Ah, Web 2.0. You make everything more interesting.

The World Economic Forum – where politicians, businessmen, intellectuals and journalists get together to discuss how to improve the world and stave off social and environmental collapse for another year – has gone whole-hog with their use of social media. Last year, the Forum allowed interested individuals to submit questions via YouTube. For the 2009 edition, the YouTube channel is back. And, one lucky submitter will be selected to attend the Forum in Davos, Switzerland, based on their originality and how well they answer the following questions:

  •        -How confident do you feel about global growth in 2009?
  •        -To what extent do you think environmental issues will be sidelined by the economic    
  •          crisis?
  •        -What are your expectations of incoming US president Barack Obama’s administration?
  •        -Should company executives should abide by a similar code of ethics to lawyers and 
  •         doctors?

But the social media goodness doesn’t stop there. There is also a WEF twitterstream, Facebook and Myspace pages,  a wiki for their Open Forum program, and a pretty decent blog.

The WEF isn’t always seen as the most progressive of institutions, but this use of  web tools is a fairly innovative way to open the conversation up to more people. And who doesn’t love the chance to win a Swiss vacation by spouting off on political questions? Now, if only I can come up with a decent video concept…

This entry is cross-posted with Nunc Scio.