I’m going to post in more detail on some of the aspects of the conference I attended in Budapest last week, but first I thought an overview might be useful.

The conference was three days long, held at the Hotel Intercontinental in Budapest, and organised by the UK’s department for communities and local government (DCLG), formerly ODPM. I was invited to go on a bursary paid for by DCLG; I will try to give an honest assessment of the conference, but bear in mind that the fluffy pillows on which I slept and the wine I drunk at the evening reception was paid for by the great British taxpayer, helped out by a variety of corporate sponsors, so I may fail in speaking truth to power.

Before I went to the conference, I mentioned that the agenda seemed to consist of many of the great and the good, and was embarassingly corrected on one particular attendee by the symposium director. And whilst I enjoyed the symposium immensely, I’m not sure that much of it wasn’t as I had predicted. The great and the good - you know, those people from collection-of-initials organisations, most of which have EU, UN or Council of Europe in the title - predominated in many of the sessions and plenaries, overtaking the make-it-happens. Maybe it’s to do with my lack of formal engagement with the subject - after all, I’m pretty much a blogger by accident - but I couldn’t get straight in my head the various instruments, directives, initiatives and funding streams in this immensely active but complicated world of e, so appreciated most the speakers with direct experience of delivering projects that worked - whether that be Norfolk county council’s youth website, Gllomanor’s I’m a councillor get me out of here (any other Oxford councillors fancy having a go at that this autumn?), Public-i’s live and playback streaming of council meetings and Bob Kerslake and Paul Bettison telling us how e-democracy improves local services in Sheffield and Bracknell Forest.

Unfortunately, this was one of those conferences where most of the speakers delivered powerpoints with far too many words onscreen in a monotone, oblivious to the positive effects of engaging one’s audience, or the successful tactic of considering in advance, “now, what do this audience want to hear about, rather than what am I desperate to tell them about?” So, we ended up listening to presentations of research containing 25 slides of data and methodology and one of conclusions. I don’t know why this surprised me; I guess I thought these technologically-switched-on people, so committed to e-participation, would be great at designing participatory workshops. I guess seeing the people in front of them rather than hearing the ping of new email or updated blogs must have foxed them rather.

/tangent When I rule the world, there will be mandatory powerpoint training. It will start off something like this: if you must type out your speech, why not read from a word document, rather than playing the slightly odd game where the audience read the words from your powerpoint as you say them and the whole thing resembles a collection of teenagers singing along to a new album by reading the lyrics off the sleeve? Excellent. Now, you may have a maximum of seven words on this slide. Which ones convey the most important concepts that you want your audience to remember? Come on now, you really don’t need the words “the”, “on” and “to”, do you? No. That’s better. Even the most boring research project has a photo illustrating something, somewhere. Oh, and resist the temptation to use tables or word art. For advanced students only, try looking up at the audience occasionally (you can put your thumb on the sentence you’ve just read to keep your place if you like); attempt the odd feeble joke; grin widely and inanely; consider having a prop such as a silly hat. Didn’t that go well?! /end of tangent

So, the quality of sessions was patchy, and the love of e-people for acronyms and obfuscation apparent. What to make of this aim for the conference?

Provide a framework for the follow on to the UN Global e-Government Readiness Report 2005: From e-Government to e-Inclusion

No, I don’t know either, but then as an elected member in frontline politics I was a rarity. Most of the attendees were managers from British local authorities, and the idea that party politics could - and probably should, given the extent to which it is political parties that keep local democracy alive in many areas - be part of the e-democracy and e-participation agenda was anathema. All this local engagement and taking part is great, but as soon as anyone assumes a party label, then suddenly it’s sullied.

There were some fantastic seminars, and I’ll report in more detail on some of them presently. But what I really loved about the conference was the chance to meet some really great people and have the type of conversations that make you want to stay up til 3am chatting even when the bar has closed. And there were some impressive keynote speakers, who’ve done things I couldn’t even begin to imagine in the world of e-engagement. There are more posts to follow, specifically on the people I met; the youth and hard-to-reach seminars; and the blogging masterclass and its implications for this site, and the conference weblog, with podcasts of many of the speakers, is available here.