Open up your mind and say, ahh...

U.S. President Barack Obama’s #Compromise campaign, which blasted his Twitter followers with the handles of reps to write to, may have cost him some 36,000 followers. (Although he has 9.4 million followers left, and the White House now says the drop was worth getting a debt ceiling deal done.) But now it seems the White House Twitter account is picking up the slack.

@WhiteHouse has added 22,000 followers in the last six days, the administration says. That’s 3,100 followers per day, or a 37% increase on the amount of new followers @WhiteHouse got each day previously. More important for the account’s influence is all the engagement it’s getting: @ mentions of the White House account surged from 500 per day to more than 9,000, a 450% increase in the kind of metric that services like Klout care about.

The reason for all this retweeting? Office Hours, the daily question-and-answer session launched last Tuesday, starring officials from the National Economic Council answering questions on fiscal policy. While that might not sound like the biggest draw on Twitter, there are a handful of reasons that explain why followers are flocking. Firstly, the economics duo — Brian Deese and Jason Furman — are answering our questions on the debt ceiling, which has been on many minds of late. Secondly, as the name of the program suggests, they’re keeping regular, pre-announced daily hours that are amenable to U.S. users. Monday, for example, Deese will be fielding your queries from 5 p.m. ET.

And thirdly, the pair appear to have a sense of humor — as shown when they rickrolled a questioner complaining of boredom. A random Rick Astley video care of the White House may not help anyone’s understanding of economics and the debt crisis, but it certainly provided some much-needed levity.

In 1962, drummer Pete Best (right) was on the receiving end of one of history’s cruelest firings. His bandmates had just won a recording contract, but decided he wasn’t quite talented enough to stay in the band. They intended to replace him with a friend from a rival group: Richard Starkey (left), also known as Ringo Starr.

Best, beloved by the Beatles’ earliest fans, had to watch from the sidelines as his former bandmates and Starr became the biggest group on the planet. Now, thanks to a Facebook campaign, he is getting a little compensation from the city where it all started.

A group on the social network calling itself “Name a Street After Pete” aimed to persuade Liverpool City Council to honor Best; it gained more than 10,000 supporters. The council was persuaded, and announced Wednesday that Best would get not one but two street names in a new housing development — one for himself, and one for the Casbah, a club started by his late mother Mona, where the Beatles played some of their earliest gigs.

“We only name a street after a living person if it is an exceptional case,” councilor Malcolm Kennedy told the website Click Liverpool. “Pete Best is certainly one of those exceptional individuals — he has made a significant contribution to the musical heritage of our city, and he is a worthy recipient.”

The BBC spoke to a proud and humbled Best; you can see that interview here. A decade ago, Best received a quiet payout of up to £4 million for his part in the Beatles Anthology project, which features several tracks with his drumming. Getting a street named after you is a pretty big deal in a historic city like Liverpool, however, and we think the 69-year-old Best much prefers the recognition to the cash. Money, as his former bandmates once observed, can’t buy you love.

• February 12, 2010
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Social Media is as revolutionary as it is evolutionary. It represents an important chapter in the ongoing saga and transformation of new media.

Over the years, we’ve witnessed that the 10 stages of social media integration in business are almost always set in motion by an internal champion who is determined and impassioned to engender change from the inside out. These champions emerge from different disciplines and departments and are typically role agnostic. Depending on the organization, champions exist in customer service, communications, marketing, interactive, as well as executive management. The change that these champions engender will ultimately represent a revolution in the spirit, philosophy, vision, and framework for organizations, one that increases market relevance and dramatically enhances the opportunity for affinity and fidelity.

Champions however, are the beginning of an important movement, a mainspring that needs the alignment of more formidable allies and platforms to impact the business overall.

Social Media champions are often referred to as change agents or trust agents as their dedication rouses and inspires trust within their organizations as well as within the social communities that define their landscape of influence. Monikers we haven’t yet seen to define these advocates are ones that actually reflect their next stages of growth and advancement. Inevitably all champions become politicians and ultimately diplomats in order to truly become change agents across the entire organization. The difference is that a champion represents a catalyst for defining and presenting the case for adaptation and experimentation. They either do so by acting now and apologizing later, and/or they review and curate case studies and success stories in order to earn support for an official, funded pilot program.

As experience is established and initial successes are presented, champions are then challenged by inspired believers or worse, the opportunists within the organization who realize that social media represents an opportunity for personal and professional advancement. Internal competition ensues and without formal governance or training, social media becomes a landscape that resembles corporate anarchy.

Change agents are not martyrs however, and their passion is not overthrown by the materialization of opportunists. Their fervor is only intensified as they earn and build networks of support within as well as outside through online and offline engagement. Eventually our champions realize that they must become politicians in order to stimulate and advance social media adoption across the entire company. To do so effectively and with meaningful results, it is critical that social media earns the attention, support and focus of the executives who hold the wheel for steering the current and future direction of the company.

Politicians understand that in order to reach the greater goal of the cause they so passionately believe in, they must also lobby on behalf of that cause among the policy makers and change agents that exist in key posts at every level. In doing so, a wave of validation and constituencies will rise and grow as it migrates toward the heart of the organization.

Through every experiment, success, or failure, the understanding of social media only intensifies. As such, social media programming will grow more sophisticated over time – representing a new age for social media. In many ways, the potential for social media is beyond the grasp of any one individual and as such, politicians become diplomats to introduce experiences across the organization in sensitive and effective ways.

While social experimentation starts and flourishes within one department, every outward facing group as well as those affected by inbound and surrounding influence, will need to socialize (whether it’s through engagement or simply by learning through observation, listening and research). What begins as a bottom-up movement requires a top-down directive to precipitate a formal renaissance sparked by champions, lobbied through politicians, and promoted through emissaries.

The socialization of media creates a vital, plugged-in business channel and as such, support from the C-suite is mandatory. However, many executives are not clear in how they should lead transformation and therefore require guidance from those politicians who have successfully lobbied for and earned support. As discussed in my next book, the creation of New Media Councils or Advisory Boards are imperative to the expansion of socially-aware programs and the departments and resources that can support and scale with them.

The question of who owns social media suddenly dissipates in favor of a discussion that is far more substantial and productive. It’s a collaborative process embraced by the entire organization with specific benefits defined and delivered to everyone involved, including those affected by our actions.

Over the years, I have participated in the creation of many Advisory Boards, both internal (current employees) and external (stakeholders, influencers, experts), within small businesses and Fortune 500 companies as a way of organizing efforts and resources around the vision of champions, turned politicians. This council essentially facilitates collaboration, addresses politics, secures buy-in across the organization, pools budgets, and promotes accountability. More importantly, one of the council’s primary objectives and responsibilities is to ensure the education and advancement of employees to create an organization rife with ambassadors and advocates beyond the original group of champions. Advisors should include representatives from each division that requires a social presence, and let’s not forget legal, as well as those individuals who represent the people inside the organization as well as those who define our markets.

The path from champion to politician to diplomat is long and tumultuous, but it is however, essential to the furtherance of new media within the organization as well as to the career of those who remain diligent and sincere. While the word politician may evoke certain emotions, usually less than complimentary, the difference in goals, tactics, and objectives represents an intrinsic shift from proponent, promoter, and crusader to a new role as strategist, lobbyist, community builder, and campaigner.

Where do you see yourself in this sea of change?

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