Bringing the town hall into the digital age

The 5th Summit of the Americas (a regional diplomatic conference for the Americas, surprisingly) is using a digital town hall  (on the howcast platform) to connect with citizens across the Americas. People can submit questions for Hilary Clinton to ask in a live video cast, follow the negotiations live via video streams, as well as reading blogs and following tweets.

So far, so good. I think the idea of connecting ordinary citizens with a diplomatic event that can feel very removed from their everyday lives is commendable. I think the execution lets it down.

What we’re getting are the same old ideas for participation, over and over again. Instead of just typing questions for Hillary, how about using the wisdom of the crowd through a Wiki to set some of the agenda for the politicians (they are supposed to be democratically elected, after all). Or what about bringing the citizen into the conference through holding live citizen participation forums, which contribute to and influence the political debate?

By focusing on the tools, the US State deparment (who is behind this) are missing the point of what the tools enable: democratic participantion. It would have been nice if they could have made some of these things happen.

On the up side, this sort of thing has many applications beyond politics: how about running e-conferences, government departments running digital seminars/lectures to disseminate the latest knowledge, charities creating a platform for widely-dispersed beneficiaries to come together to access services, or a small organisation to hold an agm? On these smaller-scale levels, greater participation by the general public is much more achieveable.

Most boring tweet in the world

Man asleep, 4rank, flickr

Ok, so this isn’t about the worst twitter feed in the world, but all the other titles I could think of were rubbish.

Twitter is a social networking tool. This means that it must be social. This means that you can’t use it to pump out an anonymous corporate line. If you’re going to use it for marketing you need to use it as a tool to make connections with your audience. You only get these connections by having a personality and being interesting.

A good example of someone doing it wrong are Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats. Post after post reads just like the beginning of a press release, linking to a web page where you can read about their latest policy brief, or something that someone has said. If I wanted to get their press releases I would sign up to their RSS feed from their website. If I’ve subscribed to their flickr feed then I want a connection. They need to give me an insight into Nick’s life and the inner workings of the Lib Dems. They need to give me personality and a story to keep me interested, otherwise I’m going to switch off.

There are some brands that are doing it well.

Innocent: personality with a distinct voice that is telling me interesting things.

Red Nose Day: again, a strong voice with a personality behind it means that I pay attention to their tweets.

Brands really need to get to grips with this if it is going to be a successful marketing tool.

Any other examples of brands/orgs tweeting well or badly?

Labour tries to emulate Obama

I saw this yesterday and was going to blog about it then but got caught up in other stuff last night so didn’t get round to it. Now other people have started to blog about it I thought I better get cracking – don’t want to be left behind.

Right. Labour have launched Labourspace - hot on the tail of Labourlist – another part of their attempt to do social networking and “be part of the conversation” (or whatever marketing bollocks their consultants told them).

And in true labour fashion it’s crap. I’m not going to go over the look and tone as Dave Briss has covered that off. My main problem is with the strategy. Essentially, what they’ve made is a popularity contest, a sort of X-factor for people who have a minor gripe and too much time on their hands.

This site will not reinvigorate the political process or encourage a whole new generation to engage in politics. It’s too simple and too narrow in scope – much like tfl’s attempt at a social network.

The new wave of political engagement is being driven by sites like CtrlAltShift – Christian Aid’s Youth network. Here there’s a blend of online and offline, content creation, participation and action. Most importantly, there’s a clear cause.

What most people seem to forget when discussing Obama’s campaign is that there was a clear cause with a specific goal over a definied time period. It was something that people could get behind because they could see measureable progress. From this, the engagement and the action naturally follow.

That’s what political engagement is lacking in Britain (and not just in the digital sphere) – a clear cause.