When I was over in Adelaide in February earlier this year, someone introduced me to the Peter Cook film *The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer*. It’s a brilliant and pertinent satire on the concept of *participative democracy gone mad*.
For me the key thing the film flags up with the challenges of creating a more participative form of government, is to ensure you’re asking the right person the right questions. The idea of tapping into the collective intelligence of the people works best when you involve relevant expertise – i.e. if you’re wanting to solve a problem to do with farming, involve farmers and the wider farming community to help come up with solutions.
This is a model we’ve used in our work in the US using our Dialogue App, which has worked extremely well – setting specific challenges to specific problems, whether local or national.
Anyway, beyond my theoretical nit-picking, enjoy Peter Cook’s genius below!
