Reader Issue 5, 2011

The "Phoenix Man" around Obama

If you are in a confused stage of life, Chris's story may be interesting to you Helpful - not so much that you can copy his experience, but learn from his success.

Most people are confused because they have no goals. They don’t know what they want to do or what they can do. When encountering this embarrassing situation, the best way is to stop aimless imagination immediately and start setting goals.

Find out in practice, this is one of the most useful slogans of this century.

Who is afraid of failure when you are young

One afternoon in March 2007, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg received a resignation letter in his office.

Mark:

I want to leave the company temporarily to help a new senator named Obama run for President of the United States. Please believe that if it weren’t for my political ideas that coincide with his, Together - we all believe in the power of the individual and that we are the driving force behind change, and I would never decide to quit at this point. Apologize again.

Chris Hughes

Three years ago, three 19-year-old boys Mark, Chris and Dustin Moskowitz *** founded Facebook together. During the summer vacation, three good friends went to the West Coast of the United States to look for investors and secured venture capital. After getting venture capital, Mark and Dustin dropped out of school and stayed in California to continue building the website. Chris cherished the opportunity to study. He returned to Harvard and majored in history and French literature, but he kept in touch with Facebook.

In 2006, Facebook entered a period of rapid growth, with registered users exceeding 10 million. In time for the U.S. presidential election, Chris suggested that Mark allow political candidates to create their own homepages on the site. Soon, a new senator from Illinois knocked on the door asking for help, and Chris received him. He was Obama.

At that time, Obama was just an unknown senator with a weird surname. He had little qualifications.

He had neither the fame of Hillary Clinton nor the large number of donors waiting to donate to him. Although he is a big supporter of Qian, he still hopes to set up a page on Facebook to introduce himself. After the page was built, Chris and Obama became very familiar with each other, and Obama affectionately called him "Little Chris." Later, Obama strongly invited Chris to join the campaign team as the head of the network organization, and Chris agreed.

After three years of hard work

Facebook entered the ascendant channel in 2007. This dating website first appeared on Harvard campus and became popular at Massachusetts, Stanford, and New York University. With the popularity of students from prestigious schools, he quickly became popular,

and has a great impact on the world. Chris can't program or write code. He has been responsible for media research before, such as how people want to communicate on the Internet and how to make sharing information more convenient... Chris has collected a lot information and provide valuable suggestions for software design and development.

After reading the resignation letter, Mark’s mouth didn’t close for 10 seconds. But Chris had decided to leave, and Mark had to respect his choice. When Chris was growing up, this was a big decision. After all, everyone knew how great the potential of Facebook was, but Chris really liked taking risks and trying new things. Besides, one of the benefits of being young is not being afraid of failure. ?

Liberation from Identity

In Harvard, which is full of talents, Chris Hughes is also a legend. He comes from Walnut City, one of the most conservative cities in the southeastern United States, where 99% of the indigenous people are religious. It was not easy for Chris to get into Harvard. It had nothing to do with his IQ. He had to convince his parents first to get the opportunity to study abroad.

Chris still remembers that scene. November is the best month in Walnut City. The autumn wind is blowing in New York, but it is still warm and humid here. In a garden house in the west of the city, paper salesman Alan Hughes was lying leisurely on the sofa and taking a nap. He had just signed a big order through the Internet and was looking forward to where he would go during the Christmas vacation.

Today is a public holiday at school, and my son Chris will go home soon.

“Ding dong”, the doorbell rang, and 15-year-old Chris ran into the house as usual. "Mom," he shouted excitedly, turned around and saw his sleeping father, and immediately lowered his voice, "Come here, I want to tell you good news!" Brenda almost ran over, and Chris did tricks. He also took out an admission notice from his schoolbag: "I was admitted to Phillips Academy!"

From the moment his son entered the door, Alan woke up. He kept his eyes closed and eavesdropped on the conversation between mother and son. Until he heard the word "scholarship", he couldn't bear it anymore. He sat up straight and asked Chris seriously: "What? Are you going to high school in Massachusetts?" The light in Chris's eyes suddenly dimmed. In Walnut City, any independent choice would be regarded as disrespectful to the gods. "Dad, I got a full scholarship.

