The world is a-changing – Election innovation

ANALYSIS — I don’t like Left and Right. They are increasingly irrelevant to political elections like the US political race or Australian federal race.

Try engagement and inevitability as the key distinctions to examine elections.

In my time working for various government departments I could tell you some stories, but then the saying goes, I (or someone else) really would have to kill you.

But I can tell you as someone who has seen things first hand that Left & Right alliances, factions and segmentation are more about alliance and network building than they are ideals.

‘Idealogues’ and their spin doctors don’t always hate each other like in the media.

The true consensus and zeitgeist in politics, and the US political election is engaged or not engaged. This might not bring in the money, but it’s the truth.

Engagement a post-modernist issue

I am one of the engaged.

A voice in the political wilderness of Australia, but like many restless with a global mindset. Of course I am also a US citizen, being born in North Carolina.

Like many travelling ideologues before me, I am writing this from the first-class cabin of a Qantas plane, sipping my 2004 Shiraz on the way to San Francisco. It seems as an engaged citizen, I have to leave my country. Most successful ones leave (for awhile) regularly.

No man is alone, but us lone islands in the stream must wander Europe and the USA. Where the ideas, implementation and markets meet.

You want my vote, and millions of others, you must be engaged:

In Australia: Rudd is engaged. Costello would be engaged, Howard is not.

Turnbull is the far strongest enemy and reason why Howard should not be elected. As an investment banker it is proven he probably has no soul (no conclusive tests on that yet) and views everything in economic and Sydney-centric terms.

In the US: Obama is engaged. Clinton is trying to be engaged, but she has far stronger factors in her favour. Giuliani could be engaged, but also has stronger factors. My wild card is McCain, a very good man who has authenticity in spades, and thus can be engaged.

Al Gore were he to enter the race has the same strong factors, and a massive sense of being engaged through his climate change work. The time is right for Gore in terms of the topics he has promoted and his experience. He is the middle ground between Clinton and Giuliani and my trend-reading choice.

So what is engagement?

What follows is a provocative way of considering markets. It applies to politics, and other areas where a response is needed. It’s also frank and fearless.

Engagement is responsiveness. It is taking a position because logic dictates it. Engagement is being up-to-date with the zeitgeist, not cynicism or backward-looking.

Part of this realising that most who watch Channel 10 (Australia’s junk channel) or read tabloids have limited brains and will just vote as a block of collective ignorance.

So why listen to the uneducated who are disengaged? They will vote as they please, and pandering to them will not win you an election.

Instead persuade their engaged friends, co-workers and family will sway them to vote.

In other words identify and focus on the engaged thought-leaders, who are centred around vertical interest segments, but are genuinely engaged in those interest segments, and have strong feelings and connections about those segments. Not faceless men, nor faceless policies who do not appeal to people now seeking authenticity.

Individuals whose intellect and influence derives from their engagement.

By standing for the engaged you gain the mass as the sum of the fragments. As long as you have a position, the engaged will assess you, and the disengaged just move with the leaders. This is how the new 1-to-1 marketing of social communities works in practice.

Of course, there are ways to engage and not engage, and one has to be careful of glib engagement. An inauthentic, unoriginal communication style will not engage those who it needs to.

Put this together. The Long Tail and Fragmentation. Micro-market segments, end of the mass market. So in a market of one-to-one customers, their will be some engaged and some not.

There are a lot more caveats and complexity to this situation than can be thought out by a simple writing, and there are nuances in strategy that can be developed.

This is the current zeitgeist and an approach to the social marketing and web communities phenomenon.

Engagement Examples

Engagement is thinking, how do the ever increasing fragmentation of media play into my hands as a political force?

Engagement is thinking that maybe the important minds are elsewhere, and certainly don’t watch channel 10.

Engagement is realising that Murdoch tabloids are useful, but are not where you will find anyone with a brain, or under-30, especially on public transport where trash mags, iPods, mobile internet/games and free newspapers are making worldwide in-roads.

Engagement is not Myspace either. Not alone. Myspace is early stage social networking which is why perhaps Rupert is considering offloading it.

