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Interview: Ismael Peña-López at EDEM106. May 2010 – 14:23 by Bengt Feil (TuTech Innovation GmbH) |
I had the chance to sit down at the EDEM10 conference in Krems / Austria today for a quick chat about the idea of Mr. Peña-Lopez from the Open University of Catalunya that the way we implement eDemocracy and eParticipation might lead to the development of a new digital elite and the problems which arise from that:
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“The internet is changing society and public administrations need to adapt”: Interview with Nick Booth14. April 2010 – 22:57 by John Heaven (TuTech Innovation GmbH) |
Photo of Nick Booth by aeioux on Flickr.com
Before becoming a social-media consultant and founding Birmingham-based Podnosh, Nick Booth was a BBC journalist and then ran a government quango. He advises public administrations on using social media, is involved in many projects that promote active citizenship, and is a major player on the UK’s eParticipation scene. Nick is regularly invited to speak at conferences on social media.
JH: Hi Nick. Thanks for taking the time to be interviewed for PEP-NET. First question: what does eParticipation mean to you?
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Mapping eDemocracy in SEE: from UN eParticipation index to NGOs cases in Slovenia24. March 2010 – 11:31 by Institute for Electronic Participation |
Executive summary of presentation from the 11th Bled Forum on Europe Foresight Conference “The Future of Information Society and Challenges for Good Governance”, organized by the Centre for eGovernance development from 10th to 12th March 2010 in Bled, Slovenia:
According to the latest UN E-Participation Index measurement, the majority of South East Europe countries (Albania, Croatia, FYR Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro and Romania), improved their global standing regarding the quality and usefulness of information and services for the purpose of engaging its citizens in public policy making through the use of e-government programs. Nevertheless, e-participation in SEE region is still falling behind their e-government developments. An overview of current e-participation situation in SEE within government domain is presented, highlighting key elements needed for strengthening e-democracy in the region. One of them is focusing on non-governmental organizations and civil society e-participation experience (e.g. on-line Citizen’s forum) needed for shaping inclusive and citizens oriented e-government policy.
Presentation slides are available at the Institute for Electronic Participation web site http://www.inepa.si/images/stories/mapping_edemocracy_see_region_delakorda.pdf (pdf, 1.49 mb).
As has become customary over the years the conference concluded with a draft declaration, which had been adopted by the participants of the conference. The process of formulating the declaration is based upon the main issues presented by the lecturers and highlighted by the participants in the discussions which followed.
To achieve even wider participation in the formulation of the Final Declaration of the 11th Bled Forum on Europe, your are kindly invited to provide comments, inputs, questions, add issues important to the development of information society not only in South East Europe, but around the world.
Please send your comments or your video responses to info.cegd@cegd.eu until the 12th of April 2010 and make sure your voice is heard and your opinion is included in the final declaration. You can publish your comments directly to European Debates on-line forum facilitated by the Institute for Electronic Participation (INePA) by fulfilling discussion form (Please enter your Username - Uporabniško ime, message Confirmation code - Potrditvena koda and submit your comment - Pošlji. No prior forum registration is required. Forum is also available in English language). The forum is providing a deliberation space for facilitated public debates and consultations on relevant European issues.
Web links to relevant sites:
Draft declaration of the 11th Bled Forum (pdf, 71 kb)
European Debates on-line forum
Simon Delakorda, M.Sc.
Institute for Electronic Participation
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EDem10 - Extended Call for Papers28. January 2010 – 12:59 by Centre for E-Government |
Extended Call for PapersYou can submit a paper at the conference website until
1st of March 2010. EDem10 unites many different disciplines and promotes interdisciplinary approaches to E-Democracy. On primary aim is to bring together researchers and practitioners. We would like to invite individuals from academic, applied and practitioner backgrounds as well as public administration offices, public bodies, NGO/NPOs, education institutions and independent organisations to submit their research and project papers.
Please visit the conference website to register at EDem10. Members of PEP-NET benefit from reduced fees; please indicate your Special Status when registering! Conference Date: 6th and 7th of May 2010.
We are still working on the programme, but confirmed keynote speakers and workshops promise an exceptional event. There will be a PEP-NET Workshop! Please visit the Conference Website for details and regular updates.
Further Information
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Croatia: 3000 bloggers for Pollitika.com6. December 2009 – 13:37 by Eric Legale |
“Independent but not neutral” is the self definition of Pollitika.com. Launched in 2006 by Marko Rakar, known for his political notes on his blog about the political situation of this south european country of 4.5 million inhabitants, Pollitika.com has become an inevitable website about politics. Three thousand bloggers are enrolled and contribute to the website. About 2.000 new articles are published every year for 150.000 visitors per month.
Mark Rakar is a passionate man. During the visit of the French National Assembly, proposed to the participants of the last World eDemocracy Forum, he enjoyed every moment and every picture. Curious by nature, quoting the American strategist Joe Trippi and convinced that an electoral campaign is “too serious matter to be left to political parties”, it was not a surprise that he is one of Top 10 Who Are Changing the World of Internet and Politics. During the eDemocracy Awards workshop, last october, he explained how Pollitika.com strengthened democracy in Croatie.
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Using Google Wave for eParticipation?30. November 2009 – 11:04 by Bengt Feil (TuTech Innovation GmbH) |
Over the course of the last few weeks there was a lot of noise about Google Wave and its potential to transform everything from newspapers to novel writing. The Wave approach, which consists of both a tool and a underlying protocol, has be discussed as being the solution that will unite online communication and therefore revolutionize the web at the same time as it has been described as being complicated and not very useful.
