Постови

#20 HOW IT'S ACTUALLY DONE: Mobilizing Young Voters

  The data below comes from Serbia. The pattern does not. Every campaign I've worked with on four continents has arrived at the same wrong conclusion about young voters, and arrived at it the same way: by putting the money where the campaign staff already spends its own time. The specific numbers here are Serbian, from an Ipsos tracker this July. But the shape of them — a generation gap that runs straight through the middle of the platform mix, and a level of distrust that no amount of reach can buy through — is the same in Nairobi, in Zagreb, in Budapest. What follows is the part most parties skip: reading the numbers before writing the message. “Young people aren't interested in politics or in joining parties.” In Serbian political life that sentence gets delivered with a weary sigh, as a premise nobody expects to change. From experience I know they are interested, and more than campaign headquarters assume. What they won't be is free labor putting up posters, or extras f...

#20 KAKO SE TO ZAPRAVO RADI Mobilizacija mladih birača

‘Mlade ne zanima politika niti članstvo u strankama’ je jedna od onih rečenica koje se u političkom životu Srbije izgovaraju sa tužnim uzdahom, kao premisu koja se ne može promeniti. I iskustva znam da ih zanima i to više nego što štabovi misle, samo što neće da budu besplatna radna snaga koja će lepiti plakate ili statisti na skupovima i snimanju izjava liderima. Kada na to dodamo pogrešne mreže preko kojih im se obraćamo pogrešnim jezikom nije ni čudo što ih nema. Koliko čujem izbori u Srbiji su i bliže nego što smo pretpostavljali. Zbog svega toga jako je bitno pažljivo pročitati istraživanje Ipsos Srbija iz jula 2026. (ICT tracker, N=1.004, uzrast 12+) koja su izmerila ko je gde na mrežama, pošto brojke ne ostavljaju mnogo prostora za njihovo proizvoljno tumačenje.   Facebook je mreža roditelja onih koji su ‘first-time-voters’.  Koristi ga 59% internet populacije u Srbiji i to je ubedljivo najviše od svih mreža ali među tinejdžerima ga koristi svega njih 12%. Najviše na FB...

#19 How to Train Your Dragon?

  Every major technological change has also changed the way campaigns are run and the structure of the campaign headquarters. Television created media consultants, and the internet brought digital directors into the headquarters. Once we started leaning on databases, the people working with voter files, CRM systems and digital advertising moved from the edge of the operation to its centre. I still remember what a revolution it was when we set up the first internet department in a Serbian campaign headquarters, back in 2011. Suddenly the building held people whose job description had not existed five years earlier, while the press office carried on untouched. This text grew out of Miles Maftean’s analysis “Meet the Campaign AI Engineer” (Partisan Hub). His thesis struck me as correct but not sufficiently tested on terrain like ours, so I have extended it with data and with experience from the campaigns of the past year. Everyone is looking for the dragon in the wrong place The curre...

#18 HOW IT'S ACTUALLY DONE The Post-Election Analysis

I tell every campaign team the same thing after every election: “Now comes the detailed analysis.” Winners announce it at the very press conference where they declare victory, to show they are serious people. Losers announce the same thing, to show they have drawn the lessons from defeat and that there is a plan for next time. It sounds logical, like standard procedure, something that goes without saying — like the campaign silence period or a properly completed polling board record. Yes, I tell everyone. And almost nobody actually does it. What usually happens is called an analysis but is in fact either a celebration or a wake, depending on the outcome. The winning team scatters and everyone goes on holiday, because why analyse something that, by definition, worked. The losing team dissolves even faster, because nobody wants to sit in a room and count their own mistakes out loud. I have told both sides, in vain, that every campaign of mine was better than the one before it precisely b...

#19 Kako da dresirate svog zmaja?

  Svaka velika tehnološka promena menjala je i način na koji se kampanje vode i strukturu izbornog štaba. Televizija je stvorila medijske konsultante, a internet nam je u štab doveo digitalne direktore. Kada smo počeli da više koristimo baze podataka, ljudi koji rade sa biračkim spiskovima, CRM sistemima i digitalnim oglašavanjem preselili su se sa periferije štaba u njegov centar. Sećam se kakva je revolucija bila kada smo prvi u Srbiji uveli internet odeljenje u štab 2011. godine.  Tada su se u štabu pojavili ljudi sa opisom posla koji pet godina ranije nije postojao, ali je pres službe ostala netaknuta.   Ovaj tekst je nastao kao odgovor na analizu Milesa Mafteana „Meet the Campaign AI Engineer“ (Partisan Hub). Njegova teza mi je delovala tačno, ali nedovoljno testirana na terenu kakav je naš, pa sam je proširio podacima i iskustvom iz kampanja u poslednjih godinu dana.   Svi traže zmaja na pogrešnom mestu Trenutna rasprava o AI u kampanjama vrti se uglavnom oko n...