Community Voices Heard (CVH), one of the organizations behind the recent participatory budgeting process in New York City, hosted a briefing last month to share a few project updates and additional background materials.

On page 12 of his presentation, Josh Lerner (PB Project) shared this interesting map of emerging efforts from across North America to establish participatory budgeting:

The map doesn’t show what stage each project is currently at, but at least one of them recently made a significant step forward when the City of Vallejo, CA, approved the first city-wide participatory budgeting process in the US, to begin later this summer.

Several of the projects shown on the map (from Louisiana, North Carolina, Massachusetts) were present at the recent PB Conference. Based on conversations, it may be a while until they reach their goals. Nonetheless, it looks like momentum for this form of public participation continues to build here in the US.

I must have missed this when it was announced earlier last month, but New America Foundation just launched the California Civic Innovation Project (CCIP), a new two-year initiative focused on community engagement in California.

From the website:

The California Civic Innovation Project promotes innovations in technology, policy and practice that deepen engagement between government and communities throughout the state. Through research and information-sharing, CCIP builds communities of practice within California’s local governments and identifies best practices to improving service delivery, opening new channels for public voices, and bridging the state’s digital divides.

The intersection of technology, policy and civic engagement is increasingly central to making local governments work for everyone. There are information and innovation gaps between municipalities throughout the state, and a goal of CCIP is to bridge those gaps by providing opportunities for governments to learn from one another and share innovative technologies that have real impact in their communities.

On a call today hosted by NCDD, CCIP Director Alissa Black stated that the initiative is half research, half experimentation and outlined three main objectives:

• To identify ways to diffuse innovation and innovative technologies across all of California,
• to establish knowledge sharing networks for local government, and
• to run experiments in three different California cities focused on creating coalitions that involve local government, the community and private or university partners with the goal of developing models for innovation that could be replicated and scaled.

Ultimately, according to Black, the goal is to spread innovation to increase local community engagement.

Below are our three most popular posts in April:

• What Is Government 2.0?
• What Is Public Participation?
• New Research Paper Presents 30 General Design Considerations for Online Deliberation Systems

May is next!

Over on the NCDD blog, Lucas Cioffi shares a few Updates on Open Gov Activities. Apparently, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) hosted a meeting last week that covered ExpertNet, among other things:

2) Launch ExpertNet

ExpertNet will be a platform for government agencies to harness the expertise that is distributed across America. This is the commitment that I’m interested in, because it has the potential to influence how we make decisions as a nation. The concept ExpertNet was proposed and opened to public feedback by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) around December 2010 here. That link has expired, but OSTP indicated at this week’s meeting that they will likely be able to reactivate the public feedback at that link so that it is visible again. We found another page that outlines the White House’s thinking about ExpertNet here.

The first half of Tuesday’s meeting was about Data.gov, the platform for releasing raw government data, which I view as a successful program. The second half of Tuesday’s meeting was about ExpertNet. I’ll give credit to OSTP for making the meeting productive with an open and honest approach. I’m not just saying this to be nice; I’ve been critical in previous opengov meetings with other White House offices, but this one was worth applauding.

Here are the important notes that achieved consensus during the meeting:

• The best way to build ExpertNet will likely be in partnership with the private sector.
• Existing platforms such as Quora and Stack Exchange should be harnessed, and they prove that the wheel doesn’t need to be reinvented. My thought: those are Q&A tools and it would also be useful to have deliberative tools for ExpertNet along with surveys and tools for brainstorming.
• There are many existing communities of practice which should be harnessed.
• There should be a way to differentiate facts from opinions.
• There should be a way to ensure consistent branding to prevent people from pretending to represent the government when asking the public a question on social networks.
• Government employees are not used to engaging with the public, so that will have to change to make the system most effective.
• One way to ensure quality is to enable people to build reputation in the system.
• Next Step: Anil Dash is likely to take the next step with ExpertNet by connecting with toolmakers that are interested in being involved in ExpertNet. To manage everyone’s expectations, I should point out that there is no funding for ExpertNet, and if it is to get built, it will likely need funding from foundations or the private sector.

If more notes are published by other participants of the April 24th meeting, I will link to them from here.

It’s worth mentioning that since the last time ExpertNet popped up in an official context (here, here), then-CTO Aneesh Chopra did run a small experiment on Quora that asked the public for ideas how to “accelerate entrepreneurial innovation in the areas of healthcare, energy and education.” Between the three questions, 72 answers total have been submitted to date.

