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The Coming Digital Presidency comes to the New York Times

11.09.08 | personal, political | Share | Share

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.

When will blogs start presenting data using interactive visuals alongside their stories?

06.01.08 | tech | Share | Share

The New York Times does a great job presenting interactive visual displays of data alongside the newspaper’s stories. For a story profiling Tiger Wood’s golf game, here’s the interactive display of how Tiger Woods wins majors. For a story on inflation here’s the interactive display showing how Americans spend their money and how that’s effected by inflation.

As Hans Rosling has shown, the proper visual presentation of facts can be illuminating, reforming opinions in a way that pure text often can’t do.

When will websites beyond the NY Times obtain and start to use such capabilities? It may be that displays like this only make sense when the effort put into making the data presentable is sure to reach a very broad audience, but some blogs are already reaching very large audiences. Here’s hoping more websites develop such capabilities.