Who gets my vote? We do

I have a first and easy step I'd like to suggest the UK Parliament takes in its pursuit of more open government.

It'll put its members in touch with the people who elect them - with the views of the nation. And it'll do that without requiring them to move out of their first class rail carriages. Can't expect too much all in one go, can we?
I recently asked David Cameron to tell us what he thought, rather than tell us what he thought he ought to tell us.
It seems politicians - with some rare exceptions - see this as a step too far.

Well, us lot, Joe Public, the electorate, this army of self-publishers, have no such qualms.
We are quite happy to say what we think. We don't even mind being proven wrong on occasion.

And, unlike the man who would be our Prime Minister, we do publish what we think. A lot. Particularly about things we care about. (image courtesy kberberi)

Things we care about include parliamentary bills. The Digital Economy Bill this week amply demonstrated how a community of purpose can discover one another and act rapidly around the social object of a piece of parliamenary legislation.

Similar communities of purpose exist around any issue - on or off the statute book.

So I wonder how the debate may have shaped had the pitiful number of MPs in the commons for the second reading of the #DEBill been able to see for themselves the thousands of comments that were being made, the excellent points raised by thousands of people on Twitter; the crowd-sourced brilliance of the nation our MPs are there to serve?

So let's see a big screen - the twitterfall (all the comments about a certain, usually hashtagged, subject - collated and shown in real-time) for each debate - installed in The Commons, The Lords and - where appropriate - committee rooms, too.

Listening is the first step to open government. And this could be a first small step to listening.
Note: this is already happening on a handful of MPs mobile phones - trust me on this - so please let's not get into arguments about 'distraction'.

Listening, open government, shouldn't be done for some kind of altruistic, touchy-feely reason (though none of that is bad). It should be done because it will improve MPs' decision making processes. It will improve our legislation.

How so? Because MPs are generalists. They have to be. And for whatever given subject there is a community of purpose ready to come together to offer expertise and real-world experience far in advance of anything the House can muster on its own.

We now have the social tools for communities of purpose to self-organise in rapid, adhoc ways. The #debill campaign, 20,000 letters to MPs in 7 days etc, shows it is happening and will continue to happen. Exponentially.

It is easier now than at any time in history for people to discover other people who care about the same issue they do and to organise to make change.

Government can join in if it wishes. If it doesn't, it just might find itself out of a job.

Related articles by Zemanta

• UK's Digital Economy Bill approved. Democracy fails, social media wins (thenextweb.com)
• MPs criticised for poor turnout at Digital Economy Bill debate (telegraph.co.uk)

I bumped into David Cameron in Starbucks - and talked Twitter

I bumped into David Cameron this morning - Tory Party leader and the man who would become Prime Minister in the UK should his party win the general election in May.

Actually, he slipped past me in the queue at Starbucks at St Pancras railway station. He went straight to a table without buying anything - and that set my sense of fair play twitching.

Turns out a colleague/assistant was doing the queueing for him, which I guess is fair enough?
I sat at the table next to him. At this point I thought he was just some young exec who looked a bit like David Cameron (I'd not met him before).

But when he opened his mouth to talk with said assistant the voice and content of their conversation was a heavy hint.

So I turned to him and asked: "You look familiar. Should I know you?"

He smiled. "Perhaps"

I raised an eyebrow, inviting clarification.

"I'm David Cameron, leader of The Conservative Party."

So. I shook his hand. Wished him luck. But told him I wouldn't be supporting him all the way.

I asked if I could take a snap (to tweet) and also whether he was using Twitter himself.

I told him I'd heard what he'd said about Twitter while being interview by Absolute Radio.
And he explained he didn't use it.

Politicians, he said, needed to think about what they said, before they said it.

He worried that those who tweeted all the time were sharing a stream of consciousness.

I said politicians ought not think too hard before they speak, they should tweet their stream of consciousness. I'd prefer the direct honesty.

And I cited John Prescott (@johnprescott) - and how for years the media had painted him as a bumbling fool - but Twitter enabled him to go direct to the public - to disintermediate the media - revealing the passionate and intelligent man Prescott actually is, rather than the charicature you see in the press.

Cameron did concede that Prescott is a very clever man - but also pointed out that the 140characters of Twitter were a blessed limitation on Prescott's tendency to verbosity. A fair point.

I don't suppose Cameron will start tweeting any time soon. Which is a shame.

Because I prefer my politicians to tell me what they honestly think and as directly as possibly. I want them to admit their human face, warts and all - rather than a mediated, bland/sanitised version of themselves.

Twitter enables that way better than any amount of 'press' ever can.

I only wish more politicians of all parties would give it a go. We may end up knowing who and what we're expected to vote for. And that would be a pleasant first.

UPDATE: Jonathan Macdonald shared an image that captures me sat on the next table to Cameron - just before I was sure who he was and started bending his ear. Watchers watching the watchers :-) View it larger here.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Prescott and Pickles in Twitter row (guardian.co.uk)
• Tories streets ahead on social media (v3.co.uk)
• UK politicians' 'social media reputation' assessed through Facebook, Twitter (taragana.com)