Friends, election day has finally arrived and I love it. For one thing the threshold for talking to strangers has dropped out of the floor. “Nice sticker man!” to the guy passing you in the crosswalk will win you a big smile from just about anyone today. The elevator ride down from my office, normally a silent affair had everyone chatting about where they were heading out to, or what their experience was like in the morning. I got cheers when I shared that I had sent my absentee ballot off to Florida last week.

An Election of WE

If you haven’t seen it yet, check out Seth Godin’s lessons from the election. He write about the centrality of stories. Here’s the section that resonates with me down at the bottom.

“So why didn’t the ads work this time?

The tribe that Obama built identified with him. Attacking him was like attacking them. They took it personally, and their outrage led to more donations and bigger turnout. This is the lucky situation Apple finds itself in as well. Attacking an Apple product is like attacking an Apple user.”

Over over again this election season people speak about how “we’ve have to win” and how “we’re going to pull through”. My grandfather has been using the same WE with me since June and I enjoyed reading about Seth and Jackie’s voting stories from across the pond too.

Track Results

There are a ton of places to track election results tonight. I was also happy to find that MSNBC is streaming their coverage live- the quality is pretty good, so if you find yourself without a tv – never fear! You can get a nice bird’s eye view of coverage at Alltop too and Read Write Web has a nifty Election Day Web Tool Kit.

Also, if you’re into the wisdom of crowds you can check out Daily Kos’ predictions contest though that I’d bet that demographic is skewed enough to negate the theory in this case.

Election Day Schwag

There’s a ton of free stuff around town this election day.
(I’m writing this post from Starbucks across from my office as I enjoy my free coffee.)

Happy Election day everyone!