Smart hires

/ 2 March 2008

Here’s something I missed last November: Chris Hughes, one of the founders of Facebook, went to work on the Obama campaign.

As a demonstration of the work he has done for the campaign, Hughes took the audience on a tour of Facebook’s Obama-centric pages, urging audience members to join the One Million Strong for Barack Obama group. Hughes also showcased the “Obama application,” which displays all the latest news and videos on Obama and allows users to vote for whether or not they want the article to show on their profile. Hughes said that the Obama campaign recognizes the importance of peer-to-peer engagement, which he said is more effective than direct marketing.

“[Obama] really will change the tone of politics,” Hughes said.

This reminds me of “the bus” that Jim Collins describes in Good to Great. It seems like Obama really has the right people on the bus. Is it any wonder that he has an online strategy that works and attracts a whole new generation to politics if he is hiring people like this? Can you imagine Washington run this way?

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