Lynne Featherstone

My thoughts on how the Liberal Democrats should approach the online elements of the next general election are up on the New Statesman blog:

Later this year will be the 10th anniversary of my first website: a dozen or so static HTML files, livened up with an animated graphic and a Javascript quiz - a little bit of interactivity even back then!

Looking at how my use of the internet for politics since then has multiplied - emails, blogs, more emails, Facebook, yet more emails, Twitter, even more emails, an experiment with Bebo, and yet more emails - I would say I've learnt three key things about technology and politics.

First, you don't have to know how to do the technology - you can get other people to help with that - but understanding what you want out of it and the new opportunities it offers is vital.

Second, it helps bring political success - I wouldn't have got elected an MP without it.

And third, as much of the technology has got easier and easier to do, getting the technical details correct is - while still key - becoming less important compared to getting your mindset right.

I'm quite taken at the moment with a quote from the American writer Clay Shirky, which makes this last point in a slightly different way: "The revolution doesn't happen when society adopts new tools. It happens when society adopts new behaviours."

You can read the full piece over there.

Comments

1. AM says:

   16 January 2009 at 8:42 pm

   As importantly it democratises the control of information.