Nov 06
29

Throng #4

5 Comments

Last night’s Throng event was another big success with some old faces and some new, which is always the best way to do it.

  • Boyd Neil of Hill & Knowlton
  • Lisa Walker of Hill & Knowlton
  • Martin Hoffman, Heather Anderson, Nicole Flippance, and (and another whose name I cannot recall, apologies) Natasha Compton of High Road Communications
  • Sean Moffit of Agent Wildfire
  • Melody Gaukel of Ketchum
  • Maggie Fox from the Social Media Group
  • Mark Daley of MacLaren McCann

Since the group was too large for any group conversations, I can only report on the ones that I was involved in, which ranged from how social media is changing the structure of the communications business, the geek dinner, to how passenger Via trains apparently stop during hunting season so hunters and their kills can get a ride into town.

The most interesting conversation of the night for me, was definitely with Boyd Neil discussing whether blogging promotes consensus on political issues or creates too many diverse opinions to be effectively synthesized in public policy. Now, I know very little about politics and public policy, but of course that never stopped a blogger from offering their opinion. It is an interesting question and I believe that it depends upon the issue, since there are certain straightforward issues that create the blogging “pile ons” where everyone violently agrees with each other with a few ammendments or additions. And then there are the more nuanced issues where everyone has a slightly different take and any real agreement is hard to reach.

I am not convinced that blogs or wikis are really the best forum for collaboratively generating public policy (too many chefs), but I do think that they are both amazing tools for discussing, exploring, debating and refining public policy as a work in progress.

[tags]throng, toronto, social media[/tags]

This entry was posted on November 29, 2006 at 12:27 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Posted in Throng by dwalker 5 Comments

5 Responses to "Throng #4"

  • Jonathan Dunn says:
    November 29, 2006 at 12:50 pm

    Sounds like a good evening. Sorry I missed it.

    Very interesting discussion on blogs and public policy. I think you’ve largely hit the mark with your thoughts. The one thing I might challenge is the too many chefs notion re generating public policy. Shrewd politicians would use blogs as a way to gather ongoing insight into issues that resonate with their constituents. The inclusive & participatory nature of blogging would be helpful in giving voters a stronger sense of involvement in the process (the new plebiscites).

  • Dave Forde says:
    November 29, 2006 at 2:48 pm

    Couldn’t make it out last night, that Boyd guy always “stirring the pot” unlike me :)

  • maggie fox says:
    November 29, 2006 at 7:19 pm

    Hey – so nice to meet everyone, and thanks a bunch for the invite. Sorry I missed the discussion about using social media to build consensus. I am reminded of when ZeFrank set up a wiki to allow his viewers to write an entire episode of The Show. It was definitely a case of too many chefs – and of course public policy is infinitely more complicated.

    I suppose the issue boils down to leadership – to create great policy, you have to have a great leader that inspires the policymakers. Leadership provided, ultimately, by one person. I think, as you suggest, blogs break down and devolve the issue into so many little pieces and opinions that it’s improbable that one person (or even a committee) could to put it all back together again. That being said, the feedback provided via blogs can definitely, in broad strokes, provide insight into issues that, as Jonathan says, “resonate with their constituents”.

    See you in January!
    M

  • Martin Hofmann says:
    November 29, 2006 at 11:54 pm

    It was great meeting everyone yesterday! Thanks for organizing it, Doug and Lisa. I am looking forward to the next one.

    I don’t think blogs and wikis are ideal to create public policy. But they can be used to generate ideas before it gets to the policy creation stage and they can be great sounding boards before making a final decision. But, to Maggie’s point, I agree that it boils down to leadership. And I think there is inherit danger in trying to decide issues by “pile ons” – even if the subject lends itself to it.

    – Martin

  • Boyd Neil says:
    November 30, 2006 at 9:38 am

    Public policy think tanks should be able to use an organizational blog to float, test and discuss policy research and ideas. Like this string of comments,such an organizational blog could expand the community of interest in a particular subject. That might mean more consensus-driven individual points of view. Even though the discussion my blogged comments raise has always been — shall we say — relatively restrained, it does inform my views and helps knit the texture of my ideas. That can’t help but make more interesting and valuable “policy”. So, public policy organizations should do the same.

Leave a Comment