(On a related note - join "Locals Online" hosts across many cities trading notes - http://e-democracy.org/locals )
Check out some great news from: http://www.mbpo.org/speakupny Speak Up New York Click here to join the Meet Up group for Speak Up New York!: http://www.meetup.com/SpeakUpNY/ Speak Up New York is an initiative of Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer and Open Plans to create the first government sanctioned and supported web-based platform in New York City that will use online technology to provide communities with tools for self-organizing and encourage greater civic participation. Speak Up New York held its first organizing meeting on June 11, 2010 at the OpenPlans offices in lower Manhattan. Participants included: Beth Noveck, United States Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Open Government; Steven Clift, founder of E-Democracy.org; Scott Heiferman, CEO of Meetup.com; Joseph Porcelli of neighborsforneighbors.com; representatives from numerous community boards and block & neighborhood associations; and many others representing the fields of web technology, news, media, and community organizing. A full list of participants can be found here. At the close of the daylong meeting, participants agreed upon the community-based activities and advocacy to be supported by the new web platform, and the collaborative work plan that will create Speak Up New York. Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer is working with OpenPlans to develop and launch a 1.0 version of the Speak Up New York web platform before the end of 2010. The goal is to create a website that provides: * Online tools to help community groups self-organize. Speak Up New York will integrate the best online communication and participation tools (blogs, discussion forums, issue reporting tools) to offer a solid starting point for citizens looking to get engaged online. * Educational materials on community building and navigating government. The new web platform will make local government more accessible and promote civic awareness through online workshops and trainings on topics such as: "What community groups are around me?"; or "How to start a tenant association"; or "Understanding the land use process." * A Platform for communities to connect with and learn from each other. Speak Up will leverage the expertise and commitment of community boards and civic associations while also opening up local government to new voices by aggregating the most relevant news, commentary, events, groups, and other civic information related to neighborhoods (e.g., community board votes, neighborhood blog posts, topical discussion groups). In parallel, a Speak Up New York Meet Up group will convene regularly to advise on the development of and help build the “web platform. Click here to join the Meet Up group for Speak Up New York! Steven Clift - http://stevenclift.com Executive Director - http://E-Democracy.Org Follow me - http://twitter.com/democracy New Tel: +1.612.234.7072 Also: From: Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer <[email protected]> Date: Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 9:39 AM Subject: Thank you for coming to Speak Up New York! To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> Dear Steven, Thank you for participating in Speak Up New York's first "unconference" last Friday! We appreciate your time and insights. We are still processing all of the exciting ideas that were discussed at the meeting, and are currently working on a number of follow ups. As a reminder, rough versions of the session notes from Friday's event are still available here: http://etherplans.org/SpeakUpNY Today I am pleased to formally announce our partnership with OpenPlans to begin work developing the Speak Up New York platform! Visit here to see the press release: http://www.mbpo.org/speakupny . Our goal is to create a website that provides: * Online tools to help community groups self-organize. Speak Up New York will integrate the best online communication and participation tools (blogs, discussion forums, issue reporting tools) to offer a solid starting point for citizens looking to get engaged online. * Educational materials on community building and navigating government. The new web platform will make local government more accessible and promote civic awareness through online workshops and trainings on topics such as: "What community groups are around me?"; or "How to start a tenant association"; or "Understanding the land use process." * A Platform for communities to connect with and learn from each other. Speak Up will leverage the expertise and commitment of community boards and civic associations while also opening up local government to new voices by aggregating the most relevant news, commentary, events, groups, and other civic information related to neighborhoods (e.g., community board votes, neighborhood blog posts, topical discussion groups). For those of you who would like to continue exploring these ideas with us, we have a few ways you can stay involved: * Join our meetup group. We've created a Meetup group at http://www.meetup.com/SpeakUpNY/ and sent each of you an invitation. We plan on using this group for continued discussion and to schedule future events. OpenPlans has graciously offered to host monthly Speak Up New York meetups in their penthouse space. * Blog! If any idea struck you as particularly interesting or important during the event, please blog about it and let us know so we can link to it. * Help us identify small, doable projects. As an initial effort, we are going to review the event notes and pull out a list of small projects that can be done *right away* to help wire up NYC community groups. These can be really simple (such as creating a list of all neighborhood organization websites in NYC) and don't necessarily need to be high tech. Thank you again for participating, and for helping the Borough President's office and OpenPlans make the best investment in this important space. We look forward to working with you over the coming months to create a new era of civic engagement. Sincerely, Scott Stringer Manhattan Borough President ----------------------------------------- Group home for Newswire - Steven Clift's Democracies Online Newswire: http://groups.dowire.org/groups/newswire Replies go to members of Newswire - Steven Clift's Democracies Online Newswire with all posts on this topic here: http://groups.dowire.org/r/topic/3rpbFQBhAHnv3Cf1DvXLQZ For digest version or to leave Newswire - Steven Clift's Democracies Online Newswire, email [email protected] with "digest on" or "unsubscribe" in the *subject*. Newswire - Steven Clift's Democracies Online Newswire is hosted by Democracies Online - http://dowire.org.
