Besides giving those of us under 40 our first positive "do you remember where you were when..." moments, US President Barack Obama has given me, and everyone in my field, the most powerful case study possible of how web values translate into big success, not just online but in the real world.
I've recently written about how Obama's campaign was 
winning not just because they had fancy web tools, but because he and his campaign leadership team are deeply grounded in web values like openness, participation, listening, and collaboration.
And to those who think he was just doing that to win a campaign, they may be wrong: check out the new site his team launched today (how in the world did they have time for this?) called Change.gov.
Besides brinigng that signature Obama clean and hip style to a US government (!) website, the site continues some of the social and storytelling techniques that are widely credited for making his campaign so successful. Features like:
- a blog about the campaign and upcoming transition process
- storytelling about his governing agenda, and in case you missed it, more info on the Prez and VP
- transparency into his transition team, and what the process is going to look like
- lots of particiption: including asking us to "tell us your story" about the campaign and "tell us your vision" for the future
- a much broader, ambitious call for every American to serve its communities, neighbourhoods, or nation through (soon to be integrated into the educational system) national service programs
Some of my colleagues are even wondering aloud if Mr Obama will maintain a blog or twitter updates about what he's doing as the President, RIGHT NOW. Radical transparency! Staying connected to real people in a nation of 300M is an absolutely monumental task, but sites like this will be a critical tool. Keeping this up will help his administration stay true to its roots and ideals by listening to their feedback, harvesting their ideas, and engaging everyone in the hard work of re-building a nation.
Either way, after the horribly closed, cynical, and disconnected Bush years, we know if nothing else this man is going to bring an incredibly refreshing amount of transparency and citizen engagement to the White House. Launching this site only 2 days after victory is a powerful and I think strongly symbolic first step.
Inspiring Social Media Site from President Elect
I couldn't agree with your assessment more Jason. What a rich and engaging set of tools, agenda items and warm vibes to encourage participation. I'm definitely adding Change.gov as a site that showcases the best of social media and I'll be highlighting it to my colleagues who wonder about social tech in their organization or business.
Great Boston Globe Article on Obama's "open government" plans
A colleague just sent me this fantastic article on Obama's plans to use technology to permanently (one would hope) open up government and drag it into the digital age in the same way he did for his campaign.
"...the president-elect believes Internet technology should be as thoroughly integrated into federal agencies as it was in his campaign...Obama wants to put YouTube-like videos of government meetings online, so citizens can see their federal agencies at work, and has proposed a Google-like database of federal grants and contracts, so people can see where their money is going. And he'll require his Cabinet members to hold regular online town hall meetings, where they'll field questions from the Internet audience."
http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2008/11/11/obama_brin...
I bet my friend Clay Johnson, the CTO at the Sunlight Foundation (who have been dropping "open bombs" into the oh so closed Bush system for a few years now, www.sunlightfoundation.com) is a pretty excited guy these days!
Oval Office, Open Office
Great article, Jason. Like you, I was delighted to see Change.gov, and I'm hoping to have more than a few more reasons for astonishment over the next four years.
Still, I'm also braced. Electoral politics are harshly adversarial, and they don't let up just because the election's over. (The campaign for the mid-term elections begins... now.) It will take a lot of imagination and effort to come up with approaches to engagement that resist manipulation and promote thoughtful dialogue in the face of what promises to be incessant attack and counterattack. And there is a deeply entrenched philosophy of command-and-control communications in Washington (and every other power center I can think of) that has a momentum all its own.
Still, the fact that the Obama campaign could do as much as they did during the hurricane of the 2008 election is promising. And the transition team's new hires suggest what we saw in 2008 is just prologue. Here's to 2009!