2. Outline
• The State in Crisis?: a view from the
academe
• Political Campaigning: The Obama
Effect
• Public Policy 2.0: What works; what
doesn’t
• Just what is eDemocracy?
3. The State in Crisis: Manuel Castells
Vertical, hierarchical
organisations are
collapsing into
horizontal networks
Major challenge for
parties, governments and
states controlling the
flow and use of
information [power] in
networks
Internet, in particular,
is driving growth of
‘informational politics’
4. Peer Production: Yochai Benkler
Commons Based Peer
Production:
‚the emergence of a new
information environment,
in which individuals are
free to take a more
active role than was
possible in the
industrial information
economy of the twentieth
century.”
6. US President in 3 easy steps!
Took messages to existing online
communities
Empowered individuals to tell the ‘Obama
Story’ on their behalf
Understood the network effect and built
solid foundations ready to scale
accordingly
8. Insight 1. Long-tail Donations
Growing trend of micro-financing
political campaigns
9. Insight 2. Death of the Soundbite
Voters watched campaign content – all
the way through
Up to 17 mins per video
10. Insight 3. Networks vs Campaigns
Network is more powerful than Campaign
Messages can spread much faster and effectively
Networks are resilient, but not nimble
If you have a network of 5,000 bloggers and one says
something stupid then it’s not the end of world.
However, if you take away the central co-ordinating
point they’re not easily corralled
Networks and campaigns can be allies, but they
ultimately have cross-purposes
Campaigns share tasks but not authority with their
supporters
11. LabList vs ConHome
“Labhome is a community
for people to talk to each
other - LabList will be a
content engine, offering
insight, thoughts, news,
[about Labour].quot;
16. Guido Speaks...
‚The Wiki idea is a good one for
collaborative projects.
Politics is not collaborative.
The reality is that politics is
a clash of ideas and ideology
as well as parties. Only a
deluded wonk would overlook
that non-trivial detail.‛
‚Miliband does not really care
what the quot;citizensquot; think. The
Wiki was a PR exercise in sham
consultation ...”
19. eDemocracy: a definition
‚making [democratic] processes more
accessible; making citizen
participation in public policy
decision-making more expansive and
direct to enable broader influence in
policy outcomes and keeping the
government closer to the consent of
the governed thereby increasing its
political legitimacy.‛
22. If you get it, share it...
Further reading:
Felix Stalder (2006) Manuel Castells.
Yochai Benkler (2005) The Wealth of
Networks.
Dave Briggs http://davepress.net
FutureGov www.futuregovconsultancy.com
Extended Reach
http://extendedreach.wordpress.com
Digital Gov UK on Delicious
http://delicious.com/tag/digitalgovuk
24. Simon Collister
Head of Digital
Weber Shandwick
www.simoncollister.com
linkedin.com/simoncollister
twitter.com/simoncollister
07971 612857
Notes de l'éditeur
No actual campaign in UK.... So far. We’ll see significant developments at the next geenral electionFor now we have to compare LabListvsConHomeConHome is in effect the natural campaigning site – being in oppositionLabList has attempted to catch-up and create a ‘grassroots’ rather than empwoer an exisiting grassroots