The Information Society Unit of the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS), a research institute of the European Commission JRC is conducting an exploratory research on future ICT-enabled governance models at city level in Europe. We have launched a 'mapping' survey to identify key city governance policy areas most impacted by ICTs and select some significant case studies. If you wish to contribute to you can access the survey at http://ec.europa.eu/yourvoice/ipm/forms/dispatch?form=EXPGOV

Ideally the questionnaire should be answered by a city manager having a broad overview of the city governance processes and ICTs development (e.g. a representative of the Office of the Mayor or CIO), but we are also interested in having feedback from researchers and experts at city level. The survey will be open until December 15th 2009.
In case you would like to receive more information please do not hesitate to contact me!

GL

I stumbled across this just the other day (ok, they actually started following me on Twitter which is how I came to hear about it!) and thought I would share.
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Video interview at our "Crowdsourced Council" event this week from our friends at LocalGov.co.uk.

For the full report, check out their full article "Learning to listen through 'crowd computing."

For more information on the six products we presented on the day, check out their sites:

Uservoice
Yoosk
Audio/Videoboo
Quiet Riots
Consultwise
GovDelivery

Or drop us a line and we'll happily put you in touch.

And once again a big thanks to Capital Ambition for hosting the day.

"Last week, I gave a talk in Frankfurt at the impressive E20 Summit about leadership in devolved organisations. My starting point was the myth that leadership is somehow less important in new, networked organisations. Not so. If anything, it is more important than ever, but the focus and practice of leadership is changing; and if we are to engage leaders and involve them in the development of social business structures, then we need to be able to understand and address their challenges and issues using language that resonates with them."

"New forms of Leadership" - Lee Bryant, Headshift

To read the article in full, visit the Headshift blog.

I'm just back from the inaugural Personal Democracy Forum Europe so I thought I would share one the many great presentations from the event.

Scott's talk comes complete with fully integrated MP3 of the presentation (first time I've seen that one) and makes a really powerful case for social media as a facilitator, as a means for people to self-organise and to make change for themselves.

For all the audio and reporting back from the event, check out Civico's site where you can download to your heart's content.

My presentation is 34 mins 50 secs into the "We.gov and E-govt: Collaboration or Conflict?" session (currently 4th one down - direct link to it currently not working but you'll find it!).

Last thing - Personal Democracy Forum comes to the UK and other European countries next year so keep an eye out for that. Highly recommended.

Here's me having a good old tole-rant about something very close to my heart - how we can overcome prejudice against people with disabilities.

Loving the whole tole-rant thing:

"a global movement to inspire hope about solving social problems. Rather than ranting about everything that is wrong in the world, tole-ranters speak from the heart about social problems, and point to potential solutions - in 60 seconds. The dawn of hope-filled, heartfelt communications is here. It's time to tole-rant."

So go on, give it a go. It actually feels quite good to let it all out :)

Just in case you haven't already got enough Twitter in your life, here's the first of five clips of Shel Israel introducing his new book, Twitterville at a recent event.

You can catch the full set from the session here, including panel contributions from the likes of Tom Watson MP.