• by Diane Mermigas , September 2, 2008

Regardless of your political or technological persuasion, you have to concede this is a time of extraordinary, inexorable change that demands a new brand of leadership. This parallel political and technological transformation is being driven by a powerful force: the grassroots empowerment of people.

It is what made Apple's iPod and iPhone cultural icons of connectivity in the same 18 months that Barack Obama gained the momentum and money to go from junior senator to Democratic superstar. Both have been catalysts for waves--not just ripples--of change among the masses that must now be managed and monetized.

Surely the unlikely soulmates of the presidential hopeful and Apple CEO Steve Jobs would agree they are writing the new rulebook on leadership. This is particularly true in the use of interactive technology to level the playing field while generating money, excitement and image. In fact, we are immersed in a historical reshaping and reinventing of business and government.

The Obama campaign's adroit use of the Web, text messaging, email, social networking and streaming video has set an unprecedented new standard for mining interactive media to connect with the electorate.

Obama's Thursday night acceptance speech before an open-sky stadium packed with 84,000 and more than 38 million more watching on television was a made-for-TV changefest. Internet-connected devices accounted for untold mega-streams. Convention attendees passed the time grooving to music and speeches, while texting messages and making fund-raising calls. The steady stream of personal sign-up emails from Obama and Biden were especially disarming shortly after the festivities when they featured backstage video of the pair signing formal ballot papers and casually speaking into the Webcam.

Perosnal politics aside, it is no small fete managing technology to connect to voters while building an effective campaign organization from scratch. That this machine steamrolled formidable Democratic rivals and raises $50 million-plus monthly during the primaries demonstrates a certain kind of savvy that is one part of the leadership mix.

Personalities aside, Jobs has exhibited similar aplomb jump-starting the mobile interactive craze. He has inspired a generation of pocket-sized cross-platform devices that are as natural to nearly all demographics as breathing.

Both cases represent an intimate, personalized use of technology that rallies the masses through the viral community-building and socializing that is a phenomenon of our times. The transforming grip of digital interactivity is challenging everything about how we do business. Harvard business professor Clayton Christensen writes about the challenges and opportunities of "disruptive innovation" that create new markets and new performance trajectories that promise services and products with more convenient features and lower prices. With that power comes a responsibility to use the creative flow of interactivity for the common good. And that's where leadership comes in.

How corporations, political and other organizations reinvent themselves around developing digital interactivity, and the mentality and expectations it nurtures, will shape a new age of public and corporate leadership. No one can afford to maintain the status quo. The Obama campaign is moving the bar higher on the creative and lucrative political use of technology. Apple and many other companies are spurring the technological transformation that is redefining the most fundamental relationships of consumers and producers of goods and services, suppliers and marketers.

Managing this transformation against an economic downturn is good and bad. It makes a complex task more complicated, while making it easier and more necessary to crusade for change. The task of embracing and building on the disruptive innovation of digital interactivity will mean setting new benchmarks and objectives. It will mean redefining values of companies, goods and services, business currency (such as advertising) and overall economics. It means carefully phasing out legacy and creating new structures, mindsets and business models. It means managing the turmoil and resistance to change inside silo-constructed companies.

The task is essentially the same if you are the Democratic Party or a corporate giant. Honing in and capitalizing on consumers' embrace of new digital media captures the essence of change leadership. With the long road of digital disruption stretched out before us, the best universal advice for all concerned comes from former General Electric chairman and one-man change-agent Jack Welch: "If the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near."