By Martina Welke & Bolot Bazarbaev
Re-Vision Labs Fellows

Bolot Bazarbaev

Bolot Bazarbaev, a Humphrey Fellow at the University of Washington and an intern at Re-Vision Labs, has been captivating us for the past ten days with his knowledge and perspective as a revolution unfolded in his homeland of the Kyrgyz Republic.

Since traditional media was slow to react to the Kyrgyz crisis, Twitter was the first place Bolot went for news.  He learned about events as they unfolded by following hash tags like #freekg,  and handles like @kg_news, @Baisalov, @Otunbayeva.  Even when the Internet was temporarily shut down within Kyrgyzstan, citizens could still access Twitter from their mobile phones and continued to share information.  Websites like diesel.elcat.kg also played a crucial role in sharing information and helping to dispel false rumors.

The strategy leading up to the overthrow of Kurmanbek Bakiyev’s administration was so well-coordinated, primarily via social media, that even when the leaders of the opposition movement were jailed, the movement continued successfully.  As our colleague Brett Horvath astutely observed, “As soon as [Bakiyev] lost control of the information, he lost control.” (Last night Brett spoke on the subject at the TEDx Mission in San Francisco, which you can view here)

Now the Kyrgyz interim government has a unique opportunity to start with a “blank slate” unencumbered by previous bureaucratic systems.  It could become the exemplar of open government: transparent and collaborative with high level civic engagement.  Or it could be a cruel repeat of history, and fall back on the same systems that brought the demise of the previous administration, which came into being after a similar revolution only five years ago. 

Krygyz President's desk, Before (2005) & After (2010).

At a  press conference in Bishkek on Thursday, Robert O. Blake, Jr.,  the Assistant Secretary, Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs announced that the United States was committed to assisting in the development of open Kyrgyz governance:

The United States believes that the provisional government and the people of Kyrgyzstan have a unique and historic opportunity to create a democracy that could be a model for Central Asia and the wider region.

In all my meetings I emphasized the importance of the provisional government working transparently and in an inclusive manner with Kyrgyz civil society to ensure the provisional government has the benefit of the views and advice of the Kyrgyz people as Kyrgyzstan moves through this important transition. I look forward to meeting with members of Kyrgyz civil society later today.

At this crucial moment in history, the Kyrgyz Republic could leapfrog into a new kind of democracy by building itself around an open information platform, and help usher Central Asia- and the rest of the globe- into an era of open governance.

Before & After photo from Elena Skochilo.

By Nick Spang
Senior Associate & RVL Fellow

In many respects, Australia is the world leader in creating a democracy that is the most representative of its people. That’s because it is lowering the barriers to entry for citizen participation in large-scale civic planning processes.

In contemporary democracies across the globe, the system for public engagement assumes that citizen participation in civic process is based on people’s satisfaction with their living situations.  Barriers to participation, therefore, serve as a way to moderate input from citizens based on how much they care.

In other words, the harder it is to give input, the more likely it is that input primarily comes from people with extreme views.

Public meetings on proposed projects, laws, or regulations are generally either boring- because no one shows up and the speakers can’t orate- or they are tense- because angry people are using heated rhetoric to make their points.

The other way to give input is to write a letter or send an email, essentially in a vacuum of information. If citizens want more information they have to download a large report, request a paper copy, or go online in search of commentary.  The end result is that high quality public comments are minimal for most public engagement processes because they are a pain to deal with.

While most government agencies try to keep public input to a reasonable minimum- because interacting with lots of the public is expensive and time consuming- municipal governments in Australia are taking another approach: actively trying to get as much high quality public input as possible.  Enter Future Melbourne.

Future Melbourne is a Wikipedia-style platform that supports an online community of citizens that are concerned about Melbourne’s long-term plan for the future.

The stated goals of Future Melbourne are:
•    Engage citizens in creating a vision for the future, setting priorities and contributing to decision-making.
•    Value and utilize local networks.
•    Focus on people and place that requires a more flexible and joined-up approach to policy and service delivery.
•    Connect the top-down and bottom-up policy processes that influence resource allocation.

Future Melbourne is designed to replace the current City Plan 2010. It sets out six high level Goals for the city, then Pathways that lead to achieving these Goals. Under each Pathway, there are a range of Outcomes to be achieved over the decade to 2020.

1.    People
2.    Creative
3.    Prosperous
4.    Knowledge
5.    Ecocity
6.    Connected

Based on input from the public, the plan envisages Melbourne to be a bold, inspirational and sustainable global city and one of the top ten most livable and sustainable cities in the world.

But Future Melbourne is not without issues.

For example, many people in Melbourne have never heard of Future Melbourne, and participation rates are not stellar.  Once on the webpage it is unclear how to participate or how the information generated will actually get used. The web design generally lacks an interactive look and feel, and is not as inviting as it could be.

