In addition to sharing the story about the exciting launch of the Neighborhood Issues Forum where I live - e-democracy.org/se - I’d like to discuss Vermont’s Front Porch Forum, i-Neighbors (academic project), the Facebook Neighborhoods application, Outside.In and Topix’s approach to zipcode based forums (lots of virtual ghost towns), Everyblock.Com, and DC’s exceptionally vibrant neighborhood e-mail list network (check out Cleveland Park with over 6,000 members). I am also interested in gathering ideas on block-level tools to support more secure networking among neighbors and how to extend the summer idea of National Night Out to a winter Local Night Online. We will even take a look at the sad Rotten Neighbor site.

If you would like an invite - drop me a note:

clift@publicus.net

Put “Neighborhoods Online Discussion” in the subject.

Steven Clift
E-Democracy.Org

P.S. We have a small grant to establish two neighborhood forums in high immigrant areas in Minneapolis and St. Paul. Work is getting underway. See: e-democracy.org/nf
I am interested in learning about any other examples where such an effort has attempted to build a geographically bounded space that is fully reflective an actual and highly diverse local community (v. white middle class active citizens who are the easiest to recruit).

In addition to speaking, I hope to use this as an opportunity to have an informal conversation with researchers interested helping design a proposal for a multi-city European comparative research project on *citizen-based* local e-democracy projects (including a mix of community and neighbourhood Issue Forums with E-Democracy.Org).

Steven Clift
E-Democracy.Org and DoWire.Org

EDem2008 – Conference for E-Democracy
www.donau-uni.ac.at/edem

Krems (Austria), 29-30 September 2008

“E-Democracy“ has managed the jump from trendy “e-word” to reality. Following recommendations issued by the European Council, studies and projects conducted in Europe are starting to provide initial findings and results. There are a number of E-Democracy applications, ranging from providing information to discussion, deliberation, decision-making and voting, thus encompassing the entire democratic process. The technical devices have become a means to an end, and there are other questions that now need to be raised and answered:

• To what extent can E-Democracy support and enrich our democracy?
• What and where are the interfaces, what methods can be used to integrate E-participation in present politics public administration processes?
• How can we ensure that the greatest number of people are reached and are able to use the means of participation?
• How can the modern media support political education?
• How can the Internet increase participation in political discussion?
• What are the limitations and the risks of E-Democracy?

The EDem2008 conference presents the opportunity to look into these questions and discuss the answers. During the conference experiences will be collected, examples good and bad practice analysed, the State-of-the-Art and future scenarios will be presented and discussed.

We are looking for contributions on all areas and levels of electronic democracy and participation systems, precedence will be given to those contributions which include national and/or international experiences. Concrete projects can also be submitted, and, if accepted, would be presented as examples of “hands-on” demonstrations of E-Democracy and E-Participation.

Papers and projects can be submitted in English or German, the tracks in German and English language will be held parallel.

We invite individuals from academic and practical backgrounds as well as public administration offices, public bodies, NGOs, education institutions and independent organisations, to submit their contributions.

Important dates

15. May 2008
Deadline for paper submission (max. 10 pages)

15. May 2008
Deadline for project presentations
(if the project is not submitted with a paper please provide 2-3 pages describing the project and the a link)

30. May 2008
Notification of acceptance/rejection

15. June 2008
Final (camera-ready) papers submission

29-30. September 2008
Conference: Danube University Krems, Austria

Submission
Please submit your paper in a pdf or MS Word format to:
peter.parycek@donau-uni.ac.at
or
alexander.prosser@wu-wien.ac.at

Reviewing is applied for all the materials submitted.
All papers are refereed through a ‘double blind’ peer review process. Please submit the text of the paper, including text, acknowledgments, references and notes, tables, figure captions, figures, but with the names of authors or their biographical notes on a separate page.

Please use the following format for accepted papers:
www.ocg.at/publikationen/books/files/paper2.dot
If your paper is accepted, please fill out the author agreement: www.ocg.at/publikationen/books/files/copyright.pdf

Cost: EUR 95,- including proceedings
Further information: www.donau-uni.ac.at/edem

In cooperation with the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration.
The Proceedings will be published by the OCG (Österreichische Computer Gesellschaft)

Keynote Speakers
Steven Clift (Ashoka Fellow, E-Democracy.Org, USA)
Ann Macintosh (Professor of Digital Governance, University of Leeds, UK)
Matt Poelmans (Director, Citizenlink, The Hague, NL)

Conference Chairs
Peter Parycek (Danube University Krems)
Alexander Prosser (Vienna University of Economics, A)

Programme Committee
Georg Aichholzer (Austrian Academy of Sciences – Institute of Technology Assessment, A)
Sylvia Archmann (European Institute of Public Administration EIPA)
Lasse Berntzen (Vestfold University College, NOR)
Thomas Buchsbaum (Austrian Foreign Ministry, A)
Günther Burkert-Dottolo (Austrian Federal Ministry of Science and Research, A)
Alessandro de Carlo (Austrian Federal Economic Chamber, A)
Matjaz Gams (Jozef Stefan Institute, University of Ljubljana, SLO)
Thomas Gordon (Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems, D)
Marijan Gusev (Cyril and Methodius University Skopje, FYROM)
Bozidar Klicek (University Zagreb, Faculty of Organization and Informatics Varazdin, HR)
Zlatko Lagumdzija (University of Sarajevo, Management and Information Technology Centre, BiH)
Ann Macintosh (University of Leeds, UK)
Ülle Madise (estnische Parlamentsdirektion, EST)
Ursula Maier-Rabler (University of Salzburg, A)
Josef Makolm (Federal Ministry of Finance, A)
Peter Mambrey (Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology, D)
Oliver Märker (Zebralog, D)
Veljko Milutinovic (University of Belgrade, Faculty for Computer Engineering ,SRB)
Robert Müller-Török (INTECO, D)
Arvo Ott (e-Governance Academy, EST)
Rob Peters (ZENC, NL)
Carl-Markus Piswanger (Austrian Federal Computing Centre, A)
Guenther Schefbeck (Parlament, A)
Erich Schweighofer (Universität Wien, A)
Rita Trattnigg (Austrian Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water, A)
Roland Traunmüller (Universität Linz, A)
Frank Wilson (Interaction Design, UK)
Maria Wimmer (University of Koblenz, D)
Melanie Volkamer (University Passau, D)
Helle Zinner Henriksen (Copenhagen Business School, DK)

Hey all, I’ll be interviewed live online next week by David Witzel with PolicyCommons.Org and Forum One Communications.

