What I've learned: a memo

Words from a European leader: an interpretation

Reflections

TEN years ago, if you had told me I would spend a significant part of my premiership on IT, I would have been surprised, a little shocked and probably, politically, somewhat alarmed. Even today, we all run for office concentrating on communication issues. “IT” policy rarely wins votes, and can easily lose them. Yet nowadays the reality is increasingly that we are obliged as leaders to think, work and act in intformation technology.
Over ten years I have watched this grow. (If you had told me a decade ago that I would be tackling terrorism, I would have readily understood, but thought you meant Irish Republican terrorism.) The line between “IT” and “communication” policy is being blurred. [...]


Be a player not a spectator

But politics is subject to the same forces of change as everything else. It is less tribal; people will be interested in issues, not necessarily ideologies; political organisation if it is rigid is off-putting; and there are myriad new ways of communicating information. Above all, organisations need to go out and seek public participation, not wait for the public to be permitted the privilege of becoming part of the sect.

So, membership should be looser, policymaking broader and more representative, the internet and interactive communication the norm. Open it all up.


Over to you

That is a very short synopsis of what I have learned. I don't presume to call it advice to my successor. I have been reasonably fortunate rarely to receive public "advice" from my predecessors.
 
The job is difficult enough as it is, and, knowing that, I have nothing but support to offer my successor.

(read actual article)