There has been a healthy and predictable amount of chatter about the Kony 2012 viral campaign. They’ve nearly hit an astonishing 100M views of the video. The question remains: is their strategy effective (ie: will he get captured), and if so, are the campaign’s tactics reproducible for other purposes?
Online-strategy ace, Jason Mogus, does a good job at unpacking the problems with Kony 2012. Jon Stahl sharpens the point in a recent post:
I think one of the biggest challenges the social change+tech sector (or whatever we’re calling it nowadays) faces is our collective tendency to over-celebrate tactical execution without considering the strategic/political context of a campaign.
Clearly IC has executed a viral video tactic extremely well. Some people with in-depth knowledge of the issue think their underlying strategic assumptions are deeply flawed. Others disagree. (Full disclosure: my gut instinct is with “deeply flawed” for many reasons previously mentioned.) However I know that I lack the issue expertise to really evaluate their strategy fully. For that reason alone, I’m not rushing to prematurely celebrate their communications tactics, no matter how many YouTube views they’re getting.
What I do believe with all my heart is that you can be great at communications tactics without having a sound political organizing strategy, and vice versa. Truly successful social campaigns need to be solid on both fronts, and I thus believe that campaigns should be evaluated holistically.
It’s fascinating to watch, and may be an indicator of how outreach campaigns are done in the coming years.
I’m finding that my consulting is requiring more presentations, or “showing” of technology, design, reports, etc. My mobile computer is a version-1 iPad (with a keyboard, and while I love it, it’s not the tool for the job. My old laptop has be completely consumed by my children.