Archive for the 'About' Category

ParticipateDB

Published by Tim on September 15, 2009 in About, E-participation, ParticipateDB and Research. 1 Comment Tags: , , , .

Probably the most memorable presentation at the 2007 Community Next conference in Stanford was “The Patent-Pending skinnyCorp Method for Creating Online Awesomeness and Other Cool Stuff” by Jeffrey Kalmikoff and Jake Nickell of skinnyCorp, makers of Threadless and other entertaining projects large and small.

As Kalmikoff pointed out in one of the stories they shared (starts at around 4:50 into the video):

As things happen, the line you’re gonna hear at skinnyCorp a lot if you stop by is: “Wouldn’t it be awesome if…?”

My key take-away back then: watch out for that phrase, it might lead to fun projects! Plus, looking at the world with a wouldn’t-it-be-awesome-if mindset seems like a sure-fire way to delight your community (and your customers).

Well, the phrase has come up a lot over the past twelve months. At the conferences and events that I had a chance to attend (and even at some of the ones I followed remotely), the conversations often seemed to circle back to one recurring theme:

  • Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a site that lists all the online tools for public participation and civic engagement that are out there?
  • Wouldn’t it be great if we had a comprehensive guide to all the commercial and open source products that support online dialogues and e-consultations?
  • Wouldn’t it be awesome if we could keep track of recently launched projects in this area and even compare them side by side?

Yes, yes, and yes.

We’ve been monitoring this space internally for quite some time now, occasionally sharing our findings. Yet while we’ve managed to build a decent list for our own use, it is by no means complete. And with so many new initiatives and interesting projects popping up left and right almost every week, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to keep up.

To solve this problem, and since nobody else appeared to be going for it, we thought it might be a good idea to build a small app that lets anyone collect and share their favorite tools for participation. We call it:

ParticipateDB

A directory of online tools for participation that anyone can edit.

The site is live but is not fully functional yet. Over the next few weeks, we plan to seed it with some of our own data, add some basic site functionalities and then hope to open up to the public later this Fall.

Please contact us or leave a comment if you have feedback. You can follow ParticipateDB on Identi.ca or Twitter, and we will let you know when things are happening.

In the spirit of International Day of Democracy, which is today, we hope ParticipateDB will make the world of online participation a little more awesome.

In 2007 the United Nations General Assembly decided to observe September 15th as the International Day of Democracy and invited all member states and organizations to commemorate the day in an appropriate manner that contributes to raising public awareness.[1]The preamble of the resolution affirmed that:“ while democracies share common features, there is no single model of democracy and that democracy does not belong to any country or region…democracy is a universal value based on the freely-expressed will of people to determine their own political, economic, social and cultural systems, and their full participation in all aspects of life.
In 2007 the United Nations General Assembly decided to observe September 15th as the International Day of Democracy and invited all member states and organizations to commemorate the day in an appropriate manner that contributes to raising public awareness.
The preamble of the resolution affirmed that:
while democracies share common features, there is no single model of democracy and that democracy does not belong to any country or region…
democracy is a universal value based on the freely-expressed will of people to determine their own political, economic, social and cultural systems, and their full participation in all aspects of life.

Intellitics Endorses Core Principles for Public Engagement

Published by Tim on May 6, 2009 in About, Public Participation and Resources. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Back in February, the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation (NCDD), along with a number of other established associations and organization in the field of dialogue, conflict resolution and public participation, launched a collaborative effort to craft a set of principles for public engagement that would inform the Open Government Directive currently being worked on by the Obama administration.

After two months of insightful discussions, the final version of the Core Principles for Public Engagement Document (PDF, 144 KB) has now been released. It starts:

In a strong representative democracy, citizens and government work together to build a society that protects individual freedom while simultaneously ensuring liberty and justice for all.  Engaging people around the issues that affect their lives and their country is a key component of a strong democratic society.

Public engagement involves convening diverse yet representative groups of people to wrestle with information from a variety of viewpoints all to the end of making better, often more creative decisions. Public engagement aims to provide people with direction for their own community activities, or with public judgments that will be seriously considered by policy-makers and other power-holders.

The more any given public engagement effort takes into consideration the following seven Core Principles, the more it can expect to effectively build mutual understanding, meaningfully affect policy development, and/or inspire collaborative action among citizens and institutions.  These seven interdependent principles serve both as ideals to pursue and as criteria for judging quality.  Rather than promoting partisan agendas, the application of the Core Principles creates the conditions for authentic engagement around public issues.

The core working group did an excellent job boiling down the tried and tested guidelines from over two dozen existing resources into one concise list. So without much further ado, here they are:

The Seven Core Principles

In practice, people emphasize or apply these principles in many different ways, and often embrace additional principles. These seven principles reflect the common beliefs and understandings of those working in the fields of public engagement, conflict resolution, and collaboration.

1. Careful Planning and Preparation

Through adequate and inclusive planning, ensure that the design, organization, and convening of the process serve both a clearly defined purpose and the needs of the participants.

2. Inclusion and Demographic Diversity

Equitably incorporate diverse people, voices, ideas, and information to lay the groundwork for quality outcomes and democratic legitimacy.

3. Collaboration and Shared Purpose

Support and encourage participants, government and community institutions, and others to work together to advance the common good.1

4. Openness and Learning

Help all involved listen to each other, explore new ideas unconstrained by predetermined outcomes, learn and apply information in ways that generate new options, and rigorously evaluate public engagement activities for effectiveness.

