MyWhiteHouse.gov
The question is how many citizens would join MyWhiteHouse.gov to help President Obama? My guess would be millions. Non-partisan. Just Americans working together to pass an agenda to move the nation forward.
It is going to be the most powerful presidency since FDR and it may be more powerful because never before has a president had the ability to connect directly with millions and millions of Americans. The networked presidency. A network of millions of Americans and their President working to solve the nation’s problems together.
Will they create MyWhiteHouse.gov? I don’t know. But I am sure of this. This presidency is going to be different.
UPDATE- Cross-posted on DailyKos
Indeed!
Check out http://whitehouse2.org. The site let’s people set their priorities for Obama’s first 100 days. It adds up everyone’s creates one list on the homepage of the top 25.
This is a very simple and direct way for Americans to come together to discuss the change we need and communicate it to the next President and the media.
Right now, the top 3 are:
1. Stop the Iraq war
2. Enact universal, single-payer healthcare
3. Make the U.S. a leader in green jobs and innovation
I would join it. What a hellish admin-or-mod job that would be – keeping order on such a forum – but I think it should start now, while everyone’s all fired up and, well, kinda more open.
Well, I am. Even though my state is trying keep my gay brothers and sisters from marrying, I’m still high from Senator Obama’s win, and I’m not the only one with win-energy today.
It feels good to matter – politically, that is – for a change.
THANK YOU
You’ve been reading my mind!!!
Sign me up TODAY….I’m so excited for all the possibilities presented to us with the Election of Barack Obama.
It seems to me “MyWhiteHouse.gov” would be a natural extension for the wonderful community organizing/ground campaign that moved so effectively to elect “President Obama” to tackle this next…and to begin to tackle it now!
The foundation is in place… so if we can extend ourselves, join hands and meet all the citizens of our United States where they are, for our common good……what we can accomplish??? ….well the thought ….it takes my breath away!
Blessings…In Peace,
Jeri
ApothecaryJeri
Joe, what role will you play in this “Change Movement”?
I joined Jim Gilliam’s (http://3dna.us/) http://whitehouse2.org – it’s in already place and it seems, not surprisingly – well done.
We need to keep the energy going.
I also think it’s a great idea. Something, anything… to utilize the new tools to build a broadly based foundation for future governance and moving forward. The medium is the message, you know. FDR had radio, BHO has a TWO way medium at his disposal. Something unique and groundbreaking.
The only thing I can’t fathom: why are you even TALKING about this idea if you don’t already have a website set up for people to sign up!?
I think it’s a fantastic idea. I think a lot of people who had a lot of energy and enthusiasm for the campaign want to channel that into something else moving forward. And the Obama campaign was simply amazing in how it matched opportunities with those who wanted to get involved – I’d love to see it on a broader, more permanent scale.
I was thinking about how Obama could use the internet crowd he has built up. This would certainly be a way to do that. However, the logistics of something like that are hard to fathom.
Joe!
Congrads! You’re the man – big time!
The idea of reinvigorated whitehouse.gov was being kicked around on twitter the other night, and I’ve been thinking of it for awhile – here are my suggestions:
1) The Podcast as a Fireside Chat – I was/am a big fan of the Prez-Elect’s (!) podcast. It really was the first way I got to know him in an unfiltered kind of way. A simple, five minute weekly address in an itunes world would be fantastic – either this is what I did this week or what I plan on doing. As the Prez-Elect (!) is such a great orator, I would also love to see some of the audio of his speeches go through the tubes, too. It could also contain “light” content as well, which could be really fun and helpful. If the Prez-Elect (I smile every time I type that), could use podcasting effectively it would really keep us attached in a unique way. I remember hearing about my grandparents talking about FDR on the radio. There is something so personal about audio in a video world that really works wonders.
2) Social Networking – Not sure if this will really work as a WhiteHouse type site as well as it did on the campaign site, but as the parent of young kids – I think a “Living in the WH” type sub-site with the Obama Kids would be really fun for my kids.
3) Twitter/FB/Myspace/Other next big thing – The Prez-Elect has to continue to have an active presence on all of these, and be an early adopter (which could be a full time job for someone!)
