Wow, it feels like forever since I posted something here. Come to think of it, it has been. I don’t have any really good reasons, just excuses and it’s been far too long. Being removed from the direct stream of the Association world has been a challenge as it was a good source of inspiration for me. My new role as a Web Project Manager / Director of Instructional Design for a start-up has kept me busy and provided me a lot of great topics to write about but most of it has been highly technical in nature. I have to try to bring in some of the experiences and lessons learned because I do think everyone could benefit from what I am seeing / doing, but that is another post for a different day.

My reason for writing today is to share my excitement for the 2008 Election and try to get everybody else motivated and mobilized to exercise their right to participate in the democratic process. I have written about it before and it’s worth repeating again, I won’t use the blog for any specific political reason. I have been involved in politics and know how divisive it can be. I also feel that because we live in a free nation each individual should have the right, and responsibility, to vote for and support the individuals that they feel best represent what he/she believes in.

Having an undergraduate degree in Political Science and also having completed some graduate course work in the area, I aligned myself with the Republican party for a number of reasons. Most of it was based on an idealized vision of what the party stood for based on it’s tradition and founding ideals. However that was a decision that I made many years ago and a lot has changed, both in my life and in the party. Regardless of how I was aligned I never voted based on party affiliation, rather I voted my conscience based on the qualifications of those running for elected office.

I don’t like the idea of big government, don’t really care for government intervention in business or our day-to-day life, and think the role of the government is to provide a level playing field for people to succeed or fail on their own. I do think the government has a responsibility to help those less fortunate but don’t think those that have achieved more should be penalized for their success. Essentially, I think the role of the government is to keep the nation safe and and thriving and get out of the way. Needless to say my vote has always reflected those views.

The past 16 years have led us through some interesting times, both good and bad, joyous and tragic. No party should be blamed or credited for it. We the people have made it what it was, what it is and we will make it the way it will be. The first step in that process is exercising our right to vote but it extends far beyond that.

After the votes are counted and the winner is decided it’s up to US to work together. Party affiliations, socioeconomic status, race, gender, sexual orientation, none of it matters. Our greatest strength as a nation is our ability to transcend our differences and come together as one. This evening when I enter the election booth, I will be voting for Barack Obama, not so much because I dislike Senator McCain or don’t agree with his message, but moreso because I believe Obama is far more representative of my ideals and the future I would like to see created. I don’t agree with all of his platform just like I don’t disagree with all of McCain’s but I believe Senator Obama has the vision and energy to help get the US back on track.

I also appreciate his sincerity and his message of hope. Borrowing a passage from my fellow blogger and good friend Jake “The Community Guy” McKee said in his post titled: One voice can change the world:

Months ago, Senator Obama put in short form what many of us social media wonks have been struggling to communicate, and more importantly, prove.

If one voice can change a room,
then it can change a city,
and if it can change a city, it can change a state,
and if it can change a state, it can change a nation,
and if it can change a nation, it can change the world.

The Obama campaign has started a movement; it’s generated enthusiasm and action and interest in politics and activism. It’s made millions, including myself, believe again that a single voice has power beyond itself. This is Social Media. This is Community Building. This is Customer Collaboration. This is changing the world in the way those of us wonks have been begging the world to do.

Today is the day that you can make your voices heard. Today is the day that you can make a difference. Call me an idealist or romantic but I still believe in the democratic process and the fact that one vote does matter and can make a difference. Just get out there and vote.

While I do have very distinct political views and opinions probably stemming from my undergraduate political science background, I try to keep them from influencing my blogging preferring to keep my focus intellectually and technologically focused. However, ever now and then I come across something too good to pass up that allows me to talk about politics from a completely intellectual and/or technology-related perspective. This is one of those occasions.

My co-workers and I were discussing the Democratic National Convention and the closing event held last night one topic that arose was who John McCain would select as his running mate. For one reason or another we ended up going out to McCain’s website and we noticed something interesting (at least for a bunch of web application developers) and it’s a true study in contrast. If you take a look at McCain’s site in IE7 and Firefox 3.0.1 you will notice a pretty extreme contrast, especially when compared to Barack Obama’s First, here are screenshots (from today) comparing the two sites in the two different browsers both running on my Windows XP machine.

First in Firefox 3.0.1

Obama - Firefox 3.0.1 - Resized

McCain - FF3 - Resized

Now in IE7

Obama - IE - Thumbnail

McCain - IE7 - Resized

Notice how poorly McCain’s site renders in Firefox?

So what does all this tell you about the two candidates? Maybe something, maybe nothing. For me it tells me that Barack Obama has more astute developers who made sure that his site was usable and visually appealing to users on all platforms and all browsers. McCain’s not so much. Upon looking more closely at the two sites I also noticed that Obama’s site is written in PHP and MySql (both open source technologies) while McCain’s is written in Microsoft’s .NET (hence the .aspx extensions). The lack of support for open source technology by McCain and the use of it by Obama makes me think that one candidate is simply more in touch with technology (and probably has better technologists on his campaign staff).

So while this is a totally random and not related to anything scientific or definitive I think it is a perfect study in contrasts for our Presidential contenders. What other lessons can we glean from this? Especially from an association technology perspective?