“Wanted. Men for hazardous journey. Low wages. Bitter cold. Long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in the event of success.”
Ernest Shackleton’s 1907 ad in London’s Times, recruiting a crew to sail with him on his exploration of the South Pole
You can find my other favorite quotes at
http://mathoda.com/quotes
A few days ago a reporter from the New York Times, Mr. David Carr, interviewed me for about two hours to discuss an essay I published in March of 2008 called The Coming Digital Presidency (http://mathoda.com/archives/189). In the essay I discuss a portion of my thoughts on how technology had been used by the Obama campaign and more importantly could be used by a President Obama to transform the traditional role of government and the traditional relationship of the Presidency to citizens and the Congress.
Mr. Carr drew upon my original essay and our interview in writing an article for the New York Times, How Obama Tapped Into Social Networks’ Power (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/business/media/10carr.html).
If you were intrigued by Mr. Carr’s article I encourage you to read my original essay.
You may also find of interest other essays I’ve written on President-elect Obama, including a concisely written but thorough review of Mr. Obama’s book The Audacity of Hope, a criticism of Mr. Obama’s dislike of Walmart, praise for a bill Mr. Obama co-sponsored to bring greater transparency to government contracts, and an examination of the Obama campaign’s iPhone application
If you’re wondering what this website is about, it is an examination of the future, particularly with respect to business, technology, science and politics, and a discussion of inconsistencies between the ways people think about the world and the way it may actually work. On the left side of the page of mathoda.com you can find many of my essays and observations, ranked by popularity.
If you’re wondering who I am, you can learn more about me here.
In a prior post entitled “The Coming Digital Presidency” I discussed Barack Obama’s use of internet tools in his campaign, and how those tools could be used by a sitting President to greatly increase the effectiveness of government and executive power.
Now the Barack Obama campaign has released an iPhone application.
The application can take a look through your contacts, and organize them by key battleground states, making it fast and easy to reach your friends where it matters for the campaign. The application also anonymously reports how many calls you made nationwide initiated in the application (but not the contact information of whom you called) back to the Obama campaign, so they can judge how effective that feature is, and so you can compare your efforts in calling out to friends to those of other people using the application.
Another feature of the application is that it uses the location capabilities of the iPhone to find the nearest Obama headquarters and inform you of local events you can participate in.
Politics is transforming pretty fast.
Update: One of the four co-founders of Facebook, Chris Hughes (age 24), has been instrumental at making the Obama campaign utilize technology effectively, as described in this NY Times profile: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/07/technology/07hughes.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
