Continuing its impressive use of technology last week, the White House announced that the President’s Economic Report would be available for free download on electronic book readers:
“As part of White House’s commitment to make government more accessible, the Economic Report of the President is now available as an eBook for your Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble nook, Sony Reader and a number of other devices. We are always looking for ways to bring people closer to their government through new technology.”
The @whitehouse tweet:
“A first: Curl up by fire w/ the Economic Report of President on Kindle, nook, Sony Reader.”
This White House has done more to engage the public in its processes than any other before it: Twitter, blogging, Facebook, an iPhone app, and now books for ereaders. They have embraced this era of transparency and opened the doors for everyone to enter. Regardless of political affiliations or presidential popularity, the effort must be applauded.
I made the point last night during SWIM that I think the media only started adopting social media at its fervent rate upon the use of social media by the Obama presidential campaign.* His campaign used social media comprehensively and did it right. Obama as president hasn’t let the social media advocates down: he proves that social media isn’t just for getting elected with the launch of White House 2.0.
By far, the best part of White House 2.0 is the Official White House Photostream on Flickr. Social media is “about” a lot of things, but for President Obama it is about conveying his personality and bundling his messages up in that personality under an assumed premise that if we like him as a person, we will like what he has to say as a president, too. That is what these photos seem to say. And social media is good for that purpose. We see him laughing; it seems genuine; we believe everything is going to be okay. Our photogenic president appears serious when it is appropriate, accessorizes fashionably for events, and exudes confidence (or ego) in his overall presentation.
In addition to the Flickr stream, on Friday the White House announced an official Facebook page, MySpace page and Twitter account. There are also video postings by the White House on YouTube, Vimeo and iTunes. All of this was announced as an effort to be more transparent and to engage the public. And, they are allowing comments on all of these sites. What I am not seeing in all of the comments are responses from the White House. It makes me wonder if they are monitoring all of this feedback and providing a real two-way communication, or if this is simply another way to “push” information under the guise of engagement. If they are not responding yet, I predict they will be soon: this White House knows how to use technology, the Internet and social media.
* While I recognize that many journalists and some media outlets had already recognized its power, for the rest of the slow-to-change media bunch, Obama’s success with social media was the turning point. And now they just can’t stop talking about it.
Our “digital” president still reads hand-written letters (10 a day) and responds with hand-written letters. As reported in the New York Times today, these letters can have quite an effect on President Obama:
“Designed to offer a sampling of what Americans are thinking, the letters are read by the president, and he sometimes answers them by hand, in black ink on azure paper.
“’We pick messages that are compelling, things people say that, when you read it, you get a chill,’ said Mr. Kelleher, 47. ‘I send him letters that are uncomfortable messages.’
“The ritual offers Mr. Obama a way to move beyond the White House bubble, and occasionally leads to moments when his composure cracks, advisers said. ‘I remember once he was particularly quiet,’ said Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, David Axelrod, ‘and I asked him what he was thinking about, and he said, “These letters just tear you up.” It was after getting a poignant letter from a struggling family.’”
While I am fan of technology and our ability to instantly connect by way of technology and social media, and while I am fan of President Obama’s digital savvy, I still appreciate the power of hand-written letters. They are more personal and can convey more emotion. There is something to be said for the more traditional communication tools every once in a while. I am proud of our president for employing both traditional and digital communication to connect with his constituents.
Watching video online is mainstream at this point: more than 145 million U.S. web users watched 13 million videos in February, according to ComScore. While most of the videos watched on sites like YouTube are amateur, there is new movement from YouTube to get more professionally-made content on the site and increase overall video quality (NY Times):
“YouTube draws about 100 million visitors each month, making it an enormous stage for media companies. But many television outlets have been reluctant to share videos with the site. Along with CBS, notable exceptions include ABC’s late-night program ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live,’ which has harnessed YouTube to great effect, drawing 11 million views for its videos in the last month. ‘Consider this your oasis in a desert of skateboarding dogs and popcorn-eating hamsters,’ a message on Mr. Kimmel’s YouTube channel says.
“With deals like the one with ABC, YouTube is working hard to revise that user-generated reputation. ‘They need the money,’ Mr. Vorhaus said of YouTube, and adding professional video is ‘how they’re going to get it.’”
