Harper vs Obama: Who's more tech savvy?

If there is someone that you really don't want to offend, it's a social media advocate. They get very het up about things like transparency and accountability. The reactions from ardent Twitter users to Obama's admission spiked in the Twitter search results.

Did we really expect much else? Obama is kind of a busy guy, what with, you know, trying to save the world economy, extricate the US from Iraq, go cold turkey from oil in favour of a green economy, and so on. The fact is that he probably has to have people to do this stuff for him. But, it raises a more interesting question: how well our political leaders doing when it comes to engaging the public using modern technology?

Stephen Harper has a Twitter account. Although, at only 20,000 followers, he has a lot of work to do to match Obama's 2.6 million. He has a podcast and videocast, but that has raised the hackles of the press, who feel that in the past, he has been less than forthcoming with interviews and opportunities. Instead, he seems to prefer to go straight to the public, so that his message is unmediated, complain some press commentators.

But listening to some of these podcasts, it's clear that he's not talking directly to his public. The audio is lifted from speeches that he's giving to other people. The same is true of his videocasts, which are largely films of speeches he's giving elsewhere. Compare this to Obama's weekly addresses to the nation. Whether or not you support his politics, he's taking the time to speak directly to his people, using a new, easily-accessible technology. That's important, isn't it?

Oh, and Obama has a blog. There doesn't seem to be a blog for our Prime Minister (and if there is, he's not advertising it very well).

I can think of many more things that world leaders such as Obama and Harper could be doing with technology, such as online polls, 'heat maps' of public opinion, or even simply asking questions via the Twitter account and encouraging responses. But right now, Obama seems to be leading the race to engage his audience electronically in north America. So the question is, are our Canadian leaders, both federally and provincially, doing enough to inspire us and revitalise politics via these new, exciting channels of communication? And do you want to be engaged this way at all?

Danny Bradbury, MSN Tech and Gadgets