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December 29, 2008

Feeding Everyone on forums.e-democracy.org - Sharing via Facebook

Written by Steven Clift - Filed in All , Issues Forums , New Efforts , Technology

A little known GroupServer feature on forums.e-democracy.org is that everyone who posts on our public forums generates their own personal web feed. You can find it by pressing “more” at the bottom of your public profile. (Which you can find by clicking on your name on the web view of your posts or on the “Your Name (profile)” link on the top right when logged in.)

My profile is located at: forums.e-democracy.org/p/stevenclift

“More” links to this search query: forums.e-democracy.org/s/?p=1&t=0&a=stevenclift

All search queries on our forums site automagically generate web feeds (atom feeds for the techies out there). Mine is: forums.e-democracy.org/s/search.atom?s=&g=&a=stevenclift&t=0&p=1&f=0&r=0&i=0&l=6

If you have your own blog, consider using your own feed to display your recent posts in your sidebar or elsewhere.

If you use Facebook, try installing the My Blogs application and enter in your feed URL. This will add links to recent posts you’ve made on your local Issues Forum to your News tab on Facebook. Then your friends can see that you’ve posted and perhaps be drawn to join that forum as well. Very cool.

Another solution we are searching for is the best way to follow an Issues Forum via your Facebook experience. We strongly believe that you should be able to choose your preferred interface e-mail or the web for participation. That is how we maximize participation. Other online spaces tend to get isolated in one tool or another and that simply does not work when trying to build public ties among people who live near one another. Now Facebook is emerging as an “interface” where people like to spend time and organize the information coming their way on a daily basis. How might we encourage participation in Issues Forums from the Facebook experience?

Because each forum has a Posts by time web feed, instead of e-mail or even visiting our site you can follow a forum in a “news reader” like Google Reader, Bloglines, and others. There are some web reader applications in Facebook we are testing. Anyone out there have experience with feed reader application in Facebook? Anyone want to develop a Facebook application that would allow both reading and posting into selected Issues Forums?

Note that the web feed for a forum is a bit buried - from an Issues Forum group home page, select Latest Topics, then “Post in .. forum name,” then you’ll see the orange web feed icon. Or simply type - forums.e-democracy.org/groups/GROUPADDRESSBEFORE@/messages/posts.atom Example: forums.e-democracy.org/groups/mpls-staneric/messages/posts.atom

December 12, 2008

Join Minnesota Voices - Greater Minnesotans Building Community with Web 2.0

Written by Steven Clift - Filed in All , Local , Minnesota , Neighbor/Neighbourhoods , New Efforts , Rural , Technology , US

Minnesota in the world

Do you blog? Or …

Do you contribute to Wikipedia?

Do you share photos on Flickr or upload videos to YouTube?

Do you host an online forum or e-mail group?

Do you gather links on Delicious?

Do you develop “Web 2.0″ software or websites?

Do you work for an online news site promoting user-generated content and citizen journalism?

Do you work online for an organization seeking to engage Minnesotans across the entire state?

AND

Are you passionate about your local community in Minnesota?

Let’s mix those two areas of interest.

E-Democracy.Org is teaming up with the Blandin Foundation to launch a new online community for you called Minnesota Voices Online. Opening in January, it will be a go to place for exchanging links, lessons, and announcements at the cross roads of Web 2.0 (user generated content, interactivity, mashable stuff, etc.) and local community with a focus on rural/Greater Minnesota.

Join from: e-democracy.org/mnvoices

Our Outreach Coordinator, Jennifer Armstrong is leading the way with efforts to spread the word. Below is an announcement to share far and wide. The talented Ann Treacy will be the online groups host and help seed the exchange.


Minnesota Voices Online

A discussion forum for Minnesotans sharing their voices in the Internet age

The Blandin Foundation and E-Democracy.Org have partnered to offer “Minnesota Voices Online,” an online forum for Minnesotans using new media technologies to build community – particularly across Greater Minnesota.

Join from e-democracy.org/mnvoices

Are you telling local stories through new medias or using e-tools to engage your local community? If so, this is our space to share advice, tips, tools, and compare notes.

