Difference between revisions of "Participation squared"

Revision as of 14:42, 28 June 2009

Here is a rough idea for a coding session at Participation Camp.

• Context: Democracy is based on geography.

• Problem: It is difficult to quickly identity and connect with other people interested in the "participation" movement.

• Goal: Accelerate the movement of those who want to use the Internet/social media/mobile technology to improve civic participation/government transparency/community building in their neighborhood, city, state and/or country.

• Solution: Encourage people to simply list themselves on a map and list (placing those providing links to their Twitter/Facebook/Blog/etc. at the top) to enable organic city by city, state by state, and country by country (will work well in small countries) "who's who" lists.

Solution?

Participation Squared - A simple pledge with results displayed.

1. Home

• (Google) Map of People So Far
• Link to public listing sorted by geographic hierarchy/placename - number of pledges displayed next to "folder" to show areas with result more easily.
• Within public listing, a link to a #p-XX (country code) twitter search will promote organic connections among those signing up.
• Multi-lingual options

2. Pledge: I believe in participation* online. From my local community to my country, let's build a movement.

• Name:
• City: (required)
• State/Province:
• Country: (required)
• E-mail: (required) (will not be displayed)**
• Postal/Zipcode: (will not be displayed)

Add links to your listing:

• Twitter handle:
• Facebook profile:
• Your blog/website:
• Friend Feed:

3. Use MySociety Gaze's tool to verify the geographic placename. Based on the place name, place a peg on the city (not someone's address) for the world map of who has signed up.

4. Tell A Friend - Tweet a Friend

• Invite up to five people to sign the pledge. (Would be nice in later version to give people points for those who they have recruited as display a list of recruiters by positive results.)
• Invite more people by pasting this message into your e-mail with a unique URL to track your results.

Draft E-mail Use Text

• • E-Democracy.Org will not publicly post nor share your e-mail address publicly. Once 25 people in your local city sign the pledge, you will be notified via e-mail and given the opportunity to use various online tools to further connect. Announcements about upcoming participation/transparency/e-democracy "unconferences" and other online groups hosted by partnering organizations will be shared by state or country when possible.