03 December 2008

Change (in Technology) We Can Believe In

A few things have been popping out at me lately in regard to Barack. It's a busy day for me but I can't help but point out the following:

1. Have you checked out Change.gov's blog lately? Do. Obviously they are using YouTube to above grade capacity. But, their use of Wordle in this post is pretty impressive. I loved Wordle right off the bat and our library has used it to add some panache. But this is not a library. This is the president-elect's website. That is change I like to see.
2. It's pretty exciting to see Change.gov's adoption of a Creative Commons license. It's even more exciting for them to give the kind of explanation they do in terms of transparency, accessibility, and collaboration. Michael Sauers post about the distinction between copyright and Creative Commons is excellent and I appreciate his pointing out both that distinction and the distinction between a site like change.gov and whitehouse.gov. We will continue to see which way the wind will blow.
3. As you might remember, I don't own a TV set. During Thanksgiving, while I was in Philly with the fam, I was excited to see the Barbara Walters special with the Obamas. What I was really excited about was the question Barbara (yes, we are on a first name basis) asked about Barack having to get rid of his Blackberry. Perhaps you saw this article a few weeks ago about Obama's connection to his "crack"berry. But that's not the good part. The good part is they WHY: "I'm negotiating to figure out how can I get information from outside of the 10 or 12 people who surround my office in the White House. " Talk about change. This is about Information Independence! This article in Slate talks about it in terms of government (aka Barack) being illustrating its ability to be "accessible, capable, and efficient".

Keep it coming. These are all excellent indications of what is to come. And I like it. A lot.

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