Iowa Caucus Proof Point For Digital First But Not Digital Only

So we all know what “Monday morning quarterbacking” is worth but as the Democratic Caucus continues to struggle for a final outcome it provides a perfect example of what we mean by “Digital First But Not Digital Only Multichannel Experiences” is all about. It’s 2020 and people want digital experiences,  passionately, until they don’t, and you had better support them in both cases or you will suffer..

Here is the use case and proof point

1. The business case – “The best way to gather caucus information and results is via a mobile app .. much cheaper . much faster .. higher quality than manual and phones”. Congratulations, a great Digital First Mindset.
2. The work – “Develop an app which will prove this out and will set the tone for the entire 2020 electoral process including overcoming consumer security concerns and ushers in a new digital electoral era”. Absolutely the right idea.
3. The talent strategy – “Find a startup, unknown company, Shadow Inc, to develop your app run by a seasoned political operative rather than a digital hero” .. oops not things start to get a little rocky.
4. The pre-deployment strategy – “if it works with a few tech savvy developers and folks it must work at scale across ~1681 precincts” .. uh oh .. we digital developers know ‘at scale’ starts to add real complexities
5. The deployment strategy – “its a mobile app using standard tech tools right .. the caucus leaders can download it when they get to the stations the day of the caucus. In fact some can wait till the last minute. It’s a mobile app” .. aye .. now tech folks are starting to either shiver or laugh.
6. The “Digital First But Not Digital Only Multichannel Strategy – “how impressive and cool .. we have an app so we don’t need to staff the phones we used to as a contingency  plan in case there are problems, In fact we won’t even have a powerful well staffed helpdesk so the less tech savvy folks who have difficulty downloading or using the app in deepest farm country outside “Cedar Falls” or in downtown, urban Des Moines with poor Wi-Fi or cell signal have someone to call and help” .. oh come on people, you don’t provide that on launch day, the first time you use it at scale .. digital 101
7. The Get Out Of Jail Agile Card – “ok, eventually we will forgive you .. it’s Agile,” – maybe but you certainly don’t get to make the same mistake twice and backing away to a manual process is not the answer either.
8. The Impact – “Iowa loses their first in the nation electoral status, the Donald gets a new piece of competency posturing for the next 9 months” – There are consequences of success and of failure There are a lot of folks, especially in the Democrat party who have argued Iowa (and actually New Hampshire that follows) are unrepresentative of today’s national demographics that they will spend the next 4 years using this against Iowa, especially if Democrats lose the next election and ‘the blame game starts’. And the “if they cant build an app how can they run the country” noise has already started.

The scariest thing is that the Democratic party is surrounded by some of the biggest, most talented and wealthiest names in Silicon Valley tech, supposedly the heart of the digital world.

If this is the best you can rustle up with all that brain power and talent  then that is the real scary part. But for us out here in the “Digital First But Not Digital Only Multichannel Experience” trenches, thanks for the use case.