The Crowdsourcing phenomenon is about to hit 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but will it be a Jeffersonian triumph or a Machiavellian misstep?

Obama’s team has put together a crowdsourcing initiative, called the Citizen’s Briefing Book, which encourages citizens to submit ideas on everything and anything from energy policy to national defense.

To date, Obama’s team has done a good job of using social media in their communications, as can most recently be seen in the change.gov website. I wonder if the idea was inspired by the New York Times, who used a facebook page to essentially do the same thing.  The Times received 35,000 suggestions on their page and has since created an interesting microsite with sugestions for the incoming president.  Click here to look through it. If nothing else, this is a noteworthy bit of news reporting for its use of social media to conduct such a broad survey - although the editorial staff of the Times had nothing to do with the survey (it seems to have been collected by the Times marketing department).

But can and will this kind of government by actually work?  Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Locke, Jefferson, DeToqueville…well, this could quickly turn into a history of western civilization discussion but lets not go there.

Because it is for now the means, and not the ends that interest me.

For this kind of thing to work, Obama’s team really has to make a commitment.  Or, well, the CEO - Obama -  really has to make a commitment. It is the “post-promote-discuss-see” approach to crowdsourcing and it is the last of those four that is probably the most important.  Showing how participation makes a difference is the payoff in the Social media world.  But without a solid commitment to the “see”, implementing crowdsourcing is at best trendy and at worst patronizing.

It is an innovative attempt on behalf of the Obama-Biden transition team, but without a solid commitment to doing something with the results - besides presenting them to the president in a book, the whole idea reaks a little of Machiavelli, who, if I remember right, believed that the prince should give the appearance that he is listening to keep the masses satisfied, but not let their opinions motivate him.

I’d be interested to hear of other government-based crowdsourcing intitiatives.  Have they worked?

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Why is Social Media something that should be approached seriously?

ÃŒf you are looking for a case study, look no further than the discussion that has been spurred by Rikke Faurfelt’s story in the Feb. 20th edition of Politiken about the Helle Thorning Schmidt’s silent blog.

Thorning Schmidt began using the social media to broadly communicate her messages during last autumn’s Danish election. A YouTube profile with “sit down” type discussions and a well-written blog were a couple of the memorable elements.

But now the blog has gone silent and not only has Politiken commented, but Niels Krause-Kjær from Berlingske has also made an insightful comparsion to Villy Søvndal’s active blogging efforts and how Søvndal has used his blog (among other things) to address Islamic extremism and integration.

Imagine suggesting to the Social Democrats that they should go silent in the print or broadcast media for 2 months to take some “thinking time” and you’d probably get fired, stoned and burned at the stake. Blogging is a legitimate communications outlet and must be treated as such.

Choose your social media channels carefully and commit to them. If it is a blog: Blog regularly. Blog frankly. Blog passionately. Not doing so means that you are not only missing an opportunity to get your message across, but it could even create a backlash if you do not inform your readers you are going to be silent.

By the way, Thorning Schmidt has not logged into the YouTube account in two months.

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In recent weeks, I’ve held several workshops and given a few guest lectures on the general topic of how businesses are using social media to communicate in new ways. I believe that showing actual cases is a great way to help people understand - because it can be difficult enough to explain what del.icio.us is to a newcomer, let alone how it can help their organization. Once I show it, though, there is often a collective”A-ha!”

But then the inevitable question comes up - “All of this is great for Nike or Dell, but what about the rest of us?”

It is a great question. In reality, there are very few global consumer products companies when compared to the number of international business-to-business organizations that could benefit from social media engagement. For companies like Nike or Dell, whose stakeholders are already plugged-in, members of the “golden demographic” and use social media in their social lives, the only risk could be NOT using social media.

But what about the company that makes industrial scales, that makes letter sorting machines or that makes glass facades for the building industry? Are there social media applications for them?

A colleague of mine in the States admitted to me yesterday, “I have given up on the generation that sits in executive management positions today, but the generation that sits just under them really gets it - and so I think, especially in B2B, that we will first see wide use in a few years.”

My answer is that there are great possibilities, and there is today a real chance for B2B companies to gain a competitive advantage in areas like customer service, thought leadership and CSR by using the social media - if they do it right.

There are cases to be found. Oil and gas companies like NorskHydro and Chevron are using social media as is GE in things like their EcoImagination site. Even smaller sites like this one from a welding supply company in Wisconsin have begun to adopt social media.

What is your favorite B2B example? And where are the other good cases?

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