360DigitalInfluence

(This is the second in a series of posts as a OneWebDay Ambassador. Check out our first post kicking off the partnership for more on OneWebDay.)

I caught up with Tim Whirledge, a Digital Strategist from Ogilvy PR’s Digital Influence team in London and asked him how he’s seen the Internet transform participatory democracy – the theme for this year’s OneWebDay.

He didn’t have to look far to come up with an answer. His own Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has proven to be a big proponent of web-based government participation. Brown’s new term saw the launch of his own Youtube Channel, Ask the PM, where citizens are encouraged to submit questions in the form of one minute videos. The best questions as determined by Youtube voters get a video response by Gordon Brown himself.

“No matter what the political connotations or motivations for the move into web 2.0, it was refreshing to see the top of the British decision-making food chain at least attempt to tap into the power of the crowd,” Whirledge said. “Brown’s YouTube channel is attempting to do exactly that, encouraging grassroots participation through making himself as accessible as possible to as many people as possible and arriving at as many solutions as possible; something that the web is uniquely placed to do.”

The Prime Minister’s affinity for social media doesn’t stop at Youtube – the 10 Downing Street Web site itself is packed with Twitter, Flickr, and Youtube feeds right on the homepage. And, unlike so many other Twitter-spammers, the Downing Street handle actually responds to individual tweets, as one of our recent commenters pointed out.

Below is a grab of the Number10.gov Beta site, built on the WordPress platform according to Puffbox’s Simon Dickson.

Here’s Dickson on the new site, courtesy of Neville Hobson:

“If it feels a bit bloggy, there are a couple of good reasons for that. In part, it’s a recognition of the role now played by blogs in national political life. The political anoraks who are likely to visit a Downing Street site are probably spending the rest of their time on the political blogs, so it makes sense to adopt the same presentation methods. And yes, as you’ve probably guessed, the underlying technology is WordPress.”

The government in the UK has also seen the sharp rise in the use of e-petitions, the online version of pen and paper signature gathering. The “communicate” tab on the UK site allows people to start a cause or sign an existing one. If a petition receives more than 200 signatures, the signers will receive an email from the UK government addressing the issue.

“Downing Street wanted to demonstrate that they were in no way out of touch with voters and were listening intently to their concerns and suggestions through the setting up of this movement,” Whirledge said.

Check back here soon for more examples from around the globe on OneWebDay’s theme of participatory democracy online.