Best wishes and congrads! Feel free to drop me a line at jerseytoddshow@gmail.com
Absolutely a great idea. There are millions of people who feel like they are part of this presidency, and their energy should be tapped. Just beware of taking it as representative of the sentiment of the whole country. Need to balance this against the fact that my mother will not post on that site.
This is a great idea, Joe. Getting people involved in policy decisions and pushing policies forward is a perfect example of how the government can harness the power of web 2.0 to better fulfill the promise of American democracy.
It’s right in line with what we’ve been trying to do at the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. Many of our research centers have created weblogs to connect more directly with engaged citizens interested in all of the different areas of policy that we cover (environment, energy, nonprofit management, civic engagement, urban/regional planning etc.) and we’ve just gotten started experimenting with trying to infuse a traditional institution with a web 2.0 mindset. Our current efforts can be viewed at http://blog.hhh.umn.edu
The project you are proposing would be much more collaborative, social, and substantial than our small project, and certainly the White House would have many more resources to pour into it.
The only problem would be that being so “official” wouldn’t the government would probably be interested in verifying users’ identities? And then, wouldn’t there be potential privacy/freedom of speech issues in having your policy views traceable and trackable by the government? Not sure people would be comfortable with that.
Please contact me for more info–if you end up getting a crack at doing this, I would love to be involved.
I think this is an incredible idea and is a natural extension of what the campaign created. They already have a base to start from and it would carry over the spirit of the campaign into his presidency.
And what a better way to show that he plans to make good on his campaign talk. This would be an exciting first step towards creating a more open and 21st century government. Honestly, they’d be stupid not to do this.
Plus, I really want to get text messages from “President Barack.”
Beyond using web 2.0 for communications and building support, we should be talking about how “government as middle-ware” would work. There is an opportunity to build a whole new “platform” that allows local, state and federal governments to work almost seamlessly, to take advantage of best practices, re-distribute responsibility, partner with citizens and transform the way government works. This could help reduce the size of government in some places, may require an increase in others and overall could improve the delivery of government services, the role of communities around the Country. There needs to be a high level CTO position in the new government.
what was the *real* success of the Obama online community? getting out the vote? controlling messaging? educating users? connecting users to each other? allowing users to influence the message/direction of the campaign?
i suspect it’s key successes were on GOTV and messaging/marketing. i suspect very little success in actually connecting users and allowing users to influence the campaign.
with that in mind, i am skeptical that this effort would do more than allow the Obama team a steady direct line to supporters. it will be a mostly one-way stream. a way to ‘get around’ the MSM and congress.
IMO, we need a way to get people engaged w/ each other. educate them. raise the level of discourse *and* interaction. not sure this effort would do that. not even sure Obama team would want that. might create a creature hard to control, eh?
This campaign created phenomenal momentum and community engagement and strength. Regardless of the structure, it is clear that President Obama will need the support of the people – and that means continued action, organizing and advocacy, not just votes and cheers. The question is: how do we keep the momentum, volunteering and advocacy throughout out communities when it’s not motivated by the urgency of the Nov 4 deadline? Your idea is definitely one piece of the puzzle.
I think you’d need to get the right balance between aspirational and concrete. Here’s a simple example. If one of the asks is “Call your Congressperson,” that’s actually a scary idea for most people. How do I do it? What do I say?
So the challenge is to put yourself in a normal person’s shoes. Why not make a two-minute YouTube video: “How to call your Congressperson”? The first minute would be a screencast where you show how to look up your Congressperson’s contact info. The second minute is just a video of an example person dialing the number, reaching an operator, getting to a staffer or answering machine, and then showing what you might say. Maybe those videos already exist, but most “call your congressperson” sites such as change-congress.org don’t seem to go to that level of assistance.
Also, I’ll just float the idea that someone high-level in the Obama administration ought to be keeping a blog. Lots of people would enjoy reading about the day-to-day challenges of the White House.
Final thought: you appear to be running WordPress 2.3.3. You really should upgrade to the most recent version to reduce the odds of being hacked.
