[DW] Event - E-Democracy.Org Seeking Advice - Monday, March 6 at 5 p.m. - Washington DC

[Steven Clift]

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A gazillion embedded links at:
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E-Democracy.Org Seeking Advice - Monday, March 6 at 5 p.m. in
Washington, DC

E-Democracy.Org is at a crossroads. We need to grow now or implode
based a rapid string of successes over the last 18 months. In our
first decade, we've focused on low cost sustainability. Now that
we've achieved that, we need to work on scalability.

I'll have some open time in Washington, DC on March 6 and 7th before
flying to Bristol in the UK for an online advocacy conference.

So on Monday, March 6, at 5 p.m. for about an hour supplemented with
pizza, I invite you to the first informal E-Democracy.Org Advisory
Council meeting. We will adjourn to a local establishment after the
meeting.

For the secret location coordinates just blocks from the White House,
please RSVP by Thursday, March 2nd to:

   [EMAIL PROTECTED]

After a 30 minute presentation, we will open for discussion. We need
practical advice on how to essentially move from an all volunteer-
based organization with local forums mostly in one state to a staff-
led, volunteer-rich chapter-based organization with local forums in
many countries.

The presentation will highlight:

1. The very successful Local Issues Forum expansion in the UK funded
by the UK Local E-Democracy National Project of the Office of Deputy
Prime Minister. Outputs included a 60 page guidebook, multimedia
presentation, a new online groups software platform, and various
articles. Our current forums in Brighton & Hove and Newham are
humming along and were evaluated by Prof. Stephen Coleman then with
the Oxford Internet Institute. Last year Issues Forums were given an
honorable mention by the prestigious Prix Ars Electronica and named
as a top 20 finalist for the Top 10 Who are Changing the World of
Internet and Politics 2005.

2. Use and future development of the new GPL open source "killer ap"
for integrated e-mail lists/web forums called GroupServer. This
included moving the Minneapolis and St. Paul Issues Forums to the new
platform in the second part of 2005. We also want to explore using
MySociety's Gaze service with GroupServer for a meetup-like "I want a
local issues forum in my town" recruitment and forum development
application.

3. Ideas for use of the new E-Democracy.Org wiki for our U.S.
election 2008 directory efforts and a campaign to "tag p2008" across
the blogosphere.

4. Creation of the first official E-Democracy.Org "chapter" in St.
Paul and extension of the local concept with a planning grant
received to explore Neighborhood Forums in Minneapolis. We humbly
believe we can be the Rotary or Lions clubs of the 21st Century where
thousands of citizen groups build Issues Forums for their
communities. Some will be part of our official chapter network and
hopefully many more will take our model and adapt for their own
independent activities.

5. Our pending Board reconfiguration, possible staff requirements,
grant writing needs, member donation possibilities, and requests for
help starting more local issues forums in the U.S., Canada, the UK
and from places as far flung as New Zealand.

In short, we'd like to tell you what we've been up to and invite you
to offer you advice, contacts, and energy. We've become too popular
for our own good and need your help to keep us moving forward without
tripping up.

So join us on Monday, March 6. If you can't make it, consider joining
our new E-Democracy.Org Advisory Council online group. We only ask
that you agree to donate something tangible to our efforts as a
condition of membership:
http://forums.e-democracy.org/factory/groups/advisors

See you in Washington, DC.

Steven Clift
Board Chair
http://E-Democracy.Org


P.S. This post has lots of embedded links at:
http://www.dowire.org/notes/?p=117
^               ^               ^                ^
Steven L. Clift    -   -  -  W: http://publicus.net
Minneapolis    -   -   -  -   E: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Minnesota  -   -   -   -   -   - T: +1.612.822.8667
USA    -   -   -   -     Skype/MSN/Y!/AIM: netclift

Join Democracies Online: http://dowire.org
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