President Obama promised public engagement. How has he done? A survey of civic engagement sites.

Dec 22, 2008  |  Public Agenda  |  Team Obama, Technology & Public Engagement

• If you go to the Obama presidential transition web site, Change.gov, you'll see continuing efforts to include the public. The "Your Seat at the Table" section allows users to see and comment on what outside groups are telling the Obama transition team. "Join the Discussion" features a question from the transition team to start an online discussion by users, followed by a video response from the Obama team. 
• Just about every section of Change.gov allows users to comment. Users are allowed to vote up or down on comments, which allows high-rated comments to rise to the top. That voting affects a user's "Reputation Meter," so that the more high-rated comments you make, the higher your reputation becomes. Tools like that show that the Obama team is planning on making this into a long-term tool.
• The Obama team will have to decide if they're going to just apply new technology to the old goal of building a more powerful political machine, or use it to match their campaign rhetoric by embracing public engagement and changing the way the country is governed.

Jan 14, 2009  |  Social Capital Blog  |  Watering the Obama grassroots post-election

• Now that Obama is elected, how will the Obama administration rate in the care and feeding of this tremendous network [campaign followers]?  At our Saguaro conversations back in the late 1990s (in which Barack participated), it became clear that politicians have much more of a natural interest in stoking grassroots networks before elections and tend to neglect them after election victories, when it is often less clear both how to use these networks and “what’s in it for them– the politicians?”

Feb 25, 2009  |  Public Agenda  |  Viewpoint: Public engagement in the Obama era

• President Obama, on his second day in office, issued a memorandum to the heads of all executive departments and agencies calling on them to "establish a system of transparency, public participation and collaboration." As the memo said: "Public engagement enhances the government's effectiveness and improves the quality of its decisions. Knowledge is widely dispersed in society, and public officials benefit from having access to that dispersed knowledge."

May 11, 2009  |  Personal Democracy Forum  |  White House Opens "Office of Public Engagement," Releases Citizen's Briefing Book

• As one of the new OPE's first official acts, they released the Citizen's Briefing Book, a collaborative document [citizens' policy input] compiled online during the presidential transition.

Feb 01, 2010  |  KevinBondelli.com  |  President Obama Answers Questions on Facebook

• Earlier today President Obama answered questions submitted through CitizenTube via the White House Live Facebook application.
• On the whole I think the session was a great move and fits in with my belief in taking your message to the places where people live and hang out (even virtually), and Facebook is certainly one of those places.

Jul 17, 2011  |  e.politics  |  Obama Unfiltered: An E.pol Quote in CBS News Radio Story on Twitter Town Hall

• The Twitter forum is a way for the White House to “deliver their message unfiltered.”