A place for my stuff | by Ian Ketcheson
{ Monthly Archives }
Some interesting conversations with Michael Geist after our Third Monday event in Ottawa (see Joe’s writeup) reminded me of the very innovative TheyWorkForYou.com website, which blows the doors off of any other project I’ve seen for shining the light on what happens within a public institution.
The site, which launched in 2004, is a project of the very innovative mySociety. In a nutshell: ” TheyWorkForYou provides a searchable, annotatable version of what is said in [the UK] Parliament, as well as useful pages providing clear, non-biased information on a range of different measures of activities by MPs. Originally built by volunteers while mySociety was getting started, it is now part of mySociety.”
Sounds all fine and dandy, it is only when you start poking around that the depths of this coolness become evident.
Here is a quick example. In 2 minutes I found out that MP Danny Alexander (chosen at random):
Wow. How is that for transparency and really letting me evaluate my MP?
I can receive e-mail messages whenever he speaks in Parliament, track an RSS feeds of his speeches, and send him an e-mail message. I can also add comments to any of his (or anyone else’s) statments in Hansard, and sign up to the “HearFromYourMP” service to get messages from him (without giving him my e-mail address).
Nothing exists like that here in Canada. The closest example I’ve seen is How’d They Vote?, but it seems to have gone dark.
Great site, and only one of the interesting projects being worked on by the mySociety folks (full list here).
Colin McKay has started up a worthy project with the “So Said the Organization” blog.
Here’s what it is all about:
So Said The Organization is a collaborative blog intended to help government communicators from around the world share ideas, tips and practical examples of how to integrate new technologies into their daily work.
Content is contributed by a number of authors working on different continents. Their work does not represent the interests, policies or intentions of their employers, and should be considered as personal opinion.
It is a worthwhile activity that I hope really starts to get legs among government communicators. Kudos to Colin for having the guts to get it going.
“So Said the Organization” can be found at http://sosaidthe.org
A good little viral never hurt anyone. I couldn’t resist this….
Proof that I AM MIGHTY
Speakers to 11, people. (Thanks, Brendan)
Sorry folks, I’ve taken on some new responsibilities at work which have kept me away from active blogging. Stay tuned, I’ll hopefully ramp back up in the next couple of weeks.
For the short term, I won’t be doing much more than my daily links.
