Approximately 35 people came together on Nov. 3 at Café Atlantico for a luncheon hosted by AMA-DC featuring Joe Trippi, principal, Joe Trippi & Associates. Trippi, heralded on the cover of The New Republic as the man who "reinvented campaigning," is widely recognized as one of America's leading and most influential political strategists. Since he began his political career, working on Edward M. Kennedy's presidential campaign in 1980, his work in presidential politics has continued with the campaigns of Walter Mondale, Gary Hart, Richard Gephardt, Howard Dean, and most recently, John Edwards.
Trippi embraced the power of word-of-mouth and social media very early in his campaign work. In a reference to Glenn Reynolds author of “Army of Davids”, a book about how markets and technology empower ordinary people to beat big media, big government, and other goliaths, he stated the new success model is using social media tools to organize the Davids. He stated that you no longer want to be the Goliath because the Davids are going to want to bring you down. You want to be the company that provides the slingshots. An example he gave was what happened in the music industry. The record labels for years forced the consumer to purchase the whole album. It took the Davids to say no and force the change. Apple had the foresight to be the slingshot, iTunes, iPod, iPhone and iPhone Apps.
“Journalism is dead as we know it, newspapers are dinosaurs in the current environment and especially in the new green environment, he stated. The current business models for newspapers will not work in the new environment. There is a lot of room for online sites such as Daily Beast, Huffington Post and Politico.” Trippi thinks the model may change to where bloggers get paid for their story that gets picked up. He noted that he thinks the business model will change to where the army will be willing to pay great writers for the reporting on a per-story basis.
On the subject of trust, Trippi stated that people trust their own peers more than advertising, marketing or the establishment. Until their peers are proven incorrect they will believe in the person they trust as an expert. If a large media property gets a story wrong they may run a correction. If a blogger gets something wrong they apologize profusely or loose their audience quickly.