I've just recently attended the 1st International Association of Public Participation North America conference in Halifax. I thought it would be interesting to see if I could glean any understanding of the public participation (P2) sector by doing a wordle of the conference schedule session descriptions and speakers. Unfortunately, the wordle was less useful than expected in increasing my understanding (the conference was really great though), but it was interesting nonetheless so here it is:

Also. You might be interested in the four videos Beth Noveck has posted to her blog about the future of government: http://cairns.typepad.com/blog/2012/09/future-of-government-talks-at-ted-cameron-noveck-pahlka-shirky.html I've yet to watch three of the four but will post any comments I have upon watching them.