Social media and politics
Obama’s successful use of social networking created a vast online community that has changed politics forever. As he said in his victory speech, “I was never the likeliest candidate for office.” That’s an understatement. He had an almost empty political resume, a non-American-sounding name, an African father, a white American mother, and a Hawaiian childhood. Yet by applying social technologies (e.g. blogs, texting, and viral videos) of the Internet to politics, Obama gave new life to that tired political cliché, “change”. He persuaded voters that he embodied that change. “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.” “We are the change we seek.”
Barack, Inc., Winning Business Lessons of the Obama Campaign
Barry Libert (co-author of We Are Smarter than Me) and Rick Faulk tease out the relevance of Obama’s historic campaign to business leaders in “Barack, Inc.: Winning Business Lessons of the Obama Campaign”. Stakeholders will only follow business leaders, the authors insist, if the business leaders embrace change and become the change they offer. And when business leaders truly embody change, they will turn their companies into communities.
Pioneering
The book predicts that Obama’s political pioneering internet strategies will become the standard for any business seeking to prosper in the Web 2.0 world of business. Not surprisingly, the book is warmly endorsed by one of the leading lights of the social media revolution, Wikinomics author Don Tapscott, who urges every business leader to read how Obama’s understanding of the Net generation brought him to power.
Yanky Fachler talks about the book here
