Canada at 150 On-Line Interviews With Ignatieff, Guilbeault and Das

Here is a 14 minute clip of streamed interviews done by the Canada at 150 on-line host Randy Boissenault with Michael Ignatieff, Steven Guilbeault and Satya Das.

http://can150.ca/day-2-randy-interviews-michael-ignatieff-steven-guilbeault-and-satya-das/

This is the kind of new media communications that can be done that speaks directly to citizens, interests groups and party members.  These interviews are a combination of traditional media interview techniques but  directly to an online audience that can be real time but also archived and accessed later - or shared within others by redistributed linking like I am doing here. 

All this enhances connectivity, authentic communications directly with citizens so they can engage at their conveience.  The chance to comment and share the information further on Twitter and Facebook means that more people will have access and becasue of a personal recommendation, they are more likely to become part of the Netizen approach to modern democratic participation. 

If you don't have 14 minutes to watch this now, bookmark this blog post and come back to it.  Of course I would appreciate your comments on the content directly on this blog.  It is all part of the emerging political and public policy conversation around how Canadians better understand the challenges we are facing.

Conversations are game changers.  We all know we need to change politics to be less about games and more about change...in both Canada and Alberta

Liberal Party Scores Big With Canada at 150 Thinkers Conference.

Sayta and I are back from a very successful and effective thinkers conference convened by the Liberal Pary of Canada this weekend in Montreal. There was a very full and frank discussion from the event.  Here is a clip of Satya Das' comments on CTV about the event.

That success of citizen engagement and shaing ideas and comments was reflected further in the social media space set up for Canadians to follow and particpiate in the conference too.  The successful use of social media by the Liberal Party at the Canada at 150 conference showed them that they can reach thoughtful Canadians from all over the country directly and engage them in meaningful conversations. 

Now the challenge is for the Liberals to use this new found insight into social media in a way that delivers a positive political purpose.  There is a chance for authentic (no spin) communications directly with those citizens in all kinds of local communities and communities of interests in personal thoughtful and effective sharing of ideas through the Internet.  This must be one of the central on-going efforts to capitalize on the success of this past weekend.  All parties are behind in understanding how social media works and how to use it effectively.  The Liberal Party of Canada got a taste of it this weekend and are starting to get it.

There is archived presentations being set up at the conference website at http://www.can150.ca/.  I strongly suggest a number of visits and revisits by anyone interested in citizen engagement and looking for "adult conversations" about public policy in Canada. They got that from speaker after speaker at this weekend's conference.

I will be doing a series of blog posts in the next few days on my reactions to the presentations I heard.  Conversations are game changers and my sense is the "game" of politics changed this past weekend and become more of an "adult converstion," the kind that David Dodge called for at Canada at 150 in his presentation.