Check this out for the crowdsourcing principles of the Obama campaign turned on their head. In this case its a call for ordinary people to put themselves forward as MEP candidates (on part of the site you can put yourself forward - although so far no-one has yet in London) and community voting as selection. "Launched in mid March 2009, the Jury Team was founded for those people who believe in democracy, but who have observed how the current party political system has turned the United Kingdom's Parliament and Government into the creatures of a small and increasingly distant group of oligarchical politicians." On digging I've found it is backed by some real political figures including Paul Judge (ex director general of the conservative party) and Martin Bell rather than pranksters or worse. Should be an interesting one to watch. They certainly put some thought into the marketing - it's got a very good website, plus they have released a book (free download or buy it on amazon) :J
1 comment:
Update from a contact who was at the launch (we are working on an e-democracy project too, he's not from MI5 or anything when he says 'I will keep an eye on it"!!!) I wrote to asked if he knew anything about this:
"Yes - went to their launch this morning. Not a bad turnout. One problem could be quality of candidates who put themselves forward - had a couple speaking this morning. I'm certainly interested as Sir Paul Judge (could explain the name Jury Team?) was impressive and they put forward a very convincing case for the need for more independent MPs and the need to help them overcome the problems of getting voted into Parliament. They are using mobiles for votes which i guess in part might avoid people gaming the system - although even that's not foolproof. I've met a couple of people running the campaign so will keep in eye on it."
Post a Comment