Public Address System | Public Address Cafe | Speaker: Seeking Democracy 2.0

Public Address

Public Address — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 09:24:03 +1300

Discussion from blog post.

Brent Jackson

Brent Jackson — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 09:24:03 +1300

Call in Online Input or "Oi!" for short.

Russell Brown

Russell Brown — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 09:38:38 +1300

Call in Online Input or "Oi!" for short.

Now there's a recipe for misunderstanding.

David Hume

David Hume — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 11:47:05 +1300

Yeah...that one might be a tough sell, though it does have a nice Uncle Sammish "I want you" poster feel to it.

If the larger point is about listening, though, then I think it's a good one.

One of the challenges for us is not giving people the impression that...

Russell Brown

Russell Brown — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 11:50:59 +1300

I thought your point about the way that the present model for consulation and feedback keeps people separate was a good one. Everywhere else on the internets we're embracing the idea of taking cues from each other – it's why discussion forums like this work, for one – but in...

Alastair Jamieson

Alastair Jamieson — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 12:22:03 +1300

Another local example is the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment's forum on Sustainability Issues. I'd echo the 'Don't mess with us' point – it's got to be meaningful. There's plenty of conventional consultation that ends up a waste of people's time. If ways can be found for web based consultation...

Che Tibby

Che Tibby — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 12:22:59 +1300

i've been following the development of these types of media out of personal interest, and also reading the stuff published by your collegues over at the Network of Public Sector Communicators blog.

i'm right on board with the idea of using particular public forums as a means to circulate and...

Brent Jackson

Brent Jackson — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 12:40:34 +1300

I thought that citizens could use "Oi!" to get the government's attention ... oh well ...

The main concern I have with online participation is that, as with most online forums, the people who seem to have the most time to push their ideas, tend to be rabid extremists.

Any...

David Hume

David Hume — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 12:59:45 +1300

If ways can be found for web based consultation to increase transparency in decision making, that would be great.

Transparent decision making is good. That's definitely and end for this sort of work. But I think we also need to be looking for ways of using the technology to crank...

David Hume

David Hume — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 13:51:01 +1300

Brent--you make really good points.

One thing we know about web communities is that usually, only about 1% of all users actually contribute to the discussion. That's why online participation should be only one of a number of strategies for getting people's views on issues.

If we're going to ask...

Ben Austin

Ben Austin — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 14:48:30 +1300

The concern I have is that in large organisations this is just one more communications process/system that will be added to the list. It would require significant buy-in from the organisation (not just the IT department or blue sky senior leadership), let alone the community. Do people necessarily have time...

David Hume

David Hume — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 15:40:22 +1300

Ben--while the Shared Workspace isn't my area, I do have some rough figures for you:

SW has about 5000 registered users overall, 1500 of which have logged in within the last few months, even with the Christmas break etc.

As for the rest of your comments, I definitely see where...

tpeixoto

tpeixoto — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 02:32:34 +1300

You mentioned the difficulty of evaluation, and I think this is a major point to be approached.

However, when practitioners of participation (both online and offline) think of evaluation there is a current assumption of conceiving evaluation in quantitative terms (e.g. numbers of people participating) and / or in qualitative...

Clarke

Clarke — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 20:54:46 +1300

We''ve also got a fairly long timeframe. One of the main guiding policy documents for us is the E-Government Strategy. The target we're working toward is our 2020 milestone: "By 2020, people's engagement with the government will have been transformed, as increasing and innovative use is made of the opportunities...

ed pointsman

ed pointsman — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 12:23:50 +1300

From what I can see Clarke, there is no mention of a 2012 goal in the 2003 Strategy: where did you pick this up?

Clarke

Clarke — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 12:47:02 +1300

From the 2003 version of the Strategy:

Mission
By June 2004 the Internet will be the dominant means of enabling ready access to government information, services and processes.
By June 2007, networks and Internet technologies will be integral to the delivery of government information, services and processes.
By June 2010,...

ed pointsman

ed pointsman — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 13:13:48 +1300

Fair enough. Not sure that I agree with the functional equivalence. People's experience (engagement with) of something can be radically different from it's operation. Transforming the latter does not necessarily translate to the former – think of all the relaunched websites that __still__suck...

Also, engagement with government is falling around...