President Barack Obama's campaign organization has opened an office that's dedicated solely to the proposition of better politicking through technology. The Obama campaign recently took the wrappings off its first-ever Technology Field Office, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Wednesday.
Naturally enough, the trial balloon is located in San Francisco, the home of Web 2.0 startups like Twitter and Yelp, as well as dozens of tech media companies, and just up the road from the Silicon Valley offices of Facebook, Google, Apple, and other tech giants.
If the experiment proves successful, the campaign plans to open similar offices in other key cities, the newspaper reported.
Obama's effort to reclaim the White House in 2012 kicked off last spring with a clear message that the campaign would rely heavily on social media. The president has in the past year joined Tumblr, participated in town halls sponsored by Twitter and Facebook, done a live Google+ hangout session, and last week tweeted a link to his campaign's Spotify song list.
Right now, the Technology Field Office has just one staffer, though the Obama campaign is actively seeking more. PCMag asked the campaign if positions at the office would be paid or voluntary (among other questions, like what staffers will do all day) but we hadn't heard back as of Wednesday evening.
The Chronicle did get a general statement from Katie Hogan, deputy press secretary for the Obama campaign.
"We learned from 2008 that using the talents and skills of our supporters was a key to building the most effective organization," she told the paper. "We're taking the next step by providing tools and space for supporters in the technology community to help the campaign extend our current tools like BarackObama.com and our mobile applications."
So it sounds like the office may actually be looking for some serious Web and app developers, but also perhaps some less skilled talent to simply push out campaign messaging via various social media vehicles.
Will Republican candidates respond? Stay tuned.