President Barack Obama was the first politician to master social media (though he did tweet-spam people in July to get debt legislation passed). Frustrated with a Republican-controlled Congress that has not passed his American Jobs Act, he has now tasked his policy staff with getting job-creation ideas from people "outside Washington" via a form at http://www.whitehouse.gov/advise that says "Advise the Advisor: your direct line to the White House."

The form asks you to give a goal for the nation "to get our economy back on track" and then list the actions President Obama should take as well as what community groups and state/local governments can do. We bet few Americans know which things a president can do without congressional approval (or that government agencies like the Department of Education and Homeland Security are part of the executive branch), but the staffers will sort that out.

You also have to include your first and last name and an email address (no verification); city and state are optional. Once you hit submit, you get a thank-you page for a different campaign (!). We can only wonder whether spam and pleas to legalize marijuana will outweigh actual ideas -- and we hope sophisticated software on the backend will make it possible to surface the ideas they do receive.

The top of the "Advise" page features a video of Nancy-Ann Deparle, deputy chief of staff for policy and a senior adviser to Obama, giving some of the same talking points listed below the video.

Says Nancy, "Time and again, we noticed that the most creative ideas come from outside Washington. We're hoping that you'll take the time to go to our website, whitehouse.gov/advise, and give us some of your ideas on how we can create jobs and put people back to work." [ See below for video transcription. ]

Helpfully, the White House has also provided a list of actions it has already taken, such as directing agencies to move faster in transferring federal R&D to the marketplace (in other words, don't tell us to do something we've already done).

This isn't the first time a government has crowd-sourced policy. In the U.K., the government agency Becta -- which aimed to promote and standardize technology for learning -- crowd-sourced policy through its Twitter account, among other approaches, before Prime Minister David Cameron shut down the agency in 2010 as part of larger budget cuts.

Video transcription (first minute only):

"My name is Nancy Ann Deparle, and I'm the deputy chief of staff for policy and a senior adviser to President Obama. As you know, the president has been working hard to pass his American Jobs Act, a common-sense proposal that will help create more jobs, put Americans back to work and put more dollars back into the pockets of American families. But some in Congress are determined to block the president at every turn.

"We can't wait for Congress to pull it together to try to help solve these problems, to take action to put people back to work. And that's why the president has asked me and some of my colleagues here at the White House to work on concrete ideas and actions that he can take to help the American people and create jobs.

"But the 'we' in 'we can't wait' doesn't just include those of us who work here at the White House. It includes everyone, and that's why we're asking for your help. Time and again, we noticed that the most creative ideas come from outside Washington. We're hoping that you'll take the time to go to our website, whitehouse.gov/advise, and give us some of your ideas on how we can create jobs and put people back to work."

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