Change is (dot) coming

Like millions of others around the world, I sat and watched in awe as Barack Obama gave his inauguration speech and felt that I was witnessing a genuine piece of history. But, perhaps more interesting than the handover between Mr Bush and Mr Obama is the handover of the websites. Well...more interesting for me. 

I've blogged quite a bit on the success of the Obama web team and their excellent use of social media on the road to The Whitehouse, but what now? Obama's Change.gov is making the transition to the Whitehouse.gov site and it has already been asking for citizens to email in ideas, the best of which will be ranked then put in front of The President for consideration. But what about the Twitter account, the Flickr account, LinkedIn and Facebook? I guess only time will tell.

MyTake - The conversation has been started, so it must continue. I hope that we are going to see an era of openness and honesty and lets face it, this our best chance. The communication platform offered by social media probably represents the most powerful connection with Obama's audience. After all, a man of the people needs to talk to the people.  

LinkedIn(side information)

I’m all for being upfront, transparent and open when it comes to social networking, even when it comes to LinkedIn. If you start lying on your profile, someone will eventually point it out. But, having said that, there’s probably a point at which you need to pull-back on the openness front, as a very unlucky Apple employee recently found out. In short, an Apple employee by the name of Wei-han Lien listed his responsibilities on his profile, including the fact that he was managing the “ARM CPU architecture”. What’s so bad about that then? 

Well, not so long ago Apple acquired a company called PA Semiconductor to work on new processors for the next generation of iPhone. The big question was of course which type of processor and I guess we all know the answer to that now. 

MyTake – It’s a fumble as opposed to a dropped ball. The market could see the direction this was going, but I guess the company and investors still had some wiggle room that has now probably disappeared. My message to Wei-han Lien – go make a kick ass processor my man, all will be forgotten when they ship a million plus next gen iPhone’s with your processor inside! 

Frolicking with "frolleagues"

"Frolleague". Sounds like something out of Lord of the Rings doesn’t it? A “frolleague” is in fact a work colleague that you add as a friend within your social networking activities. The term is becoming so widespread that it’s being considered by the Oxford English Dictionary for inclusion in its next revision.

A recent survey by LinkedIn that canvassed UK users found that around one third of UK users felt they had to add a colleague to their social networking group. Despite this, the number of “frolleagues” being added to members social networking groups is on the increase. Funnily enough, the guys over at LinkedIn think that you should keep your professional and your personal contacts separate to “manage our online reputation as effectively as possible”. I wonder what the guys at Facebook would say...

MyTake – I love the new term, pure tabloid genius and it gives us all something to talk about at the water cooler. I think LinkedIn are wrong if they honestly believe that you should keep your contacts separate. I share contacts across both Facebook and LinkedIn and have many “frolleagues” on both – the whole point of social networking is about sharing, and that includes both our professional and personal thoughts, after all – aren’t all our thoughts personal?