Scottish Social Media dinner

Links to be added later - apologies, its the weakness of the Blackberry.

The dinner has been a great success and a big thank you to Craig McGill - from Contently Managed dot com for organising it and inviting me.

The speakers in order were, Tom Harris MP - then we ordered the starters - then me - then we ate the starters - Patrick Harvie MSP was next although continually interrupted by the arrival of the main courses - then we ate the main course and finally Councillor Alison Thewliss.

Unfortunately the Conservatives were unable to find anyone for the date.

Many topics were covered but the main focus of the speeches by the four speakers were why we use social media, how that's gone for us, high points and low points and then how we thought it may develop in the future for politicians, democracy and the voters.

There was then a lively Q & A session including topics such as - why are there so few women bloggers, is it the comments/attacks or is it the time needed, or does the number reflect the number of women involved in politics.

We then moved onto regulation and the 1200 websites taken down after instruction by the Metropolitan Police, it seems without a Court Order.

Should the internet have more red tape, the audience had very mixed views.

Then we were asked whether Council, the Holyrood and Westminster parliament websites serve their purpose, how can they be improved and indeed who are the websites targeting?

Edinburgh Council's Twitter account came in for some flak and then we wrapped up.

A great evening, some good debate and I'm looking forward to the next one.
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