Please let me go there to study."

I don’t know what kind of tricks Chris used, but he finally got his wish. Went to the best high school in America. The three years at Phillips Academy had a profound impact on Chris. When he graduated, he not only entered Harvard University, but also confirmed his homosexuality and became an atheist.

Stepping out of Walnut City is Chris’s first step into the world. Hugo said: "The difference between geniuses and mortals is that the former are rarely confused and always have clear goals and are unswerving." Perhaps because he realized that he was gay, Chris was very young. He understands that he must stay away from his parents, his hometown, and his religion, so that he can breathe better and gain a bigger stage. However, following the rules will obviously not allow him to realize his dream.

Lucky Obama

Some people say that Chris is very lucky. There are many people who have Harvard diplomas but do nothing. But Chris meeting Obama at the age of 24 sounds like a miracle. But Chris believes that Obama is very lucky. If it were not for his joining and help, he may not be able to be elected president.

After joining the campaign team, the first thing Chris did was to lead the development of an online social tool that was used in political campaigns. In traditional campaigns, the Internet has always been regarded as a media platform for quickly disseminating information, but it has never been used for personnel organization and management. Chris saw this possibility before anyone else, and he moved quickly and swiftly.

In February 2007, when Obama announced his candidacy for president, the website was officially launched, referred to as MyBo.

MyBo embodies all the efforts of Chris and team members. It is an intuitive and interesting social networking site that allows Obama supporters to form their own teams, plan events, raise funds, download tools, and communicate with each other. — Like a more focused Facebook for political volunteers.

MyBo also allows the campaign team to find the most active supporters in the cheapest and most effective way.

At the beginning of the campaign, MyBo was not taken seriously, but after the failure of the New Hampshire primary, MyBo became increasingly important. Field guides sent to states have discovered the results of the MyBo community, such as when Jeremy Bird came to Maryland to prepare for the February 12 primary election, he was surprised to find that local volunteers have already taken action. They had everything ready: an office, seven computers, phone lines...these people met every two weeks and even elected their own state leaders. In the end, Obama won Maryland with 57.4% of the vote.

The MyBo community also provides suggestions and feedback to campaign experts. For example

The Texas campaign headquarters estimated that it would take two weeks to select volunteers to be sent to neighboring states to canvass votes, but after adopting the online interview method, it only took a few days; another example is that at the Chicago headquarters, the new The media team regularly searches the MyBo blog for compelling stories that reflect Obama's core beliefs. The power of network organizations is highlighted.

MyBo is by no means an ordinary website. Just as Facebook can stand out among thousands of social networking sites, it also has its own unique charm, and this is what Chris gave it - on the Internet Establishing a set of convenient, interesting, and inseparable relationships between people is like a net that will only bind those who enter it tighter and tighter.

By the end of the election, volunteers had left more than 2 million profiles on the MyBo website, planned 200,000 off-network activities, formed 35,000 teams, and posted 400,000 blogs , raising $30 million in campaign funds on 70,000 individual fundraising pages. It can be said that Chris accounted for 10% of the credit for Obama's successful election as president.

In order to affirm Chris’ work performance, Obama made a special trip to visit Chris’ parents when he went to North Carolina. It was May 2008, and Obama had just won the primary by a huge margin. A few days before the vote, Chris' parents met Obama at an Obama political rally in Wellington, North Carolina. They introduced themselves to Obama, and Brenda even cried with excitement. Obama pulled up a chair, sat humbly next to them, and chatted with them: "Your son Chris is very good. He is my network director. I am proud of him."

In September 2010, Chris got involved in the public welfare field, trying to "connect people who want to change the world

." He returned to the Internet industry. Someone asked him why he didn't stay with Obama all the time. His answer was concise and powerful: "The experience of assisting Obama made me realize that the Internet is what I want to see." No matter what kind of career I have, I can’t be as comfortable as I am now.”

Chris Hughes:

At the age of 19, he and Mark Zaha. Keberg *** co-founded Facebook.

At the age of 24, he became the head of the Obama campaign’s network organization.

At the age of 27, he founded the public welfare social networking website Jumo.com.