obama's next steps

On November 4, 2008 the United States America witnessed history being made with one man representing it all, Barack Obama. Obama became the first African American to be elected into office and now our president. While he is the face of history there is no way he could have done it without his supporters. Obama began at the bottom with grassroots movements and worked his way up to the top with national fame and support, even international support. He admits it in his speeches and confirms that that is the way he wanted it. So what does his movement have in common with Wikipedia? What can Obama learn from Wikipedia?
I find Obama’s movement similar to Wikipedia in the way that they both start at the bottom. Wikipedia consists of the consumers adding and editing the information in a fashion that is easier for us to understand and access. As the consumers, we voice what we want and incorporate what we find that is needed. I think that this is why Obama is so successful, because he did not run things, he put the power in the hands of the people for them do and say what they wanted to hear. Who knows what we want to hear than ourselves?
I do think however that there is still a lot of untapped potential in regards to incorporating technology and per say the Commander in Chief. While pictures and videos were recorded from cameras and camera phones and were quickly and efficiently played on line and the news, how can we advance this even more and what does Obama not realize? Well, first of all, his every move will be recorded. Whether it is people seeing him and taking a picture with a camera phone or the paparazzi, it will be incredibly hard for him to not be top news everyday. This can be positive if he is doing well and the country approves of him, however one mistake and you can bet it will be caught on tape and he will be scrutinized for it. I also think that all of this technology along with the ideas of his movement, we can convert this nation into more of democracy. I wonder that why is it only us that are watching Obama; is there any way we could communicate with him and express our idea and concerns? Because of the movements he has lead I think it would be completely appropriate to have this kind of relationship with him where we can continue to tell him what we want and what is best for us. An idea for this would be “mini campaigning”. If Obama and his cabinet can find options to solutions to for example health care, then they can present them to the country as if they were “candidates” and have us vote and decide. Running these mini campaigns on the issues that matter and having everyone’s voice in the decision and policy making in the country. This would once again be ran similar to his campaign in order to maintain this grassroots ideology.

Obama for the People

Ok. So Wikipedia is pretty much ran by the viewers. People can go into the website and look up pretty much anything and can be publicly edited by adding additional information about the topic as you please. This shows that the internet an important source because people use it to gain information, some that’s created be the users themselves. Obama and his campaign recognized that the Internet is important and a good tool to use for their campaign.

To show people that they are important to Obama by opening up blogs so the people can be heard, use of social networking between Obama and the people. This shows the people that Obama cares and wants you to be heard. The people can put their own messages, strategies, and other topics that are important to them. In this case everyone that the campaign concerns (the presidential candidate and the citizens of the U.S) are all participating to make change. Also on the Obama website you can enter your phone number to get updates and other info on Obama and the campaign.

Another form of participatory culture for when had one of Obama’s debates. He let the people who were there to ask questions and talk to Obama about issues the people wanted to talk about. This shows again that the people are number 1 in Obama’s mind. He could of just talked about what he wanted to, but he took the time to step back and let the people take over and share their interest. This again shows Obama is more worried about the people and not just himself.

The Obama campaign with the use of the Internet was to their advantage to get the people more involved, heard, feel more important, and show that their voice did matter to Obama.

The Hush Sound

Okay, so this is sort of random, but I saw OneRepublic in concert over the weekend and The Hush Sound was one of their opening bands. They performed a song called "We Believe in Barack Obama," and I thought it was so catchy and amusing. Click the photo to check out a snippet of them performing the song.

ideas and terms to review for the exam

kids and media

social networking

remix

Meet up

Joe Trippi

2.0 political campaign and viral media

Convergence Culture (the book) and how it is manifest in different culture industries

The Long Tail

Participatory journalism

Journalism and blogging

Indymedia

Wikipedia

Participatory panopticon

Sousveillance

“Free” by Chris Anderson

Wiki-bama

I apologize for putting this up so late, but I found a great article by 'WebProfits' that I think pretty well sums up the success of Barck Obama's campaign. This article lists 6 things that Barack Obama’s "online marketing strategy" did right.

