We’re just in the process of wrapping up the exciting online dialogue project that we’ve been working on with the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) in the USA, www.thenationaldialogue.org.

This has been a great project for many reasons, not least the incredible professionalism and ability of our stateside clients, but I particularly liked the way they described the project:
In late October, just before a… read more

Yesterday we launched the “vote phase” of the Department of Health’s Care and Support debate - aimed at getting the general public to have their say on the issue by voting on various key issues.

We’re excited about this new phase as it provides a really simple way for people to take part in the online debate, and also provides a way for users to see what other people… read more

A quick note to all those heading to the bright lights of London, Tuesday, 11th November to the Headstar E-Democracy Conference 08, that a full Delib contingent will be present, and happy to discuss all things e-consultation and online opinion research.

In addition we are running a workshop entitled “Open source in e-Democracy -  How good can it be if it’s

Thanks to Ed Mitchell for pointing this one out to us, an interesting event that basically works on a Participatory Budgeting model, but as more of a fun evening of games and debates.

The idea is that the audience for the event get their entrance money for it pooled together, then get to vote on how it’s spent. Unlike PB though, they also get to vote on pretty much… read more

It’s been a year in development, and some of you will have heard about it already, but today sees the formal launch of our new e-Consultation and online opinion research platform, Opinion Suite.

Opinion Suite is a new approach to online consultation and opinion research software, and we’re really excited about it. Here’s why;

1. Opinion Suite is open source

We’re getting rid of the idea of license fees or costly restrictions… read more

Most of you reading will know about the Consultation Institute, and if you don’t, you should. Every other Tuesday they send out a ‘Tuesday Topic’ email to members, a short article with some thoughts, facts and ideas on an issue of relevance to consultation.

Today there was one on ‘The Online Only Pitfall’, how it’s a bad idea to run a consultation only through online mechanisms without any opportunity… read more

Technorati Profile

Here comes a straight press release…  Thoughts, anyone?
As part of the government’s consultation to gain opinions and views on its higher education debate - JISC is hosting a blog on its JISC Involve platform.

The Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS), John Denham launched a debate on Higher Education, in February 2008 when he announced the intention to develop a framework for Higher Education for… read more

According to this story, Gordon Brown is going to be launching an online version of Prime Minister’s Question Time In June. It’s an attempt to ‘reconnect with younger voters’ according to the BBC (isn’t everything online described as that now?) and will be a regular event.

It’s going to be run through Youtube, so absolute top marks for going where the people actually are and not reinventing the wheel… read more

This has been our for a while now, but I’ve only just caught it… but better late than never…
Queen Rania (Queen of Jordan and general looker) is running (or was running last year) a campaign to try to get people to change their views of the Arab world through dialogue with each other - using the power of YouTube.
Her stereotypes campaign is interesting to us not just because she’s using… read more

I discovered this fascinating local debate site on my Google travels the other day: http://www2.harrogatetoday.co.uk/tesco/tescohome.asp.

There’s all kinds of things to examine and weigh up here, far too many to meaningfully comment on briefly now — the binary nature of the argument, the combination of new and traditional communication methods, the specific features of the site, the central involvement of a media outlet, the matter at hand, the… read more