I lauded the effort at the time, but also noted the obvious process flaws (no clear timeline, no clear commitment how input would be considered, no active participation by Chopra and team):

As far as I’m aware, no end date has been defined by which input has to be submitted in order to be considered, nor has it been made clear what will happen with the input. Also, I’m not seeing the conveners (Aneesh Chopra and team) actively engage.

Having said that, this is a promising approach that will further advancing [sic!] the idea of harnessing citizen experts. Assuming that the policy questions at hand are actually ripe for public input, using an existing tool is one way to get there relatively quickly. Given the intended audiences (technology entrepreneurs) and the type of input the White House is after (policy ideas), Quora appears to be an appropriate choice of tool.

If Expertnet were ever to be built as its own tool (which may or may not be necessary), it is experiments like this that will inform its design. Hopefully, we’ll see many more of these.

Not surprisingly, there has once again been no official closure or follow-up from the White House, at least as far as I’m aware.

As ExperNet appears to be inching forward, this brings me back to one of my key concerns, namely that the White House is obviously challenged and so far is not succeeding in hosting public consultations that meet basic quality standards. Whether we look at the three-phased Open Government Dialogue in the summer of 2009, the ExpertNet consultation in late 2010, or this recent Quora trial balloon in late 2011 (the list goes on), the public participation process in each case was flawed both in terms of the design and the implementation.

As I pointed out in my response to the most recent White House call for input on the topic, “[w]hether involving the public in person, online or both, the most important thing to get right in public participation is the overall process.” Without a keen understanding of and a strong appreciation for good process, creating ”a government-wide software tool and process to elicit expert public participation” and ensuring adoption will be nearly impossible.

The good news is that the White House is finally working more closely with representatives from various organizations in our field. This group–chaired by David Stern, AmericaSpeaks–will hopefully provide guidance on an ongoing basis and help with any further ExpertNet development. I had been invited to join the group on behalf of IAP2 USA but due to time constraints was unavailable initially. Look forward to getting involved now.

IAP2 Canada has just published the list of session ideas they’ve received during their recent call for proposals for the upcoming IAP2 North America Conference 2012.

I made two contributions, which I’m sharing below.

The first one can be found in the “Participate in Action” (PDF) category and aims to explore the exciting opportunities of ICT-supported participant briefings and the use of e-learning in public participation:

From Information to Learning: Using Technology to Deliver a Better Participant Briefing (#1)

Public participation requires informed participants. At the minimum, participants need to have a basic understanding of the issues, choices and trade‐offs at hand in order to contribute in meaningful ways. The question is: How do we best accomplish this goal today?

This session will compare information and learning strategies that have traditionally been applied in public participation projects and discuss the latest trends and innovations in this area. In particular, we will explore the potential of information and communications technology (ICT) to create better learning experiences for participants.

The second one is in the “Stimulate your Mind” (PDF) category and will dive into the challenge of how to prove that public participation actually pays off. A lot of scientific research exists, though it’s at times scattered and not easily accessible to the general public. What’s missing are ways for practitioners to share their experiences, stories and anecdotal evidence more easily and consistently. Provided there is enough interest, this session could serve as the kick-off to a year-long community research project that would see its culmination at the 2013 conference in the US:

The Return on Investment (ROI) of Public Participation: Building a Common Knowledge Base (#13)

This interactive session will look at existing frameworks for measuring success and will present opportunities for embedding ROI research into the daily practice, including the capturing of anecdotal evidence in a more systematic way than is currently being done. Attendees will be invited to share their ideas for a common knowledge base that would serve the global P2 community and help advance the practice.

The conference planning team invites you to vote for your favorite session proposals. To do so, head on over to the IAP2 Canada website and complete the session survey. For each of the three lists on the left, simply select the boxes with the corresponding numbers and then drag and drop them over to the right. When you’re done, click the “submit” button at the very bottom. Thanks!

