Cross Collaborate

You are browsing the archives ofpublic.

Video courtesy of Web 2.0 ExpoSF-’09 and O’Reilly Media. Peter Koht of the City of Santa Cruz, CA, describes the city’s online method for gathering public ideas about how to handle a severe budget crisis. The platform is uservoice. Similar to the IdeaScale system used in the White House Open Government Initiative, it allows users [...]

Over the last few years, concepts like collaboration, the wisdom of crowds and collaborative networks have taken hold as innovative ways for involving large groups of people to help solve complicated public policy problems. However, the terms are often used so loosely that they’re in danger of being lumped together and, in effect, dismissed, especially [...]

In the last post I outlined a method of public involvement based on a model of interest group competition. The main players in that approach are the sponsoring agencies and the organized advocacy groups. The public at large is consulted but plays a very limited role. I’d like to add a few more thoughts about [...]

This is the first in a series of posts on the role of the public in governmental decision-making. This one addresses the practical implementation of a widely used model of participatory process. The next will suggest alternative ideas about how the public might be regarded, and the third will examine new technologies for participation that [...]