Steven Clift

Public Speaker on e-democracy, e-participation, e-transparency, Government 2.0…

“You were so colorful, credible, interesting . . .”

I tell the story of the future of democracy, community and governance in the information age.  I bring e-democracy to life through real examples and insights. These are based on my direct experience and lessons gathered in-person and online around the world.  Through hundreds of speeches across 26 countries, I have shared my uniquely optimistic yet pragmatic vision of the opportunities and challenges ahead. Download and read some of my examples speeches and slides below.

I am available as a speaker, panel moderator/participant or training leader on democracy online. This includes e-democracy, e-government/Government 2.0, online consultation, online communities and citizen participation, politics online and related topics. I work with my hosts to tailor my speech/training to the needs of their conference or organization. With my base of experience, from Prime Ministers to citizen groups, I can speak at a moments notice and connect at the appropriate level with any audience.

For honorarium and travel expense details please contact me.

Speeches and Presentations

• Listen/Read/Watch – Government 2.0 Meets Everyday Citizens and Democracy – My 20 minute final plenary keynote to the 47 nation Council of Europe’s Forum for the Future of Democracy in Madrid, Spain in late 2008.
• How the Internet Can Support Government Transparency and Citizen Engagement Presentation – NewsOut.Org Conference – 2009
• Local Citizen Media and Issues Forum in-depth webinars for E-Democracy.Org. – Each session is approximately one hour from March 2009.
• 2008 Personal Democracy Forum Speech – 17 Minute Keynote – Watch my speech above that made the New York Times.

• Great Expectations: After the vote – citizens online, e-democracy in governance, and White House 2.0 – Scroll through my slides above or listen to the one hour presentation in MP3.

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• Global E-Democracy Trends 2007 – 50MB Power Point – An excellent overview of leading e-democracy applications developed by innovative governments and others around the world. Personalized versions of this speech have gone over extremely well in over a dozen countries.
  
  • Older, smaller version: 11MB PowerPoint (On Windows, right-click to “Save As” on your computer)
• Issues Forums Seminar – 6MB Slides – An in-depth “how to” seminar on E-Democracy.Org’s break through local online Issues Forum model. The 90 minute audiomostly in English is available.
• Citizens 2.0 – Audio in MP3 – A slideless keynote (text available) for IAP2 – the International Association for Public Participation – international conference in Montreal.
• Everyday Citizens - Audio in MP3 – This is a special speech given in National Press Club-style hosted by the University of Minnesota. No slides, just a spoken narrative for about 40 minutes with audience Q & A to finish off the hour. The speech shares a vision for “everyday citizenship” via lessons from my trip to Mongolia, a conference in DC, and includes practical advice for information age citizens in local places around the world (with a Minnesota twist). Examples related to the speech are linked from the DoWire wiki. I want to thank Minnesota Public Radio for recording this speech.

• Public Net-Work – PowerPoint – A new and exciting topic that applies e-democracy lessons to the improved implementation of public policy. Available in keynote and workshop versions.
• Online Consultation Seminar – PowerPoint – An updated version of this presentation for potential hosts is available upon request.  This interactive one to two hour seminar shares detailed examples, practical tips and advice for organizing online consultations and events. This seminar complements my top ten tips online consultation article.
• Eye on the E-Citizen – PowerPoint – What do citizens really want with community, government, political news and civic involvement online? What do we know? What are the trends? What actions must we take to use the Internet to its full advantage in democracy?
• E-Democracy: The Promise of the Future is a Reality Today – A thirty minute keynote address written in easy to understand English for a large audience in Japan.  I also participated in a panel discussion which was broadcast on national television in Japan.  This will give you a sense of an original speech that does not use slides.
• Future of E-Democracy – The 50 Year Plan – A major speech to the World Futurist Society release online in an -extended- form.
• A Wired Agora – One of my most popular presentations from 1998. It is a great example of how I can make the story of citizen participation in e-democracy interesting and easy for all to understand.  This speech is retired “as is”, but I can mix the example with other dynamic stories.  I put this together for Mikhail Gorbachev, but he didn’t show due to a crisis in Russia.
  • More articles and speeches – Many of my articles are extended versions of my past speeches.
• Schedule – An old list of past public speaking appearances.
• Hosting Ideas – With major speeches, I make myself available up to two days for meetings and additional seminars organized by my host. While on site, I like to meet with those involved in interesting “e-democracy” related projects and prefer to participate in at least one presentation open to the general public (often at a local university).