Tweet Tax

Alan Webber from the Altimeter group writes an interesting follow-up to a CNN story highlighting the first tweet by President Obama. Although all federal agencies have been encouraged to adopt a social networking presence, according to the CNN story written by Ed Henry, Alan points out:

White House personnel – other than a couple of top aides such as Bill Burton – are restricted from using social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. There are security concerns with White House computers, and administration officials are also not supposed to be tweeting on taxpayer time.

Security concerns aside, Alan hones in on those final words "...tweeting on taxpayer time," as a good indication that the governmental shift towards adopting social networking tools are tainted by the old conviction "Do as I say, and not as I do." He goes on to exemplify the public sector CEO as one who takes advantage of social media tools in order to communicate directly to consumers. He argues that if the administration is serious about social networking, it should start with upper management leading or tweeting by example. Alan goes on about how he would like to see:

…a Presidential blog laying out that Thursday is meatloaf night at the White House, some pictures of Bo, how well everyone bowled at the White House bowling alley last week…

Although Alan makes a good point, I’m reminded of Clay Shirky's “outbound arrows” of attention as described in his “Fame Happens” excerpt of “Here Comes Everybody.” Unlike television, Shirky describes the Web as having a technological advantage by being a reciprocal mode of communication. Just as I have picked up Alan’s outbound arrow via his blog, I can also point an arrow back to him via a link in this blog or comment on his blog directly (although he seems to have disabled this feature, but you get the point). Shirky goes on to explain that this inherent advantage is limited by a social factor—fame. If someone is famous, the sheer scale of inbound arrows pointing to a celebrity makes an interactive outbound arrow to all an impossible feat—there are only so many e-mails, tweets, weblogs or comments one can respond to in a day.

The average CEO may be able to keep up with direct correspondences with their clients, but when it comes to top political figures, like the president with over three hundred million clients, I think Shirky’s fame factor authorizes some immunity. Its commendable that the White House even has a blog, twitter account, youtube account etc. Top political officials can directly interact with the masses via twitter or facebook, but I’d like to see them reply to every single comment, status update, tweet and e-mail. But hey, if Kevin Smith can do it…then again, he was flying coach; the president has his own plane.