Tough Love

Ok... so maybe I was a bit harsh. I have recently been engaged in a very constructive dialogue with the organisers of Labour's 'Go Fourth' campaign, in light of which I must amend certain elements of my previous posting...

Initially, it is very important to note that directly engaging with the grass roots (and over zealous bloggers with considerable time on their hands) is a real sign of progress and engagement and I am really grateful for their consideration of what I have to say. I hope that any criticisms I have are constructive…

There were two factual inaccuracies in the previous post that must be corrected:

1. The 'Go Fourth' Campaign is not a 'head office' initiative - it is a personal project of the four founders mentioned previously and is only included in Labour's wider framework to ensure transparency of donations. Head Office is not controlling "any copy on the site".
2. The photo of the founders that I targeted considerable criticism towards, as Prescott pointed out himself in a comment on the post, was constructed by the New Statesman and was not an official campaign publicity shot.
   

I can certainly appreciate the funding decision to include Go 4th in the wider Labour Party (especially in light of recent events) - I was under the impression that the campaign was a head-office initiative to keep John and Ali busy. My mistake. I understand that these two figures wanted more direct engagement, I just wish it involved more of the caucus and was more diverse in terms of gender, race and age... the Labour Party should connect with the electorate (a failure that cost the NZ Labour Party the 2008 election) and unfortunately Prescott and Campbell aren't the most representative figures. On the 'get involved' section of Obama's website he has pictures of supporters from all sections of society - the 'symbolism' is so overt it is almost painful but the message really gets hammered home. If the Labour Party's hope for a fourth term is Tony's spin-doctor and an old warhorse - not especially known for his tact - it's hardly a message of renewal or progress.

I can also fully understand how Prezza would be a good leader for the grassroots - there is still considerable warmth to him amongst party supporters. However, I can't quite see how Alastair can function as a front man - incredibly skilled and incredibly bright - but he has so much baggage and there seems to be substantial animosity towards him at grass-root level. He is also not the most attractive figure to 'young people'... I might blog a bit more on this later.

In his comment, Prescott was at pains to point out the necessity for incremental changes to the 'Go Fourth' website over time, and I acknowledged in the previous blog post that Obama's 95 full-time internet staff were obviously responsible for the strength of his online campaign. However, I was given to understand that 'Go 4th' was launched 5 months ago (maybe the website is younger) and since it was attracting mainstream media attention (Daily Politics Show) I would have thought it would have progressed a little further. But as Prezza says, "we've got a long way to go so please see it as it is - a work in progress. But we're starting and we're in it for the long term." The fact that it has started at all is very positive (and essential if there is going to be any chance of success at the next election). But I can't help thinking that, despite the design being functional and obviously intended to be as multi-platform accessible as possible, it just seems the same as every other politician's website. (On a technical note, I was using Safari Version 2.0.4 (419.3) and Firefox 2.0.0.12 when I took the screenshots of poorly formatted text on the front page column. I updated my browser to Firefox 3 and the problem sorted itself. This does, however, cast doubts on the multi-platform accessibility of the site.)

The frequent video posts are great, as are the amazingly frequent blog posts but I feel these can be better served. Obama is a gold standard but frankly unattainable without huge investment. I understand with limited resources this isn’t easy but perhaps inspiration needs to be drawn from non-political sites. Even a clean homepage with links to the current site (used solely for blogs), to videos, to Facebook, to volunteer sign-up and another for further online activity would be a good improvement. Please forgive me presumptuousness but I have begun to create a very rough mock up to give a clearer idea than my very poor explanation…

I shall include these images in subsequent blog posts. The images have just been pulled from Google and are solely for illustrative purposes, and the mock-ups would require extensive refinement and tweaking. I also haven’t made mock-ups for all pages on the site but hopefully there’s enough to get a general sense of the idea.