Excellent post!

I have had some direct experience with the grassroots advocacy of working on the campaigns of local politicians – and I have always used the cliché that “all politics are local.”

I was impressed by President Obama’s use of Web2.0 technologies and I applaud your accurate explanation of why the strategy was successful. It worked not simply because Web2.0 was used but because it was used effectively based on careful planning and execution.

I also agree that the campaign’s Web2.0 success provides a great model for our industry.

I continue to be impressed with your ability to use lessons from everyday life to make information quality issues more relatable.

Keep up the great work!

Best Regards…

Jim Harris

I look forward to reading your ebook and will be recommending it widely as you are the gu’vnor in these matters IMHO.

Your comments on the Green Party website are spot on. I probably fell foul of the halo effect a little there – the fact that they were capturing ANY information in a structured way was such a refreshing innovation compared to their peers. I think it is fair to say that the quality of ‘designed-in quality’ on these sites is poor and one can only assume a small army of back office staff are deployed to make sense of the information.

I’m currently working on an e-book about web forms for international name and address information (watch this space), and one thing I’ve been picking up in my research is that sometimes data quality has to take a back seat (did I REALLY say that?). For political parties, the aim is to coax the voter through the form and signed up as a paying member.

Data quality can hang.

Clearly and ideally, thought should be given both to what will make the voter sign up without sacrificing data quality.

You’re right, none of these forms are much cop, but it’s strange how different people experience them in different ways. Your winner, the Green Party’s form, had me rolling in the aisles. I would have bailed out long before reaching the “send” button. Asking me for my Dublin postcode (not a postcode, as you correctly state), and then only later asking me for my country? Putting two address fields next to each other horizontally, in total contrast to how it would appear in an address block?

I won’t bore you with comments on each form, but hopefull by the end of April everybody will be able to read my opinions about similar forms

Graham