Today at 2:00 PM the Globe and Mail is entering the brave new world of real-time, online question and answer forums. The Globe will host William Thorsell of the Royal Ontario Museum and Matthew Teitelbaum of the Art Gallery of Ontario. This is a great opportunity for the community to find out what our cultural leaders are planning for the future. We applaud Thorsell and Teitelbaum for embracing this new form of community outreach. The Globe too deserves credit for moving away from the controlled safety of the print world. One recommendation though - ease up a bit on the rules and regulations! Here they are:

Editor's Note: globeandmail.com editors will read and allow or reject each question/comment. Comments/questions may be edited for length or clarity. HTML is not allowed. We will not publish questions/comments that include personal attacks on participants in these discussions, that make false or unsubstantiated allegations, that purport to quote people or reports where the purported quote or fact cannot be easily verified, or questions/comments that include vulgar language or libellous statements. Preference will be given to readers who submit questions/comments using their full name and home town, rather than a pseudonym.

If you're in the print business, blogging and online interactive forums are disruptive technologies. What does that mean? Print is in a long but inevitably losing battle with the online world for the dissemination of information. They know it so the big newspapers are doing their best to assimilate new online technologies. Their internal corporate cultures though retain a print mentality, as these regulations seem to suggest. The online world can be rough and ready. On occasion sites will get hacked, people will get in flame wars, and decorum may get thrown aside. Still, people love it! And these kinds of activities are the exception rather than the rule.

So, we look forward to the venerable Globe's stately shift to the online world. But lighten up.

Update
I'm not sure if the Globe had any outside questioners or not. They decided to take the "Roundtable" approach and, with the exception of the first question, no authorship was indicated. Five questions were asked in the thirty minutes with William Thorsell.

Update 2
At about the 2:40 mark an outside question was asked of William Thorsell. The thirty minute time frame was just not enough I guess. Stan Bush asks why the Crystal isn't as transparent as the original renderings suggested it might be.

Update 2
Thorsell's Q & A went on until about 3:10. One semi-tough question by a local architect re the famous Libeskind napkins. All in all, a good read. Teitelbaum is now on and experiencing much the same process although I think the questions being asked are a bit tougher.