Join me in Austria next September at the EDem2008 conference.
In addition to speaking, I hope to use this as an opportunity to have an informal conversation with researchers interested helping design a proposal for a multi-city European comparative research project on *citizen-based* local e-democracy projects (including a mix of community and neighbourhood Issue Forums [...]

I invite those interested in connecting with others to generate joint bids to introduce their ideas via the DoWire Groups dedicated to online consultation and e-participation:
groups.dowire.org/groups/consult/
While only legal entities from the 27 member EU states may apply, there is a significant opportunity for good e-democracy ideas and model to be shared [...]

Please pass this announcement on to those you know in the Boston area. If you are from outside the Harvard community, come on along and cc: clift@publicus.net with your RSVP as noted below.
See you in Boston!
Steven Clift
e-democracy.org – dowire.org
EVENT ANNOUNCEMENT
The Leadership for a Networked World Program at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government [...]

Ross Ferguson from the Hansard Society in the UK alerted me to their new report. Thanks Ross.
Steven Clift
e-democracy.org
dowire.org
From:
www.hansardsociety.org.uk/programmes/e-democracy/digital_dialogues
The purpose of Digital Dialogues is to assess the capacity of ICT to support central government’s communication and consultation activity (principally with the public but also with internal stakeholders).
Digital Dialogues takes technology as its focus and seeks [...]

From the Pew Internet and American Life Project:
Twice as many Americans used the internet as their primary source of news about the 2006 campaign compared with the most recent mid-term election in 2002.
Some 15% of all American adults say the internet was the place where they got most of their campaign news during the election, [...]