President 2.0

I believe our President has done it. President Obama is using technology to its fullest to , do his job. He is pushing his agenda through his websites, grass roots campaigns, twittering pages, YouTube videos and many others. In fact I writing a blog about his use of technology, is an accomplishment. Currently he is pushing Health care agenda and I, personally, am skeptical about it but I admire about him is that he is pushing critical issues to the masses using web technologies. True, a regular Joe won't be able to vote a "Nay" or a "Yeah" in the Senate or the House but at least I am aware of the issue and I can start a grass roots campaign for it or against it. I can also use technology to push my voice using Blogs, social networks and other Web 2.0 enable medium. I have admired how Obama has used the Web to rally the people to campaign for him. I signed up on his site when he was running because I was curious and I wanted to see what he is all about. I read up on the issues on his site and McCain's which helped me make a decision on my vote. I also got an opportunity, which I took, to volunteer at the Presidential Inauguration. It was a great experience and I wouldn't have been able to experience it if Obama wasn't reaching out to the masses via the web. Anyway he is revolutionizing on how campaigns are done because his usage of technology. I wonder when President 3.0 will come. Stay Tuned.

Here is a video of Obama's healthcare from PBS which includes my friend Jonathan's wife Zaneb Beams. Even if you hate Obama, you have to appreciate how he used Web 2.0 technologies.

Web 2.0 business!!!

I would love to see if businesses would consider adapting Web 2.0 technologies in their day to day business processes. Here are some existing Web 2.0 technologies:

• Outlook Calendar - A classic Web 2.0 application where users can share each others calendars.
• Portals - I am thinking of an application like Microsoft Sharepoint which is a great application where users can share documents and other digital information
• Outlook Directory - A directory of company employees. Users can add their own entries to their directory.
• Intranet Website - Employees can find useful information about their company processes, benefits, holidays and other important information.

Here are some other technologies which can be incorporated in an office.

• Employee Blogs - This will contain an employee's daily status report. The tasks he or she is working on.
• Project Wikis - Where project artifacts like project plan, project members resumes, contact information, and Configuration Management tasks and existing risks for the project.
• Collaborative spaces - Where workers can concurrently work and share information and ideas.
• Aggregated Search Engines which are customized for businesses.
• Online BPM tools - to let employees monitor their work processes and how they can improve them.

The way is business is done will change rapidly in the two to five years.