Meet Adriel Hampton

Civic Startup Whisperer, Former Congressional Candidate

I first met Adriel Hampton when he came to Raleigh, North Carolina a few years ago to help launch CityCamp Raleigh. He had been involved in starting up a version of the local government unconference in San Francisco — along with his experience starting Gov 2.0 Radio and his history as the first US congressional candidate to announce his candidacy on Twitter, he was well-prepared to help the tech-savvy Raleighites take another step in local government innovation.

I recently spoke with Adriel to learn more about The Adriel Hampton Group and his new gig as President of AMS Psychographics.

What got you started in the world of political technology?

I really came into political tech from a communication and collaboration angle. Back in 2003, I started the first blog association with the San Francisco Examiner, where I was a political reporter. I was really interested in how frequent and informal web updates could better tell the stories of grassroots politics in the city.

A few years later, when I was working as an investigator at the SF City Attorney’s Office, I began blogging in a personal capacity to organize around a development project in my then-hometown of Walnut Creek. I found blogging to be a really successful way to create interest in and awareness of issues I cared about, and without the gatekeeping of traditional media. Blogging evolved into using social media platforms and collaboration tools and I got really involved in the world of “Gov 2.0,” or using technology tools to make government more transparent, collaborative and efficient.

In 2009 I ran for Congress and worked to highlight new ways that technology could improve politics and government — at that time I met Jim Gilliam, founder of NationBuilder. A couple years later I joined his company as the third employee. Running for office really opened my eyes to how important it is for grassroots candidates to have access to data and technology to make their voices heard.

As one of the first people to use Twitter for politics, how do you see cutting edge technology playing a role in politics and government in the future?

I see the biggest impacts to government and politics coming from search and microtargeting. First, search-oriented government service architecture is the best way of serving citizens. I don’t need to see a lot of PR, I need to find what I’m looking for as a citizen really quickly and then be able to complete tasks easily. I’ve seen NIC Inc. do a good job on this over the past few years and it’s only going to become more important as the U.S. continues to improve citizen broadband access.

On the political front, microtargeting, including programmatic TV advertising (the ability to target ads to an individual household or device) is going to be revolutionary for those who use it well to create audiences outside of traditional — and very inefficient — demographic targeting (categories like voter registration, age, or income). This is something I’m working on with my new company.

You’ve built a successful consulting business from the ground up — no small task. What have you learned along the way?

Ha! Like running for office, starting and running a business is a lot harder than it looks from the outside. The most helpful things I can share that have kept me sane the past year are to be clear on why you’re running a business and what your values are. That first “why” will help you re-center at challenging points and assess whether you’re still on track and the values piece will help you build a business with integrity. I’ve also relied on some great mentors and learned that no matter what stage your at as an entrepreneur it can feel like the wheels are about to fall off. Learning to overcome that feeling, not letting it lock you up, is essential to growth. I’ve found mindfulness practice very helpful on that front.

If you could wave a magic wand and change one thing about American politics, what would it be?

Can I have two if they’re related? The two-party binary is not well-suited to our pluralistic society. You can see a general unhappiness represented in partisan registration trends. Gallup’s seen a steady increase in “no party” identification, up to 43% in 2015. That’s compared to 30% for Democrats and 26% for Republicans. The second issue is how few people actually vote — just 42% of eligible citizens in 2014 according to the U.S. Census. What would I change? I’d like to make it much easier for new parties to form and thrive and for people to register and vote. Technology can help a lot, whether it’s automatic registration methods or online voting.