If you have any questions on the topic of “Building Town Halls Online” or e-democracy in general, send them in now:
interviews.liveinterviewsonline.com/content/interview/detail/1010/

Here is the text of the announcement from LIVE Interviews Online:

Interview with Steven Clift on Building Town Halls Online
2 April 2008, 11:00 AM EDT/4:00 PM UK (Check other time zones here.)

Participation in public life, in local democracy and civic affairs, is in a serious decline. From time pressures experienced by two income families to a growing cynicism about government and politics, local communities face a fundamental threat to their ability to meet public challenges via democratic processes and participation.

Steven Clift has succeeded at creating the equivalent of local town halls for the online world. Multiple contemporary barriers impede participation in politics and the citizen sector, resulting in feelings ranging from confusion to powerlessness to distrust. E-Democracy.Org achieves the impact of community meetings more conveniently, less expensively, and by reaching more people.

This innovate program (I was among the judges selecting the 20 finalists) is also a very interesting exercise in online voting. You can’t just go online and choose one winner, you need to dig in and vote for four. The “final four” receive an extra $25,000 on top of the $10,000 received by the final 20.

Like the Knight News Challenge, I appreciated the MIYO approach to making it extremely easy for people to submit ideas. I was also a first round judge and used their Drupal-based review system to read submissions and offer ratings. Like Ashoka’s Changemakers Competitions, an online vote determines top winners after a deliberative process that involves judges. I hope both these ideas become new mega-trends in philanthropy. Elaine Gast’s article on the main Case Foundation site titled, Keeping It Real: Case’s Approach to Online Voting might also be of interest.

Below is the list of the top 20 MIYO award finalists - congrats! Help spread the word and be sure to vote.

Steven Clift
E-Democracy.Org
DoWire.Org

From:
miyo.casefoundation.org/vote
Simple version:
vote.election-america.com/make-it-your-own/

UNCommon Council
Keith Herring - Syracuse, NY
The Southside Community of Syracuse is an area suffering from poverty, drugs, educational failure, child neglect/abuse, and crime. The United Neighbors Common Council will comprise a cross-section of this diverse community and engage its members in collective decision-making and problem-solving. The council will involve all segments of the community through a three-pronged strategy – communication via multiple formats, consultation with advisory committees, and community outreach efforts.

Wilson For The Ages
David Criswell - Wilson, KS
In Wilson – population 800 – student enrollments are declining, more than one-third of the commercial downtown buildings are vacant, and the single largest age group is “over 65.” To bring the community together and ensure that everyone’s voice is heard, Wilson for the Ages will hold town hall meetings to solicit public input; develop a questionnaire distributed by mail, by hand, and online; and make personal contact to spread the word. As input is gathered, key issues will be identified and action plans coordinated.

Child/Youth Friendly City
Nancy Gilder - Denver, CO
A broad-based effort to establish Denver as the leading Child/Youth Friendly City (CYFC) in the nation, CYFC has grown from having three partners to having more than 100. The project is now focused on gathering 10,000 voices from people of every race, religion, age, gender, and sexual orientation and facilitating 100 conversations about what makes or would make Denver child/youth friendly. A CYFC youth leadership team will take this information and engage citizens in taking action on a shared vision for the city.

Citizen Participation
Keith Twitchell - New Orleans, LA
After Hurricane Katrina, the people of New Orleans came together in unprecedented ways and, in the process, became aware of their power as citizens. Citizen Participation’s goal is to create a mechanism that builds on that community spirit and enables people to make decisions at the neighborhood level about how to rebuild the city. The program will make special effort to reach out to poor and displaced citizens. The ultimate goal is to present a citizen-designed plan for formal, permanent citizen participation for passage by the New Orleans City Council.

Community Conversations
Kate McPherson - Vancouver, WA
Vancouver/ Clark County is rapidly growing into a collage of cul-de-sacs and strip malls. Residents, especially youth, lack a sense of community belonging. Community Conversations is designed to support high school students as they develop Civic Action Projects by enabling them to talk with youth and adults who can help them shape projects that are personally meaningful and valued by the community. Student facilitators will use the Conversation Café process to foster respectful and generative intergenerational discussions.

Community Vision Project
Imre Kepes - Pelham, MA
Holyoke, MA, is a diverse, post-industrial city with great potential and also many challenges such as crime, teen pregnancy, school dropout, and other issues. The Community Vision Project will develop a team of youth leaders to inspire others and gather input from a cross-section of residents to develop ideas to make their community a better place. Together they will create a Community Vision Map that will graphically express these ideas and help to inform and mobilize the community. A support network will help turn these ideas into action.

Conversations for Change
Lisa Harper - New York, NY
As an offshoot of the South Bronx Coalition Against Violence, Conversations for Change will plan and implement dialog between the police and communities in the South Bronx – the nation’s poorest congressional district and an area plagued by increasing crime and underserved schools. Over the next year, the Coalition looks to build partnership for these conversations, train dialog facilitators, launch area “conversation circles,” and follow up to ensure that action steps are implemented.

