Danish politicians 2.0 1
Yesterday, I wrote a short post on Blogbyblog about the new online efforts of two Danish members of parliament, and was happy to see a direct response from one of them within 24 hours of writing the post. I guess it’s one of the benefits of coming from a small country – all I ever got from Hillary Clinton in the United States was a standard email written by someone else.
The commenting politician is Ellen Trane Nørby. She is the media spokesperson for the Danish liberal party (Venstre), and she is on Flickr, Skype, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube, and also has her own blog. Ellen says she agrees with me that using services like this will get more exciting when they are used to involve citizens actively in the political process rather than as tools for simple self promotion. Political comparisons aside, she’s no Segolene Royal. Yet.
The other politician I mentioned is social democrat Mogens Lykketoft. He has a new website, which he introduces with the following video. You don’t have to speak Danish to see that the level of ambition for what he expects citizen to do with his website is pretty limited. I don’t know why he writes down words like YouTube on cardboard cards while he says them. Cute? Or patronizing?
I don’t really mean to criticize the effort, but it would be nice for politicians to speak to citizens like thinking adults with useful views (Here’s one idea: better microphone). His next videos are much better, but only because he sticks with the politics.
OMG – that’s so funny!!