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An Administration That “Gets It”

January 20, 2009 By 3 Comments

Whitehouse
Did you hear we have a new president? (As my kids would say with astonishment, "Dad…that's not even funny! What's wrong with you!?!"). Yeah, I'm feeling optimistic and happy which, while it's my usual mental state anyway, hasn't been the case much lately with our economic situation, wars and such.

Why the optimism? Here's the deal: I've lived through enough presidential elections to be as jaded by the rhetoric as I am by most commercials, ads and PR scrubbed messages. Lots of promise…little delivery. High noise…low signal.

When I wrote, "Lessons from Our First Social Media President," it was clear then that this incoming Administration would possibly fulfill their campaign pledges of transparency, continuing to engage the American people, and bring change to government.

So I was delighted that — moments after becoming president officially — WhiteHouse.gov website came online filled with "Yes…we get it" elements:

  • A blog with an RSS feed
  • A Director of New Media, Macon Phillips, who has a Twitter account and is on Facebook (the former is protected and the latter is offline now) (via my buddy, @timelliott)
  • Use of a Creative Commons license (Except where otherwise noted, third-party content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Visitors to this website agree to grant a non-exclusive, irrevocable, royalty-free license to the rest of the world for their submissions to Whitehouse.gov under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License)
  • A very clean and user-friendly interface with access to all relevant areas.

I'm dying to know though, will President Obama use the Resolute desk in the oval office or one President Lincoln used? (Though I don't think anything like it remains as I've found nothing online).

Filed Under: Current Affairs
About Steve Borsch

I'm CEO of Marketing Directions, Inc., a trend forecasting, consulting and publishing firm in Minnesota. Prior to that I was Vice President, Strategic Alliances at Lawson Software in St. Paul where I was responsible for all partnerships at this major vendor of enterprise resource planning software products and services. Read more about me here unless you're already weary of me telling you how incredible and awesome I am.

Comments

  1. PXLated says:
    January 20, 2009 at 6:54 pm

    Screw the desk, the bigger question is will he be able to keep his blackberry and drag the govt. into the 21st century.

  2. Gary says:
    January 21, 2009 at 3:36 am

    Hi Steve,

    Like your dad joke, my dad’s favourite is “oh look individual portions” when it’s his job to cut a cake at the dinner table.

    Thought I’d let you and your readers know I’ve created a wrap up of the changes between Bush era whitehouse.gov and Obama era on the builtwith.com blog at -
    http://blog.builtwith.com/index.php/2009/01/21/whitehousegov-tech-post-inauguration/

    Thanks,

    Gary

  3. Jann Freed says:
    February 25, 2009 at 8:34 pm

    I am involved in an organization that uses a community organizer. We are so excited to watch and listen to Obama because he “gets it” –that is how to organize a community. People can’t seem to figure out what he is doing, but we get it. Thanks. Jann

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