Issues Forum recruitment technology

The Issues Forum model is quite sustainable, but scalability and extension is quite labor intensive. We need technology to assist our outreach and forum development process.

Here is the idea:

From our home page you can sign up to show your support/interest in participating online in your local community, then tell a friend.

The simple idea is to draw people, say one million people over a year, to this opportunity through a wide array of outreach activities, content, games, petitions, etc. and generate a "heat map" of interest in local e-democracy.

This geographically plotted interest map will allow us to partially automate the start up process for establishing new local e-democracy groups and Issues Forums as well as give us the intelligence we need to focus start-up resources from site visits to special organizer contact on areas with the most interest.

You are asked:

My name is (First Name Last Name) and I want to participate online in my local community. I live in ( )(city, state/region), ( ) (country). Your postal/zip code will also help us: ( )

[Yes]

Watch for a confirmation e-mail with tips on participating locally online in community issues.

Privacy statement here. You will be notified when a critical mass of people in your area join your pledge and given an opportunity to act.

After "Yes," then:

Help spread the word locally or to friends around the world.

We will deliver one e-mail in your name on our behalf and let you know if or when they sign the pledge within a week.

Enter their e-mail addresses one one line or with commas between addresses:

BOX BOX BOX BOX

Maximum 20 e-mail addresses may be entered at a time. E-mail addresses from non-respondents are purged regularly and will never be placed on a list without their express permission.

Get started now with E-Democracy.Org to promote local democracy and community participation online.

Links to stuff, another form for volunteering starting up a forum.

The data we end up with

Assuming we use the Gaze web service from MySociety or something similar, for those signing the pledge we'd end up with:

• Full Name
• City
• State/Province/Region
• Country
• Postal/Zip Code
• E-mail
• An opt-in to our local democracy online/Issues Forum development system

What happens next

This must be done carefully and with respect.

When X number of people sign up in the same local community, we will have the ability to automate "Meetup" style communications:

1. There are now 10 (20, 30) people in your area interested in participating in your local community online. If you are ready for a dynamic, agenda-setting and civil online local "Issues Forum" step up now to call an informal committee meeting. If no one steps forward, we'll be back in touch when there are 20 of you.

2. There are now 20 people in your area interested in local democracy online. If you help us reach 100 on this pledge E-Democracy.Org will assign X amount from our development fund specifically to your local community. These outreach resources will help you form a local steering committee (at least 5 people) and find a volunteer Forum Manager for your online Issues Forum. Successful Issues Forums open with at least 100 participants.

etc.

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Here is another idea:

Global Survey on Local Democracy

The quest to find the 100 best and worst local democracies around the world.

Enter city, country:

Use GAZE to identitify actual place. Record.

Ask them three survey questions. Based on country present version in local language, with option to translate survey into their language. Launch with a dozen languages.

Question 1: Rate your local Mayor or Council Leader.

Question 2: Rate your local Council and elected officials.

Question 3: What should be done to improve your local community.

[ ] Share publicly

Tell me more...

[ ] Notify me of results when available or significantly updated.

[ ] I would like to discuss or read online discussions on issues in my community. (E-Democracy.Org Issues Forums)

[ ] I would like to start or take a pledge to take specific actions to improve my community. (PledgeBank)

If yes to any of the above, enter e-mail:

Help build a valid survey in your community and around the world, invite others to answer the survey:

Enter e-mail boxes

Results could be made available with 100 respondents in the community and update notifications sent every 500 or so.

Based on the "tell me more" submissions E-Democracy and mySociety will be able to use these opt-in lists for outreach.