A few moments ago, shortly after President Obama took the oath of office, a switch was flipped and a new website for the Whitehouse was unveiled. Since the 90's there have been more than a handful of upgrades, updates, and redesigns to the President's website but this new site is a vast improvement over the others. Not due to the wonderful design or the fact that each page validates, those improvements are nice but they are small and mostly unseen merits compared to the bigger improvements to the space.
Macon Phillips (former online strategist for Blue State Digital—the folks behind the Obama '08 campaign Internet endeavors), the Director of New Media for the White House says there are three priorities for the new website: Communication, transparency, and participation. The first two have, in some fashion, been a part of Whitehouse.gov for a number of years. It's the third initiative that should raise a few eyebrows.
I'm going to assume this means more than just turning on the ability to post comments and I look forward to seeing how this idea executed, maintained, and used by the President's office. I hope there will be a time when we'll get a chance to look behind the curtain and see how responses are collected, parsed, turned into reports, and how that information is used in the President's decision making process.
Meanwhile, anyone who is looking to succeed using the Internet as a main channel for talking to clients, customers, and constituents should follow closely the work Macon and his team are doing. The model they are following is one that can certainly be used beyond government work.
Join the fray by reading through and commenting at the end.
Not quite as tight as his personal site, but pretty dang nice overall.
I so hope it's just turning on comments for legislation. I can't wait to be "FIRST!"
Great write up, Greg. Exciting times...
As an outsider (darn Canadians) I can say we are very encouraged by the new direction your new president seems to be taking. From a professional standpoint, we are watching the work Macon and his team have done over the campaign. They really seem to be tapping into what the internet should be when it comes to public office ... and hopefully policy change as well.
Maybe I'm easy, but this is a big move. I hope certain people pay attention. By the way, the 'istas have gathered downstairs to discuss whether or not the code is semantic. Doesn't look good. Better get down there.
The code, while valid (at least, at the time of this writing), is definitely not all that stellar, semantically speaking. Still, it looks like they're dealing with some .NET framework-or-other, so hopefully things will clear up as Macon’s team gets settled in.
Obama needs to enact a law that makes using .NET a federal crime.
I second Greg's Motion! Lets make that one of our feedback items.
As an outsider I too applaud what Obama and his Internet Team have done with the new site. It gives hope that our respective countries will follow suit.
Wired posted an interesting article today about the bureaucratic and philosophical challenges Obama's plans for technology will face: http://www.wired.com/politics/onlinerights/magazine/17-02/ff_obama
Obama's ability to "reboot" the Whitehouse will be contingent upon every citizen's willingness to get off their ass and respond and take action when and where needed, and I mean action in the form of doing, not jaw flapping. Voting was the easy part. Now it is up to us to participate in ways that enable our own resurrection. If we leave that task, all of that responsibility to President Obama, we'll just end up repeating history; nail him to a cross and gamble for his clothes.
Hopefully its a useful tool, rather than comments stating they're "first to post"
> Hopefully its a useful tool, rather than comments stating they're "first to post"
I'm sure Obama's team is ready for Jeff Croft.
ZING!
That would be funnier if I'd ever used the phase "first to post!" or anything similar.
Shit, I just used that phrase. :)