Work on our Rural Voices project is in full swing with Steve Kranz from Winona joining our team. In addition to joining this event tour, Steve is assisting Fergus Falls with the launch of an Issues Forum and working to identify a southern Minnesota town for another Issues Forum. Efforts are underway for a potential “citizen media and online engagement” event in Hutchinson, Minnesota as well. Our fifth and final outreach event will happen toward the end of the project as a telephone/Internet-based webinar.
If you know folks in Bemidji or Cass Lake (including the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe), please pass on the announcement below.
Discover exciting online opportunities and tools you can use to improve your local community and increase citizen participation. Explore E-Democracy.Org’s Issues Forum model in-depth and learn about related citizen media tools in a free workshop in Bemidji on August 13 or Cass Lake on August 14.
This session, presented by Steven Clift, Founder of E-Democracy.Org and international public speaker, and Steve Kranz, leader of the Winona Online Democracy chapter and former Winona school board chair, will help your community create the capacity for agenda-setting, civil, and darn useful online public engagement that matters.
* BEMIDJI
Time: 6:00 – 8:00 PM
Date: Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Place: Northwest Technical College
RSVP requested, not required to: KAXE, 1-800-662-5799
Snacks and Refreshments will be provided
* CASS LAKE
Time: 10:00 AM
Date: Thursday, August 14, 2008
Place: Leech Lake Tribal College
RSVP requested (not required) to: KAXE, 1-800-662-5799
An informal conversation with the presenters and a light lunch will follow the presentation.
This presentation is sponsored by KAXE – Northern Community Radio and E-Democracy.org with funding from the Blandin Foundation
If you cannot attend, but would like to help start an Issues Forum for our area, please contact Dennis Montgomery at:
Over the coming months we hope to engage designers in an effort to vastly improve the look and feel of E-Democracy.Org starting with our forums.
We have a small grant that we using to add new features to GroupServer, the open source platform we use for our Issues Forums and some of that budget will be used to implement a new look and feel that will then spread across our site. However, the more we engage our supporters and volunteers to articulate a design vision, create some story boards and actual art/design templates the more we can do with our limited resources (like make it easy to embed YouTube videos in GroupServer!).
To this end, we propose a design sprint (in-person and virtual) sometime in the next few months to see what kind of talent we can bring to bear. Indicate you interest, RSVP via our wiki and drop us an e-mail:
We won’t consider a meeting until at least five people agree to get involved.
To assist, or perhaps confuse the process, I’ve created two video screencasts that share some of my hopes and dreams for the new site. One of my main goals is to ensure that our forums remain competitive in the “minds eye” with citizen media and blog sites in terms of first impressions without losing the barebone usability that people really need. The screencasts are available from:
Local volunteers working to start up the online Chicago Region Civic Forum as part of the E-Democracy.Org network will be meeting over lunch with Board Chair, Steven Clift. If you’d like to join us at this open gathering, RSVP via our wiki at:
Back in the early days of E-Democracy.Org, we partnered with some folks in Winona, Minnesota to help set up the first Local Issues Forum in our network, outside of the Twin Cities (Minnesota).
While, the folks of Winona Online Democracy did not always get the attention that our larger forums did in St. Paul and Minneapolis, the leadership of Winona Online Democracy were innovating and experimenting in ways that would eventually change the way E-Democracy.Org structures our projects. It was in Winona that we had our first steering committee for an Issues Forum, something that we now require of any new project entering our network.
Despite their early success and strong leadership in the E-Democracy.Org network, the Issues Forum in Winona has struggled over the last few years. Today, we’re pleased to announce the relaunch of Winona Online Democracy. Today, we’ve moved the Issues Forum in Winona to our Groupserver platform, along with all the other E-Democracy.Org projects.
The launch of the Winona Online Democracy 2.0 was pushed up by about a week, when early last week the state of Minnesota announced the closure of the Hwy 42 bridge that crosses the Mississippi, from the heart of Winona to Wisconsin. The closure of this bridge, meant a trip that used to take minutes would now take over an hour by car.
To see what the folks in Winona are saying about the closure of the bridge, check out the Issues Forum in Winona.
My first encounter with TwitterMania, was at eDemocracy Camp, back in March. Since them, I’ve been slowly testing the waters and trying to figure out what this goofy tool is all about and whether or not its of any use to me - or to E-Democracy.Org.
