The State of the #SOTUSocial Is Strong

As I was headed to bed a couple of Thursdays ago, I checked my email one last time. A new message had just come through, and the subject line simply read, "White House SOTU Social invitation".I stopped in my tracks and opened the email, and sure enough, it was from Jenna Brayton. A quick Google search showed she was Associate Director of Digital Content in the White House Office of Digital Strategy. Her email address was a White House email address. The invitation didn't look all fancy or anything, but I preferred to believe that no one could spoof an official White House email address than to think someone was putting me on.Besides, I started hearing from other folks who had gotten invitations, and they'd all applied. And they, too, were a bit surprised at the unofficial-appearing nature of the invitation. It was legitimate. We needed to RSVP by 5 p.m. the next day, and over the weekend, we received an Excel spreadsheet to fill out with our information for background checks, including our Social Security numbers.We were to show up at the Guest Entrance to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building by 7 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 20. I arrived promptly at 6:30 p.m. with my good friend Ananda Leeke, a D.C. resident who's been invited to a few social media events at the White House before and knew the drill (check out her site - she's an artist, an author, a social media power user and a certified yoga and reiki, among other things).Ananda was my guru for the night. She urged me to wear comfy shoes and brought a nice cloth bag for me to keep my sassy shoes in. "Don't put them on until we're inside and sitting down," she urged me, more than once. Was she ever right."Keep your driver's license out. You're going to have to show it at least twice," she advised me. Yep. Lots of security ensued, but finally through the metal detector and we were in! Finally we stepped foot inside the actual Eisenhower Executive Office Building - the old one, right next to the White House.There we caught up with a whole bunch of folks I'd known online but hadn't met in person.I got to get my photo taken as if I were reporting from the White House.I also caught up with my friend Holly Ojalvo, founder of Kicker, a terrific news site that catches you up on everything that's important to know. We ended up looking like an American flag, standing next to one another.I'll admit, it was a bit surreal. No one really told us what was going on. Suddenly, it was time to sit down and pay attention, as the President was arriving in The Capitol and the lights went down in the room we were in.The tweeting commenced. The room was filled primarily with supporters of the President, as one would imagine, so there were many moments of applause in the room. (A full transcript of the State of the Union was posted just ahead of the speech, on the White House Medium account.)The speech began with the President outlining some of his administration's major achievements of the past few years - job creation at its fastest pace since 1999; more people insured than ever before; high school dropout rate at all-time low; only 15,000 American troops remaining in Iraq and Afghanistan.He segued into the "Jack and Diane" segment of the speech, where he highlighted a couple with children who'd come through the hard economic times, stronger than ever.The first of his #dropsmic moments happened shortly after, when he noted that "the middle class economy works".  Soon after, as he admonished Congress for not raising the minimum wage, "If you really believe that you can work full time and raise a family with less than $15,000 dollars, go and try it," the feeling in the room was that we were watching a president who no longer worried about politics, but was going to spend his last two years in office pursuing the issues he cared most strongly about.The room solidly applauded as he brought up his plan for free community college education for all who qualified - after pointing out that America thrived in the 20th Century after making high school free and sending thousands of GIs to college for free.As the speech went on, we saw a President Obama who basically said he wanted to send man to Mars, cure cancer and send everyone to college.The first meme of the night came about that time, as the President told astronaut Scott Kelly to Instagram space during his year off Earth, preparing for the first manned mission to Mars.Applause came as the President talked about tax credits, about global warming, about discrimination.And then the moment of his speech, the mic drop heard around the world.

"I have no more campaigns to run."

Snarky applause from Republicans in the Capitol.Pause.

"I know, because I won both of them."

ICYMI, here's a recap of the #SOTU pic.twitter.com/jy7aJeMd5T— shauna (@goldengateblond) January 21, 2015

Twitter exploded. The room exploded.And then the President complimented many on Capitol Hill, pointing out there were good people "on both sides of the aisle," and perhaps they could start working together to help the nation rather than automatically demonizing each other."We are still more than a collection of red states and blue states. We are the United States of America."That, my friends, is really how it should be. We all have our beliefs, and being American means we are legally entitled to have those beliefs and also express them. The trick is to be respectful of one another as we do that.I have friends who have beliefs different than mine. Some of them we can easily discuss and respect each other's viewpoint. Other things we might avoid because our friendship matters more than getting into an argument.After the State of the Union Address, we were treated to a live question-and-answer session between the Huffington Post's Sam Stein and Dan Pfeiffer, Senior Advisor to the President for Strategy and Communications. After Stein's questions, they pulled live questions from Twitter.A panel discussion followed with Pfeiffer, Labor Secretary Tom Perez, and others. Questions were taken from the live audience in the room, and from social media.I've never been at an event where so many hands shot up so quickly to ask questions. Questions touched on mental health, police brutality, sexual assault on college campuses, and what actually will be done to close the wage gap.Ending paycheck secrecy will go a long way toward solving that problem, Perez suggested.  And while there may be laws that address some of these issues, "Laws are only as good as the people enforcing them," he said. And those enforcing them need to hear from their bosses that these laws need to be enforced, as well.That's when I got notification from Who Trended It that #SOTUchat was trending on Twitter, and my Twitter account and a little account named @WhiteHouse had caused it to start trending. I have to admit, I was feeling a bit proud of myself.Finally, it was all over, we all said our good-byes to one another and hugged. We took a few photos in the hallways on the way out.I couldn't help but take some photos of Secret Service office doors.As we left the building, all was quiet in our nation's capital. And there before us was the White House, all snug and locked up for the night.I welcome any comments, even if you have opinions to express that differ from mine. Just stay civil. I'll delete comments if they turn personal and disrespectful - against myself, the President or any other commenter.