Mood:  special

As a former City Councillor who supported E-Tools for community consultation, I observed some great examples of community social capital, including Web 2.0. So Toronto's Web 2.0 Summit sounds intriguing. Billed as an interactive forum to explore how Web 2.0 technology can change the way governments interact with citizens, create policies and make decisions - see agenda. The Web 2.0 Summit is an opportunity to:

The Web 2.0 Summit is an opportunity to:

Share ideas about how Web 2.0 and social media (such as wikis, blogs and social networking profiles) can increase civic engagement, reach all communities and improve City services.

Learn new ways for elected officials to engage communities on the services that affect their quality of life.

Help build the Web service strategy for Canada's largest city.

The Summit features Councillors, Community Groups, Council officials, industry reps eg Anthony D Williams of Wikinomics - "Government 2.0 :Unleashing Wikinomics in the City of Toronto". Also Mark Sturman, whose Keynote Address was well received. Interesting how he used Mozilla Wiki to develop speaker notes and invite collaboration, also referencing Beltzner's Changing the World slides (large). I liked Sacha Chua's blog posting on her experience as a Gen Y panelist.

It seems so many cities around the world are doing Web 2.0 events. In San Francisco Al Gore "addressed the San Francisco audience at the Web 2.0 Summit with an urgent appeal to assign a purpose to Web 2.0 tools. His address focussed on three themes, in cluding the democracy crisis: television has removed the democratic view of truth, and interactive Web TV - (Current tv) has the potential to restore it."

Now even Second Life features a Government 2.0 discussion group, according to Rialtas - Web 2.0 to Government 2.0 in Ireland — e-Government and e-Democracy !  More at Mybloglog.

So it will be interesting to see how Toronto compares with Australian Cities such as Wollongong. There, community activists are using E-tools in their campaign to regain its local democracy, from the NSW State Government appointed administrators. The previous council axed Neighbourhood Committees. Now a new Engagement Framework is  introduced - see Community Engagement Calendar & Activities.

Also interesting to see former councillors, such as Graham Wilton, previously not known for being part of IT geekdom, getting into blogging to voice their views.