The term ‘Web 2.0’ has been in use for over 5 years now, although there is some – irrelevant in my view – dispute about who first coined it. The web as we knew it in the 1990s is often, retrospectively, described as Web 1.0.
Web 1.0 was about static publishing or ‘brochureware’, about one-way communication from the publisher to the user of the information, about one-size-fits-all style of publishing, and where the publisher’s say-so was probably the only source of trust or legitimacy. Web 2.0 is dynamic and interactive. The published content does not remain static – it morphs and evolves through multi-media broadcast, discussion and link-backs, and these morph-operations, so to speak, are used as a measure of the legitimacy of the publisher. In democratising content this way, Web 2.0 can and does generate a cacophony of noises but the possibility of customisation and personalisation enable a user to experience a higher signal-to-noise ratio.
Although the internet and the web are products of federally funded research programmes in the United States and Europe, the web truly blossomed as commercial organisations brought their creative imagination to it. In addition to technological innovation, new ways of doing work were also made possible, although for many Web 2.0 players, monetisation, or making money, remains a challenge.
Given the web’s origins, it is great to see Web 2.0 being put to great use in a governance and government context. More specifically, Barack Obama’s transition to taking over as the President of the United States.
An earlier post discussed how Barack Obama was successfully harnessing the community-building aspect of Web 2.0 to orchestrate his victory. Now that he is President-elect, a fully interactive website, Change.gov, has been launched to help his transition.
Upholding the values of transparency and civic involvement, an ‘agenda‘ section outlines the aims of the website. It also outlines the privacy policy, including for children, on the ‘about’ page. The ‘newsroom‘ keeps the American citizens – and other interested people such as me – informed of the developments, complete with video links to public appearances of the members of the transition team. Providing regular updates will not prevent the rumour mills from churning, but it sure can put them to rest pretty quickly. Although the news is listed under ‘blog’, at the time of writing, the blog area is not really interactive, as in readers cannot leave comments etc. Link-backs, such as the many in this post, however can allow the conversation to carry on, in a manner not dissimilar to Seth Godin’s blog. An external link to the transition directory provides information on the people involved in this transition.
The most interesting interactive bits are, of course, the section ‘American Moment‘ where people are invited to share their stories and share their concerns and vision for America, and the section on jobs, where people are invited to express their interest in non-career positions in the Obama administration. Together they balance the emotive or visionary aspects, with the more pragmatic, operational aspects of a building a new administration.
As participatory democracy goes, Change.gov is a pretty interesting development, a first in any democratic country’s history, a sign that the campaign and the transition are being managed by professionals and not career politicians of any kind. It is worth mentioning that federally funded vehicles are prohibited from being used for political fund-raising so this website cannot be used to raise funds for, say, Obama 2012. But, who says that pre-existing communities, who may have funded a prior campaign, cannot participate in new communities to continue their involvement? This website has the potential to harness cleverly the momentum, the positive energy and the goodwill of all those supporters, who helped bring Mr Obama to the Presidency and who helped raise unprecedented sums for his campaign. If things are executed well during this term and if promises are delivered on, the momentum may well carry into the 2012 campaign and boost Obama’s reelection bid.
As this blog features writings at the cusp of strategy, technology, investment and regulation, two sets of natural questions arise from the foregoing.
First, can businesses learn from this manner of running a transparent, informative and participatory web property? What can they gain and more importantly, what can they lose from such an undertaking? Which large businesses are already running their corporate websites to include all their stakeholders?
Why might some businesses prefer to run brand-oriented web properties? Apple.com and of course, Amazon.com are harnessing their communities very effectively. Most other efforts, even from master marketers of Procter and Gamble and others in their league, are brand-focused or just plain poorly run. What is your experience?
Second, do you think Democracy 2.0 is a feasible and a scalable model for other countries and cultures too? What factors apart from the demographics would aid greater transparency in national governance and politics? What factors would hamper it? Is the time of open-source politics upon us?
As the world’s largest democracy, India, goes to the polls in 2009, can this experience be replicated? This question perhaps is worth a whole post or more in itself. Meanwhile do leave your comments below.
Related reading:
GigaOm on Web 2.0 gives birth to Politics 2.0
Robert Hogeboom on Web 2.0 Politics: What brands can learn from the 2008 Presidential campaigns
Jack Welch on Barack Obama’s victory: Three Lessons for business