Guiding questions for interviews with Burr/Ross campaign staff
- Walk me through how you were hired onto the [Burr/Ross] campaign
- Describe the team that you worked with
- Were there members of your team who were “tech” people, rather than “politics” people?
- What type of technologies did you & your team use? Were there any that you developed in-house or were a part of developing?
- When it came to digital data and technology, what were the campaign’s goals?
- Did technologies that you were using change from the beginning to the end of the campaign?
- How much trust was put into digital data? How much did this steer strategy?
- How much did you have to “prove the worth” of digital tools to leadership, decision makers and other stakeholders?
- How much did you work with the national [Republican/Democratic] party [RNC/DNC] to strategize, plan and execute digital initiatives?
- Did you find that, in terms of digital data and strategy, that you had an advantage due to incumbency? Were there already digital, social or analytical systems in place that you were able to work off of and build upon?
- In what ways did social media play a role in campaigning? Fundraising?
- How much of a focus was put onto digital fundraising?
- Did you reach your goals in terms of email fundraising? What tactics did you use to raise funds and/or support via email?
- How much did you look to your opponent’s digital strategy and respond? Did you play any defense in that way?
- When it came to email, where did your lists come from? How effective were they?
- What was the approval process when it came to social media posts, email and web-based messages? Were staffers given autonomy to carry out those messages, or were they required to go through multiple rounds of approval?
- Were there any big lessons learned from former election cycles that carried into your digital strategy? Were there any mistakes that you learned from and tried to avoid?
- Looking back, do you feel that there were any missed opportunities in terms of social media or digital data?
- Going forward, what do you think will change the most when it comes to the use of technology in political campaigns? How are you seeing this at play now?
Note: Each interview was unique in terms of the questions asked and the topics discussed, but the list above was used as a starting place.