Tag Archives: social networks

Government By the People 2.0

Tonight, I spent the evening listening to a number of people discussing the future of the Obama Administration and how technology may enable it. I live-blogged the event and provide my transcript below: NYSIA January Monthly Meeting: Government By the … Continue reading

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Millennial Makeover: Is there a Lincoln or FDR in the 2008 race?

This evening, as I finished my work at Cooper, I took a walk over to the Great Hall to
listen to Dr. Fred Shapiro introduce Morley Winograd and Michael Hais discuss their
new book, “Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube and the Future of American Politics”
with a talk asking the question, “Is there a Lincoln or FDR in the 2008 Presidential Race?”
Interestingly, the talk seems to have been a combination of the premise of the book
creation, as well as an attempt to answer the question posed at the start of the talk.
[Suffice it to say, I think they would say Obama is the next Lincoln/FDR – more on
this later] But what was most interesting to me was the discussion of the impact of
technology and generational demographics and their impact on American history – which goes to
the heart of two of my posts ([1],
[2]),
“Would social networks impact the 2008 election?”. At the time, I answered in the negative.
After this book, I might have a different point of view… Continue reading

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Rolling Stone: Inside Obama’s People-Powered Revolution

What pleased me in reading this article from Rolling Stone was the fact that the campaign married online engagement with offline activities and vice versa. Never a campaign event went off without capturing people’s email addresses, zip codes and names as they came to the event. Never a chance was forgotten to drive engagement both online and off – using the MyBO site to drive involvement and community. Continue reading

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Will Social Networks Impact the 2008 Election? I think NOT.

Social networks (in version 1.0) have been about exposing data and allowing for a simple search query to allow you to discover other like people in your interest sphere. Web 2.0 suggests that social networks are about a fundamentally different, albeit enabled premise – being social – not simply by having a profile presence, but seeing what is happening in your network and becoming part of the life within that network. Living the pulse of the network and either being part of it – or wanting to be part of it. Do candidates offer a glimpse of that life within the network that is something supporters want to be part of? Does the campaign truly offer a chance to engage in simple, human contact? Continue reading

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Will Social Networks Change Politics?

Every day, in the past two years, I have heard about MySpace and YouTube – this week, Fortune had an article on the “MySpace Boys”. YouTube founders were getting fawned over on Good Morning America and other magazines. And the impact of videos on the YouTube site are sited as contributory reasons for Lieberman’s downfall to the Lamont Internet-friendly campaign. But I would bet that when you ask any seasoned campaign professional – what will the real impact of social networks be in the political process, I believe you will hear in 2008 social networks will be a nice hype story, but the networks will not be as effective as they can be in terms of what is needed for political campaigns. And, because the campaign cycle is already upon us, campaigns will not work to use these networks effectively due to their high human cost and low return. Continue reading

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