Wednesday, 14 November 2007

TV voting scandals and poor e-democracy both destroy trust

SCIP's Chair Dan Jellinek runs a major annual conference on eDemocracy. I saw him in the pub last week - the day after the event - and he was saying that his keynote speaker, Prof Stephen Coleman of Leeds University, had kicked things off with a great speech. He used comparisons with the scandal about voting on Blue Petter and Ant and Dec to raise questions about how seriously government is taking the use of technology.
Given that the event is popular with government officials, from all levels of government, it was heartening to hear of an academic forcing them to look beyond the technology to the respect for the individuals. He makes the point that the case for the role of the web in Government has now been well and truly made, and that emphasis now must be on public organisations using it to deliver real change.
You can hear/see a fascinating interview with Prof Coleman captured by Dave Wilcox later that day, hosted on Dave's site:

Designing for Civil Society: TV voting scandals and poor e-democracy both destroy trust

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