Since starting the Apps for Democracy project, and working with non-profits like Share Our Strength and Capital Area Food Bank, we’ve been thinking a lot about how to solve problems big and small in communities across the country. iStrategyLabs has also been working on a project to solve the acute needs of citizens of the City of Alexandria – we have a ton of great research, and an interesting approach. I’m hoping you’ll read this post, comment on our approach, and send this to people who focus on solving problems for citizens every day. Here’s the meat of it:
Alexandra Citizen Engagement Approach
So what do you think?
Comments
I think that this looks cool. Why not crowd-source it by inviting people from across the world to go use it and see what it delivers.
It may only work in tech-savvy neighbourhoods. Also I did not see the “scary info. graphics ” that you desribe on slide 6. What is the scary bit ?
We can adopt this in Scotland in a neighbourhood. Do you get the politicians on-side, and the state employees or just do this yourselves ?
Who pays the Community Managers or are they volunteers ?
All good thoughts. The ‘tech-savvy neighborhoods’ part is such a challenge. I think with this approach, we’ll be engaging the tech/social media savvy citizens of Alexandria and but also the none tech savvy.
We’re able to bridge this gap through deployment of a community manager. That person would not only do digital outreach, but would also literally knock on doors and make photo calls to facilitate collaboration.
We’ve brought together all sectors of society during the course of our reach – city, citizen, business, non-profit, and media.
The first (lead) community manager would be paid by a non-profit through a grant from a foundation. Subsequent community managers would be sourced during the process and would be volunteers – unless funds became available to make them staff.
I’d love to hear more thoughts!
I think this is a great idea, and the I like the life cycle of the problem is structured and the use of technology. What seems to be missing is the human element. I think perhaps more time (or at least one slide) needs to be paid to how the problem will actually be solved, and building that into the plan would make it stronger. For example, you might want to think about including some old fashioned grassroots organizing training for the community managers, as well as some models for how to effectively solve problems that they can use to structure the way they present the problem. The technology can facilitate this process, but with or without the technology, at the core it is still about engaging people to solve problems in their communities, and people still need support and training to become empowered successfully step up.
Peter
We have a meeting on June 30th with the local authority in Edinburgh. Maybe we can do a ” virtual twinning” with a NYC neighbourhoood on this one? Do let me know if this is possible, and then if we get a positive response from the council here, we can investigate further.
Alex
On the human side socialbysocial.com has a great game
They are launching it and other tools at Re-Boot Britain on July 6th
http://socialbysocial.com