I’m an avid fan of British collective MySociety’s slew of succesful civic and community websites which include HearFromYourMP, WriteToThem, and most notably TheyWorkForYou. TheyWorkForYou is a site which indexes the raw transcripts from the House of Lords and House of Commons according to speaker and debate topic.
Apparently Jack Straw, former British Foreign Secretary and current Leader of the House of Commons, wanted to test the echo, denouncing TheyWorkForYou as a source of too much public inquiry into the business of the House of Commons. I think this speaks for itself on the impact MySociety is making on British society.
With a bit of luck MySociety will be at EuroOSCON in Brussels next month, hopefully inspiring a spread of MySociety to other countries and domains (business or education, anyone?). Early bird discount for EuroOSCON ends Monday Aug 7, so make sure to register now to catch the bug!