Digital Engagement & strategy

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Comment by paul johnston on January 24, 2010 at 6:20pm

Hi folks. I was really disappointed not to be able to make it on Saturday but I was abroad. I imagine everyone will have seen the conservatives proposed £1 million prize for the best new collaborative platform. I have no wish either to win the prize or to support one political party rather than another, but I am interested in the issue of citizen input and participation in the policy process and I do think it is worth thinking about how to improve this and what technology gap there is. Anyone interested in trying to find some way of discussing this issue and pulling together some systematic ideas on what an improved platform for citizen collaboration with government on policy might look like?

Comment by Josh on January 22, 2010 at 2:38pm

Oh dear... I didn't notice the Comment Wall! Anyway, I've waffled about some stuff related to this group in a post on the Forum.

Comment by Stephen Dale on January 18, 2010 at 11:03am

In response to Dom I'd like to think that the Knowledge Hub is way ahead of anything that is happening in the US. The problem is, it's so far ahead of anything else that going on in Gov or Local Gov that people think it's more of an abstract idea than something that's actually being developed (we're into technology procurement at present). I'm encouraged by the reaction of the various vendors we've spoken to so far in saying that "no-one is curently thinking along these lines at present - it's well ahead of the curve". And that's part of the problem - with few exceptons no-one really understands it, and a few ppt slides doesn't really do it justice. We should have something to demo in time for next year's Gov2.0 Expo, but in the mean time it's frustrating that it remains a requirements specification and technology procurement process! Maybe I'll get an opportunity to say something about at at GovCamp.

Comment by @dominiccampbell on January 18, 2010 at 10:27am

Sounds great.

On the promotion on the US side, I'm actually working on a couple of things at the moment (part of the reason for my regular trips!) including the Gov 2.0 Expo in May. Always looking for things and people to push. Can be tricky as the US are leading the way in most areas (open to challenge on that statement) but if anyone has any ideas please let me know - I can still sneak them into the voting process until the end of the month.

Thanks!

Dom

Comment by Mitch Sava on January 18, 2010 at 10:17am

Dom, I agree with you completely (re: OpenGov). The intention is very much that it would be owned by the community, run by the community, with benefits to the community. And by 'community', I refer not just to government entities themselves, but to all those that are creating code/content for said government entities. Initial support and encouragement actually came from the CoI, and I envision having lots of 'signatories' to the intitiative, big and small, and from all sectors.

As a general aside, I also believe that while there are impressive experiments going on within US (which I have an obvious interest in) from which we can take inspiration, I would love it if more of the ideas and models which have been generated here are promoted and replicated within the US. I'd hope that OpenGov can help this happen, as well.

Comment by Paul Evans on January 17, 2010 at 8:38pm

Tim and I did this session at last year's Barcamp - I'd be keen to do something like it again but I've not got a ticket on the 24th - left it too late.

I think that the three of us share the same concerns here, and there is - at least in part - an need to evangelise for this position because it's not something that everyone immediately grasps.

If you'll forgive me for pointing at my own blog again, but I think that there's also a case for someone convening a session on 'understanding data visualisations' - I posted on it here, and someone in the comments took the idea up.

The thing is, that social media evangelists bring new applications out into the open, they become easier to use, and hey presto! More people use them. The next thing is for people who understand new media to look at how they can make sure that they are used in the public interest - and that my involve developing some distributed plan or public campaign to ensure that they *aren't* abused.

Comment by Michele Ide-Smith on January 17, 2010 at 5:05pm

Paul I found your post on how to keep digital engagement inclusive very interesting. I am currently re-writing some guidance on engaging hard to reach groups using social media and am working on a project which is attempting to explore/address some of these issues. Your post is not a million miles away from a post by Tim Davies in response to Dave Briggs. I wrote this post a few months back about the issues around ensuring a representative debate via social media and evaluation. Very much looking forward to sharing ideas on evaluation (I've been following the Measurement Camp discussions). Also interested in discussions about barriers to adopting open source.

Comment by Paul Evans on January 17, 2010 at 4:33pm

Could I suggest an initial dimension here? I think that a lot of discussons on the questinon of 'engagement' look at it as an unqualified public good. I wrote a post a few weeks ago where I suggested that there were missing components to the standard mind-map of what good engagement is.

If you want to add measurements, I'd suggest that there are a few important components that are often overlooked, but ones that would be worth looking at?

Comment by @dominiccampbell on January 17, 2010 at 1:49pm

Sounds excellent - thanks for that Mitch and Steve. From my point of view, and knowing the guys in the US and how they are setting things up, the main thing will be (if this is how you want to run it that is!) to making it as open, collaborative and high profile as possible owned by the sector for the sector (although there is no govt representation in your team just yet?).

Look foward to hearing more - good luck!

Comment by Mitch Sava on January 17, 2010 at 12:51pm

Thanks for that, Steve. Indeed, a bunch of us (Simon, Harry Metcalfe, Jeremy, and I) had the same idea, Dom, and are turning OpenGov into a non-profit in the CoA mold. Part of our idea is to get both organisations and individuals to sign up to the Initiative, indicating that they agree to contribute their experiments/code to the collective so that it can be used by others. We're starting with the code from some of our projects (DCSF and Northamptonshire).

We are going to have a session at UKGovCamp to discuss, and see who wants to join in. We're also going to have another series of OpenGov events this year, starting in March, with the proceeds going to support the non-profit and perhaps even build up a mini innovation fund.

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