Barack Obama and the Future of Publishing
Thursday, June 5, 2008 |
Category: Blogs |
As I watched the news reports on Tuesday evening indicating that Barack Obama had captured the Democratic nomination for president, I quipped to myself, “Time for a new blog entry called ‘Barack Obama and the Future of Publishing’.” But, I thought, I didn’t recall publishing as a theme of his campaign -- I couldn’t recall Obama mentioning the “p” word once.
Google has 1,310 entries for “Barack Obama” AND “the future of publishing,” and 434,000 entries for “Barack Obama” AND “publishing.” I’ll admit I didn’t read them all, but the focus was that Mr. Obama had written two bestselling books, and a slew of new books about him are now anticipated.
Finally today it dawned on me: Barack Obama may not have talked about publishing or where it’s headed. Instead he demonstrated from the first day of his campaign that he understands the future of publishing and put that understanding into robust practice. As a Wired blog headlined it on June 3rd, “Obama, Propelled by the Net, Wins Democratic Nomination.”
The blog entry states it bluntly: “Obama owes his victory to the internet.” I agree. When you look at the strength of his main challenger, Hillary Clinton, as they headed out of the primary gate, it seemed impossible that Obama would gain the nomination. His margin of victory was not huge. But what other single factor can be established as the reason for his victory than the remarkable use of the full power of social networking, singularly enabled by the Internet?
There’s some very good coverage of the mechanisms by
which all of this was put into place, so I won’t repeat them here. To
understand this extraordinary moment in the future of publishing, examine these
links:
1. CIOZone: “The Barackobama.com Difference” (with good information on the technologies employed)
2. BBC News: “Internet Key to Obama Victories”
3. Rolling Stone magazine: “The Machinery of Hope”
4. Business Week: “On the Web, Obama Is the Clear Winner”
Some commentators claim that this will change how all future political campaigns are conducted. I believe that Obama’s faith in the technology was primal, and unique to a younger generation of politicians. The old guard will continue to lack his deep understanding and will remain unable to repeat this triumph of utilizing available publishing technology to its maximum advantage.