5. Transparency and Trust

Be clear and open about the process, and provide a public record of the organizers, sponsors, outcomes, and range of views and ideas expressed.

6. Impact and Action

Ensure each participatory effort has real potential to make a difference, and that participants are aware of that potential.

7. Sustained Engagement and Participatory Culture

Promote a culture of participation with programs and institutions that support ongoing quality public engagement.

————-

1 In addition to reflecting the democratic ideals of liberty, justice, and freedom for all, the term “common good” refers to things that optimize the well-being of all (like a traffic light in a dangerous intersection) or conditions that serve to benefit all involved (as in a consensus agreement focused on cleaning up the water supply).

There’s also an expanded version that goes into more detail:

PEP Expanded Text

Although we are not seeking endorsements for the expanded text under the principles and their one-sentence descriptions, the text under the headers “In high quality engagement” and “What to avoid” was developed alongside the basic seven principle, in a highly collaborative and transparent manner.  The purpose of the expanded text is to illustrate and breathe life into the principles, and should accompany the list of Core Principles whenever possible.  The expanded text can be tweaked or revised for a variety of different audiences.

Intellitics is proud to be among the group of initial organizational endorsers.

Announcing Project Z

Published by Tim on April 22, 2008 in About and Events. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

These are the slightly modified slides from a quick presentation I gave last night at Web Monday Silicon Valley in San Francisco. It’s a first high-level introduction to our first product, a web application for problem solving and decision making in large groups.

We hope to have the initial pieces of an alpha version in place some time over the coming weeks.

What is Public Participation?

Published by Tim on March 24, 2008 in About, Dictionary, Public Participation and Research. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Following a recent IAP2 Northern California chapter meeting, I came across this definition of public participation:

What is Public Participation?

Public participation is the process by which an organization consults with interested or affected individuals, organizations, and government entities before making a decision. Public participation is two-way communication and collaborative problem solving with the goal of achieving better and more acceptable decisions. Public participation prevents or minimizes disputes by creating a process for resolving issues before they become polarized. Other terms sometimes used are “public involvement,” “community involvement,” or “stakeholder involvement.”

We are currently working on our first product, a web-based software application for problem solving and decision making in large groups. To some degree, what we have in mind is a public participation engine (at least for those parts of an engagement project that can feasibly be run online).

Remembering Joseph M. Conway Jr., 1967-2007

Published by Tim on September 19, 2007 in About. 1 Comment

At a corporate picnic in Los Gatos, CA last August, the party host (some Senior VP of Marketing or similar rank at the company I worked for at the time), after welcoming the 100-plus employees who were attending that sunny afternoon, reminded everybody of the company’s strict don’t-drink-and-drive policy. For those who wanted to enjoy the selection of excellent wines or other alcoholic beverages (and do so beyond a level that is deemed safe for driving), it was made very clear that they were expected to leave their cars parked and either share a ride with a designated driver, have someone pick them up, or simply take a cab home. Everyone was asked to watch out for each other to make sure these rules were being followed.

He then went on to say that if anyone, for whatever reason, still ended up in a situation where they were stuck after the event (needing to get home but unfit to drive), the company would cover the cost of the cab, to anywhere — no conditions, no questions asked.

I remember that I was impressed by the prudence with which the risk of drunk driving was being addressed. And thinking: maybe if all of us (whether as bosses, colleagues, neighbors, friends, or family) offered this kind of “no questions asked” emergency pickup more often, we might be able to prevent a lot of bad things from happening.

***

I met Joe three times.

The first time in Tokyo, Japan in October of 2004.

The second time in Dublin, Ireland in April of 2005.

The third and last time in Rome, Italy in February of 2006.

Our partners were both working for the same organization and would go on these international business trips where, on occasion. we would have the chance to accompany them.

I have only fond memories of these three trips.

Last summer, I started talking to Joe about this project and some of the ideas I had in the area of online dialogue and deliberation. Joe was an excellent sounding board for me, always very helpful and supportive. Then, earlier this year, he even shared his expertise as a lawyer and helped with drafting some of the legal documents I was working on (a privacy policy, some terms of use etc.).

I definitely consider him part of the broader team I was building. And I was hoping that we’d get the opportunity to intensify our collaboration over time.

***

Sadly, prudence was sorely missing early Labor Day morning, when an alleged drunk driver going the wrong way on Staten Island’s West Shore Expressway crashed into the car Joe was driving, killing him and injuring his passenger.

He was 39 years old. We’ll miss him very much.

Follow Intellitics on Twitter

Published by Tim on September 12, 2007 in About. 0 Comments

In addition to this blog, you can now follow Intellitics on Twitter.

What is Twitter? According to Wikipedia:

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send “updates” (text-based posts, up to 140 characters long) via SMS, instant messaging, email, to the Twitter website, or an application such as Twitterrific. [...]

Updates are displayed on the user’s profile page and also instantly delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them. The sender can restrict delivery to those in his or her circle of friends (delivery to everyone is the default). Users can receive updates via the Twitter website, instant messaging, SMS, RSS, email or through an application.

If you’re interested in receiving infrequent updates from us (very low volume for now), simply add Intellitics to the list of people you follow on Twitter.