Why can't governments operate more like businesses? In a twist of fate, the White House now is demonstrating how businesses should operate. Including online. This was evidenced, perhaps more than anywhere else, at 12:01 p.m. .during the Presidential inauguration, at www.whitehouse.gov/blog. Yes, the White House now has a blog! I subscribed to in my Google reader. Did you?

While I'm generally not a big fan of making predictions, I do think that they can be fun and can spark valuable thought and controversy. With that in mind, I belatedly offer up some of my predictions for the advertising and media industry this year. Here they are.

I am starting this article on my BlackBerry, standing among well over one million people in well-below-freezing temperatures. It is Inauguration Day, and the anticipation is palpable. I am making new friends all around me, but even more impressive is how connected I am to people hundreds -- even thousands -- of miles away. In real time I can broadcast to those within my social graph the specific happenings moment-to-moment. I can take a picture with my camera phone and within minutes have the picture up on my Twitter, Facebook and MySpace accounts. I may not be able to feel …

Good customer service goes a long way to cementing a relationship, and if you play your cards right, it can even get you that pony you've always wanted!

We have been hearing about "Obama for America II" for a while, and for a moment it seemed unclear what would or could come next, especially once the race was won. Truly, at this launch, and even with my own personal exhilaration - as a consumer marketer, I am especially interested in "Organizing for America." This just-announced program represents the next true stage of Obama's original lauded grassroots community effort -- much of which was implemented through digital strategies and tactics.

Social-media technologies are subordinate (by a long shot) to business relationship goals, alluded my friend Peter Kim, who's building a consultancy focused on "enterprise social computing." And he's right. However, if you're building an online community, technology is inevitable. That's why it was reaffirming that Forrester Research's new evaluation of online community technology platforms rated Telligent Systems as among the top two. Last year, with far less third-party market intelligence available, my team adopted Telligent's Community Server to power our customer community and team blog.

Like many of you, I took some time over the holidays to read a book or two while unwinding and enjoying my leisure. For me, one of those books was Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers." Since I had already had several friends tell me about the book, I generally knew its basic premise before reading it: research demonstrates that many successful people owe their unique success more to being in the right place at the right time than to their talent. Happily, once I'd read the book, I realized that I was wrong.

Enough is enough already! If you're anything like me, you're getting a little tired of hearing how bad things are with the economy right now. I think it's about time that we start focusing on solutions and the positive trends in the marketplace rather than continuing to restate the obvious issues and challenges. After all, it's a new year and a fresh start! Let's look at what we do have going for us right now.

The forced, painful user experience that is watching TV though a cable set-top box is no different from the recording industry circa 1999. We all know how much better the experience could be, we have watched television content using TiVo, Hulu and downloaded content (legally and illegally), and yet to say innovation in cable viewing is lacking would be a mammoth understatement.

For some time now, I have been thinking about that imperative of listening to new people I mentioned last week. It's mind-altering to remain cognizant of this mantra whenever you fall into cycles of not doing so. Break the pattern when you can; it's a valuable habit-buster. This thought relates to a practical market theme I think we should all spend some time addressing: a collective commitment to fresh, meaningful programming of conference content and general association activities.