President Obama has clearly taken advantage of an audience hungry for more quality video. During his campaign, his team uploaded over 1,800 videos to BarackObama.com; he now he has an entire staff dedicated to new media (NY Times). As expected, President Obama’s videos are always professionally shot and edited, contributing to his overall polished and “cool” image. He is setting the example of how to present yourself in a public forum, when the video will live on forever. People have become too casual in how they present themselves online, whether it be Facebook, YouTube or Twitter. We have all become public figures in this online world. No longer is it just celebrities that get ridiculed for ignorant behavior displayed in public: we are now inviting it on ourselves by not thinking before posting. The New York Times theorizes a movement toward more cautious behavior from public figures:
“We tend to assume that the proliferation of digital media must be coarsening American speech and behavior. In fact, the opposite seems to be true. The threat posed by video parodists appears to have turned public figures watchful and cautious, like people who affect polite reserve in crowds for fear of being mocked or mugged. In the midst of so much digital chicanery, celebrity comportment may grow steadily more formal.”
As with most trends, this behavior should eventually trickle down to the general public. I am hopeful that it trickles quickly.
Obama has been lauded for his use of social media during his campaign. And now many are anxious to see how it will transition that use into the working presidency. According to an article in the latest issue of Wired magazine, he has many bureaucratic challenges ahead of him. But Obama’s public has high expectations of transparency while he is in office. They have become used to seeing him on YouTube (currently 20+ million views), reading his tweets (currently 144,000 followers) and staying updated through his Facebook page (currently 4.4+ million supporters). And they don’t mind getting emails and text messages from him when the message is timely. The power of social media on his being elected was evident. Allowing Americans this same acces to him while in office can also have a powerful effect: engaging and educating more people in the work of government. I hope that his office is able to overcome the challenges and share as much about the work of the president as possible. If they can achieve this, we will have a more educated voter pool in four years.
Companies can learn from Obama’s successful foray in the world of social media. It is where the people are, and they are there to listen and learn. If you have something worthwhile to say, they will listen and share it with their friends. It takes dedication and a lot of work. And you have to experiement with all the channels to find the combination that works for your brand messages.
As reported by the Guardian, online activity dipped during the inauguration. Google searches, Flickr uploads and Last.fm listening all paused while listening to President Obama’s swearing in ceremony. Google reported that:
“…the overall query volume of Google searches dropped in the U.S. from the time President Obama took the oath of office until the end of his inaugural speech, demonstrating that all eyes were on today’s festivities.”
However, the number of people trying to watch the ceremony live from their computers was incredibly high and caused some streaming difficulties for viewers. According to a New York Times article:
“CNN said it provided more than 21.3 million video streams over a nine-hour span up to midafternoon. That blew past the 5.3 million streams provided during all of Election Day. At its peak, CNN.com fed 1.3 million live streams simultaneously, according to Jennifer Martin, a spokeswoman for the site.”
As Google points out, there has been a significant shift in internet use since the last presidential inauguration:
“During the last nine years, the growth of the Internet has changed the way the world seeks information. From President Bush’s first inaugural address in 2001 to his second in 2005, the number of inauguration-related searches increased by more than a factor of ten. From 2005 to today’s address, the number grew even more.”
Bliss is one of my favorite brands: quality products, great selection and clever communications. Their latest promotion is quite clever and ties nicely into current events. It is a bikini wax promotion titled “say farewell to Bush” and is timed to start with the inauguration. See it here.
More on the influence and importance of design: this week the NY Times had an article contrasting and comparing the websites of Obama and Clinton as if one were a Mac and one a PC. This further illustrates the point made earlier this week in the comparison of font use by the different presidential candidates–never underestimate the power of good design. According to the NY Times article:
“The differences between hillaryclinton.com and barackobama.com can be summed up this way: Barack Obama is a Mac, and Hillary Clinton is a PC.
That is, Mr. Obama’s site is more harmonious, with plenty of white space and a soft blue palette. Its task bar is reminiscent of the one used at Apple’s iTunes site. It signals in myriad ways that it was designed with a younger, more tech-savvy audience in mind — using branding techniques similar to the ones that have made the iPod so popular.”
“In contrast to barackobama.com, Mrs. Clinton’s site uses a more traditional color scheme of dark blue, has sharper lines dividing content and employs cookie-cutter icons next to its buttons for volunteering, and the like.”
The article does question, however, if this “being a Mac” is good politics:
“While Apple’s ad campaign maligns the PC by using an annoying man in a plain suit as its personification, it is not clear that aligning with the trendy Mac aesthetic is good politics. The iPod may be a dominant music player, but the Mac is still a niche computer. PC, no doubt, would win the Electoral College by historic proportions (with Mac perhaps carrying Vermont).”