Crossing Borders
Nan Kari - St. Paul, MN
Through Crossing Borders, an intergenerational group of Somali, Mexican, Peruvian, Hmong, Korean, and U.S. born people will explore how to bring more diverse people into public work and strengthen democratic practices – both at the Jane Addams School for Democracy (JAS) in St. Paul, as well as in towns throughout Minnesota. Among the initiative’s goals are bimonthly team discussions, cross-cultural multimedia projects, and training for others on democratic education and outreach.

DCCV
Bridget Murphy - Menomonie, WI
In its first year, DCCV has already taken action toward creating a shared vision for the rural west central Wisconsin community of Dunn County. In May, groups representing different community areas sent representatives to investigate possible futures for the county. This past summer, DCCV reached out to citizens to engage in dialogue about their hopes and ideas for the future. In the fall, citizen task forces were recruited to accomplish specific goals and make public policy recommendations.

Deliberative Democracy
Mark Shoul - Royalston, MA
For five years, community leaders in rural North Central Massachusetts have been working to build trust among the region’s diverse group of residents through community projects such as mentoring troubled youth and holding an interfaith Thanksgiving service. The network of community groups in North Quabbin needs support to continue organizing two annual public conversations – one that identifies a shared community concern and another that determines an action plan.

Five Two Eight O
Janna Goodwin - Denver, CO
The goal of Five Two Eight O is to conduct storytelling events in diverse areas of Denver to reveal community concerns and provide opportunities for action. In the neighborhood phase, individuals will share personal stories onstage, followed by group dialog. Artists, performers, and community members will re-create these narratives culminating in a citywide theatrical event at a large, central venue. Written reports as well as in-person and online dialog discussion will lead to action plans.

Front Porch Forum
Michael Wood-Lewis - Burlington, VT
Front Porch Forum (FPF) hosts a network of online neighborhood forums that blankets an entire metro area. More than 30% of its pilot city, Burlington, VT, takes an active part, connecting with neighbors, building community and partaking in grassroots democracy. This consistently gives rise to face-to-face conversation and community action, leading to safer neighborhoods, citizen campaigns and direct input into local decision-making. FPF seeks support to increase participation, expand into one other community and develop a replicable model.

In Search of the Commons
Jim Barrett - Livingston, MT
For over 100 years, Park County, Montana, located on the northern edge of Yellowstone National Park, has been at the center of conflicts pitting the demands of development against the profound national conservation values of this region. In Search of the Commons aims to heal these divisions by reaching out to our entire community. Through neighborhood meetings, a web-based community forum, and interviews that place a special emphasis on connecting young people with adult leaders, we will assure our future is a reflection of our shared ideals.

Juveniles 4 Justice (J4J)
Jessica Feierman - Philadelphia, PA
Juveniles 4 Justice (J4J) is designed to bring together youth returning to Philadelphia from juvenile justice placements to collaborate in creating a positive vision for their communities. J4J will recruit a diverse group of incarcerated youth from local community settings. These young people will communicate with others incarcerated throughout the city and state and then meet with local nonprofits, youth-serving agencies, lawmakers, and media to discuss their visions and plans for change.

Leaders of the New School
Asad Jafri - Chicago, IL
The south side of Chicago suffers from poverty, a lack of resources, and gang activity. Leaders of the New School wants to directly involve those most affected by these issues – area youth aged 13-19 – in an urban arts project designed to create and inspire social change. Diverse participants from various ethnic/racial and religious backgrounds will meet once a week to discuss and address community issues through art. Following a period of instruction and training, the youth will begin work on a multidisciplinary Hip-Hop performance.

Madison SOS
Natalia Thompson - Madison, WI
Madison SOS (Speak out, Sister!) will unite teen girls throughout Madison to identify and act on the community issues that most matter to them. Teens will develop leadership skills as they organize and implement initiatives addressing a variety of local issues - by creating an online forum for youth to connect on these issues, conducting a series of peer listening sessions, painting a visionary community mural, writing a report for community stakeholders, and leading grassroots, multigenerational action to advance their priority issues.

Making Health Our Own
Susan Sloan - Bellingham, WA
From students to seniors, from newly arrived immigrants to descendants of county pioneers, from the homeless to corporate CEOs, members of this Pacific Northwest community will work together to create a comprehensive community health plan. Through a three-step approach, Making Health Our Own will identify health issues of shared concern, prioritize these issues, and then come together to establish goals, create policies, and formulate action plans.

My School is Your School
Dominick Maldonado - New Haven, CT
Last year, a diverse group of individuals, parents, students, and community agencies joined together to establish a “constituency engagement team” concerned with the education of children attending public school in impoverished New Haven. After identifying the disconnection felt between parents, community members, and teachers, the team has decided to launch an effort to strengthen these relationships through community deliberation and action.

Summit for Environmental Action
Kate Irwin - Sarasota, FL
In Sarasota County, citizens, local government and organizations jointly host the Summit for Environmental Action. The goal of the day is to reach consensus on a few community issues to move forward on with action. Organizers have reached out to municipal, business, neighborhood, education and faith-based groups to ensure a balance of participants. That day, participants will develop collective and individual action plans. Afterward, attendees will bring the plans to their networks to serve as leaders of and organizers for environmental action.

Re-Imagining our City
Fiona Cheong - Pittsburgh, PA
To help revitalize Pittsburgh’s historic Hill District, an area now often stigmatized by negative media reports, Re-Imagining Our City will involve a diverse group of local teenagers as full partners in exploring how to design a new urban green space. A core council of area teens will recruit participants from schools, youth groups and parent groups for public conversations designed to empower young people, involve them in city planning that will re-shape their city, and support them in educating and involving the larger community.

I was asked by OpenDemocracy.Net to participate first in a preliminary “Networking Democracy” exchange which is now flowing into a just launched public discussion. See: www.opendemocracy.net/networking-democracy

I happened be outlining a potential “Minnesota Listens” online event designed to foster consensus online among say 1000 people coming at an issue with differing views. I adapted that as part of a three step online process in my recommendations (below). The reality is that building consensus offline, much less online among even 30 people is a real challenge, so in the end I recommend step one and two (and step three could be one of the many distributed events gathered in part two.)

