It is generally known (or should be) that the Minneapolis Issues Forum is the largest and most politically influential online local public issues forum in the world. It has significant agenda-setting capacity. However, its limitations are many including our limited ability to move from discussion of issues to various forms of community action. This limitation may simply be the nature of this beast and we need to appreciate the fact that we have an open forum and maintain reasonable expectations about its use.
However, I often wonder what we could do as citizens with our local public institutions to build an online system that fundamentally supports public involvement and collaborative efforts that meet public challenges and address established policy priorities. For example, in the past I have circulated ideas about how E-Democracy might support a "mpls-housing" online _information exchange_ among those working on affordable housing issues across the community. Like all of our efforts, someone needs to play the role of facilitator to bring something like this together. In the future, I can imagine a set of advanced online tools tied directly to official and community-based priorities that would complement this open, multi-topic forum. Some questions: 1. If the Minneapolis Issues Forum is where we debate priorities, what can we also build online to fundamentally support the implementation of public policy? 2. Can we do this in a way that engages community stakeholders and encourages volunteer involvement (while not becoming exclusive noting the digital divide)? 3. Can we use online tools to sustain involvement for those who miss or cannot physically attend an important in-person meeting? 4. Could we use this same topical set of online tools to enhance and support neighborhood-by-neighborhood involvement? 5. Can we make Minneapolis an even greater city in a more cost- effective, information-age way? With budget constraints, is this one process reform investment that is required to do more with less? What do you think? I recently released two papers online about a new concept I call "Public Net-work": E-Democracy, E-Governance and Public Net-Work (Shorter) http://www.publicus.net/articles/edempublicnetork.html Public Net-work: Online Information Exchange in the Pursuit of Public Service Goals (Word/RTF - 75K) - Prepared for the OECD E-Government Working Group http://www.publicus.net/articles/oecdpublicnetwork.rtf In the longer paper for the OECD (smarty pants central) <http://www.oecd.org>, I actually used the 1st Precinct's e-mail list for information exchange among security folks downtown and the police department (CCP/SAFE staff led) as a leading example of "public net-work." This is a case where the city is using two-way online tools to address a public problem in a collaborative fashion. This model could and should spread across all aspect of city life, across all of our public institutions, neighborhoods, and many non-profits. In both papers I also highlight projects like CommunityBuilders New South Wales <http://www.communitybuilders.nsw.gov.au> where thousands of people interested in community/economic development exchange information and have a full-featured information portal to assist their missions. In these models, government shifts from being the expert gatekeeper and instead serve as a facilitator among all those interested in meeting a similar public challenge. With citizen interest and foundation, city, county, and large non- profit support, Minneapolis could build the world's best and most effective citizen engagement, public problem solving system (that happens to be supported in large part online). I encourage you to read the two papers above and ask yourself if we have knowledge, confidence, and gusto to use the next generation of online tools and approaches for the betterment of our fair city. Please contact me <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> if you can help spread this idea around the community to those who can garner the resources required to make it happen. Sincerely, Steven Clift http://www.publicus.net Carag Resident Chair, E-Democracy http://www.e-democracy.org ^ ^ ^ ^ Steven L. Clift - W: http://www.publicus.net Minneapolis - - - E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Minnesota - - - - - T: +1.612.822.8667 USA - - - - - - M: +1.612.203.5181 Join my Democracies Online Newswire: http://e-democracy.org/do My blogging experiment: http://travelscoops.com REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
