Friday, November 14, 2008

Social Media and the Mayor of Minneapolis

Blogger Peter Shankman has a wide-ranging interview with the mayor of Minneapolis.


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Mayor R.T. Rybak is a good choice on this topic, as he used to be a newspaper reporter and worked at a company that produced web-based video.

Rybak makes a number of interesting points. The most interesting to me was that he listed Napster, of all things, as a model for government and public exchange using new technologies. Just as people share music, they should be able to share ideas via the Internet.


"I like anything that breaks down that barrier between people and allows you to build new relationships," Rybak told Shankman. "People often talk about the Internet as being something that is more isolating ... us sitting staring at our screens. No, no, that's television. The Internet, done right, is really about connecting us all."

As Shankman responded, "Awesome."

That said, I couldn't find a lot of examples in the Minneapolis web site, suggesting once again as if we didn't know that government is moving slowly in terms of utilizing social media.

Rybak has a page on the social networking site Facebook. I had to chuckle someone started a Facebook group to run him for governor.