Barack Obama: Instructional Designer

(image by BohPhoto)

This is why I love the guy. When asked by Joe Klein about trusting his instincts he said this:

He said the first really big one was how to react when incendiary videos of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's black-nationalist sermons surfaced last spring. "The decision to make it big as opposed to make it small," Obama said of the landmark speech on race relations he delivered in Philadelphia. "My gut was telling me that this was a teachable moment and that if I tried to do the usual political damage control instead of talking to the American people like ... they were adults and could understand the complexities of race, I would be not only doing damage to the campaign but missing an important opportunity for leadership."

Whoa.

I've never, ever heard a politican talk like that - seeing the negative stuff as a chance to talk about the bigger picture.

And the fact that he uses the language of an instructional designer to describe it pushes all my nerd buttons at once.

Watch the speech

Can Obama win the election online?

Excellent piece by Doug Rushkof on 'Brand Obama' and the shortcomings of his web strategy - chiefly in it's failure to truly take advantage of what social web tools can really do. Or might do, if they were given a chance:

'Where Dean's people inserted their stock candidate into an online fund-raising campaign, Obama's message and media are more organically related to one another. His message is about invigorating bottom-up, grass-roots, community organizing - and the Internet is that, if anything.

Still, a closer look at Obama's online effort reveals many opportunities for work, and few opportunities for what I consider to be intelligent participation. We can sign up to make phone calls, send emails, volunteer in the streets, or become precinct captains. But where's the participatory democracy wiki? Where do we get involved in the conversations that help shape his policy positions? How is he incorporating the massive intelligence of his support network into his philosophy of governance? BarackObama.com is a great example of crowd-sourcing, but it's a far cry from even a fledgling effort at open source democracy. '

+O'Blatherama+

So what else could a politician's social network doohickey offer? How about:

Moderated Wiki for Public Policy

A moderated wiki space for community consultation on public and foeign policy. From the arts to zen motorcycle maintainance. Pay professional moderators and establish parameters for discussion (translation: rules for banning the loonies) and then let 'em at it.

Video-discussion forums

Go look at Seesmic, adopt the paradigm (or better still work with them) and allow threaded video forum back-and-forths between the candidate, party members, campaign staff and the electorate. No, seriously. Hell Spielberg just did it.

Anyone else got some more?