Serendipity35

A number of bloggers are announcing that the spirit of Franklin D. Roosevelt's regular radio broadcasts that were known as "fireside chats" is back in version 2.0 with President Elect Barack Obama's weekly address to the nation using via YouTube.

Roosevelt's chats occurred in a financially troubled time for the nation, and he used the popular medium of the day - radio - for his informal and folksy talks. Obama plans to talk about the economy, energy, healthcare, education and other issues.

When Obama talks about tech issues like a commitment to making broadband connections "as common as telephone lines" and calls it "an enormous economic engine," it is compared to FDR's construction of railroads.

His transition website at change.gov is now supplemented by its YouTube.com/user/ChangeDotGov channel.

It makes sense, since Obama's win is at least partially due to his team's adept use of the Web and new media. Some have dubbed him the first Blackberry President (though it seems he will have to give up that favored mobile device due to presidential restrictions). His campaign team used Twitter and garnered 150,000 followers (though that stopped on November 5th) and created an "internet army" of financial contributors and volunteers. Their email and mobile phone numbers database is supposedly over 10 million users. Plus he's on Facebook and other social networks.

On the change.gov site you can submit questions and vote on those you most want answered. The "Open for Questions" feature logged 1000+ questions and 70,000 votes cast in its first day. That feature promotes the ideas of government transparency, and priorities guided by the people.

From the site blog on December 15:

"Last week, our Open for Questions feature was particularly well-received: more than 20,000 people cast nearly 1,000,000 votes on questions posed by the community. Overall, just over 10,000 questions were voted up or down and ranked by visitors to the site. The result is a snapshot of the issues you're concerned about as the pieces for the next administration move into place."

There's also a discussion board where the Obama team asks the question and users can respond. Some topics have included: "How is the current economic crisis affecting you?" Perhaps some of the responders have had some experience in a course management system because their answers are often quite detailed.

In a CNN poll, 79% approve of Obama's performance so far during the transition. That gives him 14 points higher than the approval rating for President-elect George Bush in 2001 and 17 points higher than President-elect Clinton's rating in 1992.

The team hasn't only used Obama on YouTube. Senior advisor Valerie Jarrett also appeared to talk about the transition and explain new policies regarding lobbyists.

Other tech plans mentioned include:

• videos of government and "town hall" meetings


• an online database of government spending where you can track your tax dollars


• appointing a Chief Technology Officer


• a goal to broaden Internet access. The United States currently ranks 15th of the 30 top industrialized nations in terms of the percentage of citizens with access to broadband.

The Obama team continues to use the Net to organize grassroots efforts. They have a holiday break assignment for you.

Sign up to lead a Health Care Community Discussion in your home, community center, or even a local coffee shop, anytime until December 31st. We'll provide you with a special Moderator's Guide that will give you everything you need to get the discussion going. Secretary-designate Tom Daschle will even choose some discussions to attend in person. He recorded [a] short video message to talk a bit about why these discussions are so important.