Smallbrain Solutions

I must say that this post may be the most obvious description of why political campaigns suck so damn much.

The interesting thing about applying “local max” to politics is that the costs are even higher for political campaigns. You have anywhere from 6 months to 2 years to win. There is no “bad quarter” or “bad year” to weather… if you lose, you are done.

That being said, his followup post suggests that the winning strategy is to empower a very small team to try EVERYTHING. Sort of like a “skunk works” sort of concept. The phrase, “smaller, faster, cheaper” comes to mind.

In terms of breaking out of a rut, particularly in the political online sphere, it is this kind of thinking is required. Don’t just throw $50,000 at a flash developer to make you the next JibJab… it isn’t going to be as good. It just isn’t. Even if it is - it probably won’t drive that kind of traffic.

However, if you adopt the “smaller, faster, cheaper” approach - like NASA has done - you can get REALLY big surprises, like the two Mars Rovers that are still going strong, long after they were supposed to stop working. Without throwing a lot of crap against the wall you will never know what truly sticks.

I suspect I will have a lot more to say about this soon…