As I outlined my recommendations, I planted a couple seeds on the DoWire Consult online group - one on Building consensus online (42 posts) and the other on Gathering input from one million people. The discussion also unearthed progress on the CivicEvolution platform for building online consensus. These discussion prove once more that the intelligence is in the network.

I encourage you to add your comments about the UK considerations on the OpenDemocracy site - they are asking the world to come in and comment on how to do this right. The UK continues to be a beachhead state with e-democracy, be it e-petitioning or government funding for e-democracy experiments. If good things breakthrough their, they might just spread.

My submission text is on the Networking Democracy site and below for posterity.

Steven Clift
E-Democracy.Org
DoWire.Org

Online Engagement in a National Debate

Steven Clift, of E-Democracy.Org

Typically, online political debate is first about quantity. It raises the voices of those who seek to be heard and is read only by those to seek (click) to listen. It is about disagreement and often disparaging those with whom you disagree behind the cloak of an alias.

If you seek quality, deliberation, representativeness, insight, and more, the resources you would dedicate to an online engagement should parallel those invested in any well-funded gathering of public input such as the envisioned Citizens’ Summit. If you are ready to accept the fact that that online “engagement” is not participation on the cheap, then let’s proceed.

First, an important issue: Promote Real Names - Promote the use of real names and community everywhere. This generates much higher quality submissions, raises the level of discourse, and causes politicians to take notice. If you decided that you need anonymous channels for participation, give people the option to opt-out of using their name in public discussions. but make real names the strong default. This is the number one quality control lesson from E-Democracy.Org. Almost everyone else as bought into the myth that “no one knows your a dog online.” It shouldn’t surprise us, then, that in political debates online people often act like animals. The rise of Facebook demonstrates the power of identity online. The value of real names does not apply to sensitive topics or places where people face serious threats of retribution or imprisonment for expressing unpopular opinions online. But in “public life” I do not buy the argument that the fear being judged or held accountable ones political views is so negative that the entire online exchange should be oriented toward the use of aliases. Try to imagine how parliament with each speaker talking with a bag over their head. Who would take that seriously?

I recommend a three pronged, evolutionary approach:

* Distributed Online Survey with Comment Submission and Rating
* Networked Engagement through Multiple Partners, National Promotion
* Online Deliberative Participation

In addition, I’ve included a list of frank advice at the end of the scenarios.

To help develop my thoughts on this proposal, I seeded a discussion on the Democracies Online community of practice about e-participation. In summary, building “consensus” online (or offline for the matter) is extremely complicated even if the result is viewed by those who participate as mattering. Since the “intelligence is in the network” please see:

* Online Consultations, Dialogues, and E-Participation Online Group

Where you can find: Building consensus online; Building consensus online/definitions?; and Gathering input from online from one million people

Distributed Online Survey – “The Widget”

For the first wave of input I recommend producing a small survey “widget” that is embedded across the home page of all major government websites and available for inclusion on any website or blog. A widget is a small piece of code that allows someone to include syndicated content/applications from another website within their website. (It is how one displays a YouTube video on another site.)

Each day for at least one month a new question selected by a panel of online participants from public submissions would be presented across the network.

Project goals:

1. Promote mass participation
2. Acquire opt-in e-mail addresses for further engagement opportunity publicity
3. Produce quantifiable results while engaging many with a low time commitment

Upon completing the syndicated survey question, people would be taken to a central website where they can, without registration, be:

1. Given the opportunity to answer “why?” with a comment
2. Shown five to ten second tier questions selected for that day/week that they can answer
3. Be given the opportunity to securely share demographic data for use in either weighing a potential display of the results based on census data or, if not saved with the answers, to at least measure outreach to diverse groups in society
4. Provided an option to rate other comments and view comments (default view +1 or above - “Slashdot” style, which was recently adopted by YouTube to allow the audience bury useless comments below the visibility threshold)
5. Asked to provide their e-mail address and postal code for a project e-newsletter and other important updates
6. (Random) prizes should be available for those providing their e-mail address (S. Korea has offered prizes on government-funded voter education websites)

In addition, upon rating X number of comments, participants would be invited to register and join the online group receiving and rating proposed questions (related to British Values) submitted by the public. Assuming that most questions are too biased for direct use (E-Democracy.Org’s experience with online candidate debate questions submissions), these “super” users would be empowered to amend/re-craft the best question topics into a neutral format appropriate for question display across the large syndicated network.

If final editorial control is vested in a government official, make that transparent and clear to participants. By having a channel for top tier daily questions and second tier additional questions on the central site, most of the top rated questions should be accommodated by the second level if found too controversial for placement across government or partner websites.

Networked Engagement through Multiple Partners, National Promotion

After the initial phase of surface level mass engagement via the online survey, you now have an opportunity to leverage this audience (if you’ve aggressively encouraged opt-in e-mail registration in the first phase). In addition to the fresh opt-in e-mail list, promotion of this overall effort should leverage e-mail addresses gathered by government (from e-petitioning, etc.) to the greatest extent allowed by privacy policies/use promises.

I recommend a “thousand flowers bloom strategy.” Invite the public to search and join a local or community of identity/interest online discussion on the British Statement of Values that interests them.

You need a catchy name that says “British Values Online Month.”

Instead of picking one technology or platform, you would encourage partner sites - be they a local media or Council website, the blog of an MP, or a national site oriented toward a socially excluded population - to register the section on their site where they are hosting their own independent British Values online discussion using their own format and style. Imagine hundreds of small (and some quite large) online gatherings leveraging the skills and talents of may different hosts.

Partner sites should be invited to opt-in on a non-exclusive basis, add a logo to their website and link back to the central directory. Most importantly they would be included in a keyword and geographically searchable directory/map of participating sites.

You need a launch date and an end date to generate media attention, provide an incentive to participate “now” as well as to allow the effort to celebrate something with a sense of closure.

