Consultation 6 articles

113_1356_medium Paul Johnston

Who should run the U.S.?

last updated over 4 years ago, 4 Comments

Here's another interesting one from the techno-democrats - I don't mean President Obama's team but rather those who like the idea of marrying technology and direct democracy. This time it is in the US and it looks like a good platform - http://whitehouse2.org/ I still think, however, that it is going in the wrong direction - the point is to transform our democracy, not to pretend it does not already exist! In my view the value of this kind of thing is that it increases pressure on g...

posted in US Obama Collaboration Consultation

Rolf_luehrs_version1_medium Rolf Luehrs

Discussion: eParticipation in Europe

last updated over 4 years ago, 2 Comments

Today an Internet discussion starts about the current state and future developments of eParticipation in Europe. It has been organised and will be moderated jointly by PEP-NET (Pan European eParticipation Network)  and the European eParticipation Study. Issues to be debated are: Existing and emerging technologies, channels, bottom-up vs top down, dangers, European public sphere, EU cooperation with other actors, EU learning experience, changes in nature of politics and institutions. P...

posted in Participation Consultation e-Democracy Europe

113_1356_medium Paul Johnston

Post-Bar Camp reflections on engagement

last updated over 3 years ago, 4 Comments

On Saturday I attended the second UKgov web barcamp #ukgc09, met lots of great people and heard lots of interesting stuff. Steph Gray (from DIUS) and I ran a session on consultation/engagement which was interesting although in one hour we only scratched the surface. Anyway below are some of the ideas the discussions suggested for me:1)    my idea for the X (internal) (the department/council etc) - a site open to all staff (and possibly partners?) where people can make suggestio...

posted in engagement Consultation Transparency

113_1356_medium Paul Johnston

Giving Citizens an Effective Voice

last updated over 3 years ago, 6 Comments

At Saturday’s UKgovtweb barcamp I am hoping to run a session on consultation with the UK Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills’s Steph Gray. He will bring a wealth of experience in relation to innovation consultations. I will bring one of my current obsessions – how do you aggregate citizen input into public sector consultations? With the best will in the world ministers and civil servants face an impossible task in trying to “take onboard” hundreds ...

posted in Consultation e-participation

113_1356_medium Paul Johnston

Mass Citizen Input

last updated over 4 years ago, 5 Comments

Now Obama is President the Change.gov site is now longer active and vistors are encouraged instead to go to the official whitehouse site. However, it is still (at the moment I write this) possible to look at the interesting experiment on mass citizen input which was the citizen briefing book. This enabled citizens to input ideas and comment on and vote up or down the suggestions of others. The most popular suggestions make interesting reading: 92970 points for ending marijuana prohibition 7...

posted in Obama US Consultation

113_1356_medium Paul Johnston

How do you like it - too wide or too narrow?

last updated over 4 years ago, 0 Comments

Steven Clift flagged up the Australian consultation on Future Directions for the digital economy which took the form of a blog. My initial reaction was that this was a great thing to do, but my second reaction was to worry about how they were going to handle the response - what do you do with hundreds of responses on broad strategic issues? how can you respond to them or take them on board? And of course the flip side of this is that it actually discourages responses - why should I as a citiz...

posted in Australia Consultation