What’s Next California: What Should The Observers Be Monitoring?

June 14, 2011

Following my previous post about the upcoming Deliberative Poll here in California, I have been invited to attend the event as an observer. From the invitation email: I am writing to invite you to observe an exciting civic engagement event this summer that will help chart the course for California’s future. On June 24-26, a [...]

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dg.o 2011 First Conference to Use #edem IRC

June 13, 2011

The 12th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research (dg.o 2011) kicked off yesterday in College Park, MD. Their topic this year is “Digital Government Innovation in Challenging Times”. While I have yet to attend dg.o in person, it’s been on my radar for a while now, and their 2011 edition looks interesting once again. For example, [...]

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CityCamp SF 2011: Looking for Recent Examples of Public Participation in the Bay Area

June 6, 2011

I had a great time co-instigating the first CityCampSF last year, and wanted to give a shout-out to the upcoming sequel: CityCampSF Saturday, June 18, 2011 from 9:00 AM – 4:00 PM San Francisco Department of Technology Atrium 1 So. Van Ness Second Floor San Francisco CA RSVP: http://ccsf2011.eventbrite.com From the event description: CityCampSF is municipal employees, journalists, [...]

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Another Nice Thing About the New Utah.gov

June 2, 2011

The newly-relaunched Utah.gov is getting rave reviews from across the Open Government community. Here’s one more reason to like it: Not only do they list all upcoming public meetings and public hearings online, they also allow citizens to create their own “Public Notice Widget”, a custom notification filter. Not sure if this feature was part [...]

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Next #edem IRC Chat: July 6, 2011

June 1, 2011

We had another good trial run today, with a number of new people joining the #edem IRC for the first time. Thanks for coming, everyone! Nothing too momentous was discussed, aside from some general resource sharing and logistics planning for futures chats. If you’re curious, Michael Allan of Votorola has put up a log of [...]

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Top Posts May 2011

June 1, 2011

Following a slow April, things did start to pick up again in May. Our three most popular posts: What Is Government 2.0? Micro-Participation In Online Consultations New York Times Budget Puzzle Onwards to June!

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Next #edem IRC Chat: June 1, 2011

May 30, 2011

Following the inaugural IRC chat earlier this month, we’ll be meeting again this coming Wednesday, June 1, 2011 at 2pm Pacific Central (9pm 11pm 9pm Berlin): irc.freenode.net #edem The idea is to establish this as an additional standing backchannel to be used especially during conferences and events related to e-participation and e-democracy. In the meantime, we’ll [...]

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Upcoming Deliberative Poll on California Governance Issues

May 29, 2011

Now here‘s an interesting project, scheduled to happen in California next month (via). From the press release: Coalition of Reformers, Academics and Foundations to Conduct California’s First-Ever Statewide Deliberative Poll SAN FRANCISCO, CA — A coalition of non-partisan reform organizations, academics and journalists today announced that they will partner with Stanford University’s Center for Deliberative Democracy to conduct [...]

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Lenzo: The Key to Online Hosting Is Deep Listening

May 22, 2011

Adriano Pianesi and Amy Lenzo just released a short guide to online hosting (published in the March issue of The Systems Thinker): The Art of Online Hosting: From Powerpoint to Powerful (PDF). From the paper: The key to online hosting is simple—deep listening. When it comes to using online tools, people are often distracted by technology, and [...]

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Collective Intelligence 2012: April 19-20, 2012 in Cambridge, MA

May 17, 2011

The other day, this promising-looking conference popped up on my radar: Collective Intelligence 2012. From the site (emphasis mine): Overview Collective intelligence has existed at least as long as humans have, because families, armies, countries, and companies have all–at least sometimes–acted collectively in ways that seem intelligent. But in the last decade or so a new kind [...]

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Consultation Directory At Alpha.gov.uk

May 10, 2011

Earlier today, a new UK government site launched which I’m sure will be very much worth watching. From the about page: What is Alpha.gov.uk? Alpha.gov.uk is an experimental prototype of a new, single website for UK Government, developed in line with the recommendations of Martha Lane-Fox’s Review. The site is a demonstration, and whilst it’s [...]

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What Is Civic Engagement?

May 7, 2011

My previous post on micro-participation included a definition of civic engagement that I hadn’t referenced before. According to Michael X. Delli Carpini, Dean of the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, civic engagement can be defined as: Individual and collective actions designed to identify and address issues of public concern. I have [...]

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This Thursday in SF: IAP2 NorCal Chapter Meetup

May 3, 2011

I’ll be in San Francisco this Thursday night to meet up with fellow members and friends of the IAP2 NorCal chapter. From the IAP2 USA blog: NorCal Chapter Meetup This Thursday in SF As promised, here are the details for this week’s get-together of the Northern California chapter: IAP2 NorCal Meetup Thursday, May 5 from [...]

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Heierbacher: Dialogue and Deliberation as the Basis for Sustainable Decision Making

May 2, 2011

Sandy Heierbacher, Director of the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation (NCDD), gives a nice two-paragraph summary this morning of what her organization’s work is all about: [...] Our most urgent problems seem even more unsolvable because of our inability to come together civilly and discuss issues and potential solutions in depth with all “sides.” [...]

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Top Posts April 2011

May 2, 2011

April turned out to be one of those low-yield blog months, and none of the most recent posts were able to score against the archives. Here are the three most popular ones: What Is Government 2.0? New York Times Budget Puzzle What Is Public Participation? Let’s hope things pick up again in May.

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Give A Minute Chicago Follow-Up 2

April 30, 2011

Catching up on tons of good stuff in my feed reader, I just came across a publication by the Knight Foundation that was released earlier this month: Connected Citizens: The Power, Peril and Potential of Networks In the full report, I found an interesting tidbit about the recent Give A Minute Chicago project (emphasis mine): “An [...]

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C2D2: Making the Case for Dialogue and Deliberation

April 29, 2011

Another project worth mentioning that’s very much related to the ROI discussions that are happening elsewhere is the Making the Case campaign by the Canadian Community for Dialogue and Deliberation (C2D2). It must have launched shortly after I last wrote about their efforts back in November of last year. From the site: Dialogue and deliberation (D&D) [...]

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Finally! An IRC Channel for the #edem Community

April 28, 2011

Looks like I never quite finished setting up the #edem IRC channel on Freenode last year, but with so many conferences and events coming up I thought I’d give it another try. From the FAQ: What is freenode about? Why is it here? freenode is a special-purpose, not a general-purpose, discussion network, currently implemented on [...]

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CeDEM11: May 5-6, 2011 in Krems, Austria

April 27, 2011

Next week, e-participation folks will gather in Krems, Austria for this year’s Conference for E-Democracy and Open Government (CeDEM11). The conference is hosted by Danube University Krems’s Center for E-Government and “brings together e-democracy, e-participation, e-voting and open government specialists working in academia, politics, government and businesses”. A number of sessions look quite interesting, for example: [...]

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IAP2 BC Chapter Spring Symposium: Making the Business Case for Public Participation

April 21, 2011

It’s great to see the IAP2 Affiliates form in the US and Canada. IAP2 USA, where I serve on the Board, is making great progress, and Canada is only a few weeks behind us it seems. Anyway, I would love to go up to Vancouver for this one: IAP2 BC Chapter Spring Symposium May 19, [...]

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