Joe-
Greg here from the Open Source Digital Voting Foundation. Your idea (my.whitehouse.gov or similar) is a spot-on concept whose time has come. I too have been spelunking whitehouse2.org, which seems like a sort of Digg for the agenda. Your concept, properly implemented, is breakthrough; the admin task (mgt., security, etc.), however, would be grueling.
Do note, this surfaces an issue we’ve uncovered traversing government in our work to re-invent how America votes in a digital age: and that is a lingering concern about the implications of removing proxies or said differently, “disintermediating” government, wherein the proxies or intermediaries are our elected representatives to Congress. “Imagine,” as one Congressman once mused to me, “If a highly reliable online system for polling constituents were actually in place and statistically significant (his words); and elected representatives were compelled to weigh the alternatives of acting according to constituent demand w/o regard for the necessary political processes to accomplish anything in Congress… it could unwind the way representative government works.” Well, we agreed, that might be a good thing in some instances.
So, does this re-think the standard quip from Administrations, “I don’t pay attention to polls”?
For what it’s worth, Change.gov is now live.
have you seen it yet?
http://www.change.gov
very much what you suggest
I have been reading your blog since finally being able to reading The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. I was in Tokyo at the time and I remember when some people in the local Democrats Abroad group went out to Iowa to help organize for Gov. Dean, which you mentioned in the book. Reading that book really gave context to what was happening this election cycle.
I think this concept is good, but fails to truely exploit the power of the internet. Ideas are a dime a dozen in Washington (and the United States) and constituents have been able to organize to forward their interests. Obviously, the internet is useful for expanding which groups can organize effectively. But, it is still one constituency (even if it is a majority) among many. Politicians will still need to balance between public and private goods, between fairness and efficiency, etc. So, just following more accurate polls and having greater insight into what individuals (or even majorities) want and demand for doesn’t mean that is what the country as a whole actually needs. Politicians will still be required to make tough decisions.
However, what the internet can facilitate is greater oversight. This election cycle alone saw that politicians couldn’t just say things off the top of their head without expecting millions of people to search online to see if it is true. The internet’s power to facilitate transparency and oversight is what we should really tap into. More than organizing, what people have not been able to to is hold our government accountable. We live in an age where bills are put together so fast that even politicians don’t know what they are voting for. Who reads
Instead of (in addition to?) mywhitehouse.gov being a place where citizens can give their ideas on what laws need to be passed, it should be a place where citizens can oversee the passage of new laws. The President should have a general policy to post any new bill up for his signature for 10 days. Using google as an example, it should be searchable so that people interested in a certain idea can check to see what the bill says about it. In addition, something like google ad sense should be able to direct citizens to any government publication, such as a report from the GAO or completed research project, that relates in some way to what a citizen is searching for within a bill. I would think you could set it up to see which congressperson initially wrote or inserted different parts of a bill.
I see that thomas.loc.gov is moving in this direction, but it is still not enough. It should be a section on the whitehouse homepage where bills are placed for “public viewing” in a searchable database for 10 days or so for public comment. Obviously, this could (should) be extended to congress, and before any joint committee of the house and senate convenes, there should be a similar process whereby citizens are allowed public comment on the individual House and Senate bills.
This concept would satisfy the Obama pledge to cut programs that are not working, exploiting the power of the internet to have millions of people looking though programs to see if they succeed or fail, but it would also gain the support of McCain supporters who want to see earmarks decreased. This would also strengthen the rule of law, as people would hopefully better see the connection between the text of what is passed and policy outcomes. It is one thing to have a policy debate, it is another to write and pass the law, and it is another thing all together to see that it is implemented policy. This kind of searchable public comment forum for about to be approved laws (someone would have to come up with a fancier title than me) would allow citizens not only to organize for their interests, but bring greater oversight to the political process. And, oversight and transparency is what is really needed in our current political system.
I was waiting for this since 2004.
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I think this is an incredible idea and is a natural extension of what the campaign created. They already have a base to start from and it would carry over the spirit of the campaign into his presidency.
And what a better way to show that he plans to make good on his campaign talk. This would be an exciting first step towards creating a more open and 21st century government. Honestly, they’d be stupid not to do this.
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