Government 2.0 What the heck is that?

For the past 4 days I have been at the Canadian Federation of Canadian Municipalities' annual conference, this year held in Toronto.
On Friday May 28th I attended a workshop called Government 2.0 The Intersection of technology, Public Policy and Political Aspirations! What a title! A person could be intimidated by such a title. However, I found this to be one of the most exciting workshops of the conference.
It would seem that the cities of Vancouver and Nanaimo BC are a way ahead of us as far as using the internet to communicate with our residents and businesses is concerned.

I have been complaining to my colleagues on Halton Hills Council that the way we communicate with the public is completely out of date and ineffective. And I am tired of hearing that it is the public's fault, not ours.

The workshop showed how we can use existing tools to make everything we do much more accessible and we can reach many more people than we are today. It isn't that hard to do. But it does take a certain amount of trust.

Municipalities have made great strides forward by putting reports and agendas on our websites but there is much more we can and should do. Primarily this isn't done because we worry about privacy issues. However, we are also governed by the Access to Information Act. Citizen's can get much more information by going to the trouble of formally making a request. It stands to reason that if they can get it now, then there shouldn't be a problem making the information more easily available via the internet.

In Nanaimo for example people can enter an address into Google and find out if there is a planning application on the property and if so, what exactly is being proposed. You can go directly to Google Streets and see the property. If it is a business, you can see the licences they have with the City. Residents can "Google" the local arenas and locate available icetime instantly.

Both Vancouver and Nanaimo use Facebook and Twitter to communicate more directly with people who want to be better informed.

I plan to bring these possibilities for better communications to our town council in the near future. It was emphasized in the workshop that doing this is not expensive primarily because it all uses open software that is available to all of us to use for free. We just need to get going.