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Gov 2.0 goes local

How local governments are using technology to deliver smarter government.

by Alex Howard | @digiphile | Comments: 4 | 15 October 2010

Most people encounter government at the state and local level much more often then they deal with Washington. Given historic lows in trust or approval for federal institutions, governors and city councils may appreciate that separation. But as citizens turn to the Internet for government data, policy and services, local governments are in the same boat with the feds when it comes to meeting demands online, and always with fewer resources.

As the Congressional midterm elections loom, the mainstream media will inevitably turn to the federal government’s use of technology. The national conversation on Gov 2.0 (to the extent it exists) will focus on hybrid townhalls and campaigns, and how the White House is using Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. The application of open data and Web 2.0 technologies for governance likely won’t take center stage.

What remains under-covered, however, is the quiet evolution in the use of technology to enable “local government 2.0.” That awareness could change this fall, given the elevation of open government to a plank of New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s gubernatorial campaign and independent Lincoln Chafee‘s choice to run on an open government platform.

Regardless of the public discourse around Gov 2.0, which is too often hindered by jargon, one of the conclusions that can be drawn from HP’s recent survey of government IT professionals is that local governments both use and understand government 2.0.

Gov 2.0 Local: What is it good for?

The primary benefits of Gov 2.0 that IT professionals cite include improved e-services to the public, resident participation in government, and collaboration between agencies. That snapshot of Gov 2.0 evolution offers ample perspective on the challenges for Gov 2.0 at the federal level.

Cities like New York, Boston, San Francisco, Portland, Ore. and the District of Columbia, have all been hailed in the media for innovative use of open data, new urban mechanics, adoption of Open311, and improved e-services. Promoting government transparency through technology is a leading topic of interest for local government officials, though implementation still lags that interest in many counties. Abroad, the growth of government 2.0 in Australia and development of open government in Britain are key case studies to watch, particularly data.gov.uk. Last weekend’s CityCamp in London drew hundreds of citizens, technologists and government workers together to talk about the next steps.

While some of the movement toward open government has been catalyzed by White House initiatives, much of that innovation has been driven by tight budgets and the availability of inexpensive, lightweight tools for communication, collaboration and crowdsourcing.

If you watch the progression of Gov 2.0 initiatives around the country and globe, it’s clear that collective action could be even more important to cities, states and towns reeling from the after effects of the Great Recession, particularly when the spigot of stimulus money runs dry in 2011. As The New York Times reported this summer, governments are going to extremes as the downturn wears on. As David Forbes wrote on his blog:

You need to read this piece on the drastic cutbacks some cities and states are enduring. The list is a devastating one: school years cut to the bone, public buses eliminated, police service reduced and in the above case, street lamps gone dark.

It doesn’t end there. Camden, NJ is preparing to close its libraries, rural counties are unpaving their roads, and due to layoffs the Oakland Police Department announced a list of crimes, including identity theft, vandalism, grand theft and poisoning, they’ll no longer respond to (I’m opening bets on how long before a private security contractor is operating in Oakland). [Note: Links and emphasis included in original post.]

The crisis in state houses will put even more focus on how state and local governments can do more for citizens with less resources. Successful cities are using social media as an inexpensive way to spread news about local government and learn what matters to citizens. Part of sustaining communities in the digital age includes investment, understanding and involvement in the dynamic online discourse.

We are more connected to our neighbors online than ever before. According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 22 percent of all American adults have signed up to receive alerts about local issues like traffic, school events, weather warnings or crime alerts through email or text messaging. Some 20 percent of all adults have “used digital tools to talk to their neighbors and keep informed about community issues.”

These trends hint at the promise of innovation in this country that Tim O’Reilly wrote about last year. This approach to governance was:

… envisioned by our nation’s founders, a model in which, as Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter to Joseph Cabel, ‘every man … feels that he is a participator in the government of affairs, not merely at an election one day in the year, but every day.’ In this model, government is a convener and an enabler — ultimately, it is a vehicle for coordinating the collective action of citizens.

