ParticipateDB

From the document: Two rounds into the Art of Hosting Applied Practice Online Course, (AoH-AP), this document shares what we are beginning to learn about the space we are filling and the value we bring to the global Art of Hosting community…

Results online consultation “Bürgerhaushalt Hamburg 2009” (citizen budget Hamburg 2009).

The Department of Homeland Security used the Dialogue App to run their internal Quadrennial policy-making process, aimed at engaging their 180,000+ employees across the US.

Participedia entry regarding the “Hepburn Shire Council Plan” engagement project. Problems and Purpose In 2013, Hepburn Shire council in the state of Victoria embarked on a community engagement process to help create the council’s four year strategic plan. Entitled ’what’s the big idea?’, the process centred around OurSay, an online community engagement platform. This was complemented by a series of community workshops. Community members were encouraged to put forward their ideas for the plan on the platform, and others vote for their favourite ideas online. The top ten ideas were then discussed in a face-to-face workshop. The council’s aim was to change the planning process, increase community engagement and participation and ‘to create a planning process that would resonate with the community, as well as with councillors and staff’ (Vittori, n.d.).

The content for this database entry could not yet be recovered. Please stay tuned as we work on filling these gaps. Thanks!

Article by Beth Noveck in First Monday, Volume 10, Number 11 – 7 November 2005.

From the introduction: This consultation paper sets out a draft national approach to anti-bullying in Scotland. The purpose of this is to: * propose an approach to anti-bullying in Scotland for children and young people; * outline broadly contributions to this approach by sectors and stakeholders nationally; and * highlight the role of the Scottish Anti-Bullying Steering Group ( SABS ). This paper has been developed by SABS and includes a draft vision, aims and a proposed approach to anti-bullying for Scotland’s children and young people. It summarises very broadly what is being done at a national level in Scotland to prevent and tackle bullying. Beyond this a whole range of local- and issue-based activity takes place. We acknowledge that bullying occurs in adult life; this approach focuses on children and young people. This consultation seeks views so that areas for development and improvement can be identified. In particular, it provides an opportunity to seek the views of other agencies and professionals working with children and young people on a national vision, aims and approach to anti-bullying in Scotland and to consider: * contributions at all levels to this approach; * strengths and gaps; * what more needs to be done in the future at national and local levels; * how we can all contribute to this; * the role of the SABS in overseeing and co-ordinating this.

February 2, 2016 entry on the Remesh Medium. From the article: We set out with a goal to better understand what voters were thinking about the 2016 election. We wanted to have a conversation and not just look at survey data or analyze trending hashtags. So that’s exactly what we did. On the night of the January 17th democratic debate, we used <remesh to have a conversation with ~50 likely voters. The results were fascinating.

Project report from the International City/County Management Association ( ICMA ).

Interview (in German) with Daniel Reichert and Friedrich Lindenberg, two of the people behind Adhocracy.

Article in MIT Sloan Management Review from October 1, 2008 by Osvald M. Bjelland and Robert Chapman Wood: IBM brought 150,000 employees and stakeholders together to help move its latest technologies to market. Both the difficulties it faced and the successes it achieved provide important lessons.

Brief article by David Gurteen describing why Zoom is, to the best of his knowledge, “the first platform to fully provide the functionality to make virtual Knowledge Cafés a reality.”

Post on DEMOS -Monitor blog about recent coverage of budget consultations in Germany.

News report in the German daily local newspaper Solinger Tagblatt about the City of Solingen, Germany’s averted bankruptcy. Apparently, the budget cunsultation “Solingen Spart” played a significant role in reaching this outcome.

The NewDemocracy Foundation , which provided the lions share of funding and logistical support for the Australian Citizens’ Parliament project, released a handbook describing how the event was organised. Their main report is “the definitive summary of the planning that went into it and what happened.”

Press release announcing the Aufbruch Bayern citizen engagement project (in German).

