Barack Obama and Policy 2.0 as a new paradigm to create social value

Barack Obama’s victory has made almost all of us happy. It has given us I have experienced a mixture of relief and hope. Relief , because we knew that, this time, what was at stake in the American elections was not just the eviction of one political party by another that promises to do things better; What was at stake was a fundamental change in the rules under which American politics and politicians have functioned for the past fifty years. Obama’s victory has meant the defeat of an entire political legacy, which has been surpassed by the unstoppable energy of a new way of doing politics, more participatory and closer to citizens. And hope for what Obama’s victory means for the expectations of a better future for all, his “yes we can” change towards a more just and supportive world.

Analysts they have highlighted several vital aspects of Obama’s victory: the historical significance, as he was the first person of color to become president in the United States; his charisma and his dream of change, which allow us to glimpse a better world in a situation of crisis and uncertainty; his invitation for us to build this world together; his defense of a “new common good”; and its firm commitment to the participation of young people in political life.

All of these issues have had unquestionable relevance in the U.S. elections, and there are many lessons to be drawn from his speech and transformative leadership. Obama, without a doubt, has been able to combine the three key aspects of the emerging E-Democracy :the New Models of Networked Organizations to manage your campaign; the New forms of communication digital to get your message across; and the New possibilities for relations with citizens Through social networks, he has recruited and energized a large number of grassroots activists who have also managed to finance his campaign.

In today’s conversation we are going to explore Barack Obama’s particular form of political leadership , trying to identify the features that make up Policy 2.0, a new form of social value creation that marks distances with respect to the previous version, Policy 1.0. Unfortunately, we are still used to seeing on our televisions the protagonists of this Policy 1.0: politicians more concerned with obtaining and maintaining power than with the problems of citizens; Politicians who seek to turn the adversary into a kind of mortal enemy, who tend to always emphasize the negative, and who are much more focused on dividing than on connecting with the real needs of society.

Let’s take a look at some of the lessons we can draw from Barack Obama’s new way of doing politics; three real key points that will help us move forward in our exploration of the leadership of the future:

A new vision of government and society. Leadership 2.0

How do we know that Obama is a leader of the future? All we have to do is read his first speech after the election victory or simply watch one of his meetings on YouTube. Obama possesses the essential qualities of leadership 2.0: the power to convince, inspire, and generate passion. Nowadays these aspects are key, because loyalty, creativity and passion – the characteristic values of new talent – can no longer be achieved through the traditional “command and control”.

A different kind of leadership. Obama is able to approach issues in a new way, focused much more on what unites citizens than on what separates them; focused on what we can achieve together, and not so much on pointing out the mistakes that others have made. In other words, his leadership is not chasing the outright victory of his group, but a situation in which we are willing to give a little so that we all end up winning. I think it’s very significant that he became the first American president to explicitly renounce pacts with “interest groups” in exchange for financial support for his campaigns:

“I’ve never seemed like the most likely contender for this position. We don’t start with a lot of money or a lot of endorsements. Our campaign was not conceived in the halls of Washington. It was built by the workers who used what little savings they had to donate five dollars and ten dollars and twenty dollars to the cause.”

A new message. His message is a thousand miles away from the motto – now outdated – of the savior hero, whose only proposal is: “Delegate to me. Only I can rescue you.” Obama appeals to everyone’s responsibility, to the fundamental role of each and every citizen in the recovery. His leadership has raised as many expectations as Kennedy did in 1960. Like the latter, Obama has a personal brand capable of appealing to a large part of American (and world) society, and he has demonstrated throughout the campaign an enormous rhetorical talent. Also like Kennedy, Obama represents change and hope that a new way of doing politics is possible:

“In this country, we advance or fail as one nation, as one people. Let us resist the temptation to relapse into the partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that have intoxicated our political life for so long.”

A charismatic leader. What is charisma? It’s not easy to explain, but we all recognize it when we see it: that flame in the eyes, the passion, the confidence that leaders transmit… Well, millions of people have recognized the charisma by watching and listening to Obama. And that’s important. Charisma helps leaders motivate and energize others. And Obama has displayed intelligence, passion, conviction and a rare ability to inspire and mobilize diverse groups of people in the U.S. and around the world.

“This is your victory. And I know you didn’t do it just to win an election. And I know you didn’t do it for me. You did so because you understand the magnitude of the task ahead.”

Leader of hope. This aspect is perhaps the most relevant of all. His book of personal reflections “The Audacity of Hope”, which I recommend reading, is a hymn to hope: “Hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of Hope! To believe that a better future awaits us.” As he said in his first speech after the election victory, his goal is to restore the America of enduring ideals: democracy, hope, opportunity, and freedom. The newly elected president has shown that hope, like optimism, is contagious:

“Hope is what has brought me here today – with a father from Kenya; a mother from Kansas and a story that could only happen in the United States of America. Hope is the cornerstone of this nation, the belief that our destiny will not be written for us, but by us, by all the men and women who do not accept the world as it is – who have the courage to remake the world as it should be.”

