Is it worth funding ICELE, asks Coleman
From:
Steven Clift
Date:
Apr 03 11:06 UTC
Short link
At least in the UK, you are having a discussion about getting value for the
investment, which means that from time to time your government, the BBC, the
EU, etc. are actually investing in e-democracy.
I know the sums are small, but I'd be interested in seeing at least 10% as much
money "wasted" on e-democracy as has been dumped into one-way e-government
service projects with minimal use. On that mark, you'd have the resources to
learn many more lessons and make even more mistakes.
In terms of research however, I would love to see some real cost-benefit
analysis ... if a country had $100 million pounds to invest over 5 years to
preserve and reform "democracy" in the online era (broadly conceived not just
government to citizen democracy), what is the best investment. Or more
importantly, if a local council or a local BBC station, had 20K GBP a year to
invest in the community sector and 20K to invest for needs within their
democratic services, what is the most cost-effective service? (My guess on the
institutional side - a regularly produced "what's new" e-mail newsletter
combined with a personalized e-mail/RSS alert system like Google News Alerts
but instead covering local decision-making meetings/documents/news.)
Steven Clift