I just recently started listening to all the episodes of Barack Obama’s podcast. It is great to see a Senator use technology to talk directly to the people. I have listened to maybe a half dozen episodes and social technology has come up more than several times. In the podcast I link to below, in which he addresses college-age citizens, he wonders about the future of the government when the facebook generation gets a hold of it. He says that the current government is a 1930s design, and today’s youth are more comfortable with social networks and flattened structures instead of endless levels of hierarchy.

Obama also sponsored legislation which was passed into law that mandates a free, easily accessible, web site that would allow anyone to find out exactly how the federal government is spending our money. The website, fedspending.gov, is supposed to up by January of 2008.

I have become a huge fan of Obama, and the his grasp of technology/media is really only a small part of the equation. All the reasons that lead me to support Obama or beyond the scope of this blog entry, but at the top of the list is this: Listening to Obama, I am inspired to do better things. Listen to his podcasts and will hear lots of reasons why I am on the Obama train. Linked below is the one I mention above.

Listen to Barack Obama answer questions at the partnership for public service

Remember, you can subscribe to a podcast feed of the various podcast episodes that I talk about.