England and open source, social media, etc...

I've always been impressed with the way that England seems to be way ahead of the curve in terms of applying the power of the web to the way government deliberates. Blogging of course has had a big impact on politics here, but more on the side of campaigning, not governing. There is a huge difference.

Look at the local e-democracy national project, how Britons can petition their prime minister, and now a speech by a conservative politician on Open Source Politics. I love his three pillars:

The first of these pillars is about equality - equality of information - or what Eric Schmidt, Chief Executive of Google, called "the democratisation of access to information" when he spoke to our Party Conference.

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The second pillar of a new political settlement will be founded on new social networks.

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The final pillar of this new political settlement is open source.

Last week I went to hear my friend Professor Jeff Sachs deliver the first Reith Lecture. He talked about open source politics.

Open source politics means rejecting the old monolithic top-down approach to decision-making.

It means throwing open the doors and listening to new ideas and new contributors.

It means harnessing the power of mass collaboration.