If you were watching the State of the Union last night, you no doubt heard President Obama’s strong message of America leading the development of cleantech. He encouraged America to “lead again” – meaning we should keep clean jobs here in America and not ship them outside of our borders. He said we will put “Americans to work making our homes and buildings more efficient so that we can save billions of dollars on our energy bills.”

Green building in particular is thriving in America right now. Michael Kanellos of Greentech Media said it best yesterday, “For green building companies, the good times have just begun.”  Everyday there are announcements of new products, new customers and yes, even new green collar jobs. A press release came across my desk this morning, with the headline “Green Building is the Economy’s Bright Spot.”  One of our clients, Serious Materials recently announced the creation of green jobs.  If you work solely in green building, it may even be hard to admit there is a major recession going on right now.

Green jobs aren’t the only things that can change our economic challenges. The economic stimulus bill that passed last week will play a large role in saving energy and money for Americans. As part of the plan, you and I can get tax breaks for installing energy efficient windows, doors and appliances.  If there was ever a time for upgrades, now is that time.

I for one was encouraged by the President last night, especially when he spoke about how “now is the time to act boldly and wisely – to not only revive this economy, but to build a new foundation for lasting prosperity.”  Part of that new foundation includes  investment in green energy and building. It is a great feeling to hear the promise of energy-efficiency and savings making an impact on the mainstream society. It’s true, there is hope.

If you’ve been following the 2008 Presidential Campaign, you are well aware that Obama sent out his pick for Vice President via text message . This is another way his campaign has stressed Obama’s position as a young, tech-savvy leader who’s in touch with the American people. But as Monica Alleven of Wireless Week points out in her article, “Keynote cites Performance issues B4 Obama Text,” the plan to distribute Obama’s selection didn’t necessarily go as planned.

If you’re on Facebook, you may have come across the many status updates saying things like, “waiting for the Obama text” and then the next day… “didn’t get the text, but I got the email.” As Monica states in her article, Keynote Systems “believes between 40% and 50% of people who subscribed to get the VP selection text message may not have received the message in a timely fashion or “very likely” never received the text at all.” Some may have even received the text message as late as last Sunday.

In Monica’s article, she speaks with several experts who recommend having a back-up plan in place for these types of situations. And while many will agree this was a smart PR move for Obama to make his mark as the first presidential candidate to send out his VP choice via text message, I’ll bet the next time he does it he will have a back-up plan in place. I know I would.

No matter what your political leanings are, it’s important to take note that recently candidate Barack Obama, at a roundtable discussion at Purdue University, pledged to fight nuclear, biological and cyber threats. Although the first two are exceedingly important, as a telecom person, I was most interested to see that threats to our information infrastructure were given such a high priority.

Mr. Obama said, “Every American depends – directly or indirectly – on our system of information networks. They are increasingly the backbone of our economy and our infrastructure; our national security and our personal well-being. But it’s no secret that terrorists could use our computer networks to deal us a crippling blow.” Think of how much we interact with computers and how much of an impact they have on our lives from banking to medical records and personal blogs to the electricity grids and telephone and broadband networks. From our microwave ovens to flight control, computers are everywhere. Any terrorist attack on the country’s information infrastructure would be devastating.

Let’s take this thought one step further, how much of an impact would it have on your business if the computer network, phone system, data storage and website were hit by natural or man-made disaster? What contingency, back-up and continuity plans are in place? How quickly could the company be back up and running? Unfortunately, it takes a tragedy to get us all to think about these things and then complacency takes over again. After September 11 and Hurricane Katrina, these issues were in the press constantly, but not as much now; however they should always be top-of-mind.

Know your network.