Millenial Makeover

No wonder "Millenial Makeover" is one of the NYT Favorite Books of 2008 - it discusses some of the most pressing issues of our time: how social media affects elections and politics. The book discusses how the winning party will successfully use and keep up with technology. This technology, according to the book, is rapidly changing the political environment.

It does a fairly decent job of describing the current political environment, and predicting the future - tracing how technology changed everything from pop culture, such as music and movies, to national politics. I'd like to think of myself as a "millenial," the way the book describes them - the early adopters of society, the optimistic politically and economically, the ultimate group that every marketer wants to reach because they are the movers and shakers. It's the ultimate book for anyone wanting to learn more about and understand this millenial generation - how to reach them, identify what they want, and give it to them. It provides surprising insight into the 2008 elections -- which set a precedent for using technology to gain support quickly and efficiently. The book also discusses how campaign techniques - fundraising, advertising, etc - have been revolutionized by millenial thinkers and technology.

The insights offered in this book are valuable to anyone wanting to understand domestic politics and their correlation with the technological world.

The Politics-To-Go Handbook

I was excited to read The Politics-To-Go Handbook: A Guide to Using Mobile Technology in Politics because I probably know the least about mobile technology in the technological realm. I've always wanted to create a mobile phone friendly version of USIP.org. This guide, to say the least, was definitely worth printing the 100+ pages and putting into a binder to keep in my library of quick reference guides.

Even though I would have liked to read something that was less of a primer/background guide and more of a analysis of mobile strategy, this guide helped me understand the demographics of cell phone users and texters and helped lay the groundwork for what the future of the mobile industry might look like.

Demonstrating several examples of success -- like the massive texting during the Live 8 concerts and the use of popular bands like U2 to mobilize their audiences toward a certain cause through cell phone registration systems -- this piece also brought about something that I learned back in 2001 when I was studying as an undergraduate in Europe. Texting was rampant in Europe back then (I'd be lucky if someone ever actually called me!) and I remember thinking that it was weird that no one texted in the US. It was still an undiscovered service that would later prove to be a cheap, effective way for communicating with one another. This article touches on the very subject of why the US lags so far behind in mobile technology (an example Dr. Rosenblatt gave in class once asked if you put a cell phone and laptop in front of someone living in Asia and asked them to find an answer using one of the devices, chances are, they'd reach for the cellphone instead of the laptop, whereas someone in the US was more likely to reach for the laptop). Looking further into this issue seems compelling. Exploring cell phone security, mobile campaigning, fundraising capabilities, how to use cell phones for charity, and integrating video into mobile technology are all important topics for analysis in determining the future direction of mobile technology.

No doubt that mobile technology will emerge as a major player in the filed of communications in the next few years and this piece is a good primer in that direction.