Congratulations.

I’ll be looking forward to seeing… How easy it is to keep up with the conversations on that site – rss of comments? Wordle of all comment text? What sort of people take part – digital divide and technocracy issues? How do the consulators show they’re listening – just add a comment?

“Disaster is not an option!” I think I’ll take that to use for the future!

Seriously, though, probably disaster was a strong word. Failure or disappointment; those are better suited.

It won’t be a disaster. That’s the beauty of doing what you have done. You’ve nothing to lose. Disaster isn’t an option.

Thanks for the concern; this isn’t solely my project, however. It’s being driven by Policy who will ultimately take the reins and they are planning to do a number of workshops both internally and externally to promote the use of the site as a discussion area. Communications will also be backing promotion through the local media.

I’ll certainly be keeping all up to date via Twitter and my blog, so I’m hoping it’s not a tremendous disaster!

I appreciate that and Dave is right about taking small steps. I’m just cautious because those of us who are heavy users of social media can get carried away with the technology and forget to look over our shoulders to make sure the rest of the world are with us.

One of the things that Steve Clift from Edemocracy.org recommends is that you don’t launch a discussion site until you’ve done the offline recruitment first. If you want to generate conversations you don’t want an empty space. You need a critical mass of participants.

I don’t want to put people off experimenting. It’s vital. But so are the more boring parts such as offline recruitment.

Dave, I’m writing up a blog post regarding this divulging some of the thoughts behind the project; do you have a problem if I pop a link in the comments of this post once it’s done?

BUT

that’s just the technology. The bigger step will be make the consultations engaging and deliberative, to make them interesting, to let people know what effect filling in a questionnaire will have…