But actually nobody comes

As if to illustrate Clay Shirky's point I recently attended a couple of All Party Parliamentary Groups. APPGs have come in for a lot of stick over the last year or so, mired in funding allegations and all the rest. Ultimately they exist for MPs and Peers to receive briefings from external organisations on the issues that matter to them.

But what has happened in some cases is that the dynamic has been reversed. Organisations have suggested to Parliamentarians that forming a group makes sense, the MP has demurred, the requisite number of cross party members have been found and the group formed. The problem then is that these groups can rapidly become moribund, with one or two members turning up, almost because they have to. Just like the proliferation in the use of early day motions there is a sense of "we have to, because they have."

But of course this is a "gather then share" model in Shirky's terminology. The tools are old school. Get MPs interested by writing to them, keep them interested by reminding them, get other stakeholders interested too. It's cumbersome, it's labour intensive, and the results are sometimes painfully poor.

Turning the model on its head would be better. Share the need, offer the solution, then gather. Again the solutions aren't obvious - clearly the need to lobby remains, but a more active mechanism for MPs to put their needs and wants out there seems sensible, and deliverable given the social tools now on offer. Just a thought...