It wasn’t until I attended a Twitter Workshop at Minnebar that I really began to appreciate the value of Twitter and to make local Twitter friends. I’m still not convinced that Twitter is here to last. But, at the same time, I’m blown away at the number of really cool people who are using Twitter. I’m finding myself, suddenly much closer connected to the entire social media scene in the Twin Cities than I was before Twitter (which is, I think, a good thing).
Anyway, the entire point of this entire post - is really nothing more than a chance for me to invite folks with a shared interest in E-Democracy and Twitter, to follow me. In following me, you’ll get updates on the latest developments at E-Democracy.Org as well as the occasional update on the score of my son’s latest soccer game.
I quickly compiled this list of interesting topics, appearing in the various E-Democracy.Org forums. Thought I would share it here. These are all recent topics, that have been active on our site in the last 1-2 weeks.
The general theme is to discuss “local up” ideas for leveraging public involvement from this amazing yet highly partisan e-campaign for the White House into sustained online civic engagement that brings Americans of all political stripes together. People are getting fired up by the e-campaign, but what will they do when the election is over?
With the right and left political blogospheres in a pitched battle to influence the mass media and Congress nationally, out discussion will focus on pragmatically on “local up” ideas. How can we leverage the millions of people signed up with national campaigns online into local opportunities where people work together across political lines all of the time. How might the tools and huge networks created to win the Presidency be turned over to those working to make their street safe, improve a local school, or involve people in local issues?
If this sounds like an interesting topic, join us.
The rough agenda will include a quick update from E-Democracy.Org about the expansion of Issues Forums (online town halls) with a chance to offer feedback as well as some highlights from the recent neighbors online discussion in DC.
The exact location is to be determined. Space may be limited.
A couple of years ago, I attended the Second (2005) Conference on Online Deliberation: Design, Research, and Practice at Standford University. Of all the conferences I’ve been to in the last few years, this was the most academic of them all - and I loved it. I really enjoyed the mix of academic papers and discussions about real world projects, with folks who I’ve know for years and others I’d long been hoping to meet.
This year, through some kind of clerical mistake, I was asked to serve on the program committee for the 3rd Conference on Online Deliberation.
Sponsored by Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility and UC Berkeley School of Information, University of California (Berkeley, California, USA)
June 26 - 29, 2008
It has been twenty-one years since the DIAC Symposium for exploring the Directions and Implications of Advanced Computing was first convened in Seattle.
Now, in the early days of the 21st century humankind faces challenges of even greater proportions than those perceived in 1987. The ability of people around the world to discuss, make decisions, and take action collaboratively is critical to addressing these challenges. Unfortunately, this fact is rarely acknowledged or promoted by decision-makers.
Researchers, scholars, activists, advocates, artists, educators, technologists, designers, students, policy-makers, entrepreneurs, journalists and citizens are rising to these challenges in many ways, including the development of new communication technologies that build on the opportunities afforded by the Internet and other new (as well as old) media.
DIAC-2008 combines CPSR’s 11th DIAC symposium with the third Conference on Online Deliberation. The joint conference is intended to provide a platform and a forum for highlighting socio-technological opportunities, challenges, and pitfalls in the area of community and civic action.
In addition to the wide range of planned events there will be extensive opportunities for collegial discussion at the conference. Register now for an innovative and compelling exploration of the future of meaningful social participation. We have kept registration fees low to encourage wide attendance.
Scott Aiken’s one of the founders of E-Democracy.Org (with Mick Souder, Steven Clift, and Scott Fritchie) reports some exciting news from his Michigan 2.0 blog:
E-Democracy & Michigan
… the Board at the Birmingham Community House agreed to invest in a partnership with e-democracy.org to develop an Online Issues Forum for Birmingham / Bloomfield Hills. The Online Issues Forum is like an electronic town hall in a local community that allows citizens to engage in a civil discourse about relevant local issues with stake-holders in government, the school board, the library board, in the media, and others. This is an exciting development and I’m eager to dig in and help the project evolve over the next year.
Welcome Birmingham and Bloomfield Hills, we look forward to working with you.
This is the project blog for E-Democracy.Org. We're moving fast and furious, so hang on for the ride. Current contributors include Steven Clift, Board Chair and Tim Erickson, Forum Development Director. Steven Clift also blogs on e-democracy issues in general at DoWire.Org.
the process, I’ve created two video screencasts that share some of my hopes and dreams for the new site. One of my main goals is to ensure that our forums remain competitive in the “minds eye” with citizen media and blog sites in terms of first impressions without losing the barebone usability that people really need. The screencasts are available from:
