I am on the train heading into Boston for #newsout where participants will struggle with "What happens when the newsroom lights go out?" The focus will be on who will watch the government as newspapers close. It is a topic near and dear to my heart.

The first speaker is Steven Clift. Mr. Clift has been involved with e-Democracy efforts since 1994 and is a frequent speaker on the topic. I’m on a few mailing lists that he runs and he asked people on the lists for feedback on good examples of e-Democracy. He shared his slides on the Internet and I’ve looked through them on the train ride up.

During coffee before the conference, I spoke with Mr. Clift who spoke about having lots of examples of e-Democracy, but few of them are very deep. The question that I want to see addressed is how do we increase the depth of involvement, or the level of engagement in our democracy, through technology and beyond.

With that, Mr. Clift has taken the stage.