What Do Betty White And David Plouffe Have In Common?

I'm watching one of my favorite Golden Girls, Betty White, host Saturday Night Live. A gig she got not because she has talent that has enabled her to have a show business career that has spanned seven decades (although she does have that talent!), but because a random guy in San Antonio, Texas started a Facebook campaign to petition for Betty White to host SNL following her appearance in a Snickers Super Bowl commercial earlier this year. In three short months, the Facebook petition had so many supporters, NBC announced that White would be hosting SNL on May 8, perfectly coinciding with our rescheduled program with David Plouffe. Plouffe is credited with building the most innovative presidential campaign in U.S. history, boldly using Internet-based technologies to set new records for fundraising and grassroots mobilization for Barack Obama. Plouffe took The Richmond Forum stage earlier this evening to share his thoughts on how widespread usage of social media has made the political process much more participatory, and spurred an explosion of digital dialogue about issues and current events.

So what do the two have in common? In both instances, in an incredibly short time period, broad public participation in a social media campaign helped to bring about results that many would have said were improbable, and some would even have said, impossible. Now, I'm not suggesting that the election of the first black President of the United States and an invitation to an octogenarian to host a late night comedy sketch show are events of comparable magnitude. It's just that, in all likelihood, neither event would have taken place in the past year were it not for tapping into the phenomenal power of internet social networking sites that bring previously unconnected people and groups together and unite them behind a common cause. And that changes the game for all of us as to how to implement a vision in our society today.