Ask Premier Ed
Earlier this summer fusedlogic launched a social media website called “dearmrpremier.ca” in an attempt to enable an open and direct line of communications with Premier Ed Stelmach and his office. The thought is, Albertans could respectfully ask a question directly of Premier Stelmach and he could select one or more questions to respond to personally with the understanding that he couldn’t possibly answer every single one. The catch is that this would all be open to comment and vote by the public.
We started this prototype process by inviting college students to participate and in fact a few did. Because of ongoing discussions, we haven’t put any resources behind marketing the project, as we were waiting for a more opportune time to move forward. After the soft launch on Twitter we were notified in less than an hour that Premier Stelmach’s staff were actively searching for answers as to who was behind the site. After it was determined through our communications that our intent was not malicious we had asked if there may be an opportunity to discuss the future of the site and the potential of having Premier Stelmach’s direct participation. Those meetings have not as of yet happened.
In the meantime, so that Albertans have a better understanding of the differences in functionality and approach between dearpremier.ca and Ask Premier Ed we’ve prepared a brief comparison of models below.
| Dear Mr Premier | Ask Premier Ed | |
| Channels of Communication | Open post, can be shared on Facebook/Twitter | Twitter, YouTube, Online Form |
| Timeline | Launched March 15, 2009 | Launched November 25, 2009 |
| Openness | All posts are visible, moderation happens after | Moderation happens behind the scenes |
| Likelihood of a Response | Only upon a certain level of public involvement | For a chosen post, guaranteed |
| Discussion Around Ideas | Complete open citizen participation through comments or followup questions | No discussion functionality available |
| Importance Determined By | Public voting | The Premier’s office |
| Design | Simplicity | Integrated with other government resources |
Further Examples of Communication Models:
Open for Questions (Official WhiteHouse.gov page)
Prime Minister Harper’s Facebook Page
