Wednesday, July 27, 2011

ACT Government Virtual Community Cabinet

The ACT Government ran a "Virtual Community Cabinet" using Twitter 26 July 2011. For an hour Chief Minister Katy Gallagher and other ministers answered questions as @ACTVCC.

This is an excellent initiative, but the government should take it further and use a format like ABC TV's Q&A ("Qanda") program. That is live video streaming and a live audience, as well as the Twitter feed. That way the virtual community cabinet could be blended with a live face to face one, rather than run separately. This could the same technology and techniques as Senator Lundy's "Public Sphere" events.

Also the ACT Government needs to create a web page about the community cabinets in general and put details of the virtual ones there as well. The law requires that records of these meetings are kept (as with any government meeting). I teach how to keep electronic records at the ANU. Most of these records can be placed on the web site and made public. This could be modeled on the Queensland Government Community Cabinet.

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