From the article (accessed on July 26, 2010): The Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform was a body created by the government of British Columbia, Canada. The Assembly was charged with investigating and recommending changes to improve the electoral system of the province. The body was composed of 160 citizens selected ar random from throughout the province. These members met approximately every other weekend for one year to deliberate about alternative voting arrangements. In October 2004, the Assembly recommended replacing the province’s existing First Past the Post ( FPTP ) system with a Single Transferable Vote ( STV ) system: this recommendation was put to the electorate-at-large in a referendum held concurrently with the 2005 provincial election. The referendum required approval by 60% of votes and simple majorities in 60% of the 79 districts in order to pass: final results indicate that the referendum failed with only 57.7% of votes in favor, although it did have majority support in 77 of the 79 electoral districts.

From Participation Now’s “Meet the practitioners” series of articles: As part of our series of interviews with practitioners involved in public participation initiatives, Participation Now researcher Hilde C. Stephansen spoke to Alison Lamb at Newcastle City Council about Udecide, a participatory budgeting scheme that has been running since 2006.

From the announcement (in German): Beim Bürgerforum 2011 sollen erstmals 10.000 Bundesbürger, die einen möglichst vielfältigen Querschnitt der Gesamtbevölkerung in allen deutschen Regionen abbilden, die Möglichkeit bekommen, an dieser neuartigen Form der Beteiligung mitzuwirken. Damit wäre das BürgerForum 2011 das bisher größte Bürgerbeteiligungsprojekt in Deutschland. Dazu werden zu Beginn des kommenden Jahres in 25 Städten und Kreisen dezentrale lokale Bürgerforen mit je 400 Teilnehmern organisiert. In Veranstaltungen am Ort und einer achtwöchigen, vor allem online geführten Diskussion erarbeiten die Teilnehmer ihre eigenen Programme. Die Leitfrage dieser Foren lautet: wie kann der gesellschaftliche Zusammenhalt der Gesellschaft bei wachsender Vielfalt gestärkt werden. Zum Abschluss der regionalen Foren werden die Entwürfe von allen Teilnehmern gemeinsam auf einer Internet-Plattform online diskutiert und ein gemeinsames Bürgerprogramm verabschiedet. Bei einer nationalen Abschlussveranstaltung im Mai 2011 soll es schließlich dem Bundespräsidenten übergeben geben.

From the case study (as of December 24, 2009): The Citizens’ Forum is a new form of participation developed by the Bertelsmann Foundation, the Ludwig-Erhard Foundation and the Heinz Nixdorf Foundation. It is a 6-8 week online deliberation embedded in two live events, one at the beginning of the process and the other one at the end. This article describes the second edition of the Citizens’ Forum Europe. Between November 2008 and June 2009, 361 randomly selected German residents participated in this innovative process of online-deliberation. They formed a Citizens’ Forum with eight committees (each with circa 45 participants) whose task was to complete an agenda on the future of Europe. Within their discussions they defined the European Union’s future challenges and developed possible solutions taking into consideration how European citizens themselves can contribute to these developments. At the beginning of the process in February 2009, all the participants met in Berlin. Together the eight committees framed the basis for the subsequent online deliberation by defining Europe’s main challenges on which they would like to work. The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, attended the event as a guest. During an eight-week online deliberation, the participants reviewed and checked their original ideas, examining the most persuasive points and compiling a citizens’ programme consisting of 16 resolutions. In April 2009 the participants met again, this time in the old German parliament building in Bonn, and discussed their demands with five European Parliament candidates. The Citizens’ Forum was implemented by Zebralog and Binary Objects, who took care of the planning, setup and moderation of the online deliberation, and IKU , who was responsible for the live event in Berlin. The whole process has been evaluated by the European Institute for Public Participation ( EIPP ). http://participedia.net/wiki/BürgerForum_Europa

Consultation brochure, contains basic budget information.

Project report for “BürgerForum Europa” consultation (in German). Contains list of participants.

March 18, 2014 article in Government Technology : Assemblyman Mike Gatto, D-Los Angeles, has used Wikispaces to involve citizens in drafting probate law changes.

Report-back by Zachary Elkins from the recent Constitution Building Tech Fair in Philadelphia, PA

Post on techPresident by Cristiano Faria, co-developer of the Brazilian House of Representatives’ e-Democracia Project.