Managing Manor

The epicenter for local government 2.0 innovation just might be a little city in Texas, where a small town delivered a “Gov 2.0 makeover” to another community this September. Manor, sitting just outside of Austin, has grown rapidly in the recent decade as people migrate to its relatively inexpensive ranch homes and developments. Manor’s young chief information officer, Dustin Haisler, has inserted his city into the national conversation by turning Manor into a government technology petri dish. As a result of that work, last month Harvard honored Manor for its innovative approach to local government.

Initiatives deployed by Haisler include: an ideation platform that uses game mechanics, open government data published online, creation of an open source blogging platform, posting QR codes around town, adding a Meraki wireless mesh network, and making extensive use of social media.

“Empowering citizens to do great things for their community is an amazing tool,” said Haisler at the GovFresh local government 2.0 conference last month. “We wanted to do whatever we could to be transparent in a meaningful way.” Haisler made a wide contribution to enabling better local government through BetaCities, which provides resources and context for city managers who’d like to follow the trail Manor has blazed.

Haisler described BetaCities as an iterative community, which will evolve as more lessons are shared. “Gmail was in beta for years,” he said. “We’re going to be in beta forever.” He’s since developed the idea further, sharing a Gov 2.0 Guide to a City Makeover using open source, lightweight technologies that empower citizens to “co-create government” with officials and city employees.

The idea of a “government in beta” and open commons resonates with Beth Noveck, deputy White House chief technology officer for open government, who keynoted Manor’s Gov 2.0 conference. As she wrote in a post at the White House open government blog:

Alexis De Tocqueville observed about 19th century America that: “In towns it is impossible to prevent men from assembling, getting excited together and forming sudden passionate resolves. Towns are like great meeting houses with all the inhabitants as members. In them the people wield immense influence over their magistrates and often carry their desires into execution without intermediaries.” This can-do spirit is in evidence today in the “Municipal Makeover” underway in Manor.

As Parag Khanna, a senior research fellow at the New America Foundation, recently wrote, “cities are the world’s experimental laboratories.” And what’s taking place in Texas is just one example of the new efforts under way to build tools, train and organize volunteers, and design programs for institutional innovation at the local level.

In her post, Noveck listed a number of organizations that will be familiar to Radar readers, including: Open Plans, Civic Commons, and CityCamp.

Speaking in Manor, Noveck applied Clay Shirky’s notion of a “cognitive surplus” to the government realm, positing that a “civic surplus” of missed opportunities to empower citizens to reduce waste and become involved in their democracy exists.

Judging from the panels, conversations and platforms discussed in Manor, Noveck may be on to something. Andrew Krzmarzick’s approach to “winning the Gov 2.0 revolution” may use the Alamo as a theme, but the ideas he recounts are applicable around the world: state and local governments can apply technology and civic participation to arrive at better outcomes.

Collaborative crisis response goes local

“The public will self organize using tools that are out there,” said Greg Whisenant at the Manor Gov 2.0 event (Whisenant subsequently considered approaches to opening up government data streams here at Radar). According to Whisenant, the CrimeReports.com citizen tips network has led to more than 122,000 arrests and more than 45,000 fugitives caught.

The trend of citizens using the web to communicate during emergencies is growing. At the national level, FEMA administrator Craig Fugate has been using social media to more effectively deliver on his mission to help communities before, during and after crises. “We work for the people, so why can’t they be part of the solution?” Fugate asked at the Crisis Congress this summer. “The public is a resource, not a liability.”

That’s also true at the local level. “Gov 2.0 happens when we stop shoveling money and start stacking ingenuity,” said Brian Humphrey at the Red Cross Emergency Social Data Summit this summer. Humphrey started the @LAFD Twitter account for the Los Angeles Fire Department in 2006.

The use of collaborative technologies to collect crisis data and empower citizens to help one another was powerfully demonstrated to the world after the Haiti earthquake. It’s in that context and in more conventional crises that “citizens can become sensors,” said John Crowley at the GovFresh conference. Tools like OpenStreetMap, QR codes on paper maps, and Ushahidi can be put to use during emergency situations.