Leader of change. “We’re going to change the world.” This is exactly the message that a world divided by economic collapse, religious conflicts, resource scarcity, poverty and violence needs to hear. A world that yearns for new ideals, and that seeks an inspiring message that will awaken citizens, tired of the politics of fear and destruction. A message like this:

“This choice is not between regions, religions or genders. It’s not about the rich versus the poor, the young versus the old, and white versus black. It’s about the past versus the future.”

Unit leader. Obama achieved victory by uniting, not dividing. He put it this way: “We are not a collection of red [color republicano] states and blue [color demócrata]states. We are the United States of America.” His challenge is to unite Republicans and Democrats in the new administration, a task that seems to have begun as soon as he has come to power. This is what he conveyed in his victory message:

“We may have different stories, but we have the same hopes; that we may not look different and come from different places, but we all want to go in the same direction – towards a better future for our children and grandchildren.”

Ability to communicate. Obama knows well how to use his power of communication. He knows how to motivate and excite people. Know your audience. He is able to detect their mood, and he knows how to speak meaningfully about the issues that most concern that particular group of people. With his extraordinary work of persuasion, he has managed to get an army of volunteers to spread the message of change across the country.

“If we act boldly and foresightedly, we will be able to tell our grandchildren that this was the time when we helped forge peace in the Middle East. This was the time when we confronted climate change and secured the weapons that could destroy the human race. This was the time when we defeated global terrorists and brought opportunity to the forgotten corners of the globe.”

Personal Leadership. Even in large formats, with large audiences, Obama follows the principle of “keeping the conversation personal.” It uses details and concrete cases effectively to create the feeling that this is a conversation between a few people. That is why he makes references to his personal experiences and uses the first person, the “I” and the “we”, so that the audience feels “included” in his message.

“If you feel the same energy as me, if you feel the same passion as me, if you feel the same hope as me, I have no doubt that all the people will rise up, and the country will regain hope and out of this long political darkness a new dawn will come.”

A transparent leader. Transparency and ethics are the foundations of trust. It’s the first time a U.S. president will take office after publishing his memoir. Obama wrote “Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance” at age 33, before he began his political career. He has never hidden the peculiar family conditions that marked his childhood, in a country where the private lives of candidates are always looked at with a magnifying glass during campaigns. What’s more, Obama turned that apparent “handicap”—unorthodox origins in the caste of professional politicians—and became the truest representation of the American dream. Obama has been able to convey confidence by overcoming harsh attacks from his political adversaries, and he has done so without smokescreens and virulent counterattacks:

“There will be mishaps and false starts. There are many who will disagree with every decision or policy of mine when I am president. And we know that the government can’t fix every problem. But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree. And above all, I will ask you to participate in the work of rebuilding this nation.”

A new way to create social value. Policy 2.0

Wikipedia defines politics as “human activity tending to govern or direct the action of the state for the benefit of society.” Undoubtedly, Obama’s work constitutes a new way of doing politics. Following the model that we apply in other fields to qualify the substantial changes that are taking place in the Age of Collaboration, we refer to this new version of public making as “Policy 2.0”. The important thing about the new phenomenon is not the technologies, nor even the use of 2.0 tools (blogs, microblogs, or wikis) by politicians and their parties to convey their usual messages. What is really relevant is the transformation of politics into conversations between citizens.

The basic idea of the Cluetrain Manifesto is that, in a space like the current one, in which information flows indiscriminately, politics is equivalent to the conversations that citizens have , concerned about their problems. As Thomas Friedman explains, politics is “flattening out”; Political structures are moving from being rigidly vertical, hierarchical, to downright horizontal, ushering in a new era of collaboration among “ordinary” citizens the likes of which has never been seen before. These changes will substantially affect the models of social value creation that we currently know, reinforcing participatory democracies and facilitating the horizontal, active, open and networked involvement of all citizens in politics.

From the point of view of “ordinary people”, Policy 2.0 is the ability of citizens to organize themselves into networks using 2.0 tools for interaction, collaboration and activism. We can conclude, therefore, that in any of its aspects, Policy 2.0 has as its main effect a greater political involvement of citizens. It is a question of overcoming the egocentric and inbred vision of organisations – very pronounced in the case of political parties – to evolve towards democracies that are less passive and more participatory, open, transparent and truly citizen-centred.