Other sessions in the area of online engagement include:

• Marko Pajalic: “Online Engagement: Strategies and Tools for Success” (Stimulate #8)
• Dina Graser: “Building Trust in a Contentious Environment” (Motivate #2)
• Jacques Benard & Anthea Brown: “The Engagement Continuum: Strategic Selection of Online Feedback Tools Can Keep Your Community Motivated to Keep Participating Online.” (Motivate #12)
• Daniella Fergusson: “Digital Engagement Framework” (Participate #2)
• Moira Deslandes: “An Introduction to Online / Mobile Tools” (Participate #4)
• Juliette McDonald & Karin Witton: “A Collaborative Stakeholder Approach to Help Assess Sustainability Benefits and Trade-Offs in Project Planning and Design: Too Good to be True?” (Participate #7)
• Coleen Hardwick: “Cutting Edge Technology for Location-Based Consultation” (Participate #9)
• Geordie Adams: “Integrating and Adjusting MROC’s (Market Research Online Communities) for Use and Value in the Public Sector” (Participate #15)
• Joseph Peters: “Innovative Engagement Circa 2012″ (Participate #17)
• Bruce Smith & Richard Delaney: “Pre and Post Event Use of Online Tools for Enhanced Collaboration” (Participate #22)

Good stuff! Don’t forget to register early.

Also announced today was HelpMeConsult, another online resource for online consultations.

From the blog post:

The second lanch is a solo project. It’s called ‘HelpMeConsult‘ and is an independent guide to (formal) eConsultation. It contains details of the various solutions, legal matters and tips/tactics. So, just another data push? Wrong! We’re adding a premium content (subscription model) section which will have a number of interactive tools – watch this space.

From their about page:

This website draws together a range of information about formal online (i.e. web orientated) consultation, the kind of thing that public engagement professionals get excited about. There’s a whole section dedicated to definitions of this but what you need to know is that this website is here to help you select a tool, run better digital dialogues and ultimately drive up participation rates. This website dips its toes into tools for consumer or customer directed market research too as there’s a healthy crossover with digital ways of collecting feedback or satisfaction.

If you made it here then you’re probably duty bound to consult with people – be it stakeholders, citizens or customers. The need to consult is an emerging demand on all types of industry so doing it online seems like a sensible way to take the pain out of the process. That said, it shouldn’t be seen as a burden. The process of consultation should be viewed in terms of achieving service improvement and better decision making.

The site lists key success factors for online consultations and offers free access to various basic checklists, while hinting at more advanced resources that will require a paid subscription.

ParticiTech, the company behind this new site, has been working with The Consultation Institute to provide independent software evaluation for public engagement software.

This just in via the European Democracy Online Exchange, an interesting looking new online resource that’s being launched in the UK today. From the homepage:

Welcome to the Digital Engagement Cookbook. The purpose of this site is simple: to help you to explore the new opportunities that the digital world offers for engaging with and empowering citizens and consumers. It contains one of the most comprehensive, categorised collections of Digital Engagement methods on the web.

From the press release (PDF):

The Digital Engagement Cookbook – www.digitalengagement.org – has been created by Kind of Digital, in partnership with PartiTech, on behalf of Consumer Focus. The website aims to help users decipher which technology-based methods are best-suited to consumer empowerment activities such as campaigning, consulting and collective action. It is one of the most comprehensive, categorised collections of digital engagement methods on the web and includes over 140 links to examples of them in action.

The website will help public engagement professionals to explore the full range of ways to engage consumers effectively, and think wider than social media or web-only methods. The Digital Engagement Cookbook examines methods from webinars and online forums, to serious games and crowdsourcing, and everything in-between. It offers practical examples and detail on putting the methods into practice. It also gives information on evaluating the process as you go, to ensure users achieve the desired impact.

The site lists more than 60 methods for online engagement, covering a range of technologies and processes such as e-petitions, debate visualization and online chat. Each method belongs to one of four categories (Discover, Debate, Decide and Do). Here’s part of the entry on online consultations:

Description
Consultation is the dynamic process of dialogue between individuals or groups, based upon a genuine exchange of views and with the objective of influencing decisions, policies or programmes of action. This method involves the combination of digital tools to achieve this (i.e. is not the same as the Online Survey method). A key differentiator is the ‘stakeholder database’ which is a feature of online consultation tools that tracks individual participation across multiple consultations.

Related Methods

• Online Survey
• Spatially Enhanced Consultation

Purpose
The purpose of online consultation is typically to enhance information provision for a more informed exchange of views while harnessing the benefits of the digital channel such as immediacy, extended reach and targeting. For participants the key benefits include the ability to have their voice heard on more occasions, at their own convenience and among the knowledge of others.

