No matter who wins in the elections tomorrow, it’s becoming pretty clear that technology will be a priority for the next administration. As wiki and community-collaborated content enthusiasts, we’ve been impressed with the embracing of wiki and wiki-like values in the campaigns.
* “The real commitment is a commitment to have our entire democracy include absolutely everyone, to have everyone through these tools be able to share information in a very, very rapid way, and to have ideas and information come up from below. So when we say universal broadband, what we mean is universal community.”
* “That’s the kind of thing that shouldn’t be decided by one person in the new administration. There’s not anything wrong with a collaborative process that could literally include hundreds of thousands of people.”
* “The real commitment is to have our entire democracy include everyone and through these tools be able to share information in a rapid way and have ideas shared from below.”
In addition to the wikis that provide non-partisan voting information (as we highlighted the other day), late last week Obama technology advisor and former FCC chairman Reed Hundt talked at length with the New America Foundation about the technology initiatives his candidate would embrace, causing websites like cnet news and Ars Technica to use terms like, “The First Wiki President” and “Wikimocracy.”
While these might be bit extreme, there were certainly a lot of wiki-values mentioned by Hundt, values like inclusiveness, community and collaboration as means of solving problems, creating technological solutions and sharing ideas.
Slated as a “Technology Smackdown” debate between Hundt and McCain policy adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the New America Foundation event ended up becoming a discussion due to Holtz-Eakin having to make a last minute cancelation.
Still, the audience (and those watching online) were treated to just over an hour of lively discussion between Hundt and the moderator Nicholas Thompson, senior editor of WIRED magazine.
Campaigns like Obama’s have been embracing burgeoning tools and philosophies like Wiki all along. In March, ReadWriteWeb offered an interesting glimpse at how the Obama campaign uses wikis to organize volunteers. Last June, we referenced a New York Times article of a similar theme highlighting how the campaign utilized the internet. The Obama team even put together a wiki to organize delegates and alternatives to the Democratic National Convention.
While it’s unfortunate that the McCain campaign were unable to attend the New America Foundation event last Thursday to present their vision for technology, we do look forward to the upcoming days and months after the election to see how wiki and wiki-values shape the next presidency.
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Dude! McCain doesn’t even know how to use a computer! I doubt that he even knows what a wiki is…