LESLY SIMMONS, APR

“In just the first few weeks, I’ve had to engage in some of the toughest diplomacy of my life. And that was just to keep my Blackberry,” President Obama said in early February. He was joking, but the comment had a lot of truth to it. After months of back and forth with government tech gurus, and even though the devices are ubiquitous among business people and government staffers, giving the president a Blackberry is a huge deal thanks to an archaic network of government regulations, the threat of hackers getting access to private information—the list goes on.

Still, I have enough faith in the President and his confidants to know when and where to use the privilege of presidential email. I can imagine the list of things that might get someone banned from email access: chain letters and unnecessary use of the Reply All function come to mind. I for one am excited to have a president who cares about email–both Bush and Clinton stayed away from it for different reasons. Many people spend the majority of their day using it, and its just another way for the public to identity with the White House. From one Crackberry user to another, I really appreciate someone fighting for what they need to do their job successfully. Despite all the issues email presents for presidential correspondence records and the like, this seems like a no-brainer. Why shouldn’t the Commander in Chief have full access to the best technology available to help him do his job?

Of course there are a lot of stipulations–not just anyone can have the President’s email address. And as much as we might like to have it, we don’t all need it. As much as I would like to send him an email and maybe even get one back, the point is Obama isn’t interested in losing the connection with the people closest to him. In the midst of government negotiations over massive stimulus bills and business bailouts, I’m personally glad to see our President keeping in touch with the people he trusts most. What’s could be next—Obama tweeting from his own account? In this administration, it could happen.

Back in 2008 when there was a little political stuff going on in Washington, I did an interview with Slate’s Trailhead on a random statement Sen. John McCain said during a speech about “bottled hot water” for babies. It was confusing enough that the reporter glommed onto it a bit, and since I’ve spent a good amount of time in hot places on disaster relief operations, I gave my thoughts. No biggie–I’m sure he just misspoke…

Last month I went to a great conversation about making government more transparent through the Web and other technology, hosted by Wired Magazine, the New America Foundation, and Google. The panel was a who’s-who of technology savants, and with the event happening just before Obama’s inauguration, everyone was full of ideas of how he can change the world, starting with DC’s bureaucracy. This post for Black Web 2.0 springs from that event.

This was the second lunchtime chat hosted by the New America Foundation that I’ve attended, and I’m looking forward to more. If you’re in DC and looking for insights on technology and public policy, this is the place to go.