After one month or so of distributed participation, partners should be asked to report results using standardized online form. This will guide distribute hosts toward moving their participants from expression toward dialogue and perhaps some consensus building. Gathering public and sharable results from the each group will further allow aggregation of results.

Key to this approach is a significant promotional budget including a mix of television advertising and online advertising to drive traffic to the directory. Major media organisations would make ideal partners.

One of the conditions for partnering should include active promotion of both their British Values website participation section and the overall central initiative website through available off-line means of promotion (if a television network participates they must agree to promote the online event on the air not just on their website).

A variation of this proposal would be to create an online discussion hosting facility for use by multiple organisations as an option (preferably open source so the tool may be extended to future events/existing platforms). MPs or local councils, for example, could register to host an online discussion for people in their area and provide whatever facilitation and recruitment that is required. A fundamental flaw in most nationally conceived e-participation projects is that no politician, be they a local councillor or a MP, has to pay attention to “their constituents” in the typical format where they are often disempowered as representatives. This however does not mean many would jump at the chance to host and guide an open discussion in a medium where they feel (rightly or wrongly) they have less control than with face-to-face participation.

I should offer, that if interest is strong in a distributed approach, E-Democracy.Org would be very interested in how such an online event could leverage our existing geographically-based Issues Forums in England. Further, one might imagine a scenario whereby council or county-level forums could be established across the UK with the participation/promotion of interested local governments for a one-month event (with say at least 100 participants attracted for viability) that could then be turned over to the participants to form a voluntary committee to sustain the online public space for democratic participation in their county/council/parish/neighbourhood on an ongoing basis. See: e-democracy.org/if

Online Deliberative Participation

It could very well be that where my thinking started (the text below) with this request is least appropriate considering the value that will be generated by the in-person representative citizen jury approach.

However, if the goal is deep online engagement in a highly structured and mediated setting (which could be one of the “flowers” if funding was provided) you might go completely the opposite direction of phase one and invite 250 to 1,000 Britons to participate on a competitive basis. Selection could be based on an application process, submission of an essay/video judged in some way, or people invited based on highly rated comments. Another selection model would be to create slots based on demographics and choose participants from a pool of applicants that way.

This approach is completely different than taking a distributed “Web 2.0” approach, but I have yet to see 1,000 monkeys write Shakespeare. When the Bay Area actually delivers stronger local communities based on aggregated hyper-individualistic technological determinism we should take another look.

Below I’ve outlined a two week online event or consultation that could be adapted for our purposes. In general, people vastly underestimate the costs involved with moving online engagement beyond the Hyde Park-style soapbox or stilted “government wants to know X” consultations to something rich, deliberative, and participant driven. I have made a rough outline for a potential project in my home state in the USA called Minnesota listens, you can find it here.

Additional Advice

Some of these ideas are included above, but this is a quick list generated moment after I was first contacted for advice.

If you really want to encourage broad participation/and to quickly answer some of the questions posed:

1. Partnerships and Prizes - Develop mass media partnerships to help promote the engagement. Consider advertising and definitely have prizes for certain actions be it a ring tone or whatever. (S Korea has used prizes on government funded voter education web sites.)

2. Survey and Show Incremental Results for Immediate Feedback - If you want/expect big numbers, have a light weight online-survey option … but allow people to publish their input and allow others to rate/recommend responses ± (Slashdot style) - Queensland publishes comments/results thus far with some consultations, they even show the % results for multiple choice questions as results come it … very good, very transparent.

3. Weigh with Demographics - Ask for census-related demographics as an option (kept private and secure of course) to help you display the results in a weighted manner as an option - there is no way this can be scientifically representative on the input side so drop any illusion BUT mass participation will get you pretty close - Issy France weighs the results of their citizen panel online.

4. Hire Summarizers - Hire people with strict deadlines to distill results as they come in, summarize, and report back publicly to gather more input - taking comments and turning them into survey questions on the fly. Don’t fool yourself with strictly technical solutions. This takes bodies. However, the more structure you put into survey questions and the like, the easier it will be to tabulate high level results.

5. Review Advice - Track down newer and older guides:
New: New Zealand’s Guide to Online Participation:
www.e.govt.nz/policy/participation

Older: Online Consultations and Events - Top Ten Tips for Government and Civic Hosts
www.publicus.net/articles/consult.html

blog.e-democracy.org/posts/143

For some context on why DoWire.Org blog posts are relatively quiet (although some of the the two-way online forums are humming), this post on E-Democracy.Org 2007 accomplishments helps explain where my time has gone other than the time I spend changing diapers.

From:
blog.e-democracy.org/posts/136

Now that we’ve firmly established ourselves in the new year, it seems appropriate to look back at what we’ve accomplished over the last year. 2007 was a really big year for E-Democracy.Org, with lots of exciting developments.

Expansion:

1000 New Participants: Over the course of the last year, participation in our core group of forums grew from 1750 - 2600. (We hope to have 10,000 by the end of 2008.)

5 New Forums: In 2007, we launched 5 new forums, bringing us up to a total of 11 forums.
• Headington & Marston Neighbourhood Forum, Oxford (UK)
• Central, South and West Neighbourhood Forum, Oxford (UK)
• Greater Bedminster Neighbourhood Forum, Bristol (UK)
• Canterbury Public Issues Forum (New Zealand)
• Seward Neighbors Forums, Minneapolis (USA)

Relaunch of Minnesota Politics and Issues Forum: We relaunched our oldest forum on our current web site, connecting it with our other forums. We first launched MN-Politics in 1994.

Start-A-Forum Template: We launched a beta version of our “Start-A-Forum” template, to help users walk through the process of launching their own Local Issues Forum.

