Katherine Barrett and Richard Greene are national experts in government management and policy.
E-mail: greenebarrett@gmail.comTwitter: @GreeneBarrett
Idea Center
It's Not All Politics with YouTube's 'Town Hall'
The new website empowers citizens to make their decisions based on the issues and not the party that supports them.
Citizen involvement can be hard to come by. So we were immediately intrigued when we first heard about YouTube's "virtual town hall platform." Here's the deal, according to a description on the website: "YouTube Town Hall is an online platform for members of Congress to debate and discuss the most important issues of the day. Visitors can select an issue, watch two short videos expressing competing ideas, and then support the one they agree with most. To help people focus on the merits of the idea and not the party of the speaker, the speaker's party isn't revealed until after a user decides which video to support. The most supported videos will be highlighted on the YouTube Town Hall Leaderboard."
We've played with this for a bit, and it feels like it has potential. We're not aware of any states or cities doing anything similar. We think they should.
Get more ideas from Katherine Barrett and Richard Greene in their twice-monthly management letter, the B&G Report.
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Twitter: @GreeneBarrett
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