MAXWELL HARPER
MEDIA
WITH A PURPOSE
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NEW POLITICAL VIDEO FORMAT:
BLUEPRINT FOR CHANGE
While working on the Obama 2008 campaign new media video team, I invented, pitched and created the"Blueprint for Change Videos." By condensing the candidate's policy speaches to digestible bites, adding emphatic bullet points and surrounging the video in an animated branded wrapper, this format added an additional visual communication mode and added weight and officiality to the verbal delivery of his proposals.
The video format traveled with my media colleagues into the Whitehouse where it now enhances the Whitehouse web-cast of the State of the union.
I've long believed that many citizens want to engage civically, but need more than windy emotional rhetoric; they yearn to stand on factual ground. We consume infographics with delight. Blueprint videos were an attempt to offer a mode of civic discourse more elucidating of the underpinning facts and assumptions.
I'm excited to see where my former teammates have taken the format-- the inclusion of infographics is critical. I would like to see more videographic political rhetoric come packaged with explanatory visuals and evidence-based policy citations. I believe this would contibute to better, more intelligent and civil world.
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Micah L. Sifry is a co-founder and executive editor of the Personal Democracy Forum, which covers the ways technology is changing politics.
RUN DON'T WALK:
"HOPE FACTORY"
Opening Source on the Obama Digital Media System.
"Run, don't walk, to go watch Max Harper's detailed presentation on the ... Obama campaign's system for connecting media, membership, fundraising and activism," wrote national thought-leading poli-tech blogger and founder of the Personal Democracy Forum, Micah Sifry. "I never heard anyone put it all together in one place in quite the way Harper does. He offers an overarching analysis of how all the parts fit together that strategists of all stripes will want to study."
I had been dreaming of the coming of digital media activism since the late 90's. Working on that campaign was very simply a dream come true. While now essentially commonplace, In 2008, our work was revolutionary. We had shown the world the power of new media systems; of networked media production and distribution, their ability to reach, and move, masses of citizens. It was time to share the dream.
After our victory, I saw many of my colleagues rally up their new consulting companies and prepare to commercialize the campaign intellectual capital. While celebrating that well-deserved opportunity for all those visionaries, I knew that if we didn't share a comprehensive picture of what we did... if we slowly doled out anecdotes, conference by conference and contract by contract ... we would restrict the flow of that intelligence into the world, and in my calculation, slow progress on this planet. I felt it was of paramount importance to go open-source- that is was time to open up the brilliance inside the campaign and give the world a deep glimpse at how we did it.
I presented to a conference of civic media scholars at UMass, much of my talk centered around a comprehensive system diagram of media and data flows, campaign activity, media-user experience, and donations. I also did an in depth exposé of micro-targeting strategy/tactics that challenged the cult of 'high view count' with a notion of 'right views'-- a qualitative measure of a video's success-- essentially 'accuracy-to-target.' This concept was widely appreciated as advanced a much more granular level of strategic thought.
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POWERSHIFT:
YOUTH CLIMATE MOVEMENT VIDEO
Powershift 2007: I was brought in to build a loosely-defined "video program" for the Energy Action Coaltion's Powershift summit. I designed a part-education part production program. I assembled and lead a team of 6 video trainers, designed a 3 day curriculum, sourced 8 best-value semi-pro HD video and editing kits, and produced over 30+ hours of summit video. I've learned that several of the young workshop participants have later become professional videographers. We published/shared the contents/sourcing information of the video kits to help empower many other organizations-- as the curation behind the kits was world class-- the most affordable, highest quality // bang for the buck.
Powershift 2009: I assembled and lead a team of 20, largely volunteer, video/media producers. We produced a stunning 30+ finished, professional videos for Energy Action Coalition; promotional videos to drive summit turnout, hype-up videos for the main stage events, daily roundup-pumpu-ps, and full documentation archive of speeches and actions. To pull this off on the shoestring budget I had, I designed a multi-tiered pyramid of mentor-lead, learn-by-doing teams-- assigning the more skilled teams to the higher priority coverage.