Strategic Planning:

During the first quater of the year and beyond, E-Democracy.Org spend alot of time looking inward. Evaluating where we were at the moment and where we wanted to go. Highlights of that process included:

Board Retreat: Our board met face to face for the first time, since we’ve begun to expand and refresh its membership. Out of state board members from the UK and Colorado, visited Minnesota on one of the coldest days of the year for a full day of strategic planning.

Participant Survey: For the first time, we surveyed participants across our various forums to get their input on the future of our organization.

Strategic Plan: We created and published our first ever strategic plan or our roadmap for the next 3 years.

Budget: For the first time ever, we actually put together a detailed budget for the next year and set concrete fundraising goals.

Fundraising / Resources:

CTEP - Americorps: We placed our first Americorps volunteer with the St. Paul E-Democracy outreach project.

Rural Voices - Online Citizen Engagement and Media: The Blandin Foundation awarded us $49,000 for an 18 month project to promote rural voices in Minnesota online (full proposal PDF).

Neighborhood Forums in High Immigrant/Communities of Color/Low Income Areas of the Twin Cities: The MSNet fund of the Minneapolis Foundation awarded us $25,000 to deepen our local e-democracy efforts in Minneapolis and St. Paul through our new neighborhood forum efforts.

Cross-posted to PBS IdeaLab.

Public Notices 4.0: Time to Upgrade Public Meetings

Over the years my work has brought me to Rome a few times. The Roman Forum as well as the Athenian Agora have always intrigued me as a model for envisioning online public spaces. Surrounding a public space you have major public and religious institutions, a commercial market in one corner, a place for public speeches, and in Roman Forums the “Albus” or a white notice board with public announcements written in black.

Today we often experience institutions (online and off) without a town square or commons in the center, which I try to counter with Issues Forums. However, today I’d like to focus on an element within the Forum.

The Albus (Latin for album) can be viewed as Public Notice 1.0. Perhaps the start of print media for that matter, even if it was made of government announcements.

Public Notice 2.0 is the mobile version of the crier on horseback traveling from village to village reading a proclamation aloud from a scroll (perhaps other than drums and smoke signals, the first broadcasters).

Public Notice 3.0 is where are today. Governments and others as required by law print detailed notices in newspaper but most local newspapers also print a list of public (government) meetings.

After four centuries of Public Notice 3.0, what might we do next with the public meeting notices portion online?

Public Notice 4.0 - While I’d like to see governments create rich digital media environments to not only provide personalized notice of public meetings and full access to all handouts, reports, and digital recordings, democratic innovation with e-government is slow. Our governments are much more excited about making it easy for us to pay our taxes online, but not so sure about helping us have a greater say online about how those taxes are spent.

Online news and citizen media should fill that void or they risk losing their position as a cross-roads in local democracy. Why not jump to front of the line and provide full access to local public meetings.

Turning each public meeting listing into full mixed media experience with access to public documents should include:

* E-mail/web feed notificiation of public meetings based on keyword, organization, geographic relevancy
* Full text of all meeting notices and agendas
* Copies of all handouts prepared prior to the meeting and any unanticipated documents distributed or view (power point presentations) during the meeting
* A link to any live webcasts as well as public access cable/radio broadcast schedules
* And if you really want to make a splash, copies of all digital recordings (video or audio) for on-demand access as well as automatic delivery in popular podcast feed formats (iTunes, etc.). Providing quick links from the agenda to specific moments in the meeting would also be helpful but can be labor intensive.
* In addition, the online news/citizen media site could host an lightly monitored online discussion space tied to each meeting as well as “reader comments” on documents. This is something governments in the U.S. are hesitant to host because the First Amendment limits government ability to deal with nastiness in truly public government owned online public spaces. The media can more easily censor the profane and obscene.

What do you think? Also, if anyone knows of any online news site (or a government) for that matter that is already doing this, please add a link in the comments section or drop me a note: clift@publicus.net

Steven Clift
E-Democracy.Org

My focus tends to be the “citizen” in citizen media.

Over the last few years I’ve increasing found myself at conferences like Public Media and the Online News Association. I always feel a bit out of place, because despite the adoption of online interactivity in online news and media, I am still pretty much viewed as a “consumer.” Someone to be captured and delivered to advertisers or to become a donor to public broadcasting. Interactivity is often viewed in the context of news be it reacting with reader comments or creating “news.” True conversation, the heart of being a citizen where we set the agenda, is a poor cousin.

Well media world, I have some friends for you!

Meet the world of e-politics (the online campaigning and advocacy crowd) where most participants are viewed as “voters” or “money sources” to be organized and influenced in the act of gaining power and influence. When I put the first candidates ever on the web in 1994 (I told the Democrats and Republicans that each campaign was likely to give me their content and, hmmm, they both said yes to my non-partisan Minnesota E-Democracy effort), I had a lot of optimism that the Internet would play mostly a positive role in politics. Now that “politics as usual” has pretty much mastered the tools, I am not so sure. It is time to get ready for mud fest 2008 online.

Oops, I meant to inspire folks in the media world to connect with the e-politics world. The grinding sparks of these two worlds coming together might actually do some good.

On March 4-5, the Politics Online conference in Washington, DC is the place to be. If you attend, drop by the Local eGov session and say hello. While the conference is increasingly more than just e-campaigning, you’ll learn terms “e-mail segmentation” and conversion rates.

And speaking of doing good, those in the “goody goody” camp (e-democracy/e-participation) who seek to change politics (and media) for the better are convening the first e-democracy BarCamp also in Washington, DC on March 1-2. So come on along to this “unconference” and see where citizen media and online news can connect to become something “of” the Internet and not just “on” the Internet.

Steven Clift
E-Democracy.Org

The other night it was -10F with a windchill of -40F here in Minneapolis. When things get that cold, we Minnesotans start thinking about ways to get warm. I think this is why we have a reputation for public innovation, we have a lot of indoor time to think up schemes when the rest of the country is out on their deck enjoying a beer.

So I started thinking about ways to better connect with my neighbors despite the cold.

