Seriously, do we even have town halls any more or at least traditional-style town hall meetings? That forum was established so citizens could have a voice and provide input and feedback into local government or council decision-making. But that concept seems to have died off and the citizens divided from the politicians.
But what we’re attempting to do with establishing this notion of Government 2.0 or Council 2.0 … it’s not revolutionary. We’re just trying to reinstate something we used to have, that was commonplace in communities that died off with increase in population, change in culture, social structures and government. But it’s something that we can leverage the power of technology to bring back.
OK so I’m not talking about creating virtual town halls in Second Life where avatars can congregate and have online town hall meetings … but the idea that there is an accepted mechanism and procedures in place to allow this two-way communication between those governed and those governing so it doesn’t have to be an Us vs Them. Of course, we can make the tools (such as OpenAustralia) but it doesn’t mean the politicians will listen. It’s up to us to promote the these resources we create and implement, to bring them to the attention of those in power, to make them valuable to both sides (because it’s unlikely we would ever be able to say “Engage with your citizens through these tools we have given you … or else the entire system falls apart catastrophically”).
It’s progress. Yes in some ways a rehashing of something from a bygone era – the concept of a town hall – but built to suit our different needs, way of working and interacting. Using the tools and technology we now have available to suit the lifestyle we now have and the massive infrastructure of government that has been assembled over many years to deal with the much larger population we have now from hundreds of years ago.
// purecaffeine.com, UX, design, social media and Gov 2.0 blog by designer Nathanael Boehm, Canberra, Australia. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License.
