Posted by
Michael Lenczner on
Jul 08, 2008; 4:04pm
URL: http://civicaccess.416.s1.nabble.com/capitol-words-tp1130p1143.html
Hello,
It's great that you're pushing this conversation, Jennifer.
My thoughts about making this happen in Canada to a larger degree is
that we need more people like yourself:
-understand technology / aren't afraid of it.
-have an understanding of business / financing.
-are committed to making something happen.
I think that's what we're missing, not a specific form of organizing.
Personally I don't like the idea of either CivicAccess or your project
being the one-stop-shop for all of this work. I believe in an
approach of diversity and competition in the open-source space.
More than processes and structures that look good on paper, I think we
need some more concrete examples of working projects as well as people
who have 1, 2, 3 + citizen information projects under their belt. In
the past I've offered to help howdtheyvote raise some funds because
the experience and commitment is already visible. Currently I'm just
finishing a demo of something I want to see built and will try to go
fundraise for it.
That being said, I agree with your and Cory's point that there is a
natural point of friction for geeks that want to build projects but
don't want to bother with legal status for each or don't have the
skillset to do fundraising. I think that there's great work to do
there. But first, i think we need some more actual projects that are
funded by either individual donors or by foundations. That will
establish the movement as more credible.
Mike
On Mon, Jul 7, 2008 at 4:11 PM, Jennifer Bell <
[hidden email]> wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I've been thinking the last while about the best approach for promoting the creation of online tools for government transparency. The Sunlight Foundation in the US and mySociety in the UK are showing that the government can be changed by example, from the outside. It just takes people to push to make it happen.
>
> What will it take to get a similar movement going here in Canada? As I know there are several people here with experience in similar groups, I'd like to get your opinions.
>
> The ingredients, as I see them, are:
>
> 1) Money.
>
> The Sunlight Foundation initially had a single large donor, who put up a seed of 3.5M.
>
> 2) A Community.
>
> barcamps are a great example of people coming together to learn and share. E-gov sessions can be tagged on to existing barcamps, and dedicated events held once there's some interest.
>
> Possibly, these could be supplemented with invitation-only events for a more 'elite' crowd of government and high-tech representatives.
>
> 3) A Tool.
>
> There ought to be a website to formally capture ideas for tools and allow them to be developed by the community. There's a rough plan for one here, which I'd like feedback on:
>
>
http://groups.google.com/group/visiblegovernment-discuss/browse_thread/thread/9b0211b0b51965df?hl=en>
> ....
>
> I would appreciate any input.
>
> At a recent conference, the moderator started out by saying 'I believe in the wisdom of crowds, and I believe we have a very wise crowd here today'.
>
> Jennifer
> visiblegovernment.ca
>
>
>
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