“Whether it be through a blog, online forum, or a wiki, using audio, text, photos, video or mapping, more rural Minnesotans are using the Internet to tell the stories of their communities, their communities of interest or of Minnesota itself,” said Bernadine Joselyn, director of public policy at the Blandin Foundation. “Minnesota Voices Online is a space for these Internet age communicators to connect to each other, share lessons, ask questions and talk about the topics that most interest them”.

The issues raised and topics discussed on Minnesota Voices Online will inform the planning of a Minnesota Rural Voices Unconference, scheduled for April 2009. An “Unconference” is a facilitated, participant-driven conference centered around a theme or purpose. The theme of the April 2009 unconference is Minnesota Voices Online Unconference: Connecting rural Minnesotans with new media so every place can share its voice in the Internet age.

Questions? Contact Jennifer Armstrong at or 218-290-8020.

November 25, 2008

Connecting Neighbors in Diverse Cedar Riverside

Written by Steven Clift - Filed in All , Issues Forums , Minneapolis - US , Minnesota , Neighbor/Neighbourhoods , New Efforts , US

Everyone connected with their neighbors for participation and community. Here is how we do it.

Thanks to support from the Minneapolis Foundation’s MSNet Fund, we’ve been methodically building a base for an online neighbors forum in this extremely diverse community. With approximately 7,500 residents concentrated in apartment complexes not far from the University of Minnesota’s West Bank across hospitals and clinics to homes on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi, the Cedar Riverside neighborhood is as eclectic as any place you’ll visit on earth.

Getting Food

The other evening, volunteers led by Ben Marcy, signed up close to 30 people at the Multicultural Dinner hosted at the Brian Coyle Center. Next the center are a number of public housing towers with thousands of Somali and Oromo residents, a growing Latino population and long-time Korean and Vietnamese residents. The area also has a history as the heart of the progressive/radical community going back decades to today’s Hard Times Cafe. On the sign-up forms, people listed issues they would like to discuss such as neighborhood peace and safety (five young Somalis men were murdered in the last year across Minneapolis), opportunities for youth, and more. In addition to local City Council member Cam Gordon who is helping promote the forum, a couple of school board members signed up that night. We feel strongly that person-to-person dialogue with a connection to our representatives as peers is crucial building agenda-setting power in our discussions.

Paper Sign Up Forms

With in-person outreach on paper sign-up forms, one on one meetings with community organization leaders, and online outreach we are up to 70 initial members. We open forums for introductions and general posting after we reach the magic 100 number (sometimes intros start early to help build momentum). Unlike most neighborhood forums we’ve identified in mostly well off places, this one is in a low income, highly diverse area. With our aggressive outreach we are on track to open a forum that is more reflective of that diversity than perhaps any place-based online forum to date. When we open the forum, we will work carefully behind the scenes to encourage the diversity we’ve recruited to introduce themselves and make sure their voices are heard. The first few posts will set the tone and determine whether people see the online space as relevant to their lives and desires for the community. While we continue to host all volunteer driven forums, funding makes it possible for us to help communities on the other side of the digital divide take advantage of our tools and community-building approaches.

Sitting Down

Next up to close out the grant, the heavily Southeast Asian and African-American Greater Frogtown area of St. Paul. We are scouting someone with organizing experience and roots in the neighborhood to help us out in the coming months on contract. Contact us.

Here is the text of an invitation to join signed by Ben Marcy, Amina Harun, Rhonda Eastlund, Mustafa Adam, Jen Moates, and Hani Mohammed.

To community members of Cedar-Riverside,

As a joint effort of numerous organizations and individuals of Cedar-Riverside we invite you to join us in a new form of neighborhood communication:

e-democracy.org/cr

Through the support of E-Democracy.Org we are creating a new online issues forum where neighbors can send messages to each other about important community topics and cultural events. Think of it as an open and inclusive message board that potentially everyone can read, participate in whenever and where ever they are.