Category
Decide

Strengths

• Enhanced transparency and feedback loops.
• Easier to co-ordinate, evaluate, manage and administer in the digital domain.
• Considerably cheaper than paper consultation exercises.

Weaknesses

• Takes considerable set-up.
• Risks an underwhelming number of responses unless the issues are salient and there is sufficient marketing effort.
• Best when used in tandem with an offline method but difficult to integrate the two.
• Can be difficult to interpret or analyse results, such as long-tail discussions.

A catalogue of questions aims to help users narrow down the list of methods to match their particular participation parameters. High-level tips on planning and measuring as well as links to related resources complete the picture.

Chris Reed (Head of Research at the School of Computing, University of Dundee), just shared this via the argumap mailing list:

Dear Colleagues,

The Argument Web edges closer today: we are releasing an early version of an application for ‘argublogging’ — using the infrastructure provided by the AIF to enable a simple tool for arguing online. As AIF resources, everything that is argublogged is available to be viewed with tools like OVA, available to be manipulated with systems like Carneades and Rationale, to be extended with new applications for dialogue and interactive games, and to be submitted to automatic computation engines such as ASPIC+.

A demo video is available at http://www.arg.dundee.ac.uk/

Argublogging is aimed primarily at users of Web 2.0 and social computing apps, but whether you count yourself amongst that group or not, we would value your feedback and input before we release the application more widely.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,
chris.

What is argublogging? From their website:

ArguBlogging allows you to agree and disagree with opinions expressed anywhere online. Your arguments are presented not just as text, but also as elements of the Argument Web: a richly structured interconnected web of debates and disputes, arguments and counterarguments. The arguments you contribute via argublogging can be used by other Argument Web tools to automatically express opinions, to teach students how to think better, to help the public navigate complex issues, and to conduct academic research into the way argument works.

More info about today’s release can be found on the blog: Get Argublogging!

Today sees the release of the first application built on the Argument Web that is aimed at non-specialist audiences: Argublogging. For bloggers and online commentators, argublogging offers a way of expressing agreement and disagreement in online conversations using the rich language of the argument web, but in a style that is at least as easy to use as existing online comment systems.

Argublogging contributes to the growing set of resources available in the language of the Argument Web, AIF, and argublogged argument can be visualised using OVA, analysed using Rationale, Araucaria and Carneades, and will soon be extendable using further Argument Web compatible tools.

Anyone got time to take this for a spin this weekend? Let me know.

I’ll be meeting up with a few local IAP2 USA members here in Washington DC on Wednesday night for dinner/drinks. If you’re in the area, please come by and join us.

From the IAP2 USA blog:

IAP2 DC Meetup
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
at 6.30pm
Venue to be announced shortly (central location)
Washington DC
RSVP: http://iap2dcapril2012.eventbrite.com

No set agenda, just a great opportunity to mingle and learn about what IAP2 USA is up to (e.g. reviving our East Coast chapter structure, a DC symposium we’re planning for September and the upcoming 2012 North American IAP2 Conference in Canada).

This event is very much open to non-members. Please bring friends and colleagues who share an interest in public participation and might be interested.

Back in the day, IAP2 used to have an active Mid-Atlantic chapter. At IAP2 USA, we are currently looking into reviving our East Coast chapter structure. Hopefully, this meeting on Wednesday will mark the beginning of an active DC group.

See you there!

It’s been a great first quarter for our blog, with lots more traffic than usual. Nice!

Here are the three most popular posts in March:

• What Is Government 2.0?
• What Is Public Participation?
• Global Map of Participatory Budgeting Projects

Thanks to our readers new and old, especially to those leaving the occasional comment or feedback here or on any of the other channels.

I was supposed to go last in our group of five presenters (hence the “round-up” in the title), but ended up right in the middle. Slides uploaded as shown in the session, minus a couple of typos that have been fixed.

The idea to present the tool landscape in the form of a comprehensive matrix has been brought up many times in the past, and some have already tried it out for certain sub-sets in different contexts. I still think it’d be a challenge since many tools aren’t easily categorized (or rather, they can span many categories depending on how they are being applied). However, maybe it’s time to give this a try. Please leave a comment if you’d like to get involved and take a stab at it. Eventually, this could drive a tool selection “wizard”, an idea that has also been tried but only at a much smaller scale and for a limited number of tools.