I am a huge fan of National Night Out when neighbors around the U.S. put up road blocks and hold community picnics in front of their homes on a weeknight in August.

While the foundation of National Night Out is community involvement in fighting crime - neighbors who know each other watch out for each other and each other’s property - the gathering means so much more to those who participate.

**Why not declare a night once a year in late January as “National Night On”? (”On” as in “online.”) **

Thousands of local media/citizen media/local government/service club/etc. websites could participate, enter their local online places in a directory, and create async and real-time environments for neighbors to say hello, discuss a few issues, and hopefully plan to get together in-person well before the next August.

What bugs me about the Internet, even the rise of social networking, most of the investment tends to reinforce existing ties - friends and family - and the tools that build new ties are more about professional networking (LinkedIn) or dating. There is a huge difference between publicizing private life online and creating open and accessible online spaces for local public life. There are a few projects like E-Democracy.Org’s neighborhood forums in Minnesota and England, the Front Porch Forum in Vermont, and the Annenberg School’s i-neighbors, and many independent efforts trying to create larger neighborhood-wide exchange, but nothing that I know of designed to be peer-to-peer two-way is essentially block-level based.

So who is with me? Are you ready to “break the ice” online and get to know the people who live nearest to you?

Steven Clift
E-Democracy.Org

P.S. The other year I wrote an article with online ideas related to National Night Out. Here is the text:

A New Take on NNO: Building from National Night Out by Networking Neighbors Online

2006 Update: E-Democracy.Org is planning pilot neighborhood forums in Minneapolis, then beyond.

By Steven Clift

Every year on the first Tuesday in August, streets across the United States buzz as part of National Night Out. Human connections are built, block by block, with potlucks and conversations. The better we know our immediate neighbors, the stronger and safer our communities become.

As the evening winds down, folks will inevitably say, “We should do this more often. Let’s not wait again until next year.” However, as the road blocks are removed, the special public space we created for one evening is no more and our regular greetings shrink back to the few houses that surround us, except perhaps for the occasional long distance wave.

This year can be different.

In fact, on many blocks, our once a year “public spaces” are becoming year round online public spaces with the discovery of electronic block clubs. Instead of just going to the world online, we can also come home … online.

Here are some tips on how to connect with your neighbors online so you can build connections throughout the year.

1. Share E-mail Addresses - At National Night Out pass around a sign up sheet (PDF) (also in Word) that includes space for every household’s telephone and at least one address. One person should volunteer to type up and e-mail the results to everyone on the block. Make a print copy for those not online. If you didn’t have a NNO party, go door to door and gather the information. Be clear about what will happen to the information people share.

2. Create an E-mail Announcement Group - Create a simple e-mail group in your e-mail program(either a bcc: or even simply cc: the group if under ten addresses. Assume that everyone who signed up on the sheet has opted-in. Every so often remind people they can both “opt-out” or tell others how to get on the list. If your group is more than 20 e-mail addresses you might want to consider using more automated service like YahooGroups or Google Groups. Are you not sure how to create an e-mail group? Here is some advice for Outlook Express and Hotmail.

3. Be an Information Hub - Your “e-block” needs someone willing to monitor various e-mail newsletters, web sites, and blogs for information of very local interest. You can be that person! Pass along important items like local crime alerts, community event announcements, or updates from your city council member with items directly relevant to your area. Do not send your neighbors activist “you should know about this” messages about national politics. If you or others do, many will opt-out and your online public space will die.

4. Use Online to Be Off-line Together - Think of the Internet as the ultimate icebreaker to help new and long-time residents get to know each other a little better. If a giant snowstorm blankets your area, use the online to gather volunteers offline to dig out an elderly neighbor. If someone, perhaps on the next block, falls ill or someone dies, use the e-mail list to put out a call for frozen meals to share with the family. Enjoying a beautiful evening, why not create a spontaneous BBQ by inviting your neighbors to join you and as it gets dark entertain neighbor kids by playing a movie on the side of your house (liberate your computer projector from work). In short, bring back “just-in-time” community that air conditioning, television, and the loss of the front porch have taken away.

5. Exchange Online - If the residents covered by your online network number in the hundreds or if you want to cover a larger area, you might want to explore the following ideas:

* E-mail discussion list - Encourage people to exchange information and discuss local happenings. This is great way to share tips on a good plumber or arrange a plant exchange. Think about creating a neighborhood-wide online discussion group that leverages dozens of e-blocks. Cleveland Park neighborhood in Washington DC has over 3000 members in a neighborhood-wide exchange.
* Neighborhood weblog - This “citizen media” approach works best with lots of photos and someone who has time to feed in local content and goad others to contribute.
* Neighborhood “Tags” - No, not tagging as in graffiti, but “tags” as in keywords used in social software. In simple English, if you use a photo site like Flickr, tag your photos “EricssonMpls” for the Ericsson neighborhood in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Yes, this is geeky, but in a few years every place will have a “tag(s)” just like websites have domain names instead of numbers. Another tag idea is to combine all kinds of National Night Out photos with the nno tag.

These are a just a few quick online ideas for how to build a neighborhood of neighbors not just houses, cars, and individuals.

www.bmeia.gv.at/botschaft/auslandsoesterreicher/ratgeber/wahlen/e-democracy/council-of-europe-cahde.html

Here is the full text of this page for infinite preservation. Visit the site itself to access the dozens of linked documents. (And tell me what is worth reading in-depth .) - Steve

Aussenministerium Österreich -> Botschaft -> Auslandsösterreicher -> Council of Europe (CAHDE)
Ad hoc Committee on E-Democracy of the Council of Europe (CAHDE)

The Ad hoc Committee on E-Democracy of the Council of Europe (CAHDE) was established by decision of the Committee of Ministers of 24 May 2006 and started its work on 23 and 24 September 2006. CAHDE is primarily an intergovernmental body, whose members are delegated by the 46 Member States of the Council of Europe, and by relevant international organisations (eg EU, OSCE).

