When Social Networking Goes Bad

Have you ever had one of those days when you accidentally send an email that one was only supposed to go to one person and contained either personal or business classified information, but end up sending it to a giant list? Or you forget to "bcc" everyone? Worse yet, you send a private email, but it ends up being spread all over the internet (a story of a law student applying to Harvard comes to mind...needless to say, that student did not get into Harvard or any other law school for that matter)? Well, one of the people I follow on twitter sent along the story of James Andrews, someone who considers himself a "key influencer" who did something along those lines.

It’s a story about a PR account executive/vice president named James Andrews from Ketchum in Atlanta who flew to Memphis to visit FedEx, one of the agency’s biggest clients. Andrews’ mission was to — now, this is important — talk with the corporate communications people at FedEx about social media.

Upon landing in Memphis, Andrews posted this message on the popular social media, mini-blogging service, Twitter, that’s widely followed by business people worldwide:

“True confession but I’m in one of those towns where I scratch my head and say, ‘I would die if I had to live here.’”

Andrews openly used his Twitter monicker - @keyinfluencer.

Someone inside FedEx was following Andrews, and that person shared the post among the top executives at the FedEx front office, and the company’s corporate communications staff. At that point, a person in the FedEx corporate communications staff apparently took umbrage to the post by Andrews and responded with this personal message to Mr. “KeyInfluencer:”

You'll have to read the article to see what the FedEx Communications person wrote. But suffice it to say, Mr. Andrews didn't make the presentation.

James Andrews is (or was?) an account executive for Ketchem. Based on Mr. Andrews complete lack of judgment, the article then rightly questions what this guy actually knows. Then again, we all need to keep in mind what exactly we write when using something as simple and impersonal, or sometimes very persona,l as facebook or twitter. A few years back I remember reading in the L.A. Times about how colleges and employers were using MySpace to figure out if they wanted to accept a potential student or a hire a potential employee. So just a word of warning, sometimes an innocent comment made by you, may not be so innocent to a potential client or employer.

What Will It Take to Reshape, Rebuild the GOP? - The Plan

So now the answer to what needs to be done. Is this an exhaustive list? Far from it, but it's a start and the conversation that is going on can only be good for the party in the long run.

First, the GOP needs to understand that they do indeed have an age problem. This isn't perception. It's reality. Part of that is because the GOP has been so reliant on fundraising, which isn't a bad thing. It got them Congress and the White House for almost twelve years (save for that brief time the Democrats took back the Senate in the early part of this decade due in large part to Senator Jim Jeffords switching parties to become an Independent and caucusing with Democrats.) Plus, the GOP's "Get Out The Vote" (GOTV) efforts were unparalleled especially with "values voters" in key races in 1998, 2000 and 2o04. But the GOP needs to reinvigorate by also reaching out to younger voters as Democrats were able to do by meeting them where they are. How is that done? As younger people enter the work force Republicans need to interact with them on their level and with their issues. That means increasing their presence online, specifically within the area of social networking, and also speaking in plain but real terms about issues that are directly impacting them such as the economy and education. Some of you may be wondering about social issues. I see some of those issues as "luxury items" that may have some support but not within certain age ranges and certainly not in times when other issues flying right in everyone's face. That doesn't mean they are ignored, but sort of "put on the shelf for later".

Second, they need to be better at communicating their message. Barack Obama, and to a certain degree Ron Paul, with their presidential campaigns and Governor Mitch Daniels in his re-election bid here in Indiana, were able to do this with their campaigns. Again, this means speaking in plain but very real terms. That is why these candidates were able to connect with their constituency. In addition, they used the technological means by which the vast majority of the energized electorate could be reached. And that was through the internet and through Obama's very smart use of text messaging. This leads to a greater development of the grassroots especially on the internet as Democrats have so clearly dominated this area in the last five to six years. It encourages younger people to look into and potentially join College Republican and Young Republican networks who then can get them involved in local, state and federal campaigns. All because someone knew how to put a website together (that link is the website I put together for the Young Republican group I Chair).

Third, there is a movement afoot to recruit younger and more engertic candidates to run for office. In the "Rebuild the Party" movement this is what they have to say:

A "40 Under 40" initiative. Undoing the damage to our party's brand among America's youth will take more than new slogans and hip spokespeople. It will mean making young voters the face of the Republican Party, and not just another target group with its own bulleted list of "outreach" talking points. To that end, the next Chairman should commit to a simple goal: working towards a Republican Party where at least 40% of our challenger and open seat candidates for Congress are under 40. Such a party will send a signal to all Americans that the GOP is once again the party of the future.

It's hard to argue with their points here. If the GOP wants to be seen as the party of ideas and the party of the future, they need to recruit candidates who can better reach out to a greater mass of people. Now all of this should not be done or seen as a way to alienate the base of the party. But it should be seen as a way to educate the base on the needs of the party as well as the greater good, the needs of our nation.

(Apologies for not getting this posted yesterday. Technical difficulties kept me from getting much of what I wanted to get accomplished done.)

What Will It Take to Reshape, Rebuild the GOP?

I was inspired by a blog post over on Next Gen GOP on how to effectively reach out to and bring in younger voters to the GOP. It's a tough question that currently plagues Republican parties all across the United States. What is it exactly that turns away young people from the GOP?

Abby Alger, who wrote the post, points out some pretty obvious "perceived" (remember, when it comes to politics, perception is reality) problems we as Republicans face. Namely we are:

• "overwhelmingly old, white, racist, sexist, classist, and many other bad “-ists”
• Uninspiring and party communication to supporters
  
• Lack of an online presence that if it exists at the county level is only asking for money
  

Ms. Alger hits the nail on the head for the most part. And much has been written when it comes to the GOP working to re-brand itself. But we shouldn't fool ourselves into thinking this is the first time a major political party in America has gone through a self-inflicted identity crisis.

The same could be said for the Democrats in 1994 after the Republicans took Congress back like Stormin' Norman Schwarzkopf went into Iraq in the first Gulf War and again in 2004 after George W. Bush not only won the popular vote in the 2004 presidential election, but took it by a decisive margin. The difference is that combined with national and world events, it only took the Democrats fully four years to take everything back.

But along the way, they learned what they had to do. They had to energize their base and move beyond donation to fully utilizing volunteers who previously had been ignored because of their lack of expendable donor cash. Now Republicans find themselves in an almost identical boat.

So what must be done?

Find out tomorrow as I return to actually updating this site on a regular basis! (Hard to believe, but I'm going to hold myself to my New Year's Resolution...I mean it!)