Transitioning

There’s a lot to like about Obama’s change.gov website, starting with the weekly state-of-transition video.

First, there’s the fact that it exists at all, demonstrating not only transparency, but also proactiveness. He’s not waiting until January 20, and he’s letting us all in on what’s going on.

Secondly, and this is part of the transparency, we get a transcription right below the weekly video. No need to try to remember what was said; it’s all right there to read, copy, and paste (you can guess why Dubya or Sarah Palin wouldn’t want their phrasing printed out). And of course the very idea of a video presence is state of the art, alerting us to what we can expect of the new administration.

Valerie Jarrett, as transition co-chair, has a blog to keep us up-to-date on appointments and so on.

There is a Transition Directory you can follow to see a block diagram and lists of executive, legislative, and judicial movers and shakers; and Plum and Prune books that explain to new hirees how to hit the ground running.

There are agenda links that break down the platform into manageable parts, and a button to push to add your own two cents to any part of them.

So do it! Do it two times, baby: on this website, where everyone can read your ideas and piggyback off them, and on change.gov, where Obama’s staff can do the same.

Pilot

My friend Juan and I discovered President-Elect Obama’s weekly communiqué on YouTube today, and told each other about it. What a great idea! But without feedback, the inspiration goes only one way, the transparency is only one-sided. It needs more.

One pilot deserves another, and this blog is Our opportunity to serve that purpose. That’s the “royal Our”, meaning that Our thoughts, set down here, including various comments from readers, will tend to coalesce toward a certain perspective.

We don’t know what that perspective will be in any of several directions, based on various parts of the new administration’s emerging platform. But we hope that the phrase, “You can’t fool all the people all the time” will be part of it. Whatever one of us doesn’t think of, another will, and banking off one idea or another, a ball may occasionally hit the jackpot.

And at that point, the hopeful jackpot becomes a pilot of its own, to be tested and re-evaluated over the next term, or two.