Many thanks to the co-presenters: Tiago Peixoto (The World Bank), Bianca Suassuna (Gol Mobile), Dan Latorre (Project for Public Spaces), and Mark Klein (MIT). Thanks also to our moderator Giovanni Allegretti (University of Coimbra, Portugal), for keeping us on time.

In preparation for this week’s Participatory Budgeting Conference in New York City, NY, I once again pulled up Tiago Peixoto’s uber comprehensive map of participatory budgeting projects from all around the world:

His definition:

Participatory Budgeting

Participatory Budgeting (PB) can be broadly defined as the participation of citizens in the decision-making process of budget allocation and monitoring public spending. Participation may take various forms, from effective decision-making power in the allocation of resources to more modest initiatives that confer voice during the development of the budget.

Truly some great stuff. Enjoy browsing!

Update 03/14 at 11.59am: Rephrased the first item slightly for better flow (was: “Those who are affected by a decision should be involved in the decision-making process.”).

Simon Burall had a nice post last week, in which he asks what are “the two things you need to know about public engagement”. He quotes from a earlier article in The Guardian that gives a few examples (e.g. the two things to know about economics: 1. Incentives matter, 2. There’s no such thing as a free lunch).

A few good suggestions have already come in through the comments. Here’s the comment I just left, my take with regard to public participation:

1. People should have a say in the decisions that affect them.
2. Process matters.

So there you have it.

I’ll be co-hosting a session on e-participatory budgeting at the upcoming conference Participatory Budgeting in the US and Canada: International Conference, March 30-31, 2012 in New York City, NY:

Participatory budgeting (PB) initiatives facilitated by the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) have multiplied in recent years, both in developed and developing contexts. The existing evidence suggests that the use of ICT may have a significant impact on PB initiatives (e.g. transparency, participation), drawing an increasing interest of practitioners and researchers in the field. Tailored to a broad audience and drawing lessons from real-world experiences, this session will address practical issues related to the use of technology in PB processes, including online deliberation, social media and mobile phone, amongst others.

Moderator:

• Giovanni Allegretti, University of Coimbra, Portugal

Presenters:

• Dan Latorre, Project for Public Spaces
• Tiago Peixoto, World Bank
• Tim Bonnemann, Intellitics, Inc.
• Paolo Spada, Harvard Ash Center
• Mark Klein, MIT
• Helen Ho, Ioby

We’ve got a lot of ground to cover in 90 minutes. Individual presentations will be short and to the point. I plan to go over two or three recent examples of online budget consultations and share a few practical insights and lessons learned.

This two-day conference will bring together a number of leading minds in this relatively new (in the US, at least) field, and I look forward to finally meeting a lot of them in person for the first time. Ticket prices are very reasonable. If you’re in the area, make sure to register before it sells out.

I’ll be talking about “e-democracy: New Trends in On-line Public Deliberation” at City Forum in Austin this week:

City Forum is a planning and urban issues speaker series hosted by the Community and Regional Planning Student Organization (CRPSO) and the Community and Regional Planning Program (CRP) at the University of Texas at Austin. The bi-weekly speakers series is intended to broaden the curriculum in the CRP program by presenting the experiences, perspectives, and insights of scholars, community leaders, practicing planners, and policy makers who engage in timely issues.

From the event announcement:

In a world where citizens are more connected than ever before through the technologies and networks that permeate our lives, decision makers, planners, and public participation professionals are increasingly engaging with innovative participation strategies that harness the passion and skillsets of communities with the power and reach of the internet. Hundreds of e-participation tools are now available across the web, but how can decision makers select an appropriate tool for a given project or process? How can these tools be used responsibly, in order to maximize the availability of high-quality information to constituents while eliciting high-quality input and results for decision makers?

For those in the area, the talk will be held over lunch on Thursday, March 8, 2012 at 11am, Goldsmith Lecture Hall (GOL 3.120). Hope to see you there!

I came across this promising-sounding site a while back: eparticipation.eu

The e-Manual you are just entering is result of Interreg IVC financed project „eCitizen II – Towards citizen-centered eGovernment in European cities and regions“.

There does not appear to be an about section. In the footer, it states:

The Baltic Institute of Finland leads the Interreg IVC financed project – eCitizen II – Towards citizen-centered eGovernment in European cities and regions – launched from the beginning of January 2010. The cooperation is designed to support European cities and regions in their joint efforts to accelerate eGovernment through exploiting established networks, gained experiences and good practices to improve interaction between citizens and public authorities, better involving citizens in local decision-making and contributing to change in operational culture and attitudes within public administrations.