Criticisms aside, Future Melbourne is a bold step in the right direction. It’s hard for a government agency to be on the cutting edge of social media and Melbourne is the first city to take on such an effort.  The real difficulty is not that the tech is lacking or budgets are tight, but that the pace of IT innovation is so much faster than government agencies and citizens can keep up with.

For a citizen, having constantly changing modes of providing input can be very confusing and off-putting. For agencies, investing in something that doesn’t work is an embarrassment at best and considered waste, fraud, and abuse at worst.

Another way to think about it is by looking at how many consumers avoid buying the first generation of new gadgets because they are generally more expensive and don’t work as well as later generations.  Similarly, most agency decision makers are looking for the sweet spot where they can invest in something that is innovative and also refined.

Therefore, having chosen the Wikipedia-style approach makes sense, because that is a proven concept for crowdsourcing based on the success of Wikipedia itself.  I hope that soon we will see other government agencies following suit, and using best practices for communications and data display, as well as the new set of proven crowdsourcing techniques for ranked voting, content analysis, and comment moderation.

Until that time, we will be following in Australia’s footsteps.

Wheel and Skyline, Melbourne photo by stephenk1977 on Flickr.

By Aurea Astro
Re-Vision Labs Fellow

Aurea Self-Reflects on Twool-ness

You May be a “Twool” if You:

1. Never apply relevance, personal perspective, or context for your tweets.
2. Twitter to the point of just being noisy.
3. Only tweet mainstream news headlines—the ones half a million have already seen.
4. Tweet old news.
5. Use Twitter for instant messaging – 1:1 conversations are only interesting to you and your Twitter counterpart.
6. Reply with one-word answers.
7. Have no identifiable niche or brand associated with @johndoey
8. Aren’t gracious, never thanking or acknowledging Tweeters who have Mentioned, RT’d, or engaged with you to any degree.
9. Tweet with the CAPS LOCK ON.
10. Never to rarely engage in or inspire a public conversation.

By Martina Welke
Communications Fellow

What Motivates You?

At a professional development seminar in a previous life, I was introduced to David McClelland’s Theory of Motivation, which locates the impetus of human action in three basic needs: the need to influence, the need to achieve, and the need to affiliate.  I’m always skeptical of theories that seem to be overly simplistic—particularly when they attempt to taxonomize something as unpredictable and complex as human behavior—but  something about McClelland’s trifecta resonated with me, and I’ve since found it to be useful for reflecting upon my own choices and the actions of those around me.

I recently found myself ruminating on two themes that routinely occupy my mind—microfinance and communities—and realized that the needs trio provides a great framework for discussing some of the exciting community building strategies that two of my favorite microfinance organizations are beginning to employ.  OikocreditUSA and Vittana are both engaging their lenders in a variety of ways that feed our “basic needs” and incorporate us into an interactive, international microfinance community.

Influence:  Both Vittana and Oikocredit share client stories with investors and offer updates on the impact loans have made.

Vittana, which partners with microfinance institutions in Latin America and Asia to offer student loans, provides a biography for each student listed that includes their goals and the projected earning potential the investment in education could facilitate.

Oikocredit’s new Community Hub features a Meet the Entrepreneurs section where investors can read detailed stories about individual clients and browse through profiles of Oikocredit’s partner organizations in order to better understand the influence their loan could have.

Achievement: Both sites have plenty of information to help illustrate collective and individual achievements.  Vittana’s Community Page includes an update summarizing the total amount loaned through the website and the total number of community members.  A summary of individual’s loan history is listed on the each lender profile page.  In the spirit of friendly competition, Vittana organized a March Madness lending contest, during which lenders were encouraged to organize groups and compete with other Vittana groups for the most members and dollars loaned.  The leading groups were highlighted on Twitter and in comunity e-mails to recognize their achievement.

Oikocredit also updates lenders on the total amount loaned and allows lenders to track individual loans.  The site clearly outlines 5 Levels of Engagement for community members, so that those motivated to become increasingly involved in the organization might map their progress.

Affiliation: The opportunities to affiliate with other community members through both on and offline activities are abundant after joining OikocreditUSA or Vittana.  As I alluded to earlier, both websites offer users the chance to create and populate lending groups. The OikocreditUSA hub allows members to create blog posts, share photos, and even video chat with other community members.  Additionally, members can download a toolkit with materials to host a Community Organizer Toolkit that inculdes materials for developing local groups and hosting informational houseparties.

