Will there be new communication channels in the Obama administration?

There is quite a lot of chatter around the intertubes about changes in the communication environment that happened between the last and this election and how those changes may be affecting the way the new White House communicates to people as well as how the new White House will receive communications from the people.

A lot of people are impatient - they want to see everything in place right this moment. Easy, guys! The inauguration is on January 20th. Until that time, Bush is the President and the Obama communications folks have time to think through, design and implement communication channels that we will definitely NOT see until the inauguration or a little bit later. So, you can pore over Change.org all you want in search for hints of the future, but it is unlikely you will see anything truly informative until January 20th at the earliest.

But in the meantime, speculation abounds.

This NYTimes article lays down the arguments pro and con (and check out the FriendFeed discussion as well - quite telling to see how some techie folks do not understand this is not a technological problem at all).

The problem is this: if a President says or writes something that is recordable - and technology is irrelevant, it could be handwriting, a magnetophone or an 8-track - it can be subpoenad by Congress. The article explores the tensions between the need for a President to have confidentiality about important matters of the state, and the need to open up new mode of communications fit for the 21st century mindset of the Facebook generation (Note: "facebook generation" has nothing to do with the actual Facebook site, or with a particular age - it is a frequently-used shorthand term for a mindset of continuity and openness in communication).

This is why Bush stopped using e-mail the day he became the President. Everything that the President says or writes becomes official record. New technology allows one to communicate too much and too informally. Chatting with friends over e-mail becomes a potential liability for the officials of such high ranking.

What is new is that Obama is the first President with that "facebook generation" mindset of constant, open communication, as opposed to a bubble-boy, smoke-filled back-rooms, secretive types that the previous 43 Presidents were. The laws, customs and trappings of his new job are going to be conflicting with his modern instincts towards openness. And people are starting to talk about a potential need to alter these out-dated laws in order to allow Obama to lead a more transparent government.

We shall see what actually happens, but we can expect, at least until/unless there are legal changes, that all the e-mailing will be done by staffers and not Obama himself. He is also going to be the first President in history to keep a laptop on the Oval Office desk (doesn't this sound quaint?)! He will likely use the computer not to broadcast or communicate anything himself, but only to get informed (perhaps via an RSS Feed).

Another confusion in online chatter about potentially new communication is that people do not make a distinction between centrifugal (broadcasting, outwards) communication and centripetal (listening, inwards) communication.

The best example is probably this Slate article. I think Disckerson is confused. The new Prez will experiment with a number of new ways to communicate. Some of it is inside out, some is outside in. Posting the radio address on YouTube is the part of inside out. It is not the only tool and should not be looked at in isolation. Yes, it is part of his PR, but it is targeted to a set of people who past Presidents did not and could not reach: exactly the same people who are the most likely to use OTHER channels of communication to talk back to him. What Dickerson did in this text was sorta like focusing on a Food Chain and not seeing the Food Web (or forest for the trees, choose your own metaphor) - a lack of ecological thinking by a member of an old media class that thinks too linearly.

Brian Solis has collected probably some of the best ideas on the entire issue, and you should also read the various links and ideas in Josh Bernoff's post and Lidija Davis' post.

Obama's first radio address was also filmed. The movie was posted on Change.org, and also on YouTube:

People like Dan Farber and Allen Stern are worried about favouritism - why YouTube and not other video services? Answer: if the only place they place a video is Change.org, then someone else will put it on YouTube, perhaps edited, with open comments, who knows what else. By posting it on YouTube themselves, the Obama comms folks are putting a degree of control over the message. In the next few months, they may decide to do the same on several other video-hosting services. This was just the first address, and YouTube, being such an 6000lbs gorilla (or is it an elephant in the room?), is the obvious place to go and test the waters first before embarking on a more ambitious program.

Also, a more ambitious program requires building the communications team. Which requires hiring people, including a Chief Conversation Officer, perhaps this guy (or me - I can do it, that's my job right now anyway). That process has just started. People like Secretary of State are much more important positions to fill first. So, have some patience....