I wrote an overview about the tool and the Wave protocol earlier on this blog and promised to take a look at its possible implications for eParticipation. Luckily Tim Bonnemann started a discussion on how to use Google Wave for eParticipation using the tool itself as soon at it was available. If you have a Wave account you can be view it here. In this article I will try to give the major points which have been made in that discussion. All the ideas presented in this text have been developed collaboratively by the 59 people have signed into this Wave until now. Thanks to all the contributors and especially Tim for starting the Wave!
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The Socialist Group in European Parliament website’s audience has doubled because of Twitter8. November 2009 – 19:43 by Eric Legale |
“The Alliance & Progressive Socialist Democrats in the European Parliament website’s audience has doubled in one year, because of Twitter” said Tony Robinson, head of the Internet Unit for this Parliamentary Group in Strasbourg during the European e-Democracy Award presentation for the 2009, in Issy-les-Moulineaux, last October 23.
A distinction awarded by Politech Institute and IP label for the variety of web 2.0 tools used and of the content of a website whose aim is to increase citizen participation in the European debate.
A presentation to see in video: [To watch the video]
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EDem10 - Call for Papers20. October 2009 – 15:22 by Centre for E-Government |
“A revolution doesn’t happen when a society adopts new tools. It happens when society adopts new behaviours.“ (Clay Shirky)
EDem10
4th International Conference on eDemocracy
6. and 7. May 2010
Danube-University Krems
Scientific eDemocracy visions and models have been developed since the 1960s, but it is now, during the first decade of the 21st Century, that they are becoming reality, being tested and implemented. Extensive IT provides the necessary basis, but it is not the developments in IT alone that are responsible for successful eDemocracy projects – it is due all those who use and apply them, as they adopt new behaviours and change old ones. The new, digital generation lives and breathes new values: they collaborate, compile content together, share their ideas, create networks on social platforms and organise themselves quickly and simply. The new values held, the new behaviours adopted, the changed mindset, along with improved usability and a still-increasing use of the internet, has led to a rapid and radical change in our society.
The EDem10 focuses on these changes which can be seen occurring in different areas and which are manifest in different way:
On primary aim is to bring together researchers and practitioners. We would like to invite individuals from academic, applied and practitioner backgrounds as well as public administration offices, public bodies, NGO/NPOs, education institutions and independent organisations to submit their research and project papers.
The main conference language is English; submissions in German (with an abstract in English) are also acceptable.
Further Information:
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Impressions of the eDem 09 conference in Vienna9. September 2009 – 15:49 by Bengt Feil (TuTech Innovation GmbH) |
On September 8th and 9th 2009 the European eParticipation, eDemocracy and eVoting community met in Vienna to discuss the latest developments in the field and to work on potential strategies to move forward. I would like to talk about a few impressions of this event which has been supported by PEP-NET and was one of the events of the PEP-NET Conference Series 2009 which includes the eDem 09, Berlin in October, Future-Democracy 09 and the World e-Democracy Forum.
PEP-NET organized a workshop on “Participatory planning: conflicts, context and cooperation” (Thanks to all speakers and many participants!) on the second day of the conference. Detailed information about the talks and workshops at eDem can be found on the live coverage blog both for Day 1 and Day 2. Some participants did also use Twitter to cover the event. Their posts can be found here.
But now on to a few trends I saw in the talks and discussions:
Technology is just a tool: One of the most repeated (and possibly most true) statements by speakers and participants was that there is a need to drop the “e” in eDemocracy/Participation/Government and shift the focus of research and practical work towards the social and procedural questions. Technology is only a means of organizing processes not the solution to a problem in it self.
It’s about quality not quantity: The sheer number of participants in an online participation process cannot be seen as the most important indicator for success. In many cases the quality of the results is not depended on the number of participants but on how participate with which goal. A few hundred people form heterogeneous social and political background can produce much more sophisticated and balanced recommendations on a political issue than thousands of people who agree on the subject in discussion.
Evaluation of electronic participation processes is very difficult: Several speakers and the workshop led by David Newman tried to identify ways and methods which can be used to judge the success and the performance of eParticipation efforts on a scientific basis. I strongly believe in the necessity of this work but I also think there will not be a tool-set for error-prove evaluation in the near future. This may be one of the reasons why success is still measured in raw number of participants in many cases.
There are leading topics for eParticipation: The discussions and reactions to talks on the event support the point that there are specific groups of topics which lend themselves to eParticipation more than others. Two of them are participation in spatial and urban planning (which is mandatory in many cases and stretches the gap between eGovernment and eParticipation) and participatory budgeting (still a growing trend in Europe). The third group of topics covers internet politics and especially the question of internet filtering and surveillance. Several speakers pointed out that eParticipation projects which did not have the specific goal to address these topics where used by participants to discuss about them. This suggests that governments should try to make use of eParticipation when getting involved with internet politics.
In summary the eDem09 was both a productive gathering of scientists and researchers as well as a possibility to identify some trends in the field. I would be happy about any comments agreeing or disagreeing with my view on the event and the four trends I pointed out.
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3rd International Conference on e-Democracy6. August 2009 – 08:36 by CTI |
The 3rd International Conference on e-Democracy is taking place in Athens, Greece, on 23-25 September 2009.
This year’s conference, under the title “Next Generation Society: Technological and Legal issues”, will explore the following questions: Is our society ready to adopt the technological advances in ubiquitous networking, next generation Internet, and pervasive computing? To what extent will it manage to evolve promptly and efficiently to a Next Generation Society, adopting the forthcoming ICT challenges? In this respect, several topics will be addressed, covering both technological and legal-sociological aspects.
For more information visit http://www.e-democracy2009.gr.
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