SAN JOSE, Calif. — Less than six months after
President Barack Obama visited Facebook, the president will use another
Silicon Valley social network, LinkedIn in Mountain View, Calif., to
host an online discussion about jobs on Monday.
“During
the town hall, the president will answer questions about job creation
and the economy from members across the country and hear directly from
LinkedIn users who range from small business owners and employees to
community college students to veterans,” the White House announced in a
posting Tuesday on LinkedIn. The president will speak from the Computer
History Museum, near LinkedIn’s headquarters.
Other
details about the presidential visit, including the time of the town
hall, are not yet available. But LinkedIn users can currently post
questions for the president from the White House LinkedIn page, and the
president’s town hall event will be streamed live on LinkedIn, and from
the White House website. The visit will be part of a three-day swing by
Obama to the West Coast, including events in Seattle, the San Francisco
Bay Area, Los Angeles and San Diego.
LinkedIn CEO
Jeff Weiner, in a company blog post, said the town hall would be an
“open exchange” about job creation, and about “the widening gap between
talent and opportunity” in the United States. During the town hall,
Weiner will be on stage with Obama.
“During the
past several months, the national conversation has been increasingly
focused on the state of the U.S. economy,” Weiner wrote. “This town hall
is an invitation from the White House to people from across the country
for an open exchange on one of our most pressing objectives as a
nation: the creation of jobs and economic opportunity.”
Obama, who visited Facebook in April, has been a pioneer in using technology for his political platform.
The
president chose a critical moment in his confrontation with
congressional Republicans on the budget this spring to use the power of
social media for his agenda, as he tried to tap into the predominantly
young, 750 million-member network of Facebook at a town hall event where
he fielded questions from voters side-by-side with Facebook CEO and
founder Mark Zuckerberg.
LinkedIn’s audience of about 120 million members is smaller, but its mission is also more focused on employment and jobs.
LinkedIn
users can post questions for the president starting now from the White
House LinkedIn page. Obama’s town hall event will be streamed live on
LinkedIn, and from the White House website.
Also
on Monday, at 3 p.m., Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg will host a live
discussion with three top House Republicans: Majority Leader Eric
Cantor, Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy and Budget Committee Chairman Paul
Ryan.
The three will field questions from Sandberg and Facebook users on the site’s live video channel, Facebook Live.
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©2011 the San Jose Mercury News (San Jose, Calif.)
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