Gov 2.

0
Conference Call Notes

Wednesday, November 3, 2010, 4-5pm EST

We used a live version of this document to collaboratively add questions, collect

thoughts, transcribe important talking points, before, during and after the Gov 2.0
conference call. You can access this document via this link:
http://tinyurl.com/gov20confcall

Attending
Many thanks to the > 35 people who were listening in and participating on the call. Your
insight and feedback was invaluable.

Moderating
• Bonnie Shaw, Partner, BYO consulting
• Yasmin Fodil, Partner, BYO consulting
• Jared Duval, Demos Fellow and Author: Next Generation Democracy

Agenda
• 15 mins – Introduction to Gov2.0 ecosystem and success stories.
• 35 mins – Open for questions/discussion.
• 10 mins – How can CommunityMatters continue to support this conversation?

Questions:

Can you define Gov 2.0?

• Here’s a general definition: gov20 refers to the practice of increasing
transparency, citizen participation, and collaboration in government. Technology
enables gov20 practices.

What’s the best way to suggest/introduce Gov 2.0 to a town with relatively
older, conservative leaders for whom this would be completely new?
• Start with a conversation that doesn’t involve technology. Start with a
conversation about what the problem is that you are trying to solve for
stakeholders.
• Try to identify a shared challenge - then it will be easier to discuss how
increasing openness and participation might help to address that problem, and
selecting a technology will be easier.

www.communitymatters.org Gov 2.0 Conference Call Notes 11/3/10

 What types of tools are proving to be more effective for larger areas (i.e.,
100,000+)?
• Again, the type of tools you select will depend on the type of problems you are
trying to solve. Some good tools for large (ie. 100,000+) groups include:
o IdeaScale http://ideascale.com/: is a platform that lets you collect ideas
from your community, give them a platform to vote, and see the most
voted ideas rise to the top. This has been used in very large communities
to source ideas.
o SeeClickFix http://www.seeclickfix.com/citizens: is a platform that lets
your community identify neighborhood maintenance issues and report
them for fixing. This is used in lots of cities - large and small - across
America.
o Twitter http://twitter.com/: Is a great way to broadcast information to a
wide audience.
• There are many many more free and off the shelf tools available to you. As you
can see, all of these tools solve very different problems. So it’s very important to
understand what you are trying to achieve before you start looking at the
technology.

Do you have suggestions for increasing participation after the Gov2.0 “tool” is
built?
• Increasing participation is a tough job so it is important to have an idea of your
plan for participation before selecting the tool.
• If you already have the tool its important to design an engagement project that
meets some kind of need or interest of your community.
• It is important to develop a clear understanding with your community about what
their participation will deliver. Most people won’t participate just for the sake of it -
they need to know that their involvement will have a real and beneficial outcome,
even if its just to know that their participation is leading to something that will
have impact.

With limited resources, what is the best way to engage people to participate?
• Pose curious problems (art, technology, water, experiential) , not just
planning/policy problems
o Eg. Acton OpenNeighborhood planning project in MA. See
http://openneighborhood.blogspot.com
• Look for partners in new places - arts organizations, etc
• “Be artistic and scientific and people will give you money!”
• Find out what drives the people you want to engage, and design engagement
that makes them curious and speaks to their interests
• Be intentional with your feedback
• Be iterative
• Want your work to have impact and promote change - build political legitimacy
and trust
• Build partnerships
o Manchester, VT Youth Commission: 2 high school students on every
school board, come to the meetings and participate. See
http://www.orton.org/projects/manchester
o Q: Is this example of Gov 2.0?

www.communitymatters.org Gov 2.0 Conference Call Notes 11/3/10

  Yes, definitely! Technology enables the participation, but its a
means, not an end in itself. Good work! Orton was instrumental in
helping us launch this initiative!

Examples
• Case Study from Puerto Allegro, Brazil: This is an interesting story that
highlights process: they don’t use technology as a primary tool, but its very deep
participation!

