Top Posts October 2011

November 2, 2011

Here are October’s top posts, including two fresh ones: What Is Public Participation? Tree Bressen: The Top 10 Most Common Mistakes in Consensus Process Occupy Research Wiki Thanks for reading!

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Economist Article on Wiki Legislation

October 27, 2011

I’m quoted in the Economist today: Government by (all) the people [...] Successful examples of legislation by the masses are rare. Most people don’t know how to write laws. Tim Bonnemann, the founder of Intellitics, an American firm specialising in public-participation tools, says a better method is to canvas views widely but use a small [...]

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IAP2 NorCal Chapter Event: “Fixing Broke(n) Governments through Serious Games”

October 24, 2011

If you’re in the San Francisco Bay Area, you might want to check out this exciting event the IAP2 NorCal Chapter is putting on (I’m chapter co-chair): IAP2 NorCal Event: Fixing Broke(n) Governments through Serious Games, November 17 in San Francisco Governments around the world are all facing budget shortfalls, spending cuts and reduced services. All [...]

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Occupy Research Wiki

October 19, 2011

Peter Levine points to an interesting research effort: OWS research [...] Thus I am very interested in Occupy Research, a wiki page that includes a research agenda, a survey instrument, a semi-structured protocol for qualitative interviews, guides for researchers, and even a sample release form. Doing this in a “wiki” style, so that anyone is [...]

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IAP2 Canada Talks Online Engagement

October 14, 2011

IAP2 Canada together with Noreen Rude from the City of Calgary are hosting a Twitter chat about online engagement next week: Thursday, October 20, 2011 9.30-11.00pm MST (that’s 8.30pm Pacific) Hashtag: #IAP2chat From the flyer (PDF): Online tools for  Engagement?!?! Social media to engage? IAP2 Canada and Noreen Rude from the City of Calgary are hosting a [...]

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Tree Bressen: The Top 10 Most Common Mistakes in Consensus Process

October 13, 2011

Earlier last month, New York City saw the beginning of the Occupy Wall Street protest movement. What started out as a small group of people camping out at a local park in downtown Manhattan has since gained a lot of momentum and spread to dozens of cities across the US. From Wikipedia: Occupy Wall Street is [...]

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Top Posts September 2011

October 11, 2011

Here are our top posts from September: What Is Government 2.0? What Is Public Participation? White House Petitions: A Small Sample of Popular Feedback Some good comments, too. Thanks, everyone!

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Netzwerk Bürgerbeteiligung: New German Online Community for Public Participation

October 6, 2011

Late last month, a new online community launched in Germany for people and organizations that “want to advance citizen participation in political decision making and shape the future of public participation” (translation mine). From the website (in German): Die Partizipation der Bürgerinnen und Bürger an gesellschaftlichen und politischen Entscheidungsprozessen ist ein elementarer Grundpfeiler der Demokratie: [...]

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Upcoming Panel Discussion: Can Technology Fix California Governments?

October 4, 2011

I look forward to joining this Zócalo/New America Foundation event as co-panelist, October 26, 2011 at Stanford. From the announcement: Zócalo in Palo Alto: Can Technology Save California Governments? California has more than 4,500 local governments, yet it still often feels ungoverned. Proponents of so-called “e-government” say technology can change that: the digital world, they argue, [...]

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We The People: Adoption Metrics At One Week

September 29, 2011

Update 09/29 at 2.18pm: According to this tweet from Macon Phillips, there have been “500k signatures from 300k ppl on 6500 petitions.” In the post below, I forgot to mention that petitions must gain 150 signatures before they can be included in the public listing. I’ve updated the post accordingly. The White House e-petition site [...]

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Open Government Partnership: More Geo-Political Context

September 28, 2011

A couple of months ago, I pointed to Greg Michener’s article in the Christian Science Monitor that proposed the Open Government Partnership (OGP) “could provide the US another means to promote democracy and free trade”. Today, David Eaves expands nicely on this angle: The Geopolitics of the Open Government Partnership: the beginning of Open vs. [...]

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We The People: First Look II

September 23, 2011

Yesterday’s first look at We the People was cut short since the site was experiencing performance or maintenance issues. Today, it’s back online again. Time to continue our review. First, a few screenshots: More first impressions: Petition detail pages use infinite scrolling to expose list of people who have signed the petition (infinite scrolling allows users to [...]

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We The People: First Look

September 22, 2011

Moments ago, the White House unveiled their new online petition service, We The People: We The People is Live! Welcome to We the People on WhiteHouse.gov. This tool provides you with a new way to petition the Obama Administration to take action on a range of important issues facing our country. If a petition gets enough [...]

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Back from the Dead? ExpertNet Makes U.S. National Plan

September 21, 2011

As I mentioned earlier, I was a little surprised to see ExpertNet make the U.S. National Plan. The ExpertNet RFI online consultation was inconclusive, to put it nicely, with many key questions left unanswered. There was no formal closure or follow-up, so we don’t know what input was considered, if any. Whatever it is that will be [...]

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Open Government Partnership: Public Participation in the US National Plan

September 21, 2011

Yesterday saw the much-anticipated launch of the Open Government Partnership, including the unveiling of the United States Open Governnment National Action Plan (PDF). Just like we did when the Open Government Directive was announced a little less than two years ago, let’s take a look at what the US National Plan has in store with regard [...]

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More Details on We The People

September 15, 2011

A couple of weeks ago, I shared a few questions related to the public participation aspects of the new We The People e-petition site. Earlier today, the White House went into some detail answering all six of them: What the People Want to Know About We the People In the same post, White House Director of New Media Macon Phillips [...]

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White House Petitions: A Small Sample of Popular Feedback

September 6, 2011

The newly-announced We The People e-petition initiative by the White House has been getting a lot of coverage (for example, see here, here, here, here, here). I spent Saturday reading through comment threads on various sites to look for additional feedback, criticisms and concerns related to the public participation process, some of which I’m listing [...]

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Top Posts August 2011

September 6, 2011

August turned out to be unexpectedly quiet. Here are the three most popular posts (all from the archives): What Is Public Participation? What Is Public Participation? New York Times Budget Puzzle Here’s to a more productive September! Maybe there’s a few interesting tidbits to report back from Germany.

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Germany Visit: September 7-27, 2011

September 5, 2011

I’ll be visiting the Old Continent once again, September 7-27, 2011. As usual, I’ll be staying near Cologne, Germany. Let me know if you’d like to meet up. If you’re aware of any cool events related to e-participation that are happening in the greater area during that time, please let me know as well. If you’re curious what we’ve [...]

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Public Participation in the Deficit Reduction Super Committee

September 5, 2011

Over on Google+, Popvox CEO Marci Harris points to an article on The Hill from Friday that shows where the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction is apparently headed with regard to public participation: Sen. Baucus seeks deficit-cutting ideas — but only from Montanans Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), one of the 12 members of [...]

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