Personal Democracy Forum 2008
Session: Design Principles for Online Democracy: Connecting Government and Constituents in the Internet Age
Note by David GalielDavid_Galiel:
Sarah Schacht, knowledgeaspower.org
Founded as citizen's legislation tracking project in the Seattle area.
Knowledge As Power's main design principle:
We don't make "chicken salad". - narrow focus on building effective citizens and responsive legislators (without getting distracted by "chicken salad" frills)
fill in gaps in existing available research
Emphasis on appropriate tech - most affordable and scalable.
View of their work as a service, not a tool.
Existing offerings of legislative info mostly geared towards professional lobbyists, not citizens.
Legislators themselves use clunky tools for communication.
Searchable up to date database of pending and completed legislation; can look at calendar view to track progress, note upcoming votes, send email to legislators on bill with single click. Roll-over definitions of legislative terms.
Facebook app version of knowledge as power.
Politicus, new tool unveiled here, content management system for legislators.
(my note: looks to me like these are all proprietary apps, and the legislator org tool is not available to citizens - why not offer to set up and teach legislators how to use open source CMSs? Or work together on a custom OSS CMS for use by both constituents and legislators. There's the biggest flaw - neither of these tools bring constituents and their representatives together using the same application, collaborating together on legislation. They should also look into crowd-sourcing some of their features).
Stven Clift talks about example of local legislator in Minneapolis who set up a forum for voter input on legislation that led directly to changes in policy. Another Minneapolis example - large Somali community in Minneapolis, mostly absent from community discussions. One individual posts about a bus strike hurting his community, provided incentive for others to join, gained public attention, led to change.
How issues forums work at e-democracy - Require posting w. real names! (critically important when organizing community for local action). require group min 5 people to create the space and define the charter (scope). Enables posting via email for many folks who don't like dealing with web-based forum.
Recruit citizens, elected officials, media etc with "sticky" opt in. Get the forum into the center of power, not just jabbering on the periphery.
Distribute physical forms in neighborhood - on the ground activism to spark online activity. Limit posts to twice a day. Facilitation, NOT moderation, individuals own what they say.
Sheila Campbell, usa.gov talking about new developments in government websites. Shows examples of more innovative sites, use of RSS, blogs with comments, Facebook, YouTube, Second Life. Ironically, finding that constituents at work are increasingly finding that corporations are blocking employee access to social networks and user-generated content sites, so they have to temper their enthusiasm for other channels and still work on bringing features into their websites. Using feed aggregation and mashups to bring more information to their websites, and then allowing individual customization of page.
Talks about resistance to new media in agencies:
- Management issue of trusting employees
- Potential security risks
- Not enough resources to respond to public if you open the floodgates
- Need to control the message
- Legal and policy restrictions - all content must be accessible to people with disabilities, videos must be open captioned, surveys can't be posted without central approval, etc. Looking at new tools and systems to help make it work.
- Lengthy and complex federal budget process, have to submit proposals years in advance
Tom Steinberg
mySociety philanthropy based in UK, they run democracy sites in UK,
example "FixMyStreet", to report problems with local transportation infrastructure. On surface, just providing better service - but it exposes activity by government to constituents, provides means to follow up and hold officials accountable. Moving from "fixing my problem" to "being a part of my community" to being active citizens.
TheyWorkForYou.com
Create hyperlinked versions of record of activity in House of Commons - transcripts and video of speeches.
open source code - openaustralia.org just launched, their version of TheyWorkForYou using same source code.
e-petitions - petitions.pm.gov.uk - largest politically oriented web phenomenon in the world.
People submit petitions, and the government gets to write back to petitioners.
Rule is simplistic:
Focus on tools that can give people the experience of participation that they have during the campaign today and carry it over to governance.
AsktheChancellor, digg-like rating citizen-submitted questions, the top question gets answered by the Chancellor each week.
Crowd-source solutions - ask citizens to report local environmental problems to develop a national map.