If you haven’t watched Crowley and others present on “crisis mapping Haiti” from this year’s Where 2.0 conference, it’s worth the view:

All of these tools can empower a globally distributed society to help each other on the local level. To paraphrase the famous saying, we can now click globally, act locally. Just watch the amazing time lapse of OpenStreetMap edits in Haiti in this video of Tim Berners-Lee’s TED Talk on Crisis Commons:

New emergency management IT “engages citizens in a participatory model with government,” Berners-Lee suggested. In fact, The federal government is looking for feedback on that effort, as evidenced by the U.S. Patent Office seeking comment on a proposal to encourage the creation and distribution of humanitarian technology [PDF].

“This kind of innovation is not a ‘nice to do,’” said Robert Greenberg, founder and CEO of G&H International Services, quoting Noveck in Manor. “It’s a must-do for the sake of our democracy.”

Local government 2.0 in beta

The local effort won’t be easy, fast or without risks. We’re all in open government’s beta period, when lessons from Web 2.0 can be applied to solving millennia-old problems. That’s a primary driver for Code for America, where the mission is to deliver better government through code.

If Gov 2.0 is the Internet boom, in 2010 it’s clear that it won’t be an immediate shift. The recent 2010 civic health report from the National Conference on Citizenship (NCoC) offers context for how and why all of that effort matters now to citizens: people are stepping forward to fix their own problems and help one another. Consider the story in USA Today of Herrin, Ill., a town taking care of itself. Citizens of Herrin are cooperating to get through the crisis caused by a major plant closing. The town is a microcosm of a post-industrial America in recession.

Collaboration and participation are key aspects of “We government” and open government, where a civic surplus of citizens’ passion, expertise and patriotism is put to work fixing their own communities.

“The most powerful force in American democracy is the connection between and among citizens,” said David B. Smith, NCoC’s executive director in a prepared statement. Civic life in America now includes a digital component that allows people to share news and co-create in unprecedented ways. What citizens and local government do with that force is the next great question.

Related:

• Better government through code
• Citizens as public sensors
• How crowdsourcing helped Haiti’s relief efforts

tags: gov 2.0, local government, open government

Inspiration for what is possible here in Sault Ste. Marie. Money quote:
“Empowering citizens to do great things for their community is an amazing tool,”

Also online: Past Events

City Elections — Discovering What We Care About

You’re invited to a day of exploration on the theme:

“Human Values in City Government — Expressing and Hearing the Voices of Ottawa”

When: Sunday, October 17, 2010 from 11:00 am to 3:30 pm – come at 10:30

Where: Bronson Centre, 211 Bronson Avenue in Ottawa

We are a group of citizens eager to explore a new way to involve community in participatory democracy. Explore with us how all of our voices can be brought together for a well-functioning city. Everyone is invited to participate – both those with and without knowledge of how democracy and city governance currently works.

What is the outcome? We will capture the essence of our discussions and create a report that will be distributed to upcoming municipal election candidates and influential public servants so they know what matters to us.

Our promise: Every topic anyone cares about will be up for discussion.

What you need to do: Think about the following question to identify topics you would like to discuss:

What ideas, questions and possibilities do I want to explore with other voices of Ottawa? How can we participate in bringing our human values to City Governance?

We will work with a participative and creative approach called Open Space that allows us to:

• Co-create the agenda
• Participate in ways that work for everyone and include everyone
• Engage, collaborate, innovate, move around, imagine, generate, dream, envision
• Explore ideas and recommend actions

We will provide the space and structure for this creative process.

Coffee, tea and cookies will be provided.

Bring your lunch.

Donations requested.

Be ready to be surprised!

Who are we: Maya Bobrowska Paul Maillet Joanne Mantha Pamela Schreiner

Questions? Pamela Schreiner PamelaS@magma.ca 613-235-2742

Let us know that you are coming: KnowingOurCommunity@gmail.com

I just learned of this group through a mutual friend. Great to see initiatives similar to what is happening here in the Sault.

Election cafes pitch a collaborative approach to civic politics

Local News

By Michael Purvis

Updated 6 days ago

Two experimental election-themed “community cafes,” – one online and one in person – will seek to change the way Saultites get to know their municipal candidates.

On Wednesday, candidates for mayor and city council have been invited to join community members online to participate in a collaborative game that will see them discuss and evaluate ideas to move the city forward.

On Oct. 18, at the Art Gallery of Algoma, candidates are being asked to participate in what organizers call “civic speed dating,” where those running for office will meet with the public in 15-minute discussions on a wide variety of issues facing the community.

