We're sending tens of thousands of grassroots door-knockers, many of them newbies, into battle "without guns that work, just bullets that we’re telling them to throw real hard at people."
Micah, you touch on all the reasons I have been frustrated as a canvasser time and time again in many campaigns over the years--and why it is increasingly hard to keep on signing up for something that feels so labor intensive and unproductive. My questions to you are--okay, I'm up for complaining, so to whom do I speak up about the deficiencies of MiniVAN--the company? the campaigns? And how might we find out who is using OpenField in our area so we can give that a try?
Start with speaking up to the campaign(s) and via intermediary organizations like Indivisible, Swing Left etc. Many of those orgs don't use MiniVAN because they know better. As for OpenField, they have lots of clients but it's not like anyone advertises which tool they're using.
Once again, I applaud your honesty and forthrightness. I assume these issues have been raised repeatedly with members of the party the party. I'm not sure why these issues which, as you point out, are not new, just keep getting kicked down the road. Grassroots work from lists. It would be nice to see that those in charge are willing to invest in the tools we volunteers need to get the job done. And, I fully agree with the last comment, as those constant texts and emails have a chilling effect on donors. It is out of control. Why don't the candidates tell their staff to stop? If I saw an email
to the effect that said, once a person donates they must be removed from
So so true about MiniVAN Micah! It's always been so frustrating that the GOP (at least before Trump) was ahead of us in this area. I still remember in 08 when I was investigating the "other side..." The GOP or one of its pacs had a website that was like a cross between FB and Googlemaps where GOP supporters were listed on the map and you could reach out to them and start group convos/actions. We've never had anything like that. I am impressed though with Harris/Walz use of FB and Slack...I'm one of the moderators on the official CT FB page for the campaign and they have a v good disciplined organization there...a robust content calendar w good mix of messaging and actions to take, rapid response, lots of help AND empowering for and of volunteers. Now just do that with the field operations...
I'm the training coordinator for Seed the Vote's volunteer effort in Reno, working alongside UNITE-HERE's extremely well-run full-time canvass operation. It's my 4th time in Reno with UH, first time in a training role, rather than logistics or data. Training on miniVAN is by far the hardest part of my work; many perfectly able people have problems with it, from downloading to setting up an ID, to using it in the field. It's ugly for all the reasons you describe.
I do think, however, that in a tightly-run canvass like UH's, with very specific targeting and daily goals for paid canvassers on leave of absence from their hotels and casinos, the capacity to add new people to the database would not actually be helpful. What do you think?
I disagree, for several reasons. First, because choosing to treat volunteers or paid canvassers as cogs in a machine is demeaning to them instead of empowering. Second, because allowing them to add new people is nearly all upside and very little downside--sure, you may want to do some quality control to make sure you can trust these folks to not be making up information. But finally, something I didn't point out in my piece--because all too often canvasses, whether they are paid or volunteer, tilt toward counting things that shouldn't count much at all. Why incentivize people to maximize how many "contacts" they do if MiniVAN will count even the most brief encounter as a "contact"? The deeper problem with this tool is that our canvasses are now focused around the metrics the tool is designed to collect, rather than anything that actually produces relationship and commitment to vote.
Fair enough. But there are other ways of using the interface that don't treat people as cogs. UH, for example, focuses on a "deep canvassing" method that involves making a connection with the voter, based on shared concerns, and on the canvasser's willingness to share a true and personal story explaining the importance of the election to them. Real conversations involving understanding the voter's concerns and linking them to candidates' history and positions allow for a more secure ID of the voter. Only genuine conversations count, in this model, with brief encounters recorded as "Not Home," with the understanding that a different canvasser on a different day might have a better convo. Evening allow the collection of information about what voters are saying at the doors and provide an opportunity to sharpen canvassing skills. The goal in this case is not just to win the election, but to improve the organizing skills of rank-and-file members so they can be more effective organizers and/or stewards when they return to the field.
In the volunteer effort, we use the same approach, emphasizing solid ID's, not fleeting "contacts." But this requires working *against* miniVAN's inbuilt bias towards superficial counting.
Where does the money go? Follow the money? Consultants that make TV ads and the TV stations that run them... Always been true, still true.... And so? There is no investment in canvassing tools... Like a broken record cycle after cycle.... More TV ads please!
Thanks for this piece, Micah. I realize I too have been complicit or at least complacent in accepting the poor user experience with miniVAN. And, in addition to some of the issues you describe with canvassing, the experience is comparable when text or phone banking. I question how campaigns only seem to have access to such outdated lists. I try to remind myself that I and other volunteers are helping campaigns by "cleaning up their lists" but honestly it's not a productive use of our time. I do hope that campaigns grow smarter and start to use the same algorithms and data bases used by marketers in order to target the correct people.
