Two weeks ago now (wow how time flies!) I was lucky enough to spend a few days in Washington DC at the eDemocracy camp and the Politics Online Conference. Hosted and organised by the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet (IPDI), I headed to the events eager to see how things had changed since my trip over last year given Obama’s intervening election. And they were again an honour to be part of, with the mood clearly having changed from excitement about all the possibilities ahead to enthusiasm for the reality of delivering the open government directive.

First up was the eDemocracy camp, where I heard about several exciting initiatives:

• appsfordemocracy.org - a project in partnership with Washington DC government to run a competition to create applications using open data catalogue to improve accessibility and visitor, citizen, business experience of DC;
• citability.org - an approach that uses permalinks to promote openness and transparency around government information;
• recovery.org - a site that tracks where government money is being spent;
• opendialogcoalition.org - which is a colloboration of people and organisations exploring how web 2.0 technologies and integrated web architecture can facilitate open government.

I also took part in several discussions that were right up my street, from the challenges of collecting and measuring meaningful dialogue as part of democratic engagement/participation initiatives, to the role that gaming plays in building leadership skills (this piqued my interest in world of warcraft!).

The day ended with a wrap up session where all happy campers were encouraged to share their thoughts on the day. From my perspective, being surrounded by like-minded individuals with the same passion to drive change was a pleasure to be a part of. The barcamp had the right collaborative environment and set the tone for the Politics Online Conference the following day, which was largely down to the organisers - big congratulations to you all!

Filled with new vigor from the camp, I headed down to the Politics Online Conference which was held in the Ronald Reagan Building (an impressive complex with limited wifi!) a stone’s throw from the Washington Monument. The day kicked off by discussing governance for the use of web 2.o technologies by Hon. Debra Bowen and Hon. Jennifer Brunner Secretaries of State. What quickly became clear was the challenges that remain in using technology as part of the political process, the tensions between security, privacy and transparency limiting the widespread adoption of these tools by politicians.

I then popped along to the Broadening Broadband: the benefits and beyond session. I found the discussion about how the US is learning from China’s broadband use to improve education and enhance learning experience in rural areas quite interesting. I wonder what a US National Broadband Strategy might look like and how it would compare to the Digital Britain report and Greece’s progressive broadband strategy?

Over lunch I was proud to introduce the screening of Us Now, filmed and directed by Ivo Gormley. The film, which we premiered in the US at the Gov 2.0 Camp earlier in the month, received a great reception as it sets the scene for how true collaboration can be achieved and the opportunity this presents for governments. We will also be supporting the full launch of Us Now on 12th May when you will be able to stream the full film for free!

In the afternoon, we took a look at the kinds of platforms that support online public debates. Each platform had a different feature that distinguished it from the next but overall the sites underlying premise is to provide a space where people can debate, mulling over the issues that matter most to them:

1. opposingviews - news media site where journalists are paid to create the content (twist to newspaper organisations);
2. procon - nonpartisan, not-for-profit organisation that presents pro and con arguments for controversial topics. Experts are invited to respond;
3. debatewise - a site that enables citizens to voice their opinions and debate issues of interest. (UK site);
4. debatepedia - wiki encyclopedia of pro and con arguments;
5. createdebate - a social media site that allows citizens to discuss topics and add ratings to important issues; and
6. debategraph - a site that uses visualisation techniques to illustrate complex, non-linear policy arguments. (UK site).

“The most significant trend is towards a more fluid interaction between the tools for visualizing public policy conversations and the argument structure currently buried and petrified in traditional policy document formats. There needs to be a more open, holistic, faster moving and more effective conversation within society about the complex public policy challenges we face together” - David Price from DebateGraph on how the ‘debate industry’ can enhance the policy process

At the end of the day, I managed to grab a couple of minutes with Daniel “Dazza” Greenwood from MIT Media Labs and civics.com to ask him about his passion: information architecture. Here’s what he had to say:

Day two kicked-off with a bang (it needed to after all the socialising the night before!)  Senator and Congressmen/women discussed the challenges and benefits of being an elected official in this current web 2.0 climate. The discussion focused heavily on the use of Twitter, which is mainly being used as a broadcast tool. Interestingly each of the panelists (Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Steve Israel, Tim Ryan, and Claire McCaskill) spoke about the need for social media experts (I say, communications and engagement specialists with digital experience but then I would!) within government/political offices to help bridge the on/offline divide. Not surprisingly they all have Directors of New Media!

The next session on the agenda was exploring how to campaign using mobile phones, highlighting how the Obama campaign was able to use dynamic interactive mobile applications to encourage people to vote and donate. The biggest challenges to this approach are establishing comprehensive lists of constituent phone numbers (it usually takes several years to compile) and partnering with platform providers in order to minimise spam and to comply with industry rules and regulations. I wonder about the extent to which this approach could be applied in the UK…

Battle of the social media titans/panel of the day came from the Obama and McCain camps. In the blue corner, Joe Rospars, former Director of New Media for the Obama campaign. In the red corner, Michael Palmer, eCampaign Director for the McCain campaign. Both contestants discussed how they developed their strategies and the differences between them, Joe emphasising the need to integrate both the on and offline activities (absolutely agree) whilst Michael focused on the need to have a compelling candidate that had “celebrity status”. In my view the winning team where ultimately the ones, yes with the leader with the most star quality, but also those best able to effectively generate and coordinate engaging content that at all times reinforced the campaign mission, goals and overall narrative.

After lunch came one of the sessions I’d been waiting for, taking a look at measurement and social media analytics - just my cup of tea! I must admit that I was slightly disappointed as I felt that the debate only started to get interesting towards the end. The moderation of the panel was extremely heavy handed and left little room for the speakers to discuss their measurement techniques. Having said that, there was some discussion about the measurement/tracking tools that are worth using, including Scoutlabs; Facebook lexicon; Twitter search; Twitterlizer; Hootsuite; Radiant 6; and linkfluence.

Last but not least came the session on how the consumption of media impacts on more traditional marketing and research strategies. Understanding your audience and their rate of consumption is critical when tailoring targeted approaches. One of the stats I found most interesting was that at any one given time Generation X are said to be doing 6 things at once - surfing the net, using instant messager, tweeting, txt messaging, listening to music, and all with the TV on in the background. Certainly gives multi-tasking a whole new meaning! Being able to design and structure multi-dimensional marketing and research campaigns to capture audience attention is critical to reaching your target audience.

And there you have it. Great trip, great events, great learning and great people. Highly recommended. Here’s to next year!