I was surprised to learn that Troy Wason, the man who tried to pull Alberta’s Progressive Conservative caucus into the 21st century reality of online new media, has left his position as Senior Communications Officer (Social Media) at the governing party’s caucus.
Wason led the development of the interactive website mypcmla.ca and much of the social media component adopted by the Government caucus over the past year (including Facebook and Twitter).
Convincing old political thinkers of the merits of new media can be a frustrating challenge, as the very idea of ceding control of a message to an organic (and potentially disruptive) process is a completely foreign concept to many political insiders. Because of this, I hope that Wason’s departure will not signal a major set back in the slow and awkward lurch of our traditional political establishments towards the interactive and engaging politics of web 2.0.
