· OzPoliCon 2008 ·
Australia's first politico bloggers and online activists conference, OzPoliCon will be held on October 18.
The purpose of the conference is to share information, experiences and knowledge about online activism, campaigning methods and techniques; which of course involves politics organised and unorganised. It is also an opportunity to discuss current trends in technology use and online issue-based and election campaigning, electronic civil disobedience and Australia's Internet and communications laws.
In the interests of environmental sustainability and because we're all connected, this conference will be streamed live in real time. So although the conference is being organised in Melbourne, you don't need to travel further than your own desk to take part.
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Monday July 7, 2008
Categories: Event
· Politics and Technology forum ·
Today I attended a forum in Canberra, “Politics and Technology”. It was the most inspiring event I have been to this year on the topic of politics and online engagement because we were able to hear so many different points of view in one morning on this important topic.
The keynote speaker was Matt Bai, author and writer for the NY Times. Matt provided a US viewpoint with interesting facts. Did you know the primary demographic for MoveOn is middle-aged (I wonder if it’s the same for GetUp)? Did you know DailyKos has more readers than most US newspapers (I wonder if Crikey will become this popular)? Did you know more people watch YouTube political ads than official broadcasts (I wonder if we will see an Obama Girl in Aus)?
The keynote was followed by two panels; the first panel discussed blogging, social networks, political movements and the media, although the debate really centered around blogging and the media. Some interesting comments from this session came from Prof Peter Black from QUT who summed up what he sees as the four key players in the online politics discussion. My summary:
Bloggers – healthy but small in number, diverse, less partisan than US, focused on policy rather than machinery, struggling to gain mainstream respect from politicians or media because don’t report “breaking news” … focus on commentary.
Politicians – ignorant of new technology, aren’t keen to engage in new technology, ceased to use Facebook once election was over, lots of potential for participatory democracy.
Media – keen to jump on bandwagon, but don’t respect independent bloggers.
Public – apathetic, unengaged generally with politics. This might be changing … we hadn’t seen political alignment in Australia for a long time until the Kevin Rudd stickers on Facebook profiles.
The second panel discussed IT and the future of political campaigning. This session was awesome. While partisan discussion got in the way of the debate about politics and technology somewhat, it was a fantastic opportunity to hear from politicians about how and why they are (or aren’t) engaging constituents online.
We heard from Andrew Bartlett, Kate Lundy and Joe Hockey. Kate and Joe both made it quite clear that politicians are very busy. I have heard from other sources that ALL parliamentary staff work very long hours, and particularly the spokespeople, who are expected to take media calls at all hours of the day and night in addition to their other duties. How do they find time among the phone calls, letters, emails, public meetings and policy work to participate in online conversations? Particularly given that politicians are expected to talk to *all* their constituents, yet not all constituents have access to the internet (and many of those that do have the internet do not participate in politics online). It’s not that I’m excusing politicians for not participating online, I think that as bloggers we have to try to understand *why* they’re not participating so we can find ways to get everybody talking together.
Joe Hockey said the big challenge for politicians is that participating online appears “hugely time-intensive for the reach that you get”. Of course we bloggers would argue that there is a greater possibility to engage with *more* people online. If politicians were to do this, it would be a win-win situation: the public would feel satisfied that their ideas and concerns were being listened to, and the politicians would (hopefully) be confident that they are getting opinions from a cross-section of society.
As Matt Bai said, people will increasingly “expect to be heard and expect to get answers”. He’s right of course … I really think politicians need to move now to engage people online, otherwise they risk being seen as unwilling to listen and irrelevant.
Matt finished his keynote by saying that when leaders lead, the internet will become the central point to organise from. I like this statement, but possibly because it’s something that I want to hear rather than something that’s accurate.
Kudos to Microsoft for holding the event, for making it free so more people could attend, and for presenting it without a big promo. I’m genuinely impressed … more please :)
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Wednesday June 25, 2008
Categories: Event Technology
· Event: politics and technology forum ·
Microsoft is hosting a free Politics and Technology forum in Canberra on 25 June. The Keynote is Matt Bai, author of The Argument: Inside the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics, followed by two panels:
Let me know if you're going to be there, I'm thinking of going along. If you want to go, you need to register using the ticket code BAI.
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Sunday June 1, 2008
Categories: Event
· Non-profit blogs: two perspectives ·
Yesterday, I gave a presentation at the annual Connecting Up conference for non-profit ICT professionals. The presentation, "Non-profit blogs: two perspectives", was a joint project with Emily Turner from Philanthropy Australia.
I originally came up with the idea of a joint presentation with Emily because I figured it would be much more interesting if I partnered with somebody who also ran a non-profit blog, and particularly one with quite a different purpose than ANTaR's blog.
