Archive: Year: 2009

Check out this report from Clint Hendler of CJR.org, who is tracking President Obama's comments at today's town-hall meeting in Elkhart, Indiana. He quotes Obama describing Recovery.gov in the following way: “We’re actually going to set up something called Recovery.gov—this is going to be a special website we set up, that gives you a report on where the money is going in your community, how it’s being spent, how many jobs it’s being created so that all of you can be the eyes and ears. And if you see that a project is not working the way it’s supposed to, you’ll be able to get on that website and say, ‘You know, I thought this was supposed to be going to...

It looks like President Obama's email list still has a lot of punch to it. Yesterday, he sent out a mass email asking people to watch a four-and-a-half minute video addressing the Organizing for America house parties, and so far that video has garnered more than 460,000 views, nearly as many as his first video announcing OFA's launch. Beyond these metrics, it's pretty interesting to listen to how Obama's talks to his base. He doesn't use the word "crowdsourcing," but tell me if you don't hear it in how he describes how he plans to use the web to make sure his recovery plan works. Obama's message is in keeping with the intimate style he perfected during the election campaign. "Hi...

We will soon know just how big the sleeping giant of American politics, now known as Organizing for America (OFA, for short) actually is. That's because earlier today, David Plouffe, the group's de-facto boss, sent out an email asking Obama supporters to watch a video of the President defending his economic stimulus plan and urging them to share the video with others. At the same time, OFA has put out a call to its most active volunteers to organize "Economic Recovery House Meetings" for this weekend, and you can search for specifics on nearby meetings on the OFA website. Which means, for us number-crunchers here at techPresident, fresh data. So far, the Obama economic recovery video has garnered more than 42,000...

Esquire Magazine's Lisa Taddeo has just written a 6000-word profile of Obama campaign manager David Plouffe. Here's the key grafs, which you'll find near the end of the long must-read: Organizing for America, he says, was six weeks in the making. In that time he spoke daily with Tim Kaine. They studied how the Obama campaign machine functioned and read briefings on how it could be transformed into Obama's governing machine. Obama, he says, made clear that the mandate of Organizing for America was to push forward his agenda for change, not for reelection. "I can assure you it isn't that way with Obama. He sent that message out loud and clear, and I could not agree more strongly." The model they...

The Obama Administration took its first major steps toward implementing its promise to make government more open and transparent, with two presidential memoranda covering freedom of information, transparency and open government. The first memo directing all agencies to "adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure." This is a 180-degree turn from the policies of the Bush Administration. Most interesting for e-democracy fans: The memo says "all agencies should use modern technology to inform citizens about what is known and done by their Government." The second memo reiterates those points, and adds more detail. It calls for information about government operations and decisions to be put online, and urges departments and agencies to get public feedback on the information of the greatest...

On the assumption that for the next 18-36 hours I am a) not going to be near my laptop much; b) not able to get much bandwith on my cell phone and therefore c) mostly Twittering whatever observations I have as we attend various Inauguration events, I'm going to try embedding my tweets here. Fortunately, that doesn't sound as perverse as it looks to type. So, in case you don't already follow @mlsif on the Twitters, you can see my current stream below....

Must viewing for all techPresident and Personal Democracy Forum readers: With just hours to go before the Obama transition finishes and the new government is born, the Technology Innovation and Government Reform group (i.e. TIGR) is featured on the Change.gov website. (Scroll to the bottom of this page to see a list of its members.) Three rising stars of open and collaborative government are featured in the video: Beth Noveck, author of the forthcoming book Wiki Government and longtime pioneer in this arena (she and her partners convinced the US Patent Office to embrace user-generated content with their Peer-to-Patent program); Vivek Kundra, Washington DC's pathbreaking Chief Technology Officer (check out his "Apps for Democracy" contest); and Andrew Mclaughlin, head of global public...

If you're on the Obama campaign email list, by now you've probably received a message alerting you to a special message from President-elect Barack Obama announcing the formation of "Organizing for America," the continuation of the organization that was built during his 2008 campaign. In a video posted on YouTube, Obama says: When I'm sworn in as the President of the United States, it will be because of you. You've built the largest grass roots movement in history, and shaped the future of this country. And the movement you've built is too important to stop growing now. Today I'm pleased to announce the creation of Organizing for America--the organization that will build on the movement you started during the campaign. As President,...

Are you a local elected official looking for advice from your peers on how to make better use of web technologies to relate to your constituents? Or perhaps you're a government IT specialist looking for support in your battles with footdragging higher-ups? Maybe you're looking for perspective from within the system on how government entities are implementing web 2.0 strategies? Or perhaps you are a not-so-tech-obsessed young public-minded public servant who is simply looking for mutual support, across the often silo-ed and stultified world of government work? You can find all of those things and more at GovLoop.com, an eight-month old social network created by Steve Ressler, a twenty-something federal employee living in Tampa, Flordia. Built on the free Ning.com platform,...

We've been doing some housecleaning (in preparation for rolling out a site upgrade) and it's been some time since I dug in and updated our list of top political blogs. Indeed, an embarrassingly long time. Sorry! Anyway, here's a fully revised and up-to-date list of the top 50 political blogs, along with two top 20 lists for the top liberal and conservative blogs. What immediately jumps out to me is how many of the top 50 are based on traditional media platforms like newspapers and TV networks, as well as some venerable journals of opinion. In 2005, the last time I delved through this data, nearly all the top blogs were by untraditional independent types. Now we're seeing a hybridization...