1.) On your first visit to his website, you were immediately asked to join his mailing list. 2.) Every webpage encourages donations. 3.) The "information architecture" is excellent - the website is well laid out and easy to navigate. 4.) Blogs are used to communicate messages 5.) He used to social networking to maximize his exposure 6.) He tapped into mobile marketing.

Similarly, is all about encouraging people to participate. Wikipedia "is an ongoing work to which, in principle, anybody can contribute." Every webpage encourages contributions, whether it be new information or edits of existing info. Wikipedia also has excellent information architecture, and involves people in community discussion.

Barack Obama really paved the way in new campaign tactics when he became the "social networking king." He used the internet to reach out to all people...just like Wikipedia: "Visitors do not need specialized qualifications to contribute...this means that people of all ages and cultural and social backgrounds can write Wikipedia articles." This is exaclty what we covered in class: the difference between expertise and collective intelligence.

Barack Obama even created the Citizen Strategy Think Tank, which invites people to "Help Barack Obama craft the messages and strategy that will make him the 44th President of the United States." How incredible that we live in a time where we can not only write encyclopedia articles, but also give our personal feedback to the president.

"It will take your time, your energy, and your advice - to push us forward when we're doing right, and to let us know when we're not." - Barack Obama, Feb 10th, 2007

Obama and Wikipedia

As many people have said in their posts the main similarity between Obama and Wikipedia is that both of their success depends on individuals.  These individuals are not elitist scholars or professional politicians or campaign managers.  They are everyday people, and they take it upon themselves to provide and give whatever they can.  Both Wikipedia and Obama's campaign relies on people feeling that they have some power, that they can make a difference no matter how small.  Both also must trust the "volunteers" to provide correct information and other's who use it to check and fix anything that shouldn't be there.  Here is an example of this, it's a screen shot of Obama's wikipedia page on September 23rd at 10:14 PST.  It was removed by 10:39 the same day (be warned there is some derogatory and just plain rude language used).  It took just 25 minutes for this to be edited away, a sign of how those participating online are peer censoring sites like Wikipedia.  Obama's campaign had volunteers checking each other as well, to make sure data was accurate and the campaign continued the way it was planned.

I thought this blog post from the New York Times explained a lot about how the Internet and every other new technology is changing politics.  The Internet allowed for Obama to organize thousands of people for all different purposes.  Advertisements on YouTube which may in the years before have been missed because they were on the far end of the long tail, became Obama's greatest advantage in the media.  "Those videos were more effective than television ads because viewers chose to watch them... The campaign's official stuff they created for You TUbe was watched for 14.5 million hours.  To buy 14.5 million hours on broadcast TV is $47 million" (Miller).  This is a great example of not only the effect of the long tail, but also convergence.  Political ads on television are no longer effective alone, they show up on YouTube along with the hundreds of others that are shown for free.

Obama.

Barrack Obama is president of the United States. Wow. How did he manage to do this? Its all about getting your name out there, getting people to talk about you, getting people to interact with you. America needs a president that can speak to the people that can relate to the people. Barrack Obama is this man. He knows how to attract people. Ever since he started the campaign trail he knew how to get in touch with the people of today. Barrack used text messaging to get people news, and get people to pass information on. This was a great idea; everyone today owns a mobile phone, and texts. Right there he is converging with the people, getting people to work together and change the times. David Talbot talks about how Obama’s campaign has caught up with the technology age we live in today. Obama has social networking sites; you can organize house parties, and get other Obama supporters to come and converse. To me that is awesome.

The Obama campaign like Wikipedia started from the ground up. The both started from nothing, and with the support of other people, and the contributions people brang to the table, made it into what it is today. The both only exist because of the tones of support they receive from whoever wants to contribute. Without the collective intelligence of individuals they would not have succeeded.

So I now leave you with this. The presidential address was no doubt history in the making, It was heart felt. It was sincere and genuine. Most importantly it left me with a feeling of Hope. Hope for our future, and our kids’ future. So hold your head up high, because today is a new day, and tomorrow don’t look too bad either.