We all know that President Barack Obama’s rise to the top office in the land was spurred in large part by his campaign’s understanding of social media. His administration has continued to embrace the use of social media that’s demonstrated by the revitalization of the official White House website, twitter accounts for both the President and the White House, and even diving into being the first sitting president to have a Google+ hangout. Quite recently, his campaign not only showed prowess in adopting Instagram, but President Obama invited one of the founders to this year’s State of the Union address in Washington, DC. The president is even using modern technology to help his re-election campaign as well–we remember Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey interviewing the president during the first-ever Twitter Town Hall, but it was probably then when Mr. Dorsey mentioned to President Obama that he was also running a mobile payment startup called Square. Now, President Obama’s campaign workers are using the Square card reader to help solicit funds for the campaign!
It seems that President Obama is continuing to appeal to the technology sector. He has been to Silicon Valley numerous times for campaign stops and political speeches. Most notably, he’s even had dinner with the late-Steve Jobs, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and several other tech executives. To help promote the economy talk about jobs, Obama has gone to speak virtually at LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. But on the eve of his return back to San Francisco for his next campaign fundraiser, the San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that President Obama’s re-election campaign team has opened what may be the first of its kind in a presidential race: a technology field office. According to Obama campaign deputy press secretary, Katie Hogan:
We learned from 2008 that using the talents and skills of our supporters was a key to building the most effective organization…we’re taking the next step by providing tools and space for supporters in the technology community to help the campaign extend our current tools like BarackObama.com and our mobile applications.
Both CNET and the Chronicle are saying that as of right now, this field office, while based in San Francisco, will only have one full-time staffer, but the Obama campaign is looking to bring on volunteers to help the office out. While this move is totally unprecedented for anyone running for the presidency, this is a very smart move by President Obama on his quest to really harness the power of technology and social media. Through this field office, his campaign will be kept abreast more easily about the latest trends and its power to influence politics over other candidates and races. The San Francisco technology field office should be used as a liaison office between Obama and the existing tech companies like Google, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc and how they can help get the word out and encourage people to vote.
Today, President Obama has put his faith in technology and also has just placed Silicon Valley on a pedestal for all of the people in politics to pay attention to.
Photo Credit: President Barack Obama tweets from the White House during Twitter Townhall with Jack Dorsey via shfwire.com
