Well, I believe we are now in a "storming" phase, and it is important that people throw ideas. Hopefully order will emerge (with the help of the coordinators) in a second phase.

>> I try to reach the ones responsible for the respective groups - but we are sooo secure that those people in the "Social" media group are absolutely nut approachable. Why that irrational protection?

My impression in that indeed things are not very "fluid" in this platform as in what happen in other platforms (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, etc.). I assume it can be improved (I personally miss this impression of stream of activity that we find on other platforms).
You indicated that you tried to approach the ones responsible directly. Why didn't you post it directly in the open, so that other people can be involved? This is really a question.

Thierry

PS:
I believe that inputs such as AxelS one is very useful now, so that we start thinking out of the box.

Hi Axel!

Welcome to the DAA online space and thank you for your feedback.
Any constructive criticism is certainly welcome here as a way to improve the scope of the engagement platform and the debate.
As Commissioner Kroes stated in her related blog post, with this online forum we can reach out a wider range of people than the Digital Agenda Assembly event per se - that we will not call a success "without the active involvement of all those who are out there and interested in making it happen – stakeholders and citizens".
Our goal is to collect evidence and inspiring examples to address the issues relevant to the Digital Agenda for Europe. Moreover, it is to involve participants who are not typically that engaged in the debate.

You are right. The risk of losing focus - especially with a broad topic such as "social media" - is there. That said, the European Commission officials responsible for the DAE and myself are joining forces to keep the helm balanced and the boat flat ;-)
On a personal note, in this initial testing phase I have preferred not to interfere too much with content contribution (which does not mean I am not monitoring the conversation flow).

I would greatly appreciate if you would like to share with us your views and recommendations on how to make the most out of this platform and, not less importantly, help us to identify the key questions (and answers eventually!) to be discussed in this workshop.

Also, if you prefer to keep the conversation going on other networks (eg Facebook, Linkedin, twitter etc.) you can easily link your activity to this platform by the tag #da12social.

Finally, could you please clarify to whom you are referring when you say "those people in the social media group are absolutely not approachable"?
Personally I have not heard from you so far. You can always contact me in private here and on twitter (@Elena2020) just to mention few.

I am very much looking forward to receiving your inputs and to a fruitful interaction with you!

Best,

Elena

*Disclaimer: I am not European Commission Staff. Views are mine only.

Thierry,

Welcome to the DAA online space and thank you for your contribution and feedback.
I guess with my reply to Axel I answered your comment as well.
I am very much looking forward to interacting with you!

Best,

Elena

As a matter of fact, I guess that if you look at this forum from Palo Alto as AxelS is doing, you might think it was developed a couple of years ago. I am not sure this is the way it was meant to be but not having any sharing button, not being able to delete the posts, the fact that there is no mobile application or the lack of a version for mobiles are all elements that make the forum not very user-friendly.
When it comes to the organization of the topics, it is a matter of opinions: i agree with Nabeth Thierry and i think that a brain storming phase might be very useful. After that, i am sure that the coordinators of the various groups will be able to give a structure to the organization of the discussion.

One last feedback: does the DAA has a social media profile? A twitter account (besides the hashtags which are of course a good idea) with the links to the coordinators accounts, a facebook page or a tumblr account with links to the sources of the various conversations would be good tools to support the development of conversations and sharing idea.

4 years behind is probably a good estimate. I have always been keen to better understand why we (Europeans) have such a gap. Is it a matter of mentality (we are probably more risk adverse), public funding (way too much bureaucracy on this side of the ocean), market fragmentation and language barriers (we are still 27 states with different languages and institutions which are not always talking to each other), the luck of an innovative technology cluster such as Silicon Valley (this is probably already a consequence rather than a cause).

The "gap" between EU and US would be an interesting topic I would like to hear more about; in particular from a US perspective. @AxelS: will you touch upon this during your presentation at DAA?

Hi all. @michele, we have a feedback form on the right side where you can suggest improvement. We're on "permanent beta" here and welcome feedback - and act upon it: the sharing button is in the pipeline, the rest will depend on the feedback from users.

Hi all. I agree with the general feeling that the functionality is a long way from giving us a real open discussion space. Just as well that we'll have the Assembly next month then (for those who can get there).

Functionality aside, I'm more worried that we seem to be a long way from being properly immersed in what I'd call social media culture. Maybe because the functionality makes that hard, but it doesn't feel much like a full and engaged CONVERSATION. Mind you, I don't have any easy answers to offer on that either.

Just a couple of suggestion, as far the platform is concerned. In my experience I'm finding mt euro correspondents prefer LinkedIn (probably due to the inferrence that it's for "professionals"). I would have thought though that considering the conservative eu/ec culture and it's need to host everything on the europa domain, the team might have used the OS educational tool used by many EU institutions. i.e. a Moodle.
I'm a bit lost now, so far as the navigation around here is concerned. But I gotta give the moderators kudos for giving us summaries. Just wished I could get the logic of this place straight in my head.

BTW, so a far as "4 years ahead/behind". It's a cultural thing. You might notice that the US doesn't talk all around a bunch of subjects, which is unlikely to lead anywhere because the agendas are so mixed and interrelated (and attendees are rarely qualified to speak pragmatically). They set challenges. http://thenextweb.com/us/2012/05/23/the-us-gov-is-seeking-developers-to-... and then invite some qualified people.