paper on 'online platforms for public engagement'

Great white paper from Wise Economy on "Online Platforms for Public Engagement." 

It comments on the variety of tools available for online public engagement:
MindMixer
Urban Interactive Studio
Delib
Crowdbrite
Change By Us
IdeaScale
PlaceSpeakBetaOpen Town Hall
Granicus
MetroQuest

The paper can be found here.

Understanding open government and its many frameworks and categories

The past several months have included a lot of research – reading, watching videos, talking to tons of people – to develop and explore the ideas and potential of my new venture. Throughout this time I have continually been frustrated by the language used within the Open Government community around the differences between participation, collaboration, open data, open information, open government, etc.

The following ideas are the clearest I have been able to understand this myself. I am currently using these definitions for understanding each of the stages of a broader “Open Government” progression.

Stage 1: Open Data – Open Information
This is simply the government sharing information and data with the rest of society. The data is usually released in a machine-readable format so that computers can process it quickly. The information included within this definition are reports, processes (ex. how are projects evaluated, how do we develop policy), access to information requests, etc.

Examples: IATI, data.gc.ca

Stage 2: Capitalizing on the Public
This is what Beth Noveck (see this blog post) calls bringing “information to the centre.” This includes consultation processes, online discussion forums for citizens, etc. The ultimate goal here is to bring the public’s knowledge, expertise and perspective into government.

Examples: The Foreign Policy Dialogue of 2002-03 by DFAIT is a great example of this. As are initiatives like Ushahidi, paper and e-petitions, the BC and Ontario citizens assemblies on electoral reform (this kind of fits in stage 2 and 3), etc.

Stage 3: Collaborative Policy / Law Making
This is when each of the actors – government, politicians, civil society organizations, citizens, and the private sector use collaborative tools and processes to work together to develop policy or legislation.

Example: Participating Budget fits into this category. The Open Ministry work in the Finland is another great example of this.

Stage 4: Collaborative Action
This is when each of the actors all take action toward a common set of goals that they agreed on through a process of deliberation.

The SSIR work on Collective Impact provides some guidance on this, and the Public Policy Forum has done some really neat work across Canada on this as well.

IAP2 Top 100 Tweets of 2012 - Video on Open Government

I've been slowly getting through the awesome videos, articles, stories, etc. that IAP2 (the International Association for Public Paricipation) shared in their "IAP2's Top 100 Tweets" of 2012.

Here is the most recent:

Open Government from The Academy on Vimeo.

It is a video from the Open Government Partnership. It presents the core ideas as well as some of the really neat work being done around the world when it comes to engaging citizens on important issues in interesting ways.