My good friend Warren Wilansky runs a great web design/dev shop in Montreal called Plank Multimedia, Inc. Warren’s very much a “for the people” kind of guy, so I know he’s particularly excited about one of Plank’s latest projects — Citizen Voices.

Citizen Voices is a site run by the Governor General of Canada, Michaelle Jean. On the site you’ll find blogs, forums and other content related to her work. The goal of the site is to create dialogue with Canadians, and I suspect in large part, to target younger Canadians.

Breaking Down Solitudes

That’s a pretty cool tagline…and while many of us are jaded and suspicious of our governments (and there’s merit there too), it’s nice to see projects like this that seem to be truly open, honest and about reaching out.

It just launched today (and Warren’s even in Ottawa for a press conference!) so we’ll have to see where it goes, what the content looks like and how interesting/active the dialogue is, but I’m happy for Warren and interested in keeping track of it all.

There is a live chat today if you’re interested, targeting young Canadians. Am I still a young Canadian? *sigh* I won’t be able to join the live chat today, but I wish the Governor General best of luck with the new project!

And I think we’ll see an opportunity here for more government officials, agencies, etc. to reach out to people via the Web. I’ve heard of several US politicians using Second Life as a way of reaching into the virtual world. Of course, some will use it as another platform for their “Charlie Brown parent talk” and others will use it properly, for grassroots causes, dialogue and making real connections.

So check out Citizen Voices and participate in the discussion!

[tags]michaelle jean, canada, government, politics, governor general, citizen voices[/tags]