DISQUS

Dangerous Visionary: Mr. Obama, don’t give up your Blackberry! Use it differently.

  • Sheryl Roehl · 1 year ago
    Interesting take on the story.

    For a tongue-in-cheek fantasy letter to President-elect Obama on how to give up his thumbing addiction, visit www.justmypointofview.wordpress.com.
  • Ken Yeung · 1 year ago
    Great post...as a Blackberry addict, I'm in total agreement that Obama shouldn't relinquish his Blackberry, but I do think that it's somewhat sensible for him to stop for four years. As President, he's going to have EVERYTHING be part of the public domain...including emails that he would potentially send to his friends and family. Even those that are "Merry Christmas from the Obamas" or "Are you going to the White Sox game tonight?", etc. that would be subject to public scrutiny.

    I think that if the public saw that, it would give people the sense that Obama is more human than the past administration, but then again, where's the privacy issue for Obama's personal life? I think it's a delicate balance for how the White House can stil integrate with the web-generation.
  • Dale Larson · 1 year ago
    Thanks for the comments, Sheryl and Ken!

    Certainly it's a novel choice to make all your email public. But are the privacy issues really such a delicate balance?

    He's already had to decide how to deal with questions about every aspect of his life in a culture obsessed with questions like what kind of dog the White House will have. Wouldn't he just have to apply that in responding to email? Or is there an important difference?
  • Bo · 1 year ago
    While Dale's idea might reduce some of Obama's communications to pantomime, I think that having an emailing President, especially a mobile-enabled emailing President, is a great idea for keeping Obama's administration connected to the public.

    In fact, I would go so far as to say that several members of the administration could have many of their communications become entirely transparent.

    open-source government here we come. :-)
  • Dave Cherry · 1 year ago
    Great stuff, Dale! If there's one thing the White House could use, it's a bit of transparency and authenticity, especially after the Dark Ages of the last eight years.
  • John · 11 months ago
    You can pledge to have Obama CarryTheBerry here: http://www.carrytheberry.com