First – HUGE CONGRATULATIONS to Barak Obama, our new President! 2009 is going to be better than 2008, and I hope and pray he can lead us back to what so many of us believe America is capable of. 
From a tech perspective the switch of the site from change.gov to the actual whitehouse.gov and the first blog post by Macon Phillips, the Director of New Media for the White House, is quite amazing. Comments are not enabled, but the start with a conversational tone is appreciated by this citizen. He lists as goals:
- Communication
- Transparency
- Participation
In addition to having a “Director of New Media”, I noticed from a PR perspective is the new Office of Public Liaison on whitehouse.gov. Doing a quick google on it there seems to be a disagreement between this article and on the leadership bio names listing Valerie Jarrett, Tina Tchen and Michael Strautmanis on the site.
I did notice that Jarrett is an attorney, and Tchen and Strautmanis are both litigators. Hmmm, no APR communicators in the office of public liaison? What does this say about the PR profession that the Obama team chose not to bring in any professional communicators on the leadership team? Or am I missing something?
Think I read that the whitehouse.gov switch from Bush to Obama happened at 12:01a.m., the wee-est hour of Barack's first day in office. They were poised, all right! I love reading about the transparency and inclusivity of Barack's new regime (here's a related post from David Meerman Scott's Amazon blog: http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/post/PLNK34LNH4AVTZ...have you read his "New Rules of Marketing" or "Content Nation" by John Blossom? so many books, so little time! I aim to stay tuned to your "Books" section to see what you're reading). I think it's exciting that Obama has embraced social media all along, and that we're all riding the wave with him. I experienced the inauguration via the CNN.com Live + facebook mash-up, and even tweeted about it from my cellie. (My only regret: The scrolling stream of commentary by fellow fbookers was vivid, honest, and fresh but somewhat distracting, as I missed several of the day's key moments, live.) I truly felt connected with "my fellow Americans." Heck, I don't think I even WATCHED TV news coverage of Bush's inaugurations or once visited his Web site. It's a new day!
Posted on January 22, 2009 at 5:30 pm.
RE "Heck, I don't think I even WATCHED TV news coverage of Bush's inaugurations or once visited his Web site. It's a new day! " – I don't think I did either. It just wasn't in the same league.
As I hinted in the post, I don't like that lawyers are running the Office of Public Liaison. But on the other hand, if the entire government does a better job of listening and engaging the public, maybe we don't need that office anyway!
Thanks for the comment Chris!
Posted on January 23, 2009 at 12:32 am.