The availability of social software is allowing the web to become a space for social interaction, and a true platform for collaboration , interaction and deployment of collective intelligence. Obama has been fully aware of this. For this reason, the “Obama brand” has fully entered the entire 2.0 world, the most agile and dynamic space when it comes to participating in conversations. On Facebook , Obama has managed to gather more than 3 million supporters; more than 130,000 people have followed him on Twitter ; and its MySpace page has garnered nearly 150,000 comments from citizens. The campaign has also been incessant on YouTube, with dozens of videos that revealed the figure of the then candidate to the public.

Not only has Obama’s team leveraged all social media to reach large numbers of people, especially young people, but it has also used those networks to motivate, organize, and empower its supporters. Using My.barackobama.com , for example, they enabled the creation of nearly 20,000 groups of people who have given support and raised money for the campaign around the world.

It is important that we do not necessarily see these changes as a step towards direct democracy, as opposed to traditional representative democracy; Rather, we should see them as an opportunity full of possibilities for citizen participation and engagement . We are not talking about a new kind of democracy, nor a “second life” in cyberspace. It’s not about technology, either. It is about supporting and strengthening democracy; the strengthening of democratic processes and institutions that make possible the participation and engagement of citizens in the governance of society.

A new model of social participation. Citizens 2.0.

The need and desire to move towards greater participation in political and social organizations still exists. But the traditional parties, instead of promoting this activism, have become a real barrier. Its organizational culture is governed by ironclad loyalties, hierarchies, and submissive mechanisms that make it difficult for citizens to participate.

Party membership – still the main and majority form of political participation – has become an activity of little appeal to the people. This disaffection has been particularly noticeable in the case of the “digital natives”, the new generation born from the 80s onwards, who have always remained in contact with new technologies and social communication platforms.

In this situation, the Web 2.0 phenomenon has been a real breath of fresh air, and an opportunity for citizens, who have found hitherto unthinkable ways to organize and express their positions. This is how the so-called “Citizens 2.0” have emerged: those who know the benefits of learning and collaborating using the new social communication platforms, and who share their concerns, their concerns and their political action on the Internet. They are grassroots activists who have discovered their power to change everything. Their actions through the Internet and the different communities and social networks have forever changed the way politics is done.

The challenge of bringing young people along . Young people make up the bulk of these Citizens 2.0. Motivating young people has become one of the fundamental challenges of the new policy, and it is at this point that Barack Obama has taught the world a real lesson. Through initiatives such as http://www.moveon.org/ , Obama has managed to reach out directly to young people between the ages of 16 and 25, the digital natives. He has managed to fully involve them in the political process, and has harnessed their talent, creativity, energy and high participation in social media to spread the message to millions of people. No less than 933,000 volunteers, many of them young people, participated in the MoveOn initiative and made it possible for the Democratic candidate to win. The reading is clear: Obama has been able to understand that these young people, although they do not yet occupy important positions, are the future, and their talent and energy constitute a benchmark and a real engine of change for the rest of the country.

By way of summary

In short, Web 2.0 is today a gigantic collaboration platform that allows citizens to organize themselves into networks; It allows them to create interest groups that seek to influence the decisions of politicians and public authorities. For all these reasons, we can conclude that Policy 2.0 generates greater political involvement among citizens, something that is hopeful for our political system. Over time, these online initiatives will eventually bring power closer to ordinary citizens, and will be able to reach a new generation of voters who until now were “outside” the political process, but subject to its consequences. Hopefully, this new situation will have a positive effect on political performance, creating a virtuous circle in which elected representatives who are more open and participate in the conversations of their citizens 2.0 will be rewarded with greater trust and loyalty to vote.

Obviously, the changes we are talking about will take time to become a reality, as happens in any process of change that directly affects the interests of the previous “legacy”. But they are inevitable, because the time has come for Policy 2.0. The good news is that e-democracy is leading us towards more transparent and efficient political parties, and new ways of doing politics are bringing power closer to communities of citizens. These citizens 2.0 will make our democracy more participatory. The presence of a new generation of voters, more responsible and committed to the political process, will engender A new generation of politicians who will help us in the construction of new collective entities, open to exploring the possibilities offered by new social structures and capable of making their visions a reality in increasingly open and global networks.

The bad news is that, as Obama himself points out, the road will be long: “We know that the challenges tomorrow will bring are the biggest of our lifetimes – two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century.” And the promised changes will take longer to arrive than expected. For this reason, I end my reflection today with a phrase from Ray Kurzweil that should always accompany us in our exploration of a future as exciting as that of the Age of Collaboration:

“I’m an innovator. I became interested in long-term trends, because an innovation has to make sense in the world in which it becomes a reality, not in the world in which it is initiated.”

Ray Kurzweil

*You can see my comments on Politics 2.0 in the following presentation: