20. April 2009 – 13:44 by Danish Technological Institute
by Morten Meyerhoff Nielsen, Danish Technological Institute
Much has been reported about the successful campaigning, fund raising and support canvassing by the 2008 Obama election campaign. Still the use of ICT to increase electoral participation, campaigning, consultation and voting is not a uniquely US phenomena. A multitude of eParticipation and eDemocracy initiatives exist. Ranging from eVoting in Estonia’s and Geneva’s national and regional elections, gender budgeting in Freiburg, consultation on local issues in Malmö to the political influence of bloggers in China or in the 2008 election crisis in Kenya. Information communication technology (ICT) in other words plays an increasingly important role in society.
As South Africans go to the polling stations on 22 April 2009, campaigning is being played out in traditional media (TV, radio, print), on the internet, on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, in text messages/sms’s with street banners and in rallies across the country.
A full 173 parties – 134 at national level plus 39 purely provincial parties – are officially registered for the 2009 elections. Of these the four main ones are (alphabetic order):
ANC - African National Congress and currently in power with the support, in a tripartite alliance, of the smaller South African Communist Party (SACP) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU)
COPE – Congress of the People in 2008 by formed members of the ANC
DA – Democratic Alliance and currently the official opposition
IFP – Inkatha Freedom Party a mainly regional party centered on the province of KwaZulu-Natal
Each of the main parties makes use of ICT in some form and in variety of ways and degrees. The table below outlines the use of websites and social networks (or Web2.0 technologies). Read the rest of this entry »
11. December 2008 – 15:47 by Bengt Feil (TuTech Innovation GmbH)
2008 definitely was a great year for everybody involved in social media and the web in general as for example new forms of communication developed (micro-messaging), online video content went mainstream (Hulu) and the largest and most successful online campaign helped to make Barrack Obama into the oval office. But what will 2009 bring to for the citizens of the net? Will it again be another “great” year or will the financial crush and other problems also effect web and it inhabitants? Fast Company posted a great article compiling the predictions for 2009 of eight persons who have different insights into the field. Four main trends can be identified from their statements:
1.) The personal profile on the web will become portable
Chris Brogan of New Marketing Labs thinks that social networks will start to merge and that data portability (e.g. the possibility for users to synchronize their data between platforms) will take off. Mary Hodder (Founder of Dabble.com) also thinks that user will be able to unify their online presence. But she also thinks Facebook will have trouble to compete with others in an open environment as they are they best example of a “walled garden”. From my point of view this prediction seems reasonable taking into account the ideas represented in Facebook Connect, Friend connect and Open Social.
27. November 2008 – 11:47 by Bengt Feil (TuTech Innovation GmbH)
Electronic participation is often associated solely with political participation. But eParticipation tools are also used by companies like for example Starbucks. But Museums do not come to mind first when thinking about innovative ways to include the “users” into decision making processes. This first impression however is wrong. Many museums do try to use electronic tools to get their visitors more involved into exhibitions, events, etc. One example for a museum stepping into the world of eParticipation is the Helmsmuseum in Hamburg:
In January and February of 2008 this museum of local history in Hamburg utilized the DEMOS eParticipation approach to involve the local citizens and the museums visitors to plan a new exhibition on the local history of southern Hamburg. This experiment was aimed at involving the main target group for the exhibition in the actual planning to both make the exhibition more attractive visitors and to make use of the special knowledge of the participants. The museum was one of the first to take this innovative road in organizing its activities.
The participation platform (which can be viewed here) was set up and supported by TuTech Innovation. The moderation and community building work on the site was done by the museums staff after being training and instructed by TuTech. The topic chosen for the participatory action and the target group (local citizens of one borough of Hamburg) was relatively limited but still 72 people were actively involved in the discussion and posted 312 contributions. A total of 1.300 unique visitors where tracked on the site producing 19.000 page views. Taking into account the size of the project and the questions at hand these number are very respectable. The qualitative results where of course of much higher importance:
The participation efforts helped the planers to select topics which may have been ignored and it integrates the individual knowledge and experience of the participants into the process. One example is that photo material and certain items which are owned by the participants and relative to the exhibition where indentified by the efforts.
Besides strengthening the local position of the museum the activity also helped to raise the regional and national profile of the museum which used such innovative tools.
After the initial effort the museum decided to keep the online platform running to continue the fruitful dialog with its visitors and active community members which they do to this day.
This example shows that eParticipation is a universal tool which is not restricted to political participation. Other entities like museums can also make use of the innovative approaches and tools available in this field. It also shows that even small scale efforts with a limited target group can be addressed if the method chosen is appropriate to the situation.
A great resource to learn more about innovative activities of museums and how to adapt them is the Museum2.0 blog by Nina Simon.
6. August 2008 – 09:09 by Bengt Feil (TuTech Innovation GmbH)
It has been discussed on many different occasions how forms of electronic participation can help companies to keep in touch with their costumers, develop innovation and test products etc. The recent project MyStarbucksIdea showed how successful the use of eParticipation can be in such settings (a comprehensive article on this project can be found here (German) and here). Now UserVoice tries to generalise the approach of MyStarbucksIdea and makes the service available to everyone.
You can take a look at this video describing the UserVoice platform and its uses:
The service makes it relatively simple for a company to kick of a dialog with their costumers or employees by implementing a clear process which promises to cover all steps of participation from the initial idea to the implementation.
But a number of questions remain: Can the approach chosen be UserVoice really be the background for a communicative processes involving the development of new ideas or does it best serve as a costumer satisfaction tool? Will especially large companies be willing to use a standard platform or do they need to have more control and original design?
At the least UserVoice shows that eParticipation for companies is a trend which is here to stay. No we have to figure out how to best implement it.
15. July 2008 – 10:48 by Bengt Feil (TuTech Innovation GmbH)
The American Republican Party (GOP) launched a site to gather comments and suggestions on policy issues by its supporters. The website is called Republican Platform Committee and allows everybody who is willing to register can participate in what the party describes as:
…seeking your input as we develop the policies and principles upon which we should stand for the next four years. On this website, you can share your thoughts, participate in polls, and communicate directly with the policymakers who will be shaping the party’s agenda. All comments and feedback will be reviewed and taken into full consideration as we prepare for our convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul.
Techcrunch points out that among the topics suggested, e.g. national security, energy and gas prices, health care reform, judicial nominations, “Protecting American Values.” there is no specific mentioning of tech related topics on the website which would be a perfect fit for the medium. As an additional way to reach out to interested citizens the GOP also launched a Facebook app aimed at the same purpose. The site uses text and video based communication as well as polls to discuss the topics at hand and is moderated.
The old elephant GOP seems to be quite up to date when it comes to modern campaigning. One may hope that such a step towards eParticipation will also be part of the federal government program regardless who wins the election. As far as campaigning goes: This effort may help to convert the Ron Paul enthusiast to John McCain if he is smart enough to use this tool and pick up the right topics. I think the Democrats will have to introduce answer to this soon and their already made good steps towards it with BarackObama.com.
