exploring the intersection of new media and everything else

Ok so this post is a day late… but things have been busy where I am, so I am going to finish off what I started.

22 Jan 2009. I woke up this morning with hope swirling within my heart and energy coursing through my veins. Today is a new day. Granted everyday is a new day, but today is different. Today the world is different.

And it all began… yesterday. Yesterday was an exciting day for people all around the world, especially Americans. For me, it was without a doubt the most important election in my lifetime.

Obama comes in riding a wave of hope, in a world where hope seems to be an ethereal wisp teasing us as we are slowly engulfed by the darkness surrounding us. In the past few months, we have seen a frightening collapse of the world financial systems. The economy is going from bad to worse. Unemployment is sitting at 7 percent, and economists are projecting double digit unemployment for the coming year. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq continue to drag on. North Korea’s Kim Jung Il is as crazy as ever. And rumbling in the background is the greatest threat to have ever faced humanity… Global Warming. Greatest, not because it is any more threatening than the specter of nuclear war back in the 60s, but because in order to combat this threat, the whole world must unite.

Obama embodies America’s desire to rejoin the world and regain our place as a leader.

But what made all this possible? How did a no-name senator from Illinois, become the 44th President of the United States?

Technology. Sure Obama’s charisma, message of hope, intelligence (no offense Bush) were all factors in his election. But more so than any of those characteristics, it was Obama’s use of technology to empower his campaign and empower his supporters that allowed his message to touch so many, so quickly.

While I am on this topic, Tom Serres, CEO of Piryx and a friend of mine, had some great things to say on CNN about the Obama adminstration and the current/future use of technology by the adminstration and what that means for our country.

What Tom points out and what the whole nation has come to recognize (or at least those savvy enough to recognize it) is that the way we do politics has changed. Social media just entered the mainstream in a whole new way. Obama used social media to power his campaign by empowering his supporters.

CNN and Facebook joined teams to cover Obama’s inauguration, raising the bar on how social media will be used in the future to cover politics, campaigns, elections, and events of importance… or even social events like concerts.

Today, the world changed. It became something new. And I am excited to see how this will play out over the course of the next four years.