HT to Jennifer Armstrong of E-Democracy.org ... From: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-powers/jun-twitter-social-media_b_7102780.html
William Powers Research scientist, Laboratory of Social Machines/MIT Media Lab; Author, Hamlet’s BlackBerry Deb Roy Director, Laboratory for Social Machines/MIT Media Lab; Chief Media Scientist @Twitter The Incredible Jun: A Town that Runs on Social Media Posted: 04/20/2015 4:13 pm EDT We recently visited a small Spanish town that is using social media in a new way. Our research lab is studying the town to learn how these technologies might help communities around the world become more responsive to their citizens. This is a brief report on what we know so far. For the last four years, a town in southern Spain has been conducting a remarkable experiment in civic life. Jun (pronounced "hoon") has been using Twitter as its principal medium for citizen-government communication. Leading the effort is Jun's Mayor, José Antonio Rodríguez Salas, a passionate believer in the power of technology to solve problems and move society forward. Since launching the initiative in 2011, Rodríguez Salas has been recruiting his 3,500 townspeople to not only join the social network but have their Twitter accounts locally verified at town hall. This extra step isn't necessary to participate in the conversation -- Twitter is open to anyone -- but it helps town employees know they're dealing with actual residents. In the most basic scenario, a citizen who has a question, request or complaint tweets it to the mayor or one of his staff, who work to resolve the matter. For instance, in the sequence of tweets shown below (which we pulled from the 2014 Twitter data and translated into English), at 10:48 pm a citizen tells the mayor that a street lamp is out on Maestro Antonio Linares Street. Nine minutes later, the mayor replies that he'll have the town electrician fix it the next day. The mayor's tweet includes the Twitter handle of the electrician, who is automatically notified that he's been mentioned and sees the exchange. That tweet is a public promise that the town will indeed take action, and to underline this it ends with the hashtag #JunGetsMoving. The next day, the electrician tweets a photo of the repaired fixture, thanking the citizen for his help and repeating the hashtag. A citizen alerts the mayor to a broken street lamp. Two tweets later, it's fixed. ... See: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-powers/jun-twitter-social-media_b_7102780.html Steven Clift - Executive Director, E-Democracy.org [email protected] - +1.612.234.7072 @democracy - http://linkedin.com/in/netclift E-Democracy can help: http://e-democracy.org/services ―― View topic http://groups.dowire.org/r/topic/rgt8bn1SpPCe8iNiIB6c4 Leave group mailto:[email protected]?Subject=Unsubscribe