The idea is to see the candidates in action, having real conversations, and using collaborative tools that have proven successful in the corporate world, said Gerry Kirk, whose organization ChangeCamp Sault is running the events in partnership with the Sault Youth Association.

He said traditional approaches to civic engagement, like debates, “just don’t work anymore.”

“We don’t have good mechanisms in place – we’re resorting to basic things like sending an e-mail or a phone call, maybe we do a town hall every once in a while, but largely we’re kind of shut out from each other and we’re not taking advantage of the myriad ways we can connect online, that we use so much in parts of our lives other than community matters,” said Kirk.

Kirk, who in his day job coaches businesses and organizations to improve themselves, said he has used these techniques in his consulting work with dramatic results.

Wednesday’s Election Cafe will use an online game developed and run by California-based company Innovation Games, which uses its slate of “serious games,” to help businesses solve problems.

Trained facilitators will guide participants, who will be broken up into rooms for each ward to evaluate ideas from candidates, community members, and those already submitted to ideas.changesault.ca

At the end, organizers will be able to gather results from each of the wards and come up with a list of the priorities across the community, “or at least across the people who played the game.”

The “civic speed dating,” event will follow a similar theme.

“People again will have a chance to have real conversations with each other – including candidates – where they have to figure out what are ideas for moving the Sault forward, discuss them, and collaboratively prioritize them,” said Kirk.

“In a small way, we’re going to see how candidates dialogue and interact with each other and with people in a real situation,” he said. “What matters to our city? And they have to make choices, in each room they have to decide collectively, yeah, these things matter more than those things.”

He said the concept should resonate with youth.

“They already know the current process doesn’t work, they don’t have to be convinced,” he said.

While Kirk had a hand in Monday’s mayoral debate held by Soo News and the Sault Ratepayers Association, he said he is not a fan of the debate format, which he likens to a job interview – a good way to pick a candidate who is good at answering questions, but a terrible way to find the person best-suited to the job.

Better are, “approaches where it’s really participatory, it’s open, it’s collaborative, it’s not you-versus-me, it’s where we can have in-depth conversation,” said Kirk. “You can’t get that in a debate, it’s an artificial environment to discuss things that matter.”

Beyond the Oct. 25 vote, Kirk envisions the Election Cafe concept being scaled to engage hundreds or thousands of people on issues as complicated as the city’s budget.

“All of a sudden you’re getting real input in a fun way,” said Kirk.

Spots at both Election Cafe events are limited, but tickets are free. Register at 2010election.eventbrite.com

Article ID# 2790914

Michael Purvis who nails it again.

How the best ideas win

Saultites care about our community. A LOT. In just one month, we’ve cast 659 votes and made 78 comments on 60 ideas and questions for the future of Sault Ste. Marie. Ideas like:

• A store that sells local agri-food products.
• Changing Gore street into a Mackinaw-style street for locals and tourists.
• A hackerspace for the Sault

Add to that ideas from election candidates like turning Northern Breweries into a multi-use arts/commercial venue and we’ve got a lot to talk about.

Imagine if you could have real input into what our community, guided by Council should focus on now and in the future. That is what these Election Cafés are all about. Pitch your ideas against others, work with citizens and candidates to prioritize what matters most. Experience how candidates can work with others on issues that matter *before the election*. And have lots of fun doing it (is that allowed?)

You have two chances for some serious play:

• (TOMORROW) Meet online Wed Oct 13, 7 pm. Play Innovation Games® online. Read more. Starts at http://changecamp.ca in a live chat. Register ahead if you can, or just show up at 7.
• (NEXT MONDAY) Meet over food and wine at Art Gallery of Algoma. Candidates and citizens gather in a café-style setting, having short conversations around tables. We call it civic speed dating. Read more / register

Several mayoral, ward and trustee candidates have signed up. Now is your chance to talk about what matters to you and the Sault in a unique, forward-thinking format.

Register now

This is the third in a series of ChangeCamp Sault events, after the ChangeCamp one day open space in June and ChangeSalon in July. ChangeCamp Sault designs and facilitates new ways for communities, teams and organizations to work collaboratively for change. For more information, contact Gerry Kirk at sault@changecamp.org.