Time flies & looking for your feedback

Originally published on the DaninOttawa.com site on October 15, 2013.

It’s amazing how time flies! After an extended break, this week Ottawa is in full swing with the start of a second session of this 41st Parliament, complete with a fresh Speech from the Throne. Along with a Speech from the Throne, outlining the Parliamentary agenda for the government are many new faces both in Cabinet and serving as Parliamentary Secretaries to those in cabinet. On that same subject it was deeply humbling to be officially sworn in earlier today as the Parliament Secretary to the President of Treasury Board, a challenging new role that I am very much looking forward to.

Over the past few months I have had a very enjoyable summer listening tour visiting all regions of Okanagan-Coquihalla and received many constructive and interesting ideas from a wide range of citizens. One area that I also heard a fair amount of feedback was regarding my social media presence. I have discovered that opinions on social media are not unlike discussion involving NHL teams – there is lots of passion and many seem to have very strong preferences on formats to use and not to use which is ultimately the reason for my post today.

When I started the “Dan in Ottawa” blog it was mostly to help document my activities as the Member of Parliament for Okanagan-Coquihalla to help keep citizens in the riding informed on many of my activities while in Ottawa.  As the blog has evolved (for lack of a better term) it has also become a venue where I sometimes vent and offer other miscellaneous and random thoughts on events that occur in Ottawa and also back in the riding. Is there merit to this blog?  That is largely my questions for today. I have been encouraged by some to abandon the blog and focus more on my MP website and other social media platforms (such as twitter) while others have suggested Facebook and a few have even encouraged the blog to continue now that the House of Commons is back in session.

Thus I am throwing the question out to those of you who still follow this blog– is it something you see as having value and should it be maintained (admittedly with more frequent posts) or should I abandon or integrate the blog into the www.danalbas.com or move on to other social media platforms both new and existing? As always, I greatly welcome your views on this and other subjects.