As Emily and I discovered while working together, we both started out from very different places at our respective organisations. Emily had to champion the blog all the way at her organisation, whereas my organisation had pretty much decided that having a blog was an essential part of our online campaigning strategy before I even started working there. In addition, Emily's organisation is using their blog to make existing information more accessible whereas our organisation is using the blog to promote Indigenous opinions and to break down some of the assumptions that some people have about Indigenous people. So while Philanthropy Australia's is membership-driven, ANTaR's is cause-driven.
Photo: Mister Bacon versus Monsieur Tofu by zoomar on Flickr. Emily's notes are on the left (tofu), I got the greasy bacon.
Not surprisingly, Emily and I both opted to use Wordpress as our blogging tool, primarily because it is open source (so it doesn't cost money, it just costs time (lots of time if you want to skin it!)). It's also really flexible, and has RSS built-in.
A big difference between the two blogs is that Emily does most of the blogging at Philanthropy Australia, whereas ANTaR's blog is written by a few different authors, who are all volunteers and busy with their own careers and other commitments.
This means ANTaR doesn't have much control over the blog, hence our major learning from this experience: our blog will take a long time to mature. We need to be patient with ourselves! But from every failure comes a positive learning experience, and I think that's a pretty valuable lesson :)
Photo: Parasail 101 by mdumlao98 on Flickr.
It's ironic that Emily and I met each other through blogging (she wrote to me in response to one of my posts, over a year ago). I'd forgotten the fact until Emily reminded me yesterday ... it feels like we've known each other for much longer. It's been great to work with Emily, she's very creative and I reckon an upcoming star in our sector :)
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Tuesday May 20, 2008
Categories: Event
· Creative Dissent @ Sydney Writers' Festival ·
This is on this Sunday in Sydney, but unfortunately I can't go. If you manage it, let me know what it was like please :)
77% of Australians are racist, but a fair few of them listened, danced to and sang along with The Herd's hit '77%'. Creative Dissent looks at the way in which artistic communities – satirists, bloggers, musicians and performers – challenge the status quo. It asks: Can a hip hop track, blog post or joke change the world for the better, or are they just more info-tainment adding to our collective media-overload?
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Tuesday May 20, 2008
Categories: Event
· e-Festival of ideas ·
Vibewire is hosting an e-Festival of ideas.
It doesn't matter where you live: the e-Festival will be hosted on the Vibewire website from 8-12 April. It will focus on dialogue around democracy, e-participation, the future of media and the arts, and social change. RSVP on Facebook.
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Friday April 4, 2008
Categories: Event
· Vibewire - New Connections 07 ·
Vibewire is holding a conference, "New Connections", on ideas, techniques and technologies for building community dialogue. It will be held in Sydney this coming Friday, so sorry for the late notice :(
Speakers include the amazing Mark Pesce, as well as Carol Darr (director of the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet in the US) and Brett Solomon (director of GetUp!).
Woops ... I've just noticed I know a few people on the program, so double apologies for the late notice :\
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Tuesday November 27, 2007
Categories: Event
· Did technology influcence the outcome [of the election]? ·
Slattery IT is holding a two-hour talk on "Election review: Did technology influence the outcome?" in Sydney on the 5th December. I'll be in Melbourne that week, so if you manage to go please let me know what happened :)
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Sunday November 18, 2007
Categories: Event
· o2 Global Network ·
o2 is starting up groups in Melbourne and Sydney, with more to come around Australia. The website will be launched very shortly (within the next week probably).
The o2 network involves people with a background in industrial design, architecture, styling, graphic design, arts, fashion, innovation, as well as people from universities, public authorities, companies or knowledge centers. O2 Global Network is an informal network for basically anybody interested in sustainable design.
The first o2 event will be this Thursday in Melbourne. From 6pm until 8pm they will meet at Green Grubs Chillout and from 8pm onwards they will be at Horse Bazaar. To find out more, contact Monique McNamara on 0403 126 387.
UPDATE 5/11 - There is also an active o2 group in Perth.
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Sunday November 4, 2007
Categories: Event
· Making Links conference - my ANTaR presentation ·
Day 2 of the Making Links conference was great. I seemed to be witness to, or involved in, an endless stream of interesting conversations all day (and part of the evening too!).
My talk was well-received (I think). If you need a reminder of what that scatter chart on page 9 of the presentation is all about, read my previous blog post about it. I've been asked to give an update on this chart, because at the time the plottings seemed acurate but now with some experience using the tools on the chart I've revised my opinion somewhat. The update will come in the next couple of weeks (i.e. when I have time!).
In the meantime, here's the presentation ...
What do you reckon? Leave a comment » [2]
Thursday November 1, 2007
Categories: Event Campaigning