Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Now connected to Barrack

Thanks to team Obama's enthusuastic embrace of the net and its new networking paradigms, just realised that I, and many others too, are just a couple of virtual handshakes or introductions away from the man at the helm of the US of A. I wonder how many of you would have actually searched for Obama on LinkedIn, I for one certainly didn't - pure serendipity.

Post the online tryst with Barrack's profile I searched for our very own home grown politicians. My search for Rahul Gandhi, heir apparent to the Congress top job and likely future PM of India, brought up 225 results but none that seemed to match the person I was looking for. There were 116 Sonia Gandhis on LinkedIn, none of them the Congress President. Names like Manmohan Singh, LK Advani, Somanth Chatterjee, Priyanka Gandhi Vadera, Prakash and Brinda Karat threw up anything between 0 and 200+ matches. Maybe they are another election year (technically five years) away from getting closer to the people through social networks.

Interestingly, Captain Gopinath and Krishna Byregowda, both 2009 contestants from Bangalore South Constituency for India's Lok Shabha or the House of Commons are on LinkedIn. Though further away from me in connection terms than Barrack.

1 comment:

Arun said...

Nice Post! You could try Twitter where you'd find the great man even closer! About India, maybe not five years. There are local body polls in a few months in many places. In urban areas at least candidates are certain to use social networking. Then legislatures in a few states go to polls next year, don't be surprised to find your local candidates sending you requests to connect. It's arguably a good way for it to happen: top up as against bottom down.

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