“ChangeCamp Ottawa is being organized by the Ottawa community to bring together citizens, technologists, designers, academics, policy makers, political players, change-makers and government employees to discuss participatory governance in a web-enabled world.”

How do we re-imagine government and citizenship in the age of participation?

This seems a little out there and confusing so I thought that I would give you a bit of background on what this is all about.

I attended a fascinating session at MESH earlier this year, it was titled Open Government.

“What do we mean by open government? How is the web making new forms of governance and social innovation possible? Participate in this highly interactive workshop where facilitators Mark Kuznicki and Daniel Rose guide participants through an intense collaborative exploration of these topics. Together, participants will create physical and digital artefacts of their work together and leave a legacy that lives on after the mesh Conference is done. If you’re a technologist, designer, communicator, policy-maker, social entrepreneur or armchair policy wonk, we’re looking for you to help.”

Round 1: Each participant used a marker and index card to individually create a visual model of how they would express the idea of “Open Government” to someone who didn’t speak their language. The rationale behind the exercise is that by using shapes, line and colour it’s easier to see the assumptions and perspective that are naturally built into an abstract idea such as Open Government.

Here’s my version.

Here’s what everyone else came up with.

Round 2: Mark delivered a framework presentation.

Round 3: After listening to a 15 minute presentation from Mark, each group co-created a model of Open Government by sharing their index cards and using a big piece of paper to collaborate on a cohesive vision. Then one member from each group presented their work.

Our group came up with this.

Here’s Alistair Croll explaining our version.

This was just one group. To see what other’s came up fead the Change Camp Wiki.

So tomorrow citizens in our Nations Capital will get together the discuss what this means to them and how we can move forward with this.

Stay tuned for more updates on the Blog and on Twitter #cco09

Remarkk.com OmakaseGroup.com

The government is not the web. The government is the only use violence to enforce law and order Can have only one government at a time. So how can govt. be the open web? If they are so different in character then how then can they be open. 

Authority (Political) = power + legitimacy

Within a tribal system the tribal leader has this power and the power to exercise it. In the west we have constitutions and rules to elect someone to power. It’s the belief within the system that makes it safe otherwise we have revolutions. 

Accountability = calling to account

Tribal war lord does not face the ballot box but within his system he has a from of accountability. Public official is held in account to answer questions. 

Responsibility = who and how assigned?

Politicians are very concerned with maintaining controlled incase something does not work out. 

Participation = who gets to participate and how?

The ways that laws get made. New generation expects to participate. 

Transparency = more than FOI requests

People want to know more. 

Efficiency = decisions per hour? services delivered for taxes raised?

How does increased public consultation, participation increase the cost. 

Effectiveness = what’s the outcome?

Can hyper scrutiny grind down government to a halt. 

Public services – just make it work

Just want the system to work and how can open achieve that outcome. 

Public Policy = the making of the sausage

Move it towards the public good through elections. 

Social Innovation = the open lab for public good

Happening outside the government. Do ideas that great outside in the world and govt. can act as the investor to scale. How does that relationship gets established. 

Peer to Patent

Backlog at the patent office so crowdsource a group of patents. Analyzing them and enabling to get them through the process a lot quicker. 

NewZeland Police Act

Community can sign up and modify the act. Live document and passed the law. Took down the wiki after a week. 

Octo.dc.gov

Publishes RSS feeds. Tied gps of snow plough to Google Earth. Do what you want with it.

Same with 911 for Seattle. 

211 online

An alternative to 911 so find resources that are alternative to 911. 

Food Onland Ontario

Goes beyond that but interacting with people. 

Is your government open with a twitter account?

Groups work to define it. Follow the conversations online.