Engaged is social networking, it’s engaged vertical communities, it’s interaction online and in the real world merged in one giant orgiastic feast of virtual media.

Engaged is not iPods or Channel J. It’s thought-leaders in their space evangelising.

The producer of breakfast/morning TV programs Sunrise and the Morning Show in Australia, Adam Boland, is on the right track almost for engaged, as much as can be done on a mainstream show and web community on free-to-air TV. He is so far ahead of the other television programs it is scary.

Before he was Australian Opposition leader, Rudd knew what he was doing building a profile on Sunrise. Now, in my opinion, if they could only raise their standards and sack that inane ‘gorgeous’ former Canberra-reporter, Mel, and replace her with the brainy Natalie Barr.

The distinction is it is the engaged viewers that count, and I would bet stats show with minor format changes, they prefer Barr and Kochie.

Engaged is Rove McManus, if he successfully can engineer a US transition, which I have heard on the grapevine. And if he drops the gay/bum-focused jokes which no US comedian needs to do and is inappropriate segmenting of markets.

Engaged means targeting one man inside fragmented audiences. It is not trying too hard to be mainstream.

Engaged is the very latest social trend.

Twin strategies of being Engaged as well as inevitability, was what got Sarkozy elected in France when I was watching from Paris in the Prince de Galles.

The real targets of engagement

A lot of people think the creative generation (which is 2thinknow^TM catch-all term for the tail end of Gen X, Gen Y and all the teenagers online) wants variety and trash culture. That is what they are being served not what they want.

What they really want is to be engaged, not talked down to or spun to.

Grab the influential engaged leaders (often not those with a big name), and the rest will follow.

So how do I be engaged and get my 51% vote?

Simply. You sum the fragments. Or as it has been called the Long Tail.

And there’s only one way to do it.

Engage the audience. Without that you might scrape in anyway, but all you’re voters are retiring. You’ll need the young ones soon. And myspace is not enough.

How do I engage?

Simple once again. Authenticity and originality.

Fact is Generations under-30 have a cynical world view, that detects horse-sh*t.

Once a sense of inevitability is removed (something Howard and Hillary both have), then one looks at engagement.

Inevitability is the strong factor

Inevitability is the strong factor that overcomes engagement for the creative generation. Inevitability sees the creative generation simply give up. (If it seems inevitable, then why bother voting or being engaged?)

Engagement is the strategy that Rudd both is following and must follow.

Howard is simply not so, he is shouting to baby boomers and wolf-whistling other themes to xenophobes and allies, to witness his recent China speech. His inevitability may get him elected.

But it will be a quick deposition to Costello, who must engage younger citizens.

I am extremely interested in cultural overtures of the French government towards Australia, and a policy of engagement with the EU.

The truth about our leaders

Look at it this way, it is not that I, or other engaged citizens are critical of Howard or Bush, whatever our private views, there was a sense of inevitability.

But now we have a chance for innovation, there is not coincidence that both USA and Australia have some potential excellent candidates, and the innovation zeitgeist for us is upon us.

Gore, Hillary, Giuliani, McCain, Rudd, Costello should all make exceptional world leaders.

This is a once in a lifetime chance where we do have a choice. So increasing engagement is the strategy unless one has inevitability on their side.

Let’s face it, Mit Romney has not a chance, moreover Kim Beazley never had a chance. It’s now the politicians who engage us, and Howard and US Neo-Conservatives have lost their sense of inevitability. Thank God.

In Australia Costello and Rudd are far more passionate men than either side gives credit for, and a vote for Howard is probably a vote for Costello.

And the surfeit of excellent experienced leaders in the US: Hillary, Giuliani, Gore and McCain. Obama has less experience, but many qualities of engagement.

It is the grand moment for innovators, where the creative generation can have a say, and the one-to-one conversation is increasingly important.

The twin strategies, the dichotomy of this elections are not Left & Right, not Labor & Business.

The twin force strategies are engaged and inevitability. That’s the zeitgeist.

This is more proprietary information from the 2thinknow^TM research.
If you would like a workshop or 1-on-1 on these or other latest defining trends across the world, contact us.

Take care,

Christopher-in-Plural