Micah, you touch on all the reasons I have been frustrated as a canvasser time and time again in many campaigns over the years--and why it is increasingly hard to keep on signing up for something that feels so labor intensive and unproductive. My questions to you are--okay, I'm up for complaining, so to whom do I speak up about the deficiencies of MiniVAN--the company? the campaigns? And how might we find out who is using OpenField in our area so we can give that a try?
Start with speaking up to the campaign(s) and via intermediary organizations like Indivisible, Swing Left etc. Many of those orgs don't use MiniVAN because they know better. As for OpenField, they have lots of clients but it's not like anyone advertises which tool they're using.
Once again, I applaud your honesty and forthrightness. I assume these issues have been raised repeatedly with members of the party the party. I'm not sure why these issues which, as you point out, are not new, just keep getting kicked down the road. Grassroots work from lists. It would be nice to see that those in charge are willing to invest in the tools we volunteers need to get the job done. And, I fully agree with the last comment, as those constant texts and emails have a chilling effect on donors. It is out of control. Why don't the candidates tell their staff to stop? If I saw an email
to the effect that said, once a person donates they must be removed from
our list, I would donate to them immediately.
So so true about MiniVAN Micah! It's always been so frustrating that the GOP (at least before Trump) was ahead of us in this area. I still remember in 08 when I was investigating the "other side..." The GOP or one of its pacs had a website that was like a cross between FB and Googlemaps where GOP supporters were listed on the map and you could reach out to them and start group convos/actions. We've never had anything like that. I am impressed though with Harris/Walz use of FB and Slack...I'm one of the moderators on the official CT FB page for the campaign and they have a v good disciplined organization there...a robust content calendar w good mix of messaging and actions to take, rapid response, lots of help AND empowering for and of volunteers. Now just do that with the field operations...
I'm the training coordinator for Seed the Vote's volunteer effort in Reno, working alongside UNITE-HERE's extremely well-run full-time canvass operation. It's my 4th time in Reno with UH, first time in a training role, rather than logistics or data. Training on miniVAN is by far the hardest part of my work; many perfectly able people have problems with it, from downloading to setting up an ID, to using it in the field. It's ugly for all the reasons you describe.
I do think, however, that in a tightly-run canvass like UH's, with very specific targeting and daily goals for paid canvassers on leave of absence from their hotels and casinos, the capacity to add new people to the database would not actually be helpful. What do you think?
I disagree, for several reasons. First, because choosing to treat volunteers or paid canvassers as cogs in a machine is demeaning to them instead of empowering. Second, because allowing them to add new people is nearly all upside and very little downside--sure, you may want to do some quality control to make sure you can trust these folks to not be making up information. But finally, something I didn't point out in my piece--because all too often canvasses, whether they are paid or volunteer, tilt toward counting things that shouldn't count much at all. Why incentivize people to maximize how many "contacts" they do if MiniVAN will count even the most brief encounter as a "contact"? The deeper problem with this tool is that our canvasses are now focused around the metrics the tool is designed to collect, rather than anything that actually produces relationship and commitment to vote.
Fair enough. But there are other ways of using the interface that don't treat people as cogs. UH, for example, focuses on a "deep canvassing" method that involves making a connection with the voter, based on shared concerns, and on the canvasser's willingness to share a true and personal story explaining the importance of the election to them. Real conversations involving understanding the voter's concerns and linking them to candidates' history and positions allow for a more secure ID of the voter. Only genuine conversations count, in this model, with brief encounters recorded as "Not Home," with the understanding that a different canvasser on a different day might have a better convo. Evening allow the collection of information about what voters are saying at the doors and provide an opportunity to sharpen canvassing skills. The goal in this case is not just to win the election, but to improve the organizing skills of rank-and-file members so they can be more effective organizers and/or stewards when they return to the field.
In the volunteer effort, we use the same approach, emphasizing solid ID's, not fleeting "contacts." But this requires working *against* miniVAN's inbuilt bias towards superficial counting.
Where does the money go? Follow the money? Consultants that make TV ads and the TV stations that run them... Always been true, still true.... And so? There is no investment in canvassing tools... Like a broken record cycle after cycle.... More TV ads please!
Thanks for this piece, Micah. I realize I too have been complicit or at least complacent in accepting the poor user experience with miniVAN. And, in addition to some of the issues you describe with canvassing, the experience is comparable when text or phone banking. I question how campaigns only seem to have access to such outdated lists. I try to remind myself that I and other volunteers are helping campaigns by "cleaning up their lists" but honestly it's not a productive use of our time. I do hope that campaigns grow smarter and start to use the same algorithms and data bases used by marketers in order to target the correct people.
Spot on Micah. My experience too. What a piece of crap.