Seiko Champion

Although there are some pundits who think that his inauguration address was not one of his best speeches, even they agree that compared to the last 8 years, anything coming from Barack Obama’s mouth is both strongly spoken, and a refreshing wind of (dare I say that recently oft-repeated word), change.





This is the face of that speech. 26 years old, and a bona-fide member of the FaceBook generation complete with the public gaffes that characterize this part of Social Media. Compliments of Wikipedia…

Favreau joined Senator John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign after graduating from the College of the Holy Cross in 2003 as the valedictorian. Obama communications aide Robert Gibbs, who had worked for Kerry’s campaign, recommended his former colleague Favreau to Obama as an excellent writer. In 2005, Favreau began working for Barack Obama in his U.S. Senate office, before joining Obama’s presidential campaign as chief speechwriter in 2007.

On December 5, 2008, a picture of Favreau performing a suggestive gesture (grabbing a breast) to a cardboard cut-out of Hillary Clinton surfaced on Facebook. Favreau issued an apology to Clinton, whose spokesman referred to the photo as “an example of just good-natured fun between former rival camps.”

Here’s a bit more about Jon from the Guardian…

When Barack Obama stands up to the podium on the steps of the US Capitol to deliver his inaugural address, one man standing anonymously in the crowd will be paying especially close attention. With his cropped hair, five o’clock shadow and boyish face he might look out of place among the dignitaries, though as co-author of the speech he has more claim to be a witness to this moment of history than most.

Jon Favreau, aged 27, is, as Obama himself puts it, the new president’s mind-reader. He will be the youngest chief speechwriter on record in the White House, and despite such youth has been at the centre of discussions about the content of today’s speech which has so much riding on it.

I think we’ll see a lot more Social Media awareness in this US administration that before, even more than what the vaunted Kerry group might have brought to the table last time.