Topics may include:

* Neighborhood safety issues
* Area schools and opportunities for youth
* Local public health issues and options
* Area environmental concerns
* Local development and small business developments
* Community announcements from local cultural and civic organizations
* Other local issues and neighborhood life exchanges

Through this forum, our many diverse communities will have the opportunity to share their unique perspective and be heard, as well as to learn about one another. We will be able to instantly share important information that we can use in efforts to improve our neighborhood.

Sign up here - e-democracy.org/crjoin - and follow the simple step by step process to become a member of the new Cedar Riverside Neighbors Forum. You may participate via e-mail or web - your choice.
With active facilitation and E-Democracy.Org’s tested civility rules (real names, etc.) together we will maintain a respectful discourse, and positively encourage all in participating.

While this forum is independent from any existing local organization, many groups and volunteers from different perspectives and backgrounds across the community are helping extend this invitation. Please help us bring together hundreds of our neighbors by passing on this invitation and visiting the website today - e-democracy.org/cr - to sign-up.

Join Us!

Ben Marcy
Amina Harun
Rhonda Eastlund
Mustafa Adam
Jen Moates
Hani Mohammed

To volunteer to help launch the forum, e-mail:

P.S. If you have any trouble signing up, simply e-mail - - with “Cedar Riverside Sign-up” in the subject with your full name and we will help you. Or call 612-605-0137.

November 17, 2008

Sharing Photographs and Videos the E-Democratic Way

Written by Steven Clift - Filed in All , Board , Issues Forums , Neighbor/Neighbourhoods , Rural , Technology

The summary:

  • Attach any size picture to your Issues Forum post via e-mail or the web. We do the rest - resize, present on web, etc.
  • Paste a link to a YouTube video in a post. We do the rest - the video player is displayed for all via your Issues Forum’s web view.

At E-Democracy.Org we believe in leveraging what people actually do in private life online and work to pull that behavior into public life.

Imagine that you are an everyday Internet user. You spend lots of time in your e-mail, visit a few regular websites, and you just barely figured out how to get your pictures off your digital camera on to your computer. While many use photo sharing services like Flickr, the vast majority share pictures via e-mail with friends and family.

Voting in Minneapolis

Say you are waiting in line to vote and you want to share a picture of that civic experience (either when you get home to an Internet connection or if your mobile has a camera and e-mail) or perhaps you spotted a critter you just have to share with your neighbors. To share a photo you simply need to attach it (them) to an e-mail or upload via the web. You don’t even need to resize your original photo. We do that automatically. We also place the image on the website so you don’t need to worry about overloading those with dial-up or slow connections.

Possums in Minneapolis

One other trick is that pictures attached to different posts on the same topic (subject line) form a manual slide show of sorts. Click on previous or next (don’t worry the post explains that the possum is playing dead.)

Video too!

With video, we’ve taken another track. We can’t do that any better or at least cost-effectively as using YouTube. So to share a video, simply cut and paste the standard link to a YouTube video in your post. When visiting a video on YouTube itself, it is the link on the right under the video description text labelled simply “URL.” Here is an example link (URL): www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVZLRggmTWs

Those visiting the website can then watch the video without having the leave the forum. Scroll to the bottom of this post to see a live example from the St. Paul Issues Forum during the Republican National Convention.

A big thanks goes out to OnlineGroups.Net for implementing this new feature in the GPL open source GroupServer platform we use. Funding for these new features (and some more to promote) was provided by pooled resources from the Blandin Foundation, the MSNet Fund of the Minneapolis Foundation, and from a technical assistance grant from Ashoka.

September 26, 2008

Connect in Oxford, England on Oct. 2 with E-Democracy.Org (Oct. 1 at a pub too)

Written by Steven Clift - Filed in Brighton and Hove - UK , Bristol , Issues Forums , New Efforts , Newham - UK , Oxford , UK

On October 2, 2008, local E-Democracy.Org volunteer leaders and participants from Bristol, Brighton and Hove, Oxford, and Newham along with e-democracy/community empowerment/social media experts from around the UK will be gathering at Oxford Town Hall. We hope to gather 15-20 people for a highly interactive and dynamic exchange. Steven Clift the founder and leader of E-Democracy.Org who is based in Minnesota will be leading the first two sessions.

