*** Democracies Online Newswire - http://www.e-democracy.org/do *** Below is the a written version of my remarks to the Global Forum in Naples in March. The new bit is a text version of my advice to governments hosting online consultations. Speaking of online consultations and government, check out: UK Best Practices and Guides (lesson to be transferred to online): http://www.cabinet-office.gov.uk/servicefirst/index/consultation.htm http://www.idea.gov.uk/bestvalue/consult/methods.htm Electronic Civic Consultations: http://www.minbzk.nl/international/documents/pub907.htm On-line Engagement � New Models and Implications for Government Departments and Officials: http://www.cprn.ca/pubs/files/pubs-c_e.html#olen See just above for "Lessons" paper as well. Policity: http://www.policity.com/cp/index.html Steven Clift Democracies Online Happy Mother's Day (US) to all the Mothers on DO-WIRE Global Forum http://www.globalforum.it Presented March 2001 Track: Governance Issues in the Online Era Session: E-Democracy, transparency and consultation in policy making Presentor: Steven Clift (with Democracies Online, Minnesota E-Democracy and a Consultant to the Markle Foundation for Web White & Blue) E-Democracy is not E-Government. E-Democracy is part of E-Government, but also sum of the parts of all the sectors of democracy. The sectors of democracy we need to encourage "e-democracy" activity include: 1. Government - Both the administrative and representative sides of government 2. Media and Portals Online - Online versions of traditional media and major starting points on the Internet 3. Political Parties and Campaigns - Online campaigning for votes and political support 4. Advocacy and Lobbying - Interest group use of the Internet to organize against or in support of a specific issue or cause 5. Internet Infrastructure and Technical Development - Inherently political choices in technical design, pricing, and standards that effect e-democracy options 6. Networked Civil Society - Organized, non-partisan, non-profit efforts that uniquely use the Internet to build from the online efforts of the incumbent "democratic" sectors 7. E-Citizens - Must expect and use e-democracy in their everyday life, demand side is critical not just the supply of political content With a full map of the e-democracy landscape, it is then possible for governments and e-government specifically to plot out its essential role. The key is to build incremental efforts that can be built in a reasonable amount of time and be celebrated as real ways for citizens to better understand, engage, and influence their government and democracy as a whole. A full exploration of the various sectors, with examples, is available online at <http://www.publicus.net/ebook>. Power to the Powerful? Let's be honest. Power is most often based on the information you control and the message you spin through mass media. Why would any government seek to increase transparency and consultation in the policy process via the Internet when it seems so risky. I could make the legitimacy argument, it holds weight. Ultimately the goal of e-democracy should be to actually improve the outcomes of the policy process. It should be used to help improve the lives of our citizens, communities, nations, and the world as a whole. That is our challenge. Can slapping up an interactive web board on your government site do that? Perhaps not, but if we each see our work as part of an overall cross-society e-democracy strategy it we will make a difference. E-Democracy for Government E-Governance? What does that mean? When I map out e-democracy, I take the "e-democracy activities" of the first five sectors (Government, Parties, Media, Advocacy, Internet) and place them as circles on a page. I then combine E-Citizens and Networked Civil Society efforts in a single overlapping sixth circle. From my direct interactive experience in Minnesota, civic efforts are the essential component and multiplier effect that generates deeper activities throughout the sectors. It helps create online places for e-citizens that matter in real world politics and governance. E-Governance could be viewed as the place where E-Citizens and E-Government overlap. It is the place where government and citizens can use the Internet within existing political processes to build better policy solutions and legitimacy. To that end I have developed a "Top Ten E-Democracy 'To Do' List for Governments Around the World." It is complemented by the "Top Ten Tips for Wired Elected Officials" and soon by a top ten list for E-Citizens. The full text of available articles are online from: <http://www.publicus.net>. In summary, E-Government's "E-Democracy" efforts should: 1. Announce all public meetings online in a systematic and reliable way. 2. Put "Democracy Buttons" on the top pages of government web sites. 3. Implement service democracy with comment forms, surveys, and usability studies. 4. End the "Representative Democracy Online Deficit" by investing in Internet use by elected and appointed officials, not just e-government services. 5. Internet-enable existing representative and governance processes. 6. Embrace the two-way nature of the Internet and encourage information dissemination through personalization. 7. Hold government sponsored online consultations. 8. Develop e-democracy legislation to change laws and seek funding required to take full advantage of the information age in democracy. 9. Educate elected officials on the use of the Internet in their representative work. 10. Create open source democracy online software applications and share them among governments and others. Government Sponsored Online Consultations As a conclusion to this presentation, let me focus a bit more on government sponsored online consultations. This is one of the more exciting opportunities for E-Citizens and E-Government to interact with one another. Activity in the United Kingdom, Canada, The Netherlands and Sweden is leading the way. Having viewed a number of these events and with my own involvement in the Markle Foundation's Web White & Blue Online Presidential Debate and other online civic events, I'd like to make the following recommendations: 1. Don't have an open-ended online consultation like this ... "Is anyone here? Hello. Where is the government? Are we just talking to each other?" 