intothefuzz

Like a lot of people, I’ve followed U.S. politics pretty obsessively over the past year or so (and in various intense bursts before that), but I’ve tried not to write about it here because a) I want this blog to mainly focus on topics more closely related to Mozilla and b) once I start ranting I have a tendency not to be able to stop.

But, when I saw Barack Obama’s change.gov site last week I had to post a quick comment. It’s been well-documented that his team did an absolutely masterful job of using social media and the full array of Web 2.0 tools to create an entirely new sort of 21st century campaign, and now they’re applying this same approach to his presidential transition efforts. Very cool.

(Side note: I’d love to know when exactly they started building this site…it popped up a couple of days after the election, but I know from personal experience that sites of this quality and scope don’t exactly spring up overnight.)

Anyway, I’m hopeful that Obama and his team will continue this approach once they actually start governing. This could be a truly revolutionary step forward for both the Internet and American politics…Joe Trippi, the pioneer of online grassroots political organizing, says that such a move would make this the most powerful presidency since FDR.

There actually is a slight Mozilla angle to all of this. Never before has there been such a high-profile example of what a well-organized community of people can accomplish. I think having this grassroots/’power to the people’ feeling out there in the zeitgeist will only mean good things for us as we try to spread the word about our own community and its work.