Us Now – go see
2008 December 5
I was lucky enough to snag a ticket to go and see Us Now at the RSA on Wednesday night.
Us Now, by Ivo Gormley, is a film about the power of online collaboration and communities – and what that might mean for future government. Its very powerful, highlighting some excellent case studies and interviewing a range of experts (its worth seeing for Ed Miliband’s appearance alone I think).
Others have already written better reviews than I could so all I will say is – its fantastic, go and see it.
There’s another preview viewing next Wednesday evening in London and there are still (free) tickets available. If you’re around, I highly recommend going along. This is one hour of your life you won’t regret giving up.
Jeremy – thanks for that, and pointing to Alice Casey’s review, which prompted the question, how can Government handle mass engagement as well as mass media, if there is a commitment to participation in policy? Can civil servants cope? Or should we see more participative elected representatives playing a bigger role in aggregating, filtering, analysing? I know you couldn’t possibly comment, but others might …
I also think it is a great film and really enjoyed it. But as I blogged (http://theconnectedrepublic.org/posts/264) I think we need to take a balanced approach. I absolutely agree that the sort of things the film focuses on has huge implications for government and I believe that it can and should mean fundamental change. However, I don’t think it means we are going to move to world where the public sector is replaced by volunteer-based, self-organised activity. Its fun to suggest that this might happen, but it’s not actually going to help us change government in the way we want to.
Hi Jeremy, really pleased that you liked the film. Its always terrifying showing your work to people who know what they’re talking about so Wednesday night was a nerve wracking experience for me.
I’m afraid that the Wednesday screening is fully booked now, but there will be more screenings coming up. Do you think there’s a way we might be able to use some of the material to do an interesting session at gov Barcamp , might be able to do some collaborative editing re-mixing of some sort?
Ivo
I have just read a few of the reviews and the comments on this page, I have not yet seen it but i would support the remix at Gov Barcamp.
Carl
Ivo – please do bring this to Barcamp in some way. I couldn’t make either preview but a colleague did and sent me a summary that made me really want to see it.