2. Develop time-based, asynchronous online consultations that last two to four weeks. Consider complementing in-person consultations on the same topic. Ensure that the event is designed to have a real impact on the policy process (often early in the process, not here is what we decided what do you think?). Don't do this for show. 3. Create a structured online event with specific roles, panelists, and support documents as you would for an in-person event. (Online consultations can be as much work and in-person events, you just don't have travel and other physical considerations. It may or may not cost as much to be done right. Spend your "savings" on #6.) 4. Encourage citizens to become educated on the public policy issues at hand with access to detailed information as well as concise summaries. Ensure broad public interaction with top decision-makers, policy and research staff, and horizontal engagement among all participating based on this common information. 5. Understand the strengths and limits of online consultations. The strengths are that people may participate on their own time from just about anywhere. The limits are the lack of time to participate on a regular basis, differing levels of access (place, speed, cost), and limited social cues and informal social networking so important an in-person events. Any online consultation plan should address these concerns in the design phase. 6. Recruit. Promote. Recruit. Promote. Never open an online consultation without the bulk of your intended participatory audience signed up ahead of time. At a minimum, create a one-way e-mail announcement list that you can use prepare your participants for the event and use that list to send event highlights and reminders to the group during the consultation. Most of your registrants will visit the web site once, explore for a few minutes, perhaps post a comment or question, and then never come back again. Not that they didn't like your event. The problem is that they keep forgetting to make the affirmative choice to visit your site. Once they fall behind, they won't invest the time to catch up. You must get highlights, if not the substance of the event into e-mail boxes of your participants through opt-in strategies. 7. Embrace the diversity of opinions, perspectives, and geographic participation the Internet enables. Develop ways to channel the "sound off" citizen protest into more open spaces on your consultation in order to maintain the value of the most policy-related dialogue. 8. Ensure a quick response from top level decision-makers and clear management permissions for direct civil servant participation. Allow government staff, particularly those running the consultation, to handle informational and less controversial queries. Ensure that staff actively participate and share information on a proactive basis. Have a process to identify and generate a top decision-maker response to more controversial questions and topics within 24 to 48 hours. Make this policy clear and stick to it throughout your consultation. Conclusion Government-sponsored online consultation is a part of E-Democracy, E-Government, and E-Governance. By understanding the broader E-Democracy environment, e-government can charge ahead and work to do its part while also supporting efforts across the sectors of democracy. Top Ten E-Democracy "To Do List" for Governments Around the World http://www.publicus.net/articles/egovten.html by Steven Clift [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.publicus.net Copyright 2001. For use permissions, other than encouraged e-mail forwarding, please send your request to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. Top Ten E-Democracy "To Do List" for Governments Around the World Governments around the world have an exciting opportunity. We can revitalize our spirit of our many democracies and build an e-government that fundamentally connects with the people and rebuilds the legitimacy of governance. The Internet, if used with democratic intent and spirit can and will bring people closer to their governments. We can break down the "us" versus "them" mentality and embrace the miracle of government as the one institution the people jointly own in their local communities, regions, and nations. I started to think about these issues when I coordinated the State of Minnesota's government online efforts (1994-1997). Today, I see even more urgency and need for aggressive government-sponsored e-democracy activity in every government office, agency and program. To help us get started I have drafted the "Top Ten E-Democracy "To Do List" for Governments Around the World." It is up to us to: 1. Announce all public meetings online in a systematic and reliable way. Include the time, place, agenda, and information on citizen testimony, participation, or observation options. Use the Internet to build trust in in-person democracy. 2. Put a "Democracy Button" on your site's top page which brings them to a special section detailing the agency's/government unit's purpose and mission, top decision-makers, links to enabling laws, budget details and other accountability information. Share real information to help citizens better understand the legitimacy of your government agency and powers. Give citizens reliable and insightful advice on how to best influence the policy course of the agency. This could include links to the appropriate parliamentary or local council committees and bodies. 3. Implement "Service Democracy." Yes, most citizens simply want better, more efficient access to service transactions and information products your agency produces. Learn from these relationships. Actively use comment forms, online surveys, citizen focus groups to garner the input required to be a responsive e-government. Don't automate services that people no longer want or need. Use the Internet to learn about what you can do better and not just as a one-way self-service tool designed to limit public interaction and input. 