Barack, Inc.: Winning Business Lessons of the Obama Campaign
Barry Libert,Rick Faulk | 2009-01-15 00:00:00 | FT Press | 192 | International
What can business leaders learn from Barack Obama's improbable victory? A great deal, says this brief, readable book, which spells out the lessons of the Obama campaign and goes on to illustrate them, citing companies that have used similar techniques to succeed. Obama ran a nearly flawless campaign that stayed on message, attracted tens of thousands of dedicated volunteers, and collected a record flood of dollars from donors large and small. But his triumph was also to use social networking to create a vast online community that has changed politics forever. And that's precisely what businesses need to do. In a soundbyte, Obama's threefold approach was (1) to keep his cool, (2) to apply to politics the social technologies of the Internet, including blogs, texting, and viral videos, and (3) to embody in himself the change that he meant to bring to the country. None of these goals are as simple as they sound. Barack, Inc., not only spells them out clearly but offers actionable lessons that businesspeople can apply, beginning tomorrow. "Change" has become a tired political cliché, but Obama gave it new life by persuading a solid majority of voters that he could lead them to a whole new kind of politics and government, transcending the petty partisanship of recent years. And he himself embodied that change. "We are the ones we've been waiting for," he told his rallies. "We are the change we seek. . . . Let's go change the world." Just so, says this important book, business leaders must embrace change and become the change they offer. Only then will their constituencies -- shareholders, employees, suppliers, customers -- follow them to achieve it. But having done that, their companies will have become communities -- and the authors tell us that community, in addition to products and profits, is what business is about in the Web 2.0 world of the 21st century.
Reviews
This is an interesting book that explores some of the winning strategies and approaches Obama employed and lived by that won him the election. I put the "but" in the title because it's really clear that Obama stopped doing a lot of those winning things once he got into the White House. Still, overall, there's some good information in here.
Reviews
This is a short, easy read which details (from the author's viewpoint) the secrets of President Obama's winning campaign. It shows how he targeted Hillary early on, trying to figure out a way to use her experience against her which he successfully did by playing the "do you want change or politics as usual card." He was often careful not to mention HRC directly, but he got his message across. With McCain he played hardball, remembering his comeback and not wanting him to have another.
The book doesn't glorify the president, doesn't make him out to be above politics, on the contrary it mentions how he went back on his pledge to take public funding, because he made a calculating decision that he could get much more money from the internet. Still, President Obama comes out looking pretty good here, and perhaps he should. Hillary Clinton was my first choice, but Mr. Obama is my president now and he seems to be doing all the right things, so he has my support, but I'm getting off track. If you want a good, short, fast read that will tell you how a freshman senator from Illinois became President of the United States, then this is the book for you.
Reviews
Ya han pasado un par de años desde que Blue State Digital sorprendió al mundo con una de las campañas más grandes, efectivas, mediaticas y sorpresivas de la historia.
El cliente de la agencia era ni más ni menos que Barack Obama, ex senador por el Estado de Illinois y actual candidato a la presidencia de Estados Unidos. Jillary Clinton y John McCain eran sus adversarios, y nada parecía indicar que este hombre fuese a ser el primer presidente de color que tuviese Estados Unidos.
"Obama, INC" es uno de los tantos libros que aborda el fenómeno Obama desde el punto de vista del marketing.
Si bien al comienzo, el libro contextualiza, cuenta cual era el escenario y quienes los contendientes, rápidamente se adentra en la arena de la comunicación estratégica que termino por cerrar la victoria del actual presidente.
Case Study: The Barack Obama Strategy
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Para quienes nos dedicamos a la construcción de marcas, comunicación estratégica y marketing, este caso es todo un emblema, de ahí que me pusiera a leerlo.
Si bien no voy a adentrarme en los tips o highlights del libro, quienes lo lean ahora -bajo un cumulo de información y campañas que imitaron a ésta- pueden sentir que el caso es bastante lógico y fácil de discernir, pero cabe destacar que la campaña fue, no sólo una hazaña comunicacional, sino que trasformo la forma en que se hace política, cómo se dialoga y por sobre todo como se trabaja junto a personas comunes y corrientes para que te representen como verdaderos embajadores de la marca.
Con prosa ágil (leí la versión en español) el libro esta dividido en 4 capítulos: "Exito en el que creer y emular", "Ser carismático", " Ser Social", "Ser cambio".
Como bien decía, no todo el libro trata sobre la comunicación por parte de la agencia, sino que hay una breve historia de Obama, cómo el se posiciona como un líder y orador sereno y seguro (algo uy relevante) y finalmente, como la propuesta de valor que ellos presentan hace ver a sus contrincantes como viejos, estrictos y si ningún cambio frente a la gobernación antigua de Bush (de ahí al claim "Yes, we can").
De la misma forma, hay fuerte enfasis en el uso que Blue State Digital dio a las redes sociales, tecnologías móviles y el boca a boca. Ahi radica el cambio profundo en el pardadigma comunicacional. Cómo se pasa del CRM a CMR (·Customer Managed Relationships"), cómo se empodera a la gente (MyBarakObama) o cómo se empieza a dar sentido al celular como una herramienta para votar e incentivar el voto en amigos.
El caso gano Titanium y oro en Cannes 2009. Titanium es un premio relativamente nuevo que es entregado a campañas que cambian la forma de hacer cosas. Ya no se trata de tener una idea buena o no, se trata de cambiar la forma en que estábamos acostumbrados a hacer algo. Y de seguro, la campaña de Obama marca un antes y un después en termino de gobiernos transparentes, redes sociales y normas comunicacionales.
Hay un sinfín de libros que abordan el caso, así que si les interesa el tema, hay mucho para elegir.
PEACE OUT
Reviews
I ordered this book out of curiosity. It was exactly what I expected it to be. The authors have provided us with a series of stories on how brilliant Obama ran his campaign in a basic "fanboy" style. Did Obama run a great campaign? Of course... He won the presidency. Can we learn great business lessons from the campaign? Only in a fantasy world. Running a business and running for political office are two completely different things. You will enjoy this book if you are already a fan of Obama and are not really interested in the real world of business.
Reviews
This book conveys the typical "Obama can do no wrong" sentiment. If you are a staunch supporter, you will love this book. If you are not, then you will criticize every detail of it. I'll try to be as objective as I can with my comments.
1) Winning the democratic national primary shouldn't have been that difficult since he didn't have much history, and therefore, no negative history for his competition to focus on.
2) Obama used technology to his advantage, but that should be common practice in this day and age. McCain was too "old school" and continued with the status quo, which was a detriment considering that people wanted change.
3) McCain lost more points by picking Sarah Palin as a running mate simply hoping to capture the female voters when Hilary Clinton dropped out. Unfortunately, Palin had minimal experience in politics and Obama's campaign pounced on this.
4) The only "business lessons" I gathered should be to use basic common sense. Adapt technology to increase your potential. Attack your competitor's weaknesses. Strong charisma and communication skills are a strength when trying to gather the support of the populace.
5) Adapt quickly to current conditions and address issues immediately. Delays project weakness and ineptitude.
Please don't take misinterpret my comments as being "anti-Obama" or right-wing elitist. My comments are only meant as my opinion of this book, not on Obama himself.
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