This is a huge piece of the puzzle that we've wanted to help get "what's new" announcements and documents into out local Issues Forums.
I've said for years that providing timely online access when people can still act on the information is a huge opportunity. Without personalized alerts, I haven't viewed burying a document ten layers down on a website as functional access. I'd love for example to see a simple, "Upcoming Public Meetings from X Date" e-mail alert and the moment the full set of meeting handouts/reports are posted, a meeting specific alert generated. While traditional TWFY is about "You," it could also be "Us." We've found that the simple act to pointing out upcoming meetings/agenda-items in our group Issues Forums helps spur local conversation that decision-makers actually can use because it is on the agenda so to speak. Most participants or council staff don't take the initiative to do this manually. So if you scrape it, let's bake it together. (We will also promote individual sign-ups, but my strongest interest is getting stuff into a space where people can discuss it publicly with a critical mass of their community members.) So if you start scraping Brighton and Hove or Newham (or Oxford and Bristol and have the ability to hyper-focus on neighbourhood relevant data), let E-Democracy.Org know. Also, around public meetings, I have some ideas on the shelf that might be of interest: http://pages.e-democracy.org/Project_ideas#Democracy_Pulse:_E-Democracy.Org.27s_comprehensive_package_for_upgrading_local_democracy_through_information_and_interactivity Cheers, Steven Clift E-Democracy.Org P.S. http://e-democracy.org/bh http://e-democracy.org/newham _______________________________________________ Mailing list [email protected] Archive, settings, or unsubscribe: https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/listinfo/developers-public