The Interregional Cooperation Programme INTERREG IVC, financed by the European Union’s Regional Development Fund, helps Regions of Europe work together to share experience and good practice in the areas of innovation, the knowledge economy, the environment and risk prevention. EUR 302 million is available for project funding, but more than that a wealth of knowledge and potential solutions are also on hand for regional policy-makers.

The recent changes (RSS feed) show occasional updates, but other than that it’s not clear what stage this is at. Is this more or less the final product? Or are they just getting started? What was the actual deliverable? And how does it fit in with the myriad other e-participation initiatives in the EU?

There isn’t a lot of content yet. A few of the cases that are available do look interesting. They include lessons learned and recommendations, though neither is very detailed:

• Engaging citizen to the general planning of the city centre
• Using online-channels for preparation of the new public transportation tender in Tartu
• Informing citizens on participation possibilities through a Facebook page

Anyone have a clue? Comments welcome.

Once again, a look at the three most popular posts this past month:

• New Research Paper Presents 30 General Design Considerations for Online Deliberation Systems
• What Is Public Participation?
• What Is Government 2.0?

Off to March!

The nice thing about finally having a comprehensive event calendar in place is that now you can know in advance which conferences to follow each month. Here’s what’s coming up in March:

• ASPA 2012 Annual Conference (March 2–6, 2012 in Las Vegas, NV)
• CeBIT (March 6-10, 2012 in Hanover, Germany)
• South by South West Interactive (March 9–13, 2012 in Austin, TX)
• IADIS International Conference e-Society 2012 (March 10–13, 2012 in Berlin, Germany)
• International Conference: Participatory Budgeting in the US and Canada (March 30–31, 2012 in New York, NY)

I will be in Austin for a one-day teaching and speaking assignment at the University of Texas next week and will stay for SXSW Interactive. I’ll also be at the New York conference to co-present a session on e-participatory budgeting. More details on that soon.

If you’re in the area and would like to meet up, just let me know. Thanks!

If you see any events missing from the list, please add them in the comments.

For those interested in multi-lingual online dialogue, check out Free Speech Debate, a new project led by Timothy Garton Ash, Professor of European Studies at Oxford University.

The one-pager explains the project in-depth. In short, the site hosts editorially-led discussions on the topic of freedom of speech in today’s networked world. The site invites participants from around the world to join the conversation in their native language, with Google Translate handling translations. Once roll-out is complete, the site will support Arabic, Chinese, English, Farsi/Persian, French, German, Hindi, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish and Urdu.

For more on the technical background, check out lead developer Simon Dickson’s post: Free Speech Debate: our most ambitious project ever.

Above each comment section, a disclaimer warns participants that the automated machine translations provided by Google Translate “should give you a rough idea of what the contributor has said, but cannot be relied on to give an accurate, nuanced translation. Please read them with this in mind.” A quick check on the German translation for a comment written in English confirmed that that it’s clearly 80/20. This may be an area where crowdsourcing could be applied to pick up where the algorithm falls short.

A few threads are already seeing some activity, though it’s not clear if they included non-English comments. At any rate, it will be interesting to watch to what extent the trade-off (less perfect translation in return for enablement of and access to a truly global conversation) will pan out.

Earlier this week, Lloyd Brown shared a nice post that lets us in on a new trend, the personable bridge that tweets: Twitter talk: Three things ‘fake’ bridges teach us about public engagement

Apparently, there are now a number of bridges across the country that have their own Twitter account. For the most part, these are unofficial channels, though in one case — the Huey P. Long Bridge replacement project in Louisiana — it’s the official voice of the government agency in charge.

Brown summarizes:

What do all these bridge accounts have in common? Three things:

• They talk to their customers in plain language.
• They empathize with the plight of the poor driver stuck in traffic or braving the elements.
• They use humor.

The next time you wonder what you should say on your transportation Twitter feed, ask yourself, “What would @520_bridge say?” The answer is, surprisingly, quite a bit.

Giving troublesome projects or things a personality that makes them more likable might be a great idea, potentially. I wonder how long until we see things like this (following a successful public consultation on, say, a local budget):

When people start wanting to become friends with your decision, now that‘s all-around feel good engagement.