Daily: Where are you now?
Jonathan Webber: I’m working at Bain & Company, a management consulting firm in Chicago. I started here in September, after working on my brother’s campaign (for state representative) last spring and summer. I’m an associate consultant. I’m attached to a client for about six months, working with a team of five or six others from the firm, working through different business issues. For the first couple years you do a lot of data analysis and research, which, it’s been unbelievable how much my experience at Northwestern and specifically in ASG prepared me for it, just from the aspect of working on different projects, problem-solving and working in a team environment, all those things have been pretty applicable.
Daily: How was campaigning with your brother?
Webber: We started the campaign in February, six months ahead of the primary on August 5th. I was his campaign manager, running the showdown there in Columbia, Mo. He won the primary, and was unopposed in the general election, and was sworn in January, and has been legislating in Missouri the last four months.
Daily: How did it compare to your ASG elections?
Webber: There were so many things I learned from campaigning in and being in ASG and being around the others there. Probably our approach of trying to go after different types of voters in different ways. If you go into the sororities, focus more on safety issues; if you go into Jones, focusing more on theater issues and trying to dissect your voters, what’s the most important to them? We did that on ASG races and we did that on my brother’s campaign. We said, this part of the city, this demographic, this type of mail is better for that. No flyering, though, they don’t allow flyering. I suppose you could use chalk, but I wasn’t sure whether the chalking downtown approach would be successful or not. They don’t allow TV ads for ASG campaigns, so there are some not applicable to the other.
Daily: When you left Northwestern last spring, what do you think was the most glaring need ASG didn’t get around to filling?
Webber: I wouldn’t say it’s one specific issue … I think that it’s the same thing that’s true every single year, and it’s not because we messed up or anything or don’t do it. There’s always the need to find the best ways to stay in touch with all Northwestern. In every year, we do a fairly good job, but that’s a part of the constant, trying to keep in touch with that.
