I did a presentation about 'digital transformation' yesterday. The usual stuff.
I often use this quote:
"It’s just change management. It’s not complicated; it’s just hard."
It's from a long piece about the transformation of the Democratic election machine, and, as I was presenting it I realised how it also now illustrates something else - you have to keep going.
It's hard, it's very hard, because you don't just recreate your organisation and then stop, you have to keep doing it, you have to keep going. Because now, it seems, the Democratic organisation has fallen behind. They were convinced they were the best, so they got complacent. Centrally-planned, non-responsive, unwilling to change.
Possibly as Will Davies points out (tweets quoted below) they were falling between two stools - attempting to add digital tooling to conventional thinking. You can't do that. You can't have the best of both worlds. You have to go the full Cummings.
In fact, what we need, more than anything is Dominic Cummings For Good.
Will Davies:
"Problem with allowing data analytics to dictate a political campaign is you risk falling between two stools: (tweet)
a) traditional political campaigning (that Clinton clearly snubbed)
b) proper nihilistic Cummings-style mathematics (tweet)
Cummings’ argument is: to do data analytics properly, employ only people with no experience in politics whatsoever. (tweet)
Whereas it sounds like Clinton had seasoned campaign managers staring at data, ending up with the worst of both worlds. (tweet)"
