online participation

i spent a chunk of today "participating online" in the 'web 2.0 summit' hosted by the City of Toronto, subtitled "Moving towards Government 2.0" [see the Agenda]. i hadn't heard anything about it until a tweet from Kevin Von Appen of the Ontario Science Centre mentioned he was speaking. the event offered 'on-line participation' and since i didn't have a time to head downtown i figured i'd check it out.

what i got was a lesson in how not to run an on-line event. rather than use the opportunity to model the kinds of changes in communications patterns that 'web 2.0' tech enables, the event was a one-way, an opportunity to watch 'guys in the know' talk to each other. video went out from the meeting, complete with horrible music when there was a break in the audio feed. "questions" could be submitted through an 'ask a question' form, but they turned out to be highly moderated.  [there was no mention of moderation anywhere in the prep materials.] there was a link to 'view the moderators board', but from my experience a lot of what was asked never made it there. at one point it disappeared completely for me. there was also a form to enter 'comments'. where they went was anyone's guess. i couldn't find any trace of what i  submitted, anywhere [though tech support did tell me the went 'into the same database as everything else'. how reassuring.]