How to maximise the chances of getting your question answered.

by Keith

Last week, Yoosk had the pleasure of interviewing Liberal Democrat MP Simon Hughes. You can see Simon’s answers to your top-voted questions here.

When we started Yoosk we hoped our site would be used by campaigners in order to get the issues they are campaigning for, in front of the relevant people in power. When Neue Politik blogger Jae Kay saw that we were inviting questions for Simon Hughes he posted this question:

‘Will the Lib Dem parliamentary group, of which you are the most senior non-ministerial member, fight for full marriage equality in the recently announced "consultation" rather than accept current inadequate plans for religious civil partnerships?’

which is clearly an issue on which Jae Kay feels strongly and his question was answered by Simon in our interview. In order to try and ensure that his question was answered, Jae requested his followers on Twitter to visit Yoosk and vote for his question....a little unfair maybe? No, not at all we think, this is exactly how we would like to see Yoosk being used – questions posted on Yoosk and shared on social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook to gain support.

Following his Simon Hughes question, Jae has posted another one to David Miliband and we wish him luck with getting that one answered too.

The Yoosk Labour Hustings: reaching out to Labour's core vote

By Tim

It's fair to say that many of Labour's core voters do not want to participate in the political process online  or even know that they can. And when we started looking at the Labour Leadership election, we also felt that many of the hustings were being attended only by a politically active elite.

We want Yoosk's Hustings to draw in those 'digitally excluded' core voters by giving them a chance to put their questions in the most convenient way possible-online, by SMS or even handwritten questions. That's why we have printed these postcards and will be distributing them to Working Men's clubs in targeted areas of the country.

It will be interesting to see the results. Where we have used print to supplement online before, the results have shown that we get very different questions- raw, challenging but ultimately highly relevant to the very real problems faced by ordinary people.

The Yoosk Labour Hustings

Yoosk's Hustings for the Labour Leadership start today. Enter your question below or go to www.yoosk.com/labour

Help us Ask Simon Hughes

Next on Yoosk, answering your questions, is Simon Hughes, the LibDems new Deputy Leader. 

Why not help us gather questions and give our new i-frame embed a go? To recreate the feature embedded below, use the code appearing in the box at the bottom of our 'mashing Yoosk page', replacing the number '14' with number '267' : http://yoosk.com/about-mashing.aspx


If you have any difficulties, please let us know below. This and our other widgets are still a work in progress and we need your feedback to get it right.

What is the point of open data without open communication to follow it up?

By Tim

It has been very encouraging to see the new government continue the great leap forward that is open data. However, we hope that communications specialists are very closely involved in the debate about what comes after the opening up of data.

For example, I imagine the public will have many questions to raise following the discoveries and analysis that will occur once government data on expenditure becomes common currency. And as enthusiasts start to publicly present data which screams out for a response (the identification accident black spots or botched procurement, for example), surely the logical next step will be to contact someone in government to ask for action or explanation? Wouldn’t it be contradictory to have direct access to open data without direct open dialogue with ministers, council cabinets and even officials about that data?

It makes sense that this communication also occurs openly and transparently and as close to the content as possible-ideally on the same pages. For example, a Yoosk style widget enabling the open posting and ranking of questions to named ministers and officials- with their answers posted alongside-is publicly available. This could be readily deployed alongside content on open data inspired websites. Questions arising from open data content could then be put to a named individual for all to see and support,  rather than emailed to an anonymous official in private correspondence.

Even though the tools are readily available to set up and manage direct open conversations systematically, I don’t yet see any movement in government driving this forward in parallel with open data. It needs senior communications staff to buy into the open data ethos and to deal with all the implications for government communications strategy that comes with it. There's no point in having the technology for dialogue if the communications teams don't make ministers available systematically and regularly to answer the public's questions on open data and other matters. 

Labour's legacy and the role of the internet in the election? Your questions please..

by Keith

Things have been a bit quiet on the Yoosk front recently as we have been focussed on getting a new site design and some new features built (more news of this next week).

But we are back this week with two interesting topics to post questions around and two knowledgable panels to answer them. First up is 'Labour Legacy: 13 Years of New Labour' and answering your questions will be  Independent on Sunday political correspondent and Tony Blair biographer John Rentoul, Labour MP Stephen Twigg, and  Tory MP John Redwood. 

Our other topic is  'Election2: How did the internet shape the general election' and some more big names answering on this one - Labour List's Alex Smith, Tory blogger Iain Dale, James Evans, Founder of  Hustings.com  and  Lib Dem Voice Editor Mark Pack

You have until the weekend of the 12th June to get your questions in.  But even if you don't have a question, drop by the site to browse what other people are asking and to add your support for the best questions. As usual it will be  the top-rated questions which are answered and we'll be getting the answers on the site the following week.

Yoosk inVietnam

by Keith

WE have long thought that Yoosk would work in most countries in the world, but who would have guessed that our first overseas website would be built for the National Assembly of Vietnam? Well, actually, maybe not such a big suprise, given our connections with Vietnam (both Tim and myself were working there when Yoosk was founded) but an achievement of which we are very proud nevertheless.

The site has been sponsored by the British Embassy in Hanoi - and a big Thankyou to them for their continued belief in, and support for Yoosk - and has been 'live' now for just over 2 weeks. And the response from the Vietnamese public? Much better than we had dared to hope, with nearly three hundred questions already and eighty answers.

The website will run as a 'pilot' project for four weeks but we hope that the pilot will be converted into a permanent project and maybe even expanded and become a model for how Yoosk can be adapted to suit the needs of any possible partner worldwide.