Last week I was traveling with a friend from the Blandin Foundation (Mary Magnuson) through Scotland and Ireland. In my travels I always like to see how people are using and deploying broadband in other countries. We got an insider’s glimpse at use of technology in Belfast City Hall when a friend from home arranged a personal tour with Councillor Mary Ellen Campbell.

First the very fun use: Councillor Campbell gave us a tour of the City Hall, which included a meeting with the Lord Mayor Máirtín Ó Muilleoir. He spoke to us or about 10 minutes and was quick to have his assistant snap our picture with the iPad and Tweet it out to the world. And the assistant didn’t Tweet it – he did – quickly asking for my Twitter handle, using hashtags – in other words he was clearly a Twitter user. I always like to see use of social media from the top. I think it makes a difference in how much social media is used as a tool by everyone in government.

The deeper use of technology: They now stream council meetings in real time. Councillor Campbell said this has increased civic engagement. People are now able to watch the meeting from home, which opens the door for viewers with disabilities, with small children and really just anyone wanting to avoid the weather. People view the meeting and she said, will contact her based on what they have seen. Belfast isn’t the first city I’ve seen that streams meetings. I have often been grateful that St Paul streams so many – but seeing the Belfast cameras helped me realize that these live (and archived) streams are raw material for news. For example, Councillor Campbell said City Hall had received a lot of feedback on the recent issue of flags flying at City Hall, as City Hall looks to embrace the British and Irish roots of the population.

I am always interested in the changing role of journalism – in short there isn’t money for reporters to have regular beats. So we tend to only hear about places and issues when they rise to crisis big enough to get covered. But raw footage of city, county, national policy meetings can provide a replacement (albeit time consuming) to “reported” news of the past. It’s not a perfect replacement, but it’s better than nothing. It’s a way that technology has been a game changer – communities that embrace e-government have new tools to communicate and encourage civic engagement, impart information and provide a record of events to the world. Communities that don’t embrace technology lose their digital voice.