Canada Revenue Agency announces YouTube contest

Whenever I see a new addition on the Government 2.0 Best Practices Wiki, I immediately proceed to do a little investigative research to find out if it’s legit. The other day I stumbled upon this press release (via the CRA RSS feed) announcing the launch of The Canada Revenue Agency’s new “Underground Economy – Not your Problem?” YouTube video contest.

Essentially,  the CRA is inviting Canadians to tell how the underground economy is affecting them and their communities. The contest details are brilliantly laid out in this surprisingly “non-government like” YouTube video (that’s a good thing by the way…):

Here are some things I like about this initiative:

• It takes the existing “one-way” CRA YouTube channel to a “two-way” engagement state, calling on Canadians to submit their thoughts in the form of a video using a  medium accessed by over 336 million people each day.
• It shows that the CRA, an organization that is easy to pick on and “hate”, is ready to engage in dialogue and perhaps vocal negative feedback (this form of openness will surely make it succeed in the long run).
• It is “an idea worth spreading”. These kind of “memes” are worthy of a quick “tweet” and/or even a blog post like this one. The easy “embedability” of a YouTube video allows buzz to spread exponentially.
• It puts other departments that still don’t know what “web 2.0″  is to shame. If the CRA can engage in social media, why can’t department X?

Things I don’t like, or do I?:

• I noticed the comments on YouTube for this video are blocked. On the other hand, comments are not the main objective of this initiative. Besides, they would surely be filled with brainless absurdities from active tax evaders. If someone has something intelligent to say, it’s easy to find other places to do so that are tied in to this initiative. Therefore, while I am usually in avid support of comments, not including them in this case could be justified. Hopefully the contest information website is sufficient for people that have actual questions. Otherwise the only option is to email contest_concours@cra.gc.ca.

There have been numerous entries already, which is a good sign for initiatives of this nature. I’m looking forward to seeing the winning video.

What are your thoughts?

U.S. gets a new President, White House launches new web site & blog…

Being a Canadian, I can’t think of ever being so interested in and passionate about U.S politics as in the last 4 years; Clearly I’m not alone. Today’s Presidential Inauguration Ceremony was not only attended in person by over 2 Million people (the most to date), but also set unprecedented records for LIVE video streaming viewership and online discussion (just track hashtag #inaug09 on Twitter).

We have all heard how Barack Obama leveraged social media during the campaign (just Google it…). Politicians and campaign planners will surely continue analyzing his every move for years to come. What interests me however, is not what he did to get to where he is today, but rather what he plans on doing starting tomorrow. More specifically, I’m interested as to how President Obama will continue to leverage social media under White House restrictions.

I truly believe 100%, that he genuinely wants to interact and engage with U.S citizens more than any prior President. He is not resistant to new communications channels (and the modern technology that enables them), but rather embraces them with excitement. He understands the democratization of the web, the importance of citizen empowerment and the power of the individual (in aggregate) more than anyone. In fact, he has already demonstrated it as President. Today, just as Barack was being sworn in, the new White House Web Site was launched.

Of course, what kind of President would have a website without also having an Official Blog (complete with an RSS feed), brilliantly launched and introduced during his swearing in. It has already been updated 4 times , which is a clear indication that the contributing bloggers don’t have to go through the stale, traditional, communications approval process that is still required (and rightly so…) for other media channels.

The Blog will be run by Macon Philips, who is the Director of New Media at the White House. He has introduced himself as one of the main contributors. This kind of disclosure is crucial towards the success of a government/political blog. People want to know the person behind the words, they want to put a human face (and voice) to the Ivory Tower world of the White House. This is their ticket in.  I can guarantee that Barack Obama had a lot to do with this and will surely be contributing in one way or another, even with the weight of the world now on his shoulders.

Congratulations to the entire Obama team on a job well done! Most importantly, congrats to you, President Barack H. Obama. This is one of the first times in my life, that I am truly proud to be a northern neighbour of the United States of America. Let’s hope our Canadian political system will one day undergo similar reform/rebirth so that we are able to boost our abysmal voter turnout percentage.

U.S. Election Fever – Social Media Style

Even as a Canuck, I am feeling a great sense of excitement today for our neighbours down south. This is truly going to be an evening to remember as the results pour in, in less than 4 hours. I figured I’d provide you all with a list of key web 2.0 mash-ups, widgets and sites that I will be tracking over the course of the evening (special thanks to Mark Szpakowski for his suggestions).

• http://election.twitter.com/
• http://blog.twittervotereport.com/
• http://predicts.betfair.com/
• http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
• http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/
• http://www.dailykos.com/
• http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27227813
• http://www.nytimes.com/2008/results/dashboard.html (for iphone and ipod touch users)

Here is a simple Google Map widget that will feature the resutls live as they come in: