The bloom’s off this English Rose
Or so says Simon Dickson. He makes a valid point that the tweeting from Hazel Blears, the Minister for Communities, felt a little too eager. The continuing use of the third person was slightly unsettling as well.
Still, it’s only her first day.
Dave notes that her consultative process is limited to a week, and her online activity may be as well. I didn’t get a sense that the tweets had been pre-programmed (after all, as Simon points out, we already have a fairly large sample size to review)
Still, are our British colleagues missing the forest for the trees? They have a PM and two Ministers tweeting, soliciting comment and petitions online, running blogs and pulling back the curtain - at least somewhat.
That’s infinitely more than any other government in the world.
Technorati Tags: egov, Gov 2.0, Hazel Blears
July 12th, 2008 05:20
I don’t know that it’s quite a forest yet but we’re getting there.
There is also the UK parliamentary twitter account and the lords of the blog (recognise this isn’t ‘gov’ - but it’s also a step in the right direction).
Despite these positive steps, we have a long, long way to go. Until there is a higher level of particpation by policy officials and the wider public in social media, these activities don’t amount to significant change in business efficiency or the policy development process. As I say though, it’s early days…
July 13th, 2008 02:26
Ah but grumbling is the British way! Justin’s right, this is all a bit of a veneer of godness. The real challenge is bringing this stuff into the mainstream of government, not a few enlightened ministers or communications officials. But you’re right we can’t complain.