Hello all, I saw from the earlier exchange that a similar idea has already been developed in the open source community that creates a type of issues management solution that constituencies and elected officials could utilize to track and solve issues in a more time-efficient manner, and I wanted to follow-up to ask if there are any developers on this list who would like to volunteer some of their time to join us in a pilot program. In spearheading this initiative, we have about 30 lawmakers who are interested in participating in a pilot program that would utilize such a solution, depending in part on time commitments and cost-benefit analysis. One of the primary problems is to determine the best possible method for gaining widespread adoption from policy makers, and of course, constituencies, rather than something that is just a re-development of the current process, which is often slow and is driven merely by a small handful of constituents or special interest groups with money. The functionality and dissemination of this concept is also an extremely sensitive issue in terms of getting lawmakers to opt-in and utilize it as their primary strategy for resolving problems and keeping citizens engaged. Suffice it to say: Not everyone is going to like this idea. There are plenty of people on both sides of the aisle that like things just the way they are. No accountability, no transparency, and an overall poor response time to issues that affect constituents and their representative communities. That being said, we're taking the approach of working with people who are very familiar with lawmaker dispositions and attitudes toward technology in order to help us maximize our efforts--along with the help technology-savvy professionals to make this work. Ultimately, we want this to be an open-source solution that is freely available and leverages the power of technology and community, much the way Mozilla Firefox is being promoted and disseminated throughout the Internet. If you or someone you know is interested in this endeavor, and does not hold a conflict of interest, contact us directly at: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thanks for your time and consideration. Sincerely yours, Michael Burns Executive Director Dialogue on Sustainable Community Sustainable Community Law Project Chicago, Illinois _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
[DDN] Collaborators Needed for Open-Source Issues Management Solution to Promote Civic Engagement
Dialogue on Sustainable Community Sat, 14 Jan 2006 10:55:38 -0800
