Difference between revisions of "Participation squared"

Revision as of 16:40, 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(1) online. From my local community to my country, let's build a movement. (Or something sexier.)

• 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:

(1) By participation online we mean those who want to use the Internet, social media, or mobile technology to increase citizen participation, improve public engagement, and promote government transparency and accountability.

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.
• Tweet #participation that you signed up and #p-US too with unique link to recruit others, link to potential Twitter conversation

5. Phase Two - Allow people to add links to place-based connecting points - online groups, Twitter hash tags, barcamps, local/area efforts promoting these goals.

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.