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CCMQFjAB&url=http
%3A%2F%2Fsiteresources.worldbank.org%2FINTEMPOWERMENT%2FResour
ces%2F14657_Partic-Budg-Brazil-
web.pdf&rct=j&q=case%20study%20participatory%20budgeting%20brazil&ei=fcz
RTPSVDYL7lweQ7pSsDA&usg=AFQjCNHKV_t4KcWmah2fLxVe_pt2gZkhbg&si
g2=QqhVowYEQdStxg93crCV5g&cad=rja
• Participedia: growing list of case studies around citizen participation -
http://www.participedia.net/wiki/Welcome_to_Participedia
• Planning Tools Exchange: The Orton Family Foundation has developed a
database that aims to offer descriptions of tools, resources, projects, etc. in this
field (and beyond) - please see www.planningtoolsexchange.org and we invite
you to create an account and add your own entries

How can CommunityMatters continue to support this conversation?

• Conference call was good start (thank you), but this is a big topic and perhaps
following up with more specific, narrower topics may be helpful.
• The references that were in Blog were a good way to get pointed to some good
resources, but I was disappointed that they are either very general or just a flood
of not necessarily pertinent material. (By the way, the OMB White House did not
work. Not sure how relevant it is to small communities.)
• I would be interested to learn more from smaller communities and how they got
started with Gov 2.0.
• What if one of us were challenged to offer either an example, or a problem that
needs help, before each subsequent conference call to help stimulate thought,
insight, and conversation?
• This is all intriguing and important, if challenging... a classic example otherwise of
‘if you always do what you’ve always done, then you’ll always get what you’ve
always got’. We can do better!
• Help us find success stories - and make sure they are specific, describe plans for
implementation, and include the logistics of delivery. Lets show were somebody
has tried and succeeded and/or failed.
• Community members present case studies around particular themes

Notes from Yasmin’s discussion:

• Benefits of Gov20
o creating public value in the form of better public decisions
o capture local knowledge
o increasing capacity of society to understand decision making process
o helping to solve “wicked” problems

www.communitymatters.org Gov 2.0 Conference Call Notes 11/3/10

 o increasing legitimacy of government in the eyes of the citizen &
increasing trust in govt
o spurring public innovation
• Methods
• transparency
o releasing data that helps people understand their society and also
allows for innovation
o classic example is weather data that is released freely and innovators
turn that data into information
• Participation
o Involving citizens in the government
o Sharing information
o Receiving feedback on policies
o Soliciting ideas
o Making decisions
• Collaboration
o About with citizens but also between govt agencies
o So if you have an education and health and housing all working
together to solve challenges within a locality
• What do you need to make this happen?
o there are tools that help enable this kind of stuff
but gov’t is special and different than other companies or organizations
• Systemic Considerations
o legal, cybersecurity, and political concerns - are there any barriers in
these realms?
o are there executive level directives that support you? do you have a
supportive leader?
o Are there cross-agency coordinatng groups that you can go to for
support?
• Organization
o does your org support leaders and trailblazers within the organization
o do individuals have personal access to technology? do they need
training? how can you give them room to experiment?
o can you create cross-functional teams – public affairs, legal, comms,
policy, etc - to help you get this off the ground?

Notes from Jared’s discussion

Next Generation Democracy: What the Open Source Revolution Means for Power,
Politics and Change by Jared Duval.
• For more see: http://www.facebook.com/NextGenerationDemocracy
• You can pre-order the book here: http://tiny.cc/nextgendem
• Follow us on Twitter: http://www.twitter/@NGDem
• Tweet us your support using #NextGenDem
• Also - if you are in DC, please join us at the launch party on Monday 8th of
November at BusBoys and poets in Washington DC (Bus Boys and Poets, w/
Carolyn Lukensmeyer, AmericaSpeaks, November 8th, 2010, 6:30 – 8:00p) For
other tour events see -
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=104286779638681&topic=10 or
http://www.nextgendemocracy.com/

www.communitymatters.org Gov 2.0 Conference Call Notes 11/3/10