As we have argued in The Change We Need: What Britain Can Learn From Obama’s Victory, if British political parties are to learn from the 2008 US election, they must engage in a cultural glasnost and open up channels for meaningful deliberation. But as Barry White sang, “Practice what you preach”, so we have engaged in a number of innovative steps ourselves in promoting our ideas.
Publishing a book or an article used to be an event involving information flowing one way. Now, with the help of new communication technology, it can become a process, with ideas travelling in many directions, between many people. It is still early days for these ideas, but we have aimed to be as imaginative as we can in creating space for a debate around the publication.
The first step we took was to publish the text with a Creative Commons licence. This is the first time this has happened in the 125-year history of our publishers, the world’s oldest think tank. Unlike ordinary copyright, where authors jealously guard the control of their work and anyone wishing to use it has to seek express permission, a Creative Commons licence allows other people to use our work for their own purposes. We favoured this approach because we believe that ideas should not be restricted, but be free to grow, mutate and inspire other initiatives and thoughts. In short, we think the many people reading the pamphlet are far more imaginative than the few who authored it ever can be.
We have also created an online environment where our key arguments can be debated. The pamphlet has it own website (ChangeWeNeed.org.uk) where every chapter will be uploaded and can be discussed by anyone who wishes to join in. In addition, it will also contain useful resources for anyone who wants to learn more about the 2008 American election. The Fabian Society’s own NextLeft blog will provide another environment for online debate and terminals were available at the publication launch so that attendees could blog their responses in real time.
You can even comment using Twitter. We know that the 140 character limit won’t suit everyone, but it just offers a different way to take part in the debate. We are using what Tweeters call ‘hash tags‘ where you add a special code to your message so that others can see they are on a particular topic which interests them. If you want to do this, then simply include #cwn (short for ‘change we need’) in the tweet. We will publish all of them here.
It seems likely that last year’s US election campaign is just the start of a seismic revolution. It is quite possible that the transition to the information age will rival the development of the printing press or industrialization as an epoch-forming event. Similarly, for those working in writing and publishing, it offers wonderful opportunities to engage with their audience in a way that was previously impossible. The full potential of this revolution is still unknown but these small steps are an attempt to show how we can embrace technology to further political participation. We hope that you join in the debate.