This is probably going to be the laziest blogpost you’ve seen me write. I blame it all on my finally starting to learn the concept of retweeting—repeating and/or quoting somebody else’s tweets. In other media this is known variously as citation, sourcing, research, inspiration, or plagiarism.

Whatever. I draw from good sources when there’s no point in reinventing the wheel. This post is essentially a massive report of other people’s work, with some comments afterward. I encourage you to follow the links, ‘cos there’s some real thinking at the other end.

Consider, if you will, Paul Greenberg’s ZDNet blog from last week. For that matter, consider Josh Weinberger’s recent post on our own blog. Or Denis Pombriant’s usual excellence. Put them all together, add whatever you’ve been reading elsewhere, and you’ll see a pattern emerging.

This is not just about President-elect (for one more day) Barack Obama. It’s not just about Salesforce.com and its ongoing expansion into ever more facets of daily life. It’s about change.

I could take the easy way out on Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday and talk about the gratification I feel in seeing America’s first black president take office—that’s change. I could wave goodbye to the outgoing administration and point to the electoral pummeling John McCain suffered, in part because the voting public associated him with President (for one more day) George W. Bush—that’s change.  I could follow on the Salesforce.com thread with the announcement of the Service Cloud and declare once again that the consumer/customer has finally become the hub around which all business happens—yes, even that’s change. But those are all specifics, and the change I have in mind is broader in scope. Harder to pin down, but very exciting in its own way.

We are experiencing a fundamental change in the way communication happens. On the political front, Mr. Obama and his team showed an understanding of this, by reaching out through social media to truly have a finger on the pulse—even better, to look the populace in the eye. There will likely never again be a successful political campaign or initiative that doesn’t use instantaneous communication and real-time feedback.

On the business front, we have two-way and multipart conversations between customers and vendors, at least in the best cases. The days of floating new marketing and sales campaigns and waiting six months to see the results  are coming to an end. This includes the effect the masses are now able to have on the biggest of big businesses, such as energy, financial, and automotive companies.  If only we’d been more vocal, and sooner.

Socially, we are able to connect, work, and play with a broader slice of the world’s residents than ever before. I won’t say I’m as close to people on Facebook or LinkedIn as I am to those I see in person, but I am closer to them than I ever could have been previously. Some of my closest friends reach me primarily through IM or other new channels. I won’t say this is always the best method—my mom has worried about the decline of “people skills” brought on by electronic media, and perhaps rightly so—but it’s there, and it can be very good.

Basically, I’m more excited by the possibilities of life than I have been in some time. There’s snow on the ground in New York but it feels like an early Spring. Let’s use some of this new empowerment to support what we think is good, and more importantly to change what isn’t. There’s still horror in the world, but I feel like maybe it can be overcome.