Today, Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States. As the country’s first African-American president, he is the emblem of his promise: change. But what Obama achieved was not just because of the color of his skin, his Harvard education, or his calm temperament. He had help, from us — citizens with whom he reached out to, connected and engaged with, where we are. In other words, he didn’t speak to us through the television screen, he followed us on Twitter; he text-messaged us when he announced his vice presidential candidate; and he was our Friend.

I had the opportunity to speak with Barry Libert, author of “Barack, Inc.: Winning Business Lessons of the Obama Campaign” (FT Press; January 19, 2009), about his thoughts on how Obama successfully used social media to get to where he is today.

CRM magazine: The timing of this book was incredible — was it a mad dash to get it published the day before inauguration?

Libert: It was. What happened was, I had been blogging on our company Web site since spring about the fact that I thought this was a monumental change in politics, in which one of them would be the first social leader we’ve ever had in the United States. I don’t just mean presidential leader, but I mean social leader.

You could see the difference between McCain, who couldn’t find the Internet, Hilary Clinton, who I really think should have won — again, this is just a social picture — because 52 percent of the electorate is women and I have two boys and they’re definitely not as social as their girlfriends are; and therefore, she should have embraced social technologies and really never did. Barack, who was a huge supporter and user of social technology, [used it] to connect with 13 million members, constituents, in an online world.

So I had been blogging on this all spring and summer, my board was not thrilled about it, arguing that I was picking a president, but I wasn’t. I was arguing that this was the beginning of a massive change in leadership. When he got elected, we went crazy to write the book.

CRM magazine: Looking four or eight years down the line, the next campaign will hopefully be even more innovative, but what can businesses learn from this?

Libert: He’s not just revolutionizing his role, he’s revolutionizing all leadership roles. If you think about the fact that historically, businesses have a basic thesis: “Don’t take it personally. It’s just business.” I think he’s proving that that’s a big mistake, and it’s a terrible misnomer. Business is very, very personal. If you fire someone, it’s personal. When you sell them a bad product or service, it’s personal. Or [when] you disappoint investors, it’s personal.

I think companies and leaders like Donald Trump and Rick Wagoner of [General Motors] do us a disservice by arguing that it’s not personal and [they] don’t take it personally. Even when George Bush says, “I’m your Commander-in-Chief.” If I went home and told my wife I was her Commander-and-Chief she’d kick me out of the house. But that’s the way leaders lead. They really believe it’s, “I say, so you do it.”

Even CRM, [Obama] did it correctly. CRM is about how I [the customer] choose to interact with you [the company], not how you keep track of my contact information.

On [Saturday] when he came up on the train from Philadelphia [to Washington, D.C.], when he said “I love you back.” Tell me how many leaders you know say, “I love you” to their own employees and customers.

CRM magazine: You speak about change, but often times, the change agents are the ones at the lower levels, in siloed departments. How do we motivate the CEOs?

Libert: Change is not going to happen from the bottom up. It’s got to happen from the top down. If leaders still believe — and I think wrongfully so — that business is not personal and that they shouldn’t take it personally — right now, business is, “for the leaders by the leaders,” as opposed to, “for the people by the people.” I think that these companies that continue to lead top down like GM, Ford, and Chrysler are ultimately not going to be successful.

Companies that are going to be led in a grassroots environment — online, on time — by using online communities are fundamentally going to be successful because constituents are going to feel personally connected to the leaders, personally connected to the business, which means they’ll be more satisfied that they’re being heard. Voice of the customer. Voice of the employee. Companies that think that social media is something that kids should do, I feel bad for them. I think they’re going to fail miserably in the next decade.

CRM magazine: If it’s a generational thing, once Gen Y gets to be the majority in companies, will everything just change naturally or will it require change now?

Libert: It requires [change] now. Some 70 percent of all employees are under the age of 30. Gen Y is in the workforce. They’re not the CEO, the board, the chairs, but they are the constituents that are customers, employees, and future investors. So if leaders can suggest, or believe, that Gen Y doesn’t know what they’re talking about, they’ve got it sorely wrong. [Gen Y] knows more than I do about how to use these technologies to connect with large audiences. It’s their technological prowess that allows them to harness this information. Barack Obama had Chris Hughes [coordinator of My.BarackObama.com]. Every CEO is going to need a social czar…not a secretary keeping track of his election dates.

CRM magazine: Are the Gen Y’s in the workforce being suppressed? Are they actively being discouraged from using these social networks?

Libert: That’s  exactly what’s happening. My son has spent 2 years on Wall Street as a summer intern and they all say, “You can’t use your Facebook account. You can’t use your iPhone. You’ve got to use the BlackBerry, or we’re not going to let you connect.” What did he do? He went online anyway using mobile Facebook to connect with all of his friends.

These leaders have lost control and lost touch with what customers want from them now, otherwise they wouldn’t be asking the customer for so much help. They just lost the view that they’re supposed to be serving the customer and employees the way customer and employees want to be served. If you look at this year’s end results, Internet sales were only down 1 percent, which is an amazing holiday result, versus all retail sales [which] were down 7 percent and many retailers were down 35 percent. Not only has the world moved to the internet, it’s moved to social and I don’t think leaders understand that this is not kids’ stuff anymore.

CRM magazine: As a social media solutions provider, you have direct insight into what’s going on in terms of adoption — are companies improving, albeit slowly?

Libert: Absolutely. It’s not as fast as I’d like it. I started my business in 2001. We had 9 employees, 500 users, 10 customers. Today, we have 200 customers, 14 million registered users, 50-70 million unique visitors a month who are using our client sites. You’re beginning to see an uptake in the enterprise. We manage about 2 billion social conversations a month for our clients…that’s up from 2001 when we did literally 10 interactions a day online. I hope next year we’ll do 10 billion conversations a month, on behalf of businesses, with customers and employees.

It’s not CRM the traditional way. These customers are putting up their own profiles, telling companies what they want, when they want it, [having] real time conversations about the company’s cultures. It is really the customer and employee electing how they want to be served.

CRM magazine: How do you think, going forward, Barack Obama will continue to use the personal ties he’s made?

Libert: He’s already looking for people like us…He won’t sign any [non-emergency] legislation until he gives everybody in the U.S. five days to comment on it. That’s like the CEO of a company who says, “I won’t launch a new product, a new service, a new campaign without five days of review by the customer and employee.” That’s unbelievable, and you can make it all transparent.

Is he going to be perfect? No, he’s not from Marvel Comics. He’s not Superman. He’s just a human being, but at least he’s doing his best using today’s mental models and today’s technologies.

I think every company has three objectives: to build their brand, to develop their people, and to generate financial results. He did that impeccably as a community leader, not as a business leader. I think the future of our leadership is community-based. Leaders will become community leaders, not business leaders. They’ll learn how to build their personal and business brand by being humble and showing humility, which he’s done, by partnering and leveraging their community. He made $800 million by letting people help him be successful.