Monthy Update from Campaign HQ

I’m still on hiatus (at least my blog is) and still working 16-hour days at Clark For President in Little Rock, AR. It’s the wildest, craziest, most intense, most political and chaotic experience I’ve ever had in my life — and I can’t imagine myself doing anything else right now.

As with most campaigns, there are good days and there are bad days. You never know what’s coming around the corner and have to be prepared for anything. We’re still 90 days away from the first state primaries and we only expect it to get more chaotic and intense.

The team of technology people I have helped assemble is amazing. We’ve got the right people in the right positions to do some pretty amazing things online. Yesterday I pushed a private beta of some new tools out to about 50 testers and this week we’re launching some more stuff that’s been in the works for a few weeks.

I wish I could talk publicly about what we’re working on but I can’t because I know the other campaigns are paying attention (waves hello to the Deanies). One of the most difficult jobs I have is convincing some of the older, more traditional campaign people the importance of online community and providing access to information online. I come from the world of just throwing up content and letting it self-organize, whereas with campaign messages the content and message are very carefully crafted and planned. It’s not necessarily a bad thing but it does require an intense amount of planning that sometimes causes conflicts with the rapid, high-speed nature of publishing content online.

I will try to put up a post on CamWorld occasionally, since I know a lot of people are interested in the behind-the-scenes activities of a political campaign. The issue is one of time, which I have very little of. I had to abandon some freelance jobs in new York when I came down to Little Rock and I feel terrible about leaving my clients hanging but this is one opportunity that could not afford to wait. I just hope they understand.

Posted by Cameron Barrett at November 2, 2003 01:43 PM

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