Never underestimate the power of a party.  Over the weekend, I attended a Seattle party that Vittana hosted in partnership with SeaMo to celebrate passing the $100K loan benchmark (which happened in early March) and the great success of their March Madness campaign (they exceed their goal of $50K in loans and fully funded every student listed on the website).  As I mingled among a few familiar and many new faces, I happened to bump into OikocreditUSA’s new Northwest regional comunity organizer.  I chatted about all the great developments on the OikocreditUSA website and the exciting potential for growth.  I toasted to Vittana’s wonderful achievements.  I met other people with an avid interest in microfinance (and even someone who shares my enthusiasm for cupcakes!).  At the end of the night, I left feeling well-fed–in McClelland’s terms–and very motivated to do more.

The Open Government West conference last week demonstrated the diversity of voices and perspectives involved in the Gov 2.0 movement, and the foreboding challenges ahead as we work across the public, private, non-profit, and civilian sectors.  How will a mass conglomeration of web and app developers, bureaucrats, non-profiteers, community activists, pensive loiterers, corporations, city council members, and CTO’s ever mobilize into one effective vehicle for opening government?

How will we ever satisfy everyone without falling into the proverbial black hole of satisfying no one?  So many interests, so many different lenses, thinking caps, needs and visions… shudder.  And snore.

But as I combed through the hours of video from the Open Government West conference last week, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that despite the heterogeneity of attendees, the extensive reiteration of only a couple words imbued optimism that maybe, just maybe, a mass conglomeration of hybrid ambitions could actually effect the change in the world we all want to see.

I love pop culture and Kelly Osborne’s “One Word,” (specifically the Chris Cox dance remix), seemed especially fitting for a 2 min video that to me, helped summarize the conference in that tasty and palatable way only a lowly pop culturist could enjoy.  But maybe you will as well.

Can you guess which word was heard over and over at the conference?

• ReadWriteWeb “the cloud”
• GovLoop
• Australia G2 Taskforce
• Berkman Center for Internet & Society
• ZDNet
• Open 311
• G2 Radio
• Hinchcliff
• USNowFilm
• Andrea Dimaio

Tweets, innovative discourse and nerdy humor abounded at Seattle City Hall on Friday, where government officials, software developers, educators, and private sector professionals gathered for OpenGovWest. Over 200 conference attendees from the west coast of the United States and Canada, as well as special guests from as far away as Chile, took part in panel discussions, breakout sessions, and a participant-driven “unconference” in order to share knowledge, draft best practices, and set new goals for Gov 2.0: a more transparent, collaborative, and efficient system of governance than ever before.

Day One Conference Highlights:

•    After a welcome from conference convener Sarah Schacht of Knowledge as Power, Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn took the podium to give opening remarks.   McGinn described how social media and online collaboration tools influenced his campaign and ultimately helped make him successful.  He then announced the launch of the Lab for Civic Innovation, a public-private partnership designed to facilitate innovative democratic processes.

•    During a discussion of Open Gov Policy, Skip Newberry, an Economic Development Policy Advisor  to the City of Portland, stressed the need to collaborate across jurisdictions in order to establish best practices.  He also suggested using community oversight to mitigate risk and increase civic ownership in the development of public data tools.  The Assistant Attorney of Everett, WA, Ramsey Ramerman, made an important distinction between “transparent vs. translucent” government; i.e. open data is not just about information, but also developing the tools to allow the public to effectively access that information.

•    Bibliana McHugh of TriMet gave a brief summary of her pioneering work in transit data standards, and pointed out that those standards continue to evolve and improve because of the kinds of discussions that took place at OGW.

•    Minister Ben Stewart of British Columbia summarized the success of Vancouver’s social media campaign during the recent Olympic games and announced an Apps 4 Climate Action Contest.

•    In his keynote address, Andrew Hoppin explained how his team has transformed the New York state senate from “worst to first” in the Gov 2.0 race.  Early in 2009, he prioritized the creation of a truly 2.0 website, the radical expansion of access to public data, and the improvement internal collaboration tools.  Hoppin then dismantled the archaic NY senate system and replaced it with a highly interactive, easy to navigate, extremely transparent model that now serves as an archetype for other governments to build upon.

•    Bill Schrier, Seattle’s Chief Technology Officer, introduced data.seattle.gov and outlined a strategy for advancing open data initiatives in government.  His suggestions included deputizing private organization to help governments keep up, engaging citizens in solutions to common problems such as crime, combating naysayers by using crowdsourcing, and demonstrating strong leadership to encourage widespread participation and comfort.

•    After a series of breakout sessions, the entire group reconvened to report findings and recommendations.  Brett Horvath, Re-Vision Labs founding partner and head of Seattle’s Government 2.0 Task Force, announced a proposal drafted in his session to unite Vancouver, Seattle, Portland and San Francisco— “The West Coast Four”—in an agreement on one data project to develop a crime-based application to share across jurisdictions.

Sarah Schacht addresses over 200 attendees.

We’ll be posting interviews and further coverage of OpenGovWest on The Lab over the next few days.