Join our first conversation

Click here to enter our first conversation: Welcome to izwe

Politicians are all talking about giving you more power and giving communities the influence they ought to have. We believe we can help. Technology and the internet, and hopefully izwe, can play a big supporting role in the day-to-day battle to give everyone a voice and take the best decisions that are transparent, representative and accountable.

The internet and social networks
Through the internet, we should be able to take part in our society from anywhere, with anyone. Using social networks - online and offline - we can quickly share information, participate in more of what is important to us, and build bigger and stronger communities.

We now have online social networks for professional contacts, and for fun and photo-sharing with friends - so why not for opinions and change? Izwe is that network and what's more, we are linking it into local and national corridors of power (see our current list of partners).

A step forward in engagement
Talk - and someone's listening? Not just the council, but also others in the community who feel the same way?
Have ideas and inspiration - and people see it, pick up on it and support it? 
Contribute helpful information - and have it valued and included?

That's what we're trying to do here: to build a place for you to come and influence change with others. To build a place for your local authority, your PCT, your local school even, to come to the community and invite you in, to get views, information and opinions, and to create communities around change. Izwe, after all, means 'people power'. See the post 'Third Generation Engagement' for a thought piece on the changing nature of participation, and 'What is Engagement?' for a few things we think engagement should and shouldn't be like.

Get stuck in
We've started our first conversation here to show you what we're all about, and because we want you to join us in thinking about the future of engagement and democracy, to let us know what you want to change about how you are listened to in your community and what will help us all move towards this future.

There are three ways in particular that we would like you to join in right now:
1) Are you 'engaged'? Tick some boxes in our survey about what gets you making waves.
2) What will democracy look like in 10 years time? Share your ideas on this and other questions, and vote for what you want to see!
3) Join our discussions or start a new one – we're happy and willing to chat about any issues around this area you feel like talking to us and others about!

When we've charted the course of these conversations, we'll be bringing you the headline results as well as any full datasets if you'd like them. We'll be discussing particular ideas further, and talking more about the practicalities and challenges of using online communities to tackle important issues in our 'how to izwe' practitioner community at howto.izwe.com(in development).  For more, see our post 'So, what next?'