GroupsNearYou.com crowd-source database of where community-based groups, of any kind, on any platform, can be found.
Founded as citizen's legislation tracking project in the Seattle area.
Knowledge As Power's main design principle:
We don't make "chicken salad". - narrow focus on building effective citizens and responsive legislators (without getting distracted by "chicken salad" frills)
fill in gaps in existing available research
Emphasis on appropriate tech - most affordable and scalable.
View of their work as a service, not a tool.
Existing offerings of legislative info mostly geared towards professional lobbyists, not citizens.
Legislators themselves use clunky tools for communication.
Searchable up to date database of pending and completed legislation; can look at calendar view to track progress, note upcoming votes, send email to legislators on bill with single click. Roll-over definitions of legislative terms.
Facebook app version of knowledge as power.
Politicus, new tool unveiled here, content management system for legislators.
(my note: looks to me like these are all proprietary apps, and the legislator org tool is not available to citizens - why not offer to set up and teach legislators how to use open source CMSs? Or work together on a custom OSS CMS for use by both constituents and legislators. There's the biggest flaw - neither of these tools bring constituents and their representatives together using the same application, collaborating together on legislation. They should also look into crowd-sourcing some of their features).
Stven Clift talks about example of local legislator in Minneapolis who set up a forum for voter input on legislation that led directly to changes in policy. Another Minneapolis example - large Somali community in Minneapolis, mostly absent from community discussions. One individual posts about a bus strike hurting his community, provided incentive for others to join, gained public attention, led to change.
How issues forums work at e-democracy - Require posting w. real names! (critically important when organizing community for local action). require group min 5 people to create the space and define the charter (scope). Enables posting via email for many folks who don't like dealing with web-based forum.
Recruit citizens, elected officials, media etc with "sticky" opt in. Get the forum into the center of power, not just jabbering on the periphery.
Distribute physical forms in neighborhood - on the ground activism to spark online activity. Limit posts to twice a day. Facilitation, NOT moderation, individuals own what they say.
Sheila Campbell, usa.gov talking about new developments in government websites. Shows examples of more innovative sites, use of RSS, blogs with comments, Facebook, YouTube, Second Life. Ironically, finding that constituents at work are increasingly finding that corporations are blocking employee access to social networks and user-generated content sites, so they have to temper their enthusiasm for other channels and still work on bringing features into their websites. Using feed aggregation and mashups to bring more information to their websites, and then allowing individual customization of page.
Talks about resistance to new media in agencies:
- Management issue of trusting employees
- Potential security risks
- Not enough resources to respond to public if you open the floodgates
- Need to control the message
- Legal and policy restrictions - all content must be accessible to people with disabilities, videos must be open captioned, surveys can't be posted without central approval, etc. Looking at new tools and systems to help make it work.
- Lengthy and complex federal budget process, have to submit proposals years in advance
Tom Steinberg
mySociety philanthropy based in UK, they run democracy sites in UK,
example "FixMyStreet", to report problems with local transportation infrastructure. On surface, just providing better service - but it exposes activity by government to constituents, provides means to follow up and hold officials accountable. Moving from "fixing my problem" to "being a part of my community" to being active citizens.
TheyWorkForYou.com
Create hyperlinked versions of record of activity in House of Commons - transcripts and video of speeches.
open source code - openaustralia.org just launched, their version of TheyWorkForYou using same source code.
e-petitions - petitions.pm.gov.uk - largest politically oriented web phenomenon in the world.
People submit petitions, and the government gets to write back to petitioners.
Rule is simplistic:
Focus on tools that can give people the experience of participation that they have during the campaign today and carry it over to governance.
AsktheChancellor, digg-like rating citizen-submitted questions, the top question gets answered by the Chancellor each week.
Crowd-source solutions - ask citizens to report local environmental problems to develop a national map.
GroupsNearYou.com crowd-source database of where community-based groups, of any kind, on any platform, can be found.
