The following excerpts from a Don Tapscott commentary on globeandmail.com advancing ideas from his new book, Grown Up Digital, should be read in conjuction with two other recent posts:

From The Globe:

If Barack Obama is elected U.S. president tomorrow, it will be a spectacular display of power by a new generation of young Americans. They overwhelmingly support Mr. Obama, of course, but their clout is far greater than the number of their votes. Their real power lies in the way they use digital tools that give them unprecedented abilities to spread information, work together and organize.

Young Americans have used these tools to rewrite the political playbook in the campaign to elect the first African-American president. Just wait until they start using them to shake up the world of work.

I call them the Net Generation, because they're the first generation to grow up digital. These are the children of the baby boomers, young people turning 11 to 31 this year. They're the biggest generation ever - even more numerous than their baby boomer parents. For them, digital technology is like their parents' fridge: It's not technology to them, but simply a normal part of life. ...

The Net Generation are starting to use these remarkable digital tools to transform every institution of modern life - as this year's presidential race has shown in such a spectacular fashion.

Think back one year: Senator Hillary Clinton was supposed to win the Democratic nomination. She had raised immense sums of money and had cultivated high-powered supporters.

But Mr. Obama understood the power that young people could wield with their digital tools. He hired Chris Hughes, one of the co-founders of Facebook, to take charge of the campaign's online organizing. Mr. Hughes quickly changed the rules of political organization. Instead of using the Internet to tell each supporter what to do, he gave each Obama supporter the power to organize events, raise money and tell friends, without waiting for permission from head office. The results - in terms of winning votes and raising money - were astonishing.

In terms of politics, it remains to be seen if the Net Generation shows up and votes.

And while Obama has clearly been the favoured candidate of the young, he had to build a bigger coalition than just them.

But as someone who tries to make sense of what's going on in the online sphere, it seems to me that Obama's website does a better job than McCain's of harnessing energy.

To see what I mean, go to BarackObama.com. In the dead centre of the page is a box saying, "Find Your Local Volunteer Event" (I plugged in the only U.S. postal code I know by heart - 90210 :) )

Here's the text that accompanies the phone bank ad:

Make sure every Obama supporter votes! Come to the Los Angeles Election Day Phone Bank at the Century Plaza Hotel.

We will be calling voters all day to get out the vote all across the country. (Come in for as many shifts as you can. We'll keep calling until the polls close.)

Once the polls close, we will head downstairs to the PARTY to celebrate.

Be part of the final push to put Barack in the White House! When you see those states turn blue, you'll know that you were part of making it happen.

Be part of something bigger than yourself and party with us once it's over. In other words, building community, but not just in the ethereal online world where, as a New Yorker cartoon once noted, no one knows you're a dog.

Go to JohnMcCain.com and it's a little different. The volunteering stuff is off to the right. That website wants an email address and a zip code. The website isn't as clear about where you can get together with other McCain supporters to both volunteer and then watch events unfold once the polls close.

I don't think the election turns on that nuance. Without wanting to get into a partisan debate, any Republican candidate this year would have faced an uphill struggle, given the unpopularity of Dubya and the legacy of some of his adminstration's policies.

But I do think it says something about the differing approaches to strategy, both online and off, for the two camps. And if Obama does triumph, people may wish to think more deeply about the role of his online campaign in building a winning team on the ground too.

I still think you need both.

But I accept Tapscott's basic thesis that Net Gens are fluid in the use of these new tools in a way that older generations simply aren't. That effect won't be going away in the coming years and decades.

So what does that mean to my industry, the news biz? I gotta think about that some more. :)