*** Democracies Online Newswire - http://www.e-democracy.org/do *** Lately, I have been telling people that I am a decade into my fifty year plan. A fifty year plan for e-democracy? I know, I know "e-democracy" was supposed to be instant, something that would just happen without any intentional effort. I have never believed that Internet-enabling representative democracy or making more direct forms of citizen participation via information networks a reality would be easy or automatic. In fact, I am surprised at how far we have come, while at the same wishing we could move faster and reach further. If the first ten years of the "e-democracy" story were about the dreams and visions of what is possible, then the next ten will be about pragmatic steps toward those visions. Let the interconnected hype and fall of online politics media coverage and the NASDAQ become a distant memory. Let's get half-way and celebrate our successes. Roll up your sleeves and build e-democracy one step at a time whether as an individual citizen or organizationally through the non-profit, government, media, or commercial sectors. In Minnesota, the "E-Democracy Legislative Study Group" is my next incremental, pragmatic contributions to "e-democracy." I like to see results, so I concentrate my energy where I think I can have a meaningful impact. Through Minnesota E-Democracy, we have organized 30 Minnesotans (thus far, including some legislators) interested in discussing specific law changes and programs that will "Internet- enable" our representative democracy. Today we started with the simple question - "Should the Open Meeting Law be change to required all public meetings to be announcement on the Internet in order to be legal?" What can you do in your city, state/province, or nation along these lines? If you'd like to participate directly in our Minnesota- specific deliberations you need only promise us one thing - you will work to form a similar study group in your jurisdiction of choice. If you can't commit to working with your elected officials to explore legislation, then just stick to our web archive please. We also need help from researchers willing to analyze and compare the representative online features (i.e. what information services do different state legislative web sites provide) to help see where Minnesota is behind or ahead as well as legislative experts that can help track down similar "e-democracy" legislation around the world. Get the full details and join us from: http://www.e-democracy.org/study/ Happy New Democracy! Steven Clift Minnesota E-Democracy Democracies Online Newswire ^ ^ ^ ^ Steven L. Clift - W: http://www.publicus.net Minneapolis - - - E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Minnesota - - - - - T: +1.612.822.8667 USA - - - - - - - ICQ: 13789183 *** Please send submissions to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** To subscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** Message body: SUB DO-WIRE *** *** To unsubscribe instead, write: UNSUB DO-WIRE *** *** Please forward this post to others and encourage *** *** them to subscribe to the free DO-WIRE service. ***
