June 5, 2009
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President 2.0
Obama harnessed the grass-roots power of the Web to get elected. How will he use that power now?
Barack Obama is the first major politician who really “gets” the Internet. Obama used it to build an army. And now, that army of digital kids expects to stick around and help him govern.
Crowd-sourced online brainstorming sessions? Web sites where regular folks hash out policy ideas and vote yea or nay online?
A new government computer infrastructure that lets people get a look into the workings of Washington, including where the money flows and how decisions get made?
“This was not just an election—this was a social movement,” says Don Tapscott, author of “Grown Up Digital,” which chronicles the lives of 20-somethings raised on computers and the Web. “I’m convinced,” Tapscott says, “that we’re in the early days of fundamental change in the nature of democracy itself.”Call it Government 2.0. Instead of a one-way system in which government hands down laws and provides services to citizens, why not use the Internet to let citizens, corporations and civil organizations work together with elected officials to develop solutions?
