil This!

Pt 1 of Change Politics in Australia: The uncomfortable election campaign: Using old style campaign and selling methods in the new hyper-connected world.

What an uncomfortable election process. I am so glad that I only watch commercial TV on the odd occasion as every time I flicked over I was aghast at how many political ads were on and, how many were negative.

The mainstream media was feeding off this negativity, and feeding on the lack of focus in this political campaign.

And, every time there was a new policy announcement I found myself asking why either party bothered when after every election I remember , the tally of broken election promises seems huge.

I also found it so interesting, in the time before the election was announced, how little the current government repeatedly ignored the electorate, topped onto that not effectively communicating their successes over their term.

Some of the techniques explained above may have worked before but, we live in a very  different world now, we are hyper-connected. We are turning off the TV, throwing out the newspaper and going online for our news. We don’t get one media outlet’s opinion or perspective, we get them all. We are super informed and overly critical.

The people do not trust politicians, they don’t connect with bland campaign messaging and they are concerned about incompetence.

They are also unfortunately easily swayed by messages playing on fear and uncertainty.

I found myself disconnected, I needed comedy relief, I wanted to support a particular party as, at a time, I did believe what they stood for. I could not find any of the messages they were releasing appeasing or offering very much reason for me to even encourage my connections to vote a particular way. I was embarressed to mention it on voting day and could only find reasons to not vote for the other party.

There was no grass roots support campaign, only top-down release of message to main stream media. A particular party is so lucky that GetUp! ran these campaigns.

A new landscape now exists, where the people have the power to help a party spread its message. Instead of fearing the media and worrying about saying the wrong thing, parties can court online media, planting seeds about the intended message that are released online.

For a party that is so ready to invest so much in a new digital infrastructure it was so remarkable that they were so disconnected with how it could be used appropriately for the campaign. There are 2 amazing people within the current government, Pia Waugh and Senator Kate Lundy, and I hope that in future, their wisdom in reaching the people is used more effectively.

What is so interesting, and with whom we have found many to blame, is the old style of marketing that were used.

They were pushing messages on us that we just do not connect with, they tried to manage and control the message when that is now impossible, they tried to talk about policy when the drama was more interesting. I tried to find policy detail online I could connect with and found the language used was so out of touch with me. And the opposition did hit the mark with punchy one liner messages, but they were all negative. Even now, 5 days since the election my household, and I am sure many households throughout Australia, laugh at the insincerity and the faux sales pitches from the 2 leaders of the parties every time they appear on TV .

Thank goodness for the Independent MP’s who are breathing fresh air onto Australian Federal Politics. They are real, they talk about openness, about accountability, about working together rather than dog against dog.

The book The Power of Pull describes the changing media landscape and the changes that large organisations need to embrace to be most successful in this new world. The changes where old style of push, of forcing messages is being replaced by a collaborative society, of openness and a place where information and ideas are shared. Of examples where being fluid with the message, of creating knowledge flows, of releasing the message to the people rather than locking down and trying to tightly control.

These lessons will hopefully be learned, and the result of this campaign is one I am happy with as it is an opportunity for a long hard look at our political process.

Australia has so much potential in so many areas, we have so many smart minds, there is opportunity in industry and market that is sometimes stifled by the instability and constantly changing nature of our political system. One example is the state of our renewable energy industry which, due to the large differences in policy and instability for investment it means we are missing out on development in this rapidly growing industry.

There are lessons from this recent election campaign for all those who run any type of campaign to raise people’s awareness and building support from the community for their specific idea or cause. Which will you learn fr0m?

Next:

Pt 2: Power to the people – the people have spoken, and they are not happy:  ”donkey” invalid votes & low electoral turnout.

Pt 3: The possible advantages of a hung parliament: a chance to move away from our current duopoly two party system?