Senator Lundy explains how you can contribute online to the Realising our Broadband Future Forum, which is on next Thursday and Friday, the 10th and 11th December. The transcript is below and includes all links and additional information.
UPDATE (7/12/09): All remote group contributions are listed at http://bbf.civictec.net/
UPDATE (31/12/09): All remote contributions closed soon after the event, however comments are still welcome below.
Realising our Broadband Future forum – individual and group contributions
Realising Our Broadband Future is a public consultation to map out high speed broadband applications, services and business models that will drive Australia’s digital economy. It is being run by Minister Conroy and the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy.
I wanted to just take a few minutes to help you understand how you can contribute to this consultation online. For those familiar with my Public Sphere series, this Forum is using some of the same methods.
Firstly, if you are on Twitter please use the #bbfuture hashtag to connect with others and bounce ideas around.
“Open for Ideas” is the online tool to suggest ideas and questions for discussion. It is based on Google Moderator and will be open in the coming days (Monday) for your contributions.
Ideas can be provided within each of the five discussion streams: Smart Infrastructure, Digital Education, e-Communities, e-Health and e-Business.
These suggestions can then be voted up or down before the actual forum, so you should make sure you get in, get your ideas up and have your say as soon as you can
The aim of this part of the consultation is to identify key areas that a majority of people agree are important for including in discussion at the forum.
I encourage you to post a You Tube video comment or even a video response, which you can also link to your suggestions if you choose.
The next part of the consultation is a wiki which aggregates the ideas from the Open for Ideas platform. This wiki will be open for contributions as of the morning of the Forum, and you can add new ideas as well as comments. This will be the main place to contribute online, to help map the next steps for industry, community and the government to Realise Our Broadband Future.
If you are considering getting a few people together to watch the live stream, or even have a local community discussion, please see the Forum website.
For example, it’s great to see Parramatta City Council taking the initiative to with their group consultation. So check out their website for details.
Finally, we are all thrilled with the number of people who registered to participate in the forum, however the response has been so strong that we phsyically don’t have room for everyone.
However, the forum was always designed to promote online participation. By ensuring that plenary sessions of the forum will be webcasted live – and audio streaming of other sessions –you will still be an important part of the conversation, wherever you are.
I’m really pleased to support Minister Conroy in this project and I believe it is an important consultation not just for the planning of future directions of the National Broadband Network, but also for how government consults in the future.
I look forward to seeing you online and really encourage you to use the online tools that we’re making available so you can be part of this conversation.
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For anyone who may wish to join in a group discussion on Thursday 10 Dec, there is a quick-link page to the various confirmed city ‘remote participation’ venues (incl registration & feedback blogs) at http://www.bbf.civictec.net.
If you would like to host a city /community discussion group, please confirm with Pia Waugh and we can support you with a ready-to-go blog and registration site.
cheers,
John Wells
Why have you ‘disappeared’ the open to ideas page? Is it so we can’t look at what ideas you decide to pass on?
Not very open really.
I want to see how the votes turned out for each stream.
K
Hi Kevin,
Firstly, we (in Senator Lundy’s office) are not running the open to ideas page, but it is still available at http://www.google.com/moderator/?expr#16/e=402 if you want to see how the votes turned out
Cheers,
Pia
Office of Senator Lundy
Once again our Federal Government and DBCDE in particular show how little they care about those on “pair gain” in relation to participation in the nationally important “Realising our Broadband Future” conference. Yes – hard to believe but the vital speeches and the like are only available as direct view streams to those ALREADY WITH BROADBAND and cannot be downloaded as “podcast” presentations.
Kate – use your good influences with your colleagues to get the appropriate departments to think for ALL AUSTRALIANS – including those Telstra “Pair Gain Victims” – their participation is a vital part of any emerging Gov 2.0 democratic activity and it surprising just how many there are! It is EASY – set up all presentations as podcasts that can be loaded down – at say a school, university or even a library – for later viewing and for participation.
I expected better from DBCDE and our Labor Government.
Hi Bill,
Thanks for the feedback, and for representing the needs of low bandwidth Australians. The lack of audio only coverage of most of the event was a clear lesson that needs to be incorporated into future Gov 2.0 consultations, and we are putting together some lessons to apply. We need to all understand that this process of moving towards online consultation will take a few iterations before it works, and this forum was the first of its kind for a Ministerial office and government department, so although there are certainly some lessons that need to be learned and applied in the next one, it is still a huge step forward for inclusivity and access to government processes.
All content can be downloaded, and are available to download, not just as “direct streams” as you’ve suggested, however we agree that there also needs to be audio only versions of all content available for people who don’t have the bandwidth for video streaming or for large downloads. As it was, all plenary sessions were available in video only, and the stream discussions were available in audio only.
All video and some audio content from the day can currently be downloaded from http://broadbandfuture.gov.au/conference-program.html
Cheers,
Pia Waugh
Office of Senator Kate Lundy