Scoble writes of how technology will change the world of DC – and perhaps politics
A twitter from the oval office? The Speaker of the House’s staff blogging? Could some sort of change finally be coming to Washington, DC – and by that I don’t mean Obama?
Sometimes I wonder of the tech-sanity of our elected leaders. When I met with my own Congresswomen back in October, I was surprised to see that she had not read any blogs and that none of her staffers or volunteers were blogging about their experiences in working with a rookie Congresswoman from Minnesota.
Robert Scoble spent yesterday looking and talking about some of these changes that he observed on the first day of his trip to Washington, DC:
When I walked into the Speaker of the House’s press room and saw a staff member (Jesse Lee, Senior New Media Advisor for Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi) typing a blog into WordPress, I knew the world had changed (I remarked that I knew that Matt Mullenweg, founder of Automattic which makes WordPress, was a smart guy from the first time I met him). That’s Jesse on this post typing into his WordPress-run blog.
When I was talking with Senator Tom Coburn and he didn’t flinch when we turned on our live cameras during our interview, I knew the world had changed.
When I pulled out my cell phone like a tourist and no one looked at me like I was a dork, I knew the world had changed.
I was not aware that the Senate was now allowing laptops on the floor – or that Congressmen were doing their own twittering, but I am excited to hear about both of these changes.
Hopefully Scoble’s observations are only the beginnings of getting more tech-savvy leaders in the Congress, Senate, and the Executive Branch.
