Changing Climate: live blogging the Progressive Governance summit

Congratulations (and a relaxing Sunday) to Simon Dickson and the Downing Street digital team, for their phenomenal work on Policy Network’s Progressive Governance summit this morning.

At short notice, they produced an impressive and engaging microsite built around a live video stream, live blogging and comments, and immediate access to the summit papers. It was a perfect illustration of how lightweight web technology can transform the public experience of political gatherings of this kind; simultaneously demystifying proceedings and adding new layers of understanding—both about the content of the summit and, as Ellee Seymour notes, about the participants.

It was a courageous decision by all concerned to innovate rapidly in this fashion; a decision fully justified by the outcome. More soon, please.

View the full set of summit images are available here: http://progov.pm.gov.uk/see/photos/

The summit—which drew together Michelle Bachelet Jeria, Helen Clark, Bill Clinton, Kemal Dervis, Robert Fico, Alfred Gusenbauer, Antonio Guterres, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Donald Kaberuka, Gediminas Kirkilas, John Agyekum Kufuor, Pascal Lamy, Peter Mandelson, Thabo Mbeki, Romano Prodi, Kevin Rudd, Javier Solana, Jens Stoltenberg, and Dominque Strauss-Kahn, as well as Gordon Brown—focused on globalisation, development, international institutions, and climate change, with practical calls to action on each theme summarised in the final communiqué.

I followed the session on climate change, and the accompanying paper by Nicholas Stern and Laurence Tubiana, Director-General of (IDDRI), with particular interest in the context of the climate change debate map that Debategraph is developing in collaboration with Mark Klein at the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence. Watch this space too, for emerging details of a broader international collaborative initiative on climate change deliberation.

Our early work in progress on the climate change map is embedded below, and we expect the map to move to a fully mature and comprehensive analysis of the global policy debate by the summer.

Anyone interested in participating in this process is welcome to contact us via email at david [at] debategraph [dot] org.

April 5, 2008 | Filed Under Argument map, Climate Change, Collaboration, Collective Intelligence, Creative Commons, Critical Thinking, Debate, Debate Map, Debategraph, Debatemapper, Deliberation, Downing Street, E-democracy, Global Warming, Governance, Open Education, Progressive, Public Policy, Web 2.0 

Comments

7 Responses to “Changing Climate: live blogging the Progressive Governance summit”

  1. Nick Booth on April 6th, 2008 1:26 am

    I love that expression: “lightweight web technology”.

  2. Ellee on April 6th, 2008 8:46 am

    I just loved it and would like to see organisations use it too. The technology is available and inexpensive. Why has it taken so long?

    I think your blog is one I must link to, I’m glad you found me.

  3. David on April 6th, 2008 12:47 pm

    Nick and Ellee,

    Thanks for stopping by. It was a great event yesterday (and I’m convinced that Simon disappears at regular intervals into a phone box to don a superhero costume).

    “Lightweight web technology” is a great expression (not original to me) that evokes so much of what is inspirational about the new tools emerging (both in terms of the experience of implementation and the experience of use).

    A pleasure too to discover your blogs yesterday, which I have added to my RSS reader and Blogroll this morning.

    David

  4. Nick Booth on April 7th, 2008 1:39 am

    David you are right. This was a special occasion made so by individuals deciding to go for it. Perhaps that is the essence of future govt?

  5. Podnosh Blog » Archive » Monday Mentions. April 7th 2008 on April 7th, 2008 12:06 pm

    […] David Price teaches me the term “lightweight web”. […]

  6. David on April 8th, 2008 1:27 am

    Nick: many thanks for your kind comment and link on the blog this morning.

    “This was a special occasion made so by individuals deciding to go for it. Perhaps that is the essence of future govt?”

    …feels like a theme worth expanding on in a blog post…

    David

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