4. End the "Representative Democracy Online Deficit." With the vast majority of government information technology spending focused on the administrative side of government, the representative institutions from the local level on up to national governments are growing increasingly weak. Invest in the technology and communications infrastructure of those institutions designed to represent the people. Investing in elected officials' voice through technology is investing in the voice of the people. Cynicism aside, options for more direct democracy can be explored, but invest in what we have today - representative democracy. 5. Internet-enable existing representative and advisory processes. Create "Virtual Committee Rooms" and public hearings that allow in- person events to be available in their totality via the Internet. Require in-person handouts and testimony to be submitted in HTML for immediate online availability to those watching or listening on the Internet or via broadcasting. Get ready to universally datacast such items via digital television. Encourage citizens to also testify via the Internet over video conferencing and allow online submission of written testimony. The most sustainable "e-democracy" activities will be those incorporated into existing and legitimate governance processes. 6. Embrace the two-way nature of the Internet. Create the tools required to respond to e-mail in an effective and timely manner. E-mail is the most personal and cherished Internet tool used by the average citizen. How a government deals with incoming e-mail and enables access to automatic informational notices based on citizen preferences will differentiate popular governments from those that are viewed as out of touch. Have a clear e-mail response policy and start by auto-responding with the time and date received, the estimated time for a response, what to do if none is received, and a copy of their original message. Give people the tools to help hold you accountable. 7. Hold government sponsored online consultations. Complement in-person consultations with time-based, asynchronous online events (one to three weeks in duration) that allow people to become educated on public policy issues and interact with agency staff, decision- makers, and each other. Online consultations must be highly structured events designed to have a real impact on the policy process. Don't do this for show. The biggest plus with these kinds of events is that people may participate on their own time from homes, schools, libraries and workplaces and the greater diversity of opinions, perspectives, and geography can increase the richness of the policy process. Make clear the government staff response permissions to allow quick responses to informational queries. Have a set process to deal with more controversial topics in a very timely (24-48 hours) fashion with direct responses from decision-makers and top agency staff. Do this right and your agency will want to do this at least quarterly every year, do it wrong the first time and it will take quarter of a century to build the internal support for another try. Check on the work in Canada, The Netherlands, Sweden and United Kingdom in particular and you'll discover governments that they are up to some exciting work. 8. Develop e-democracy legislation. Tweak laws and seek the budgetary investments required to support governance in information age. Not everything will be done voluntarily - some government entities need a push. What is so important that government must be required to comply? There is a limit to what can be squeezed out of existing budgets. Even with the infrastructure in place the investment in the online writers, communicators, designers, programmers, and facilitators must be increased to make Internet-enhanced democracy something of real value to most citizens and governments alike. 9. Educate elected officials on the use of the Internet in their representative work. Get them set-up technologically and encourage national and international peer-to-peer policy exchanges among representatives and staff. Be careful to prevent use this technology infrastructure for incumbency protection. Have well designed laws or rules to prevent use of technology and information assets in unknown ways. Don't be overly restrictive, but e-mail gathered by an elected official's office shouldn't suddenly be added to a campaign e-mail list. Be sure to tell them to read the "Top Ten Tips for Wired Elected Officials" online at <http://www.publicus.net/articles/weos.html>. 10. Create open source democracy online applications. Don't waste tax dollars on unique tools required for common governmental IT and democracy needs. Share your best in-house technology with other governments around the world. Leverage your service infrastructure, be it proprietary or open source, for democratic purposes. With vast resources being spent on making administrative government more efficient, a bit of these resources should be used "inefficiently." Democracy is the inefficiency in decision-making and the exercise of power required for the best public choices and outcomes. Even intentional democratic inefficiency can be made more effective with IT. In the end, have fun and experiment. Seek out those in other governments who have had practical experience and trade tips along the way. Join the Democracies Online Newswire <http://www.e-democracy.org/do> to meet others inside and outside of government who are interested in improving democracy and government through the use of information and communication technologies. Together we can build an e-government fundamentally connected and responsive to the citizens of each of our democracies. ------- End of forwarded message ------- ^ ^ ^ ^ Steven L. Clift - W: http://www.publicus.net Minneapolis - - - E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Minnesota - - - - - T: +1.612.822.8667 USA - - - - - - - ICQ: 13789183 *** Please send submissions to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** To subscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** Message body: SUB DO-WIRE *** *** To unsubscribe instead, write: UNSUB DO-WIRE *** *** Please forward this post to others and encourage *** *** them to subscribe to the free DO-WIRE service. ***