The event is free, expect you’ll need to cover your own lunch.

Also note the informal pub gathering the evening before on Oct. 1 @ 19:00 in Headington.

The Oct. 2nd agenda - you may RSVP via our wiki for those parts you plan to attend below.

* 1. - 9:30 - 10:30 - Issues Forums Introduction and Training (Pre-Conf Session, Slides available)

* 2. - 10:30 - 12:30 - E-Democracy.Org UK - Input and Ideas for Citizen-based Local Issues Forums and E-Democracy in the UK - Plotting our future

* 3. - 12:30 - 14:00 - Networking Lunch (location TBD, pay own way) - An opportunity to get to know each other informally

* 4. - 14:00 - 15:30 - Discussion: Future of Local E-Democracy for Online Community Empowerment - An open and broad discussion post-ICELE on what should or could happen next in the UK to foster greater local public participation and community engagement using the Internet in councils, media, and the community and voluntary sector.

Join us.

August 18, 2008

Issues Forum Presentation Slides, Bemidji and Cass Lake Leech Lake Say Yes

Written by Steven Clift - Filed in All , Issues Forums , Minnesota , Rural , US

Steve Kranz and I had a great time in Bemidji and Cass Lake - Leech Lake Indian Reservation last week. We had about 20 people total across our two Your Voice. Your Community presentations highlighting some citizen media trends and digging into online civic engagement with Issues Forums.

Below are our slides, and here is a short video from Cass Lake just outside the Leech Lake Tribal College.

Volunteers from both Bemidji and Cass Lake have already followed up with strong interest and their local steering committees and forums are now being developed. Steve Kranz will be helping coach their start-up efforts.

Sign up now to reserve your space in the Bemidji Area Issues Forum or the Cass Lake Leech Lake Issues Forum. If you’d like to participate in the local steering committee for either forum, drop us a note. We even have paper sign-up forms for Bemidji and Cass Lake Leech Lake available to download and print for in-person use. In addition to recruitment at key in-person events, planning for “virtual door knocking” will be required.

The slides to preview or download (see our about Issues Forum section for our guidebook, etc.):

Issues Forums - Online Town Halls from E-Democracy
View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: politics community)

August 5, 2008

Rural Voices Update - Your Voice. Your Community Online. Events in Bemidji and Cass Lake, Minnesota - 13-14 Aug 2008

Written by Steven Clift - Filed in All , Issues Forums , Minnesota , Rural , US

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.

Steven Clift
E-Democracy.Org

Your Voice. Your Community Online.

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:

For example Issues Forums see: forums.e-democracy.org
Guidebook and more: e-democracy.org/if

July 29, 2008

Help Redesign Local Democracy - E-Democracy.Org Needs a Facelift

Written by Steven Clift - Filed in All , Issues Forums , Technology

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:

pages.e-democracy.org/design_sprint

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:

pages.e-democracy.org/design_sprint

As a “virtual” participant, you can feel free to see what you can whip up anytime or ask us questions now to guide your contribution.

Feel free to leave comments on the E-Democracy.Org blog about the site redesign.

Steven Clift
E-Democracy.Org

July 20, 2008

Join E-Democracy Volunteers in Chicago - This Monday (July 21)

Written by Steven Clift - Filed in All , Issues Forums , New Efforts , US

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:

pages.e-democracy.org/Chicago

June 26, 2008

E-Democracy.Org Makes the New York Times

Written by Steven Clift - Filed in All , Elections , Issues Forums , US

I spent the first part of this week sharing E-Democracy.Org’s story at the Personal Democracy Forum as well as challenging governments to put representative democracy and two-way engagement online (video).

Some of my big picture themes were picked up by the New York Times in an article, titled From Campaign 2.0 to Governing 2.0.

At the conference a new book called Rebooting Democracy was released including my article on Sidewalks for Democracy Online.

Steven Clift
Chair, E-Democracy.Org