The Austrian chair of CAHDE, Thomas M. Buchsbaum, on this website provides information on the work and thinking of this committee, to the interested public. He can be contacted at thomas.buchsbaum@bmeia.gv.at.

The first plenary meeting of CAHDE was held on 23 and 24 September 2006 at the seat of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg (France). The meeting report is available.

In order to structure, co-ordinate and advance CAHDE work between its plenary meetings, an Informal Working Group (IWG) of CAHDE was established and held its first meeting on 13 and 14 December 2006 in Vienna (Austria), see annotated agenda. The chair established a brief summary of the outcome of the meeting. (For more details on the room documents, please click ‘Working Documents’ at the left-hand side part of this page.)

In the framework of CAHDE, a public symposium on E-Democracy was held in Strasbourg (France), on 23 and 24 April 2007 at the seat of the Council of Europe, with the topic of ‘E-democracy: new opportunities for enhancing civic participation’. More information - including its programme, a background document and abstracts of presentations - is available at the CoE Website on democracy issues. The Chair of CAHDE delivered the introduction, and the general rapporteur a closing summary. The final report by the general rapporteur is also available.

The second meeting of the Informal Working Group (IWG) was held in Strasbourg on 25 April 2007. Please find here the agenda and the outcome of the meeting. For details on the working documents of the meeting, of which the ‘Framework for reporting e-democracy initiatives’ was adopted as CAHDE document, please click ‘Working Documents’ at the left-hand side part of this page.)

The third, 2007 Council of Europe Forum for the Future of Democracy, which was held in Stockholm (Sweden) and Sigtuna (Sweden) from 13 to 15 June 2007 on the theme of ‘Power and empowerment - the interdependence of democracy and human rights’. One of its break-out session was, in Sigtuna on 14 June 2007, devoted to the topic of ‘eDemocracy - key role in facilitating and strengthening democratic processes?’ and moderated by the CAHDE chair. A presentation including summary by the moderator and a summary by the rapporteur are available.

Other Sigtuna documents include an advance issues paper by Professor Lawrence Pratchett on ‘Revolution or Reinforcement? The scope for e-democracy in Europe’ , and presentations on ‘Challenges and barriers of eParticipation in Europe?’ by Professor Ann Macintosh, ‘e-Democracy - Opportunities and Problems’ by Kristoforos Korakas, ‘eDemocracy and democracy: Which are the ways forward?’ by John Gøtze, and ‘Interactive Democracy between e-government and e-participation’ by Professor Miranda Brugi.

The third meeting of the Informal Working Group (IWG) was held in Sofia on 2 and 3 July 2007. The agenda, draft annotated agenda and outcome of the meeting are available here.

The following documents were agreed at the Sofia meeting:
democracy shortfalls (pdf, 14.91 kb)
list of generic good practice (pdf, 13.07 kb)
format for presentation (pdf, 16.14 kb)

For other working documents of the meeting, please click ‘Working Documents’ at the left-hand side of this page.

The second CAHDE plenary meeting was held in Strasbourg on 8 and 9 October 2007. A list of CAHDE work items can be downloaded here. The annotated draft agenda and the outcome of the meeting are available here. (The official documents can also be downloaded from the CoE website.)

The following documents were agreed at the second CAHDE plenary:
draft CAHDE suggestions for the Madrid FFD08 (pdf, 19.9 kb)
opinion on PACE Rec 1791 (2007) (pdf, 30.69 kb)
e-governance review (pdf, 10.99 kb)
CAHDE checklist for intro/tools (pdf, 35.82 kb)

For other working documents of the meeting, please click ‘Working Documents’ at the left-hand side of this page.

The fourth meeting of the Informal Working Group (IWG) was held in Vienna (Austria) on 13 and 14 December 2007. The draft agenda, annotated draft agenda, logistics information for participants and outcome of the meeting are available here.

The following document found consensus at the Vienna IWG meeting 2007:
‘eParticipation and Democracy: Evaluation dimensions and approaches’ (Georg Aichholzer, Ulrike Kozeluh), CAHDE (2007) - presentation

More working documents of the Vienna IWG meeting 2007 are made available here:

* ‘A roadmap towards e-Democracy’ (Thomas Rössler)
* ‘Social, Ethical and Cultural Aspects of e-Democracy’ (Evika Karamagioli, Lasse Berntzen),
CAHDE (2007) 39E
* ‘Generic Electronic Democracy Toolkit: An Overview’ (Robert Krimmer, Manuel J. Kripp) - presentation
* ‘The “CAHDE report [no.1]” - structure & elements’ (chair’s non paper no. 11 rev.1)
* ‘draft glossary on electronic democracy (French - English)’ (CoE translation department),
CAHDE (2007) 33
* draft glossary terms by 071211 (chair 8 rev. 1)
* ‘e-Finder (diagnostic tool)’ [working title] (Lawrence Pratchett)
* ‘E-Democracy initiatives in Council of Europe member states, Additional responses received since 20 September 2007 from Council of Europe member states to CAHDE’s request for contributions’,
CAHDE (2007) 8 Addendum (secretariat)
* ‘E-democracy in the Netherlands’
* ‘Regulations on e-democracy by Member States - collected returns’ (chair)
* ‘Regulations on e-democracy by international organisations - indicative lists of regulatory acts’ (chair)

The day before the IWG Vienna meeting, on Wednesday, 12 December 2007, a workshop on eParliament was held at the Austrian Parliament, on ‘Comprehensive eParliament - of service to elected representatives and citizens’. For more details, please refer to the sub-site ‘eParliament’ accessible via the navigation link at the left hand side of this page.

The fifth meeting of the Informal Working Group (IWG) will be held in London (United Kingdom) on 26 and 27 February 2008, immediately before the international e-participation symposium on ‘Empowering Citizens thought Technology and Participation’.

The website was last revised on 22 January 2008.