A Director of New Media for the White House!

I love this. The White House has a Director of New Media. How cool is that?

Macon Phillips, formerly Director, Strategy and Communications for Blue State Digital (or still? not sure) is filling the role. Blue State handled many of the Obama camp’s digital media efforts — things like Web site development and other organization and communication tools (not really the ads though).

Phillips’s first post to the WhiteHouse.gov site notes that the revamped-site “will serve as a place for the President and his administration to connect with the rest of the nation and the world.”

He expounded on three priorities of the administration’s new media efforts: Communication, Transparency (“executive orders and proclamations will be published for everyone to review”), and Participation (“we will publish all non-emergency legislation to the website for five days, and allow the public to review and comment before the President signs it”).

This last priority is pretty interesting. We’ll have to wait and see what is deemed non-emergency legislation as so much of the stuff we can expect to come out of congress will be in the emergency column in the near future, one would imagine.

Of course, any citizen has been able to access any legislation online in the past by accessing the House and Senate sites. However, having such documents easily linked to on the WhiteHouse site could result in more citizen engagement. Plus, a promise to wait five days to get the country’s reaction is a novel one.

Check it out here, and while you’re at it, don’t forget to read about former First Pets!