Obama keeps his PDA! YAY!

16 Comments leave a comment below

  1. Acording to Engadget, Obama will keep using the Blackberry, not the General Dynamics phone showed in CNN. Ones again misleading press.

    http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/22/confirmed-obama-gets-his-blackberry-no-sectera-edge-in-sight/

  2. Errrr….why? I must say all this brainless and unquestioning worship of obama dross is really getting quite tiresome. Why is this pertinent? I am getting so disillusioned with the design community at the moment – very sheepish and un-thought (if thats a real word) provoking crap.

  3. This isn’t a good thing. They talk about his tech “habit” which isn’t a positive term at all.

    The argument is that it will keep him from being a “bubble”. If that’s a danger then he’s hired the wrong people to be around him.

    As an American the last thing I want the POTUS to be doing is checking e-mail. He should be dealing with the big issues and meeting with people. E-mail is scut-work and well below his pay-grade and responsibility. E-mail is toast in a job like that. I wouldn’t let him e-mail let alone carry ti constantly around with him. If he can’t get accurate information presented concisely and clearly from his aides then he should get better ones.

    Maybe the tech-happy people on Twitter would like him to waste time Twittering too. Maybe they think it’s Obama himself who uploads those videos on to Youtube.

    Rant over.

    Love the blog!

  4. Lincoln, email is not the same as twittering and his life is not all about the job – he does have personal friends you know. Email is a perfectly valid tool for communication in this day and age. If you don’t want the president to use email who really cares? Vote for someone else or something. Who cares if you would let the president use email or not? Its as inconsequential as whether or not i would let him wear socks.

    I do agree with Jacinta though – this is really scraping the bottom of the barrel – i think this site is getting very unoriginal and is starting to ride the coat-tails of others in terms of worshipping Barack Obama with little critical perspective.

  5. I think you guys are missing the point. Our president is someone who is technically adept. We should be celebrating his ability to help bring our white house out of them mimeograph age. A president with a blackberry. Good. Name the president of one company who doesn’t have one?

    As for the rest, a blog is a blog. If someone wants to write this, you don’t have to read it. It’s outward thought basically, you can choose what to read simply by looking at the headlines. Insight conversation, not arguments.

  6. Wow. Two people leaving nasty comments then linking to CNN. That’s courageous.

    As for the email critique – if a president doesn’t use email, I sincerely doubt he’s in touch with anything. Even my 78-yr-old mom has an email account.

  7. I am super surprised at these negative comments about the fact that Obama can keep his blackberry.

    This whole thing in my opinion is that he is going against a norm that is set in the bureaucracy of the white house/or being a president. This man is our president, but he is also a person, a person who wants to keep some of his old life just like anyone, he is not a robot.
    ]
    Thus by being able to convince the people that protect him to keep his blackberry he is breaking through this bureaucratic BS, I think this country is overwhelmed with things that have to be done in a certain way, if it is done in a different way everyone flips out and no one knows what to do. In my opinion he broke through one of those bureaucratic rules that was just there because it was easier that way and less hassle. The blackberry is only a small thing, but in this country we need these small changes to prove that the bigger changes can actually happen.

    This has nothing to do with design, this has to do with changing things that we are used to, changing things that are the way they are, just because. Not because it is better or easier or makes people’s live just a tad better.

    Thanks for sharing Swissmiss

  8. wow
    making the president a celebrity…

  9. As far as I’m concerned, it IS relevant whether or not Obama gets to use his mobile device. He built his candidacy around connectedness and transparency, making intelligent uses of relevant technologies to do so. We should not remove the president from his desire to be connected – if anything, it should be encouraged. Having his communication routed through a third party takes away his modernness, which is a central appeal to his presidency. This is a part of our culture now, like it or not. Just because previous presidents did not opt to email does not mean that Obama can’t handle it. You’ll have to excuse us if supporting this modernization of presidential tradition comes across as “brainless and unquestioning worship.”

  10. White presidents didn’t use email – this president is different. He knows how to use email…whats so shocking about that? If it upsets you, deal with it.

  11. Wow, those of you leaving nasty comments and then link to cnn,
    where are you coming from? May be you are from the 46% of the people in this country that voted for someone else:

    http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/results/president/explorer.html

    For me, I rather have a president that uses crackberry and stay connect, then someone don’t even use email or know how much gas cost:

    http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-gas29feb29,1,2210127.story

    Email is a communication tool for everyone now, just like a telephone. So when they first put a telephone in the oval office, did people like you think the president should not have a phone?

    Think!

  12. The ones complaining are really missing the point. It is a small thing to celebrate.

    It means we have a president that knows how to use technology and how important can be. It also means that he is not easily accepting a “no, because we have never done that” but looking forward to modernize the position. And last but not least it means he understands a bit better than others the world as it is.

    Seriously I think that the ones ranting about this are just sore losers. Don’t worry you will have bigger issues to complain about. No one is perfect. But some of use we are just happy that we have a president that seems to understand that the world has changed.

    You don’t think is important at all? Sell your computer and your cell phone and have a nice life. Let him stay connected as he wants to.

  13. It seems I have been misunderstood or misspoke. Sorry.

    My comment in no way relates to Obama and his administrations use of technology, which as far as I’m concerned has been excellent. I take issue with the Blackberry solely.

    So he knows how to use one. That is a good thing. He likes Macs, that is also good thing. He’s on Youtube. Someone updates his Twitter feed for him. He’s up for modernising the presidency which is good. Brilliant even!

    But a previous commenter put it very elegantly: a “crackberry”!

    He shouldn’t be that connected. Connectedness is a myth. We need this particular President, more than many, to have a considerable amount of concentration and focus on the very serious problems he has inherited.

    People complained about Bush’s modern management style of making aides give him only 15 minute briefings. Now we have a President that is interruptible at any time.

    I think it’s fantastic that Obama is a technophile. I just think a PUSH device is a bad bad idea because gets in the way of productivity and effectiveness.

  14. I would like a post about what color shirts obama wears. I’m sure we can find meaning, relevance and a basis for beatification there too.

  15. You have GOT to be kidding me? The title of this posting is “Obama keeps his PDA! YAY!”. Really, YAY??? Obama took his first dump in the white house! YAY! What’s the deal with all the mindless Obama worshipping drones these days? Another cool design blog falling victim to the ‘I’m obsessed with everything about Obama just like everyone else on this planet’ syndrome.

  16. The problem with relying on aides for your information is that aides filter the information either how they’d like you to see it, or how they think it is, but always the information is modified in some way by the time it gets to the decision maker. Of course, it’s a great way to control power, isolating the President like that!

    I think it’s a really great development, and I hope he gets a few Macs in the WH too.

    Nice Blog! :D