Pennsylvnia Federation of College Republicans

Jessica Thompson: Aaron, can you tell me a little bit about yourself?

Aaron Marks: I am an undergraduate at the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University.  I study Technology Venture Creation, which is a track in business administration that focuses on the intersection of entrepreneurship and technology.  Beyond serving as President of Carnegie Mellon College Republicans, I am also an avid blogger, political and new media consultant, web 2.0 and social networking guru, and entrepreneur.

I am President of Three Group, LLC, a Pittsburgh-based new media software and new media company.  Three Group specializes in building political technology solutions.  At Three Group, I conceived a software solution that we offer called Mission Control, which allows political campaigns and organizations to manage all aspects of their campaign.

I blog regularly at NextGenGOP, a blog of young, up-and-coming Republicans that I founded, and in addition I occasionally contribute to The Next Right.

Jessica: I know that you were involved with Rick Santorum’s campaign back in 2006. What was your role in the campaign?

Aaron: Like all of our staffers, I wore many hats on the campaign.  I served as a staffer, focusing on new media and online outreach, but I also chaired our Students for Santorum coalition.  Our campaign set the standard for political technology in 2006, recruiting over 50,000 volunteers and organizing one of the most effective voter outreach programs in ’06.

Jessica: You are one of the founders of NextGenGOP. What is the purpose of the organization and what do you hope to accomplish?

Aaron: NextGenGOP is a blog of consisting of young leaders in the Republican Party who are looking to participate in the discussion about the future of the GOP.  In particular, we believe that it is imperative the Republican Party regain the support of young voters.  We look to the future and try to bring new ideas to the table so that we can triumph over these trying times and restore the Republican Party to greatness.

Jessica: We saw in the Presidential election that Barack Obama used social networking and the internet to his advantage. What do you think the Republican Party can learn from the way he ran his campaign?

Aaron: I believe that the most important recognition is that Obama and his team was able to understand that peer production - which “describes what happens when masses of people … collaborate openly to drive innovation and growth” – is the way of the future.  Peer production has been adopted as the primary business model in many leading companies that innovate, such as Boeing, IBM, and Procter & Gamble.

In fact, Barack Obama’s landslide victory was not really the result of his use of the Internet (although team Obama did an absolutely phenomenal job with its website, social networking, and so forth). Instead, the Internet only served as the medium through which Obama’s volunteers and supporters could peer produce. At the end of the day, it was the fact that the Obama campaign so effectively utilized peer production that fueled his victory.  MyBarackObama.com was astoundingly successful in doing this, and as a result, Obama’s supporters peer produced 200,000 offline events, 400,000 blog posts, 3 million phone calls, and $500 million.  Every part of MyBarackObama made it clear that, “This campaign is about you.”

The Democrats will continue to follow in the footsteps of countless successful corporations by using this model in 2010, 2012, and beyond.  Republicans must learn to do the same because if they don’t, we may dig a hole so deep that we may never be able to climb out.  As the authors of Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything write, “We must collaborate or perish.”

Jessica: More and more young people are beginning to become involved with the various social networking sites that are out on the web. What sites do you think are going to become more important as time goes on?

Aaron: Facebook has established itself as perhaps the premiere social networking website among young folks.  As Facebook continues to open itself by allowing custom applications and enhancing its ability to interact with other external websites, I think it will become even more important than it is now.

I also look to microblogging services – the leading example being Twitter – as websites that will become increasingly mainstream in the near future.  I think that Twitter in many ways represents the future due to the unique and authentic interactions it is able to create by eliminating barriers to communication.  Before Twitter, if you wanted to reach your Congressman or deal with an issue with Comcast, you’d have to send an e-mail, call in, or write a letter, and wait for a response; now, you can instantly send a message to your Congressman or an executive support agent at Comcast.  This is incredibly powerful and absolutely unprecedented.

I also think that Ning will have an important role, because Ning lets people create “niche” social networking websites around a certain cause – for example, check out Team Sarah (http://www.teamsarah.org/) or Rebuild the Party (http://rebuildtheparty.ning.com/).

Tags: Aaron Marks, college republicans, Jessica Thompson, NextGenGOP

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 22nd, 2009 at 7:58 am by Jessica Thompson and is filed under Interview. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.