Radical Transparency vs. the West Wing
Thursday, November 13 2008
I don’t know who the dude is in the photo above, but he can forget about getting a job in the Obama administration. As the New York Times reports today, the seven-page questionnaire that the Obama folks are using to vet prospective appointees for high-ranking positions, including questions about immediate family members as potential sources of embarrassment, is the most invasive ever. The comprehensive, 63-question request for information includes, “…any e-mail that might embarrass the president-elect, along with any blog posts and links to their Facebook pages.” Former administration officials note that these questionnaires have always been notoriously invasive, but the last time we elected a new president, there was no Facebook, hence the upping of the invasiveness ante. No need to rant further on the Gen Y embrace of radical transparency that borders on life-casting, but this is the most high-profile example yet of how the social Web is the gift that keeps on giving, whether you want it to or not.
Credit: Photo courtesy of the folks at Drunk University
