A presentation I gave at an event hosted by the Open Culture Foundation, Taiwan in October 2015. The presentation shares several models for citizen engagement in the legislative process online and provides suggestions for how to design effective engagement processes for government & citizens.
24. Keys to Success
• Plan: Define objectives, target audience, etc.
• Choose subject wisely
• Adopt code of conduct
• Provide quality background information
• Adopt flexible response policy, including
offline opportunities
• Partner with civil society, parliament,
universities, etc.
• Provide quality analysis & feedback
• Be transparent throughout process
25. Thank You
Andrew G. Mandelbaum
SimSim-Participation Citoyenne
@agm3dc
Andrew@simsim.ma
Editor's Notes
Gain buy-in of MPs, staff & citizens
MPs: publicity, genuine interest in citizen engagement, believe it will actually make work better
Staff: Recognize it as important part of their work. Belief in the wisdom of the crowd
Citizens: Belief that their input will actually contribute to something greater.
779 participants, 2434 contributions, 9806 votes
One law on pesticide usage that was proposed by a Senator has been ratified.
Gain buy-in of MPs, staff & citizens
MPs: publicity, genuine interest in citizen engagement, believe it will actually make work better
Staff: Recognize it as important part of their work. Belief in the wisdom of the crowd
Citizens: Belief that their input will actually contribute to something greater.
UK Open Standards
Gov wanted to develop open standards for information and technology to facilitate interoperability of systems across gov’t, public and private sectors.
Costs of IT too high, wanted to level the playing field to increase competition for gov’t contracts in IT sector
Created consultation document, developed questionnaire from that document
Types of questions: do you agree with the definition of open standard? How does it affect you? How does it affect the gov’t?
4-month period where citizens could provide input; online and through 6 offline consultations
At center, a website developed to help facilitate understanding and receive suggestions from citizens
Flexible response policy: through form or email, as well as in person or via telephone
All responses on website are public (tout les reponse ont ete rendues disponible)
480 responses in total, very successful given technical content.
Many small & medium businesses, so many people who do not usually participate.
Partnership w/ university which conducted analysis of the results
Gov’t response Several months later, gov’t provided response featuring ideas that were validated by discussion, what may need to change and what needs further review. SO they looked at the general agreement within the online and offline community that participated and they also looked at the content of the responses.
Gain buy-in of MPs, staff & citizens
MPs: publicity, genuine interest in citizen engagement, believe it will actually make work better
Staff: Recognize it as important part of their work. Belief in the wisdom of the crowd
Citizens: Belief that their input will actually contribute to something greater.