Citizen Engagement with Congress BarCamp

[ndic...@gmail.com]

At PrivacyCampDC, Wayne Moses Burke (Open Forum Foundation), Andrew
Wright (http://grasshopr.com) and I came up with the idea of having an
unconference BarCamp around the idea of Citizen's Engagement with
Congress. My interest is in my thought on getting citizen's on par
with lobbyists, that I wrote about here:

http://www.communibuild.com/2009/03/16/putting-citizens-on-par-with-lobbyists/

I've spoken with Patrice McDermott (openthegovernment.org) and Jim
Gilliam (whitehouse2.org) and others previously about this. In fact
there are a bunch of really great ideas out there for engaging
citizens more fully with congressional policy making and advocacy. We
think an unconference BarCamp is the right next step to take.

Ideally we could schedule this during a congressional recess so we
could get good participation from congressional staffers. Late August
might be a decent target time frame. How does August 22-23 (Saturday/
Sunday) sound?

More importantly, who's interested in helping us organize this?

[David Weller]

Hi all,

 

I wish you had spoken to me too, for that has been what All Things Reform has been all about.  www.AllThingsReform.org

 

Please, as I live in Abilene Texas I still may be able to help out; also check out All Things Reform's Political Activist Calendar at www.bit.ly/dw-cal for upcoming Congress District Working Days and more.

 

David Weller

poets...@gmail.com

 

--
Hitch your wagon to a star.  -Emerson
David Weller
email: poets...@gmail.com
diigo: bit.ly/dw-d
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private library: bookuse.org
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twitter: bit.ly/dw-t
squidoo survey: bit.ly/dw-s
Holy San Marco! radio: bit.ly/dw-r
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facebook: bit.ly/dw-f

[ndic...@gmail.com]

Wayne set up a google group for this:

http://groups.google.com/group/CongressCamp?hl=en

[Rob Pierson]

Great idea, and I'd be happy to help.

We can continue the discussion more extensively in the new google group you created, but it may be worth considering the possibility of having the event partially held on a Monday as well. That would get much higher staff attendance. I can probably reserve a space in the Capitol.

[Wayne Moses Burke]

Thanks for opening the discussion, Noel! I've cc'd Thomas Gideon in, who also expressed interest in being involved at PrivacyCamp.

I've set up a google group for those who are interested in helping to organize http://groups.google.com/group/CongressCamp, and have seeded the discussion over there with the following topics:

1. What is our focus? Should we expand it beyond just communication and into Congress 2.0 writ large?
2. What is the best date? Should try to connect it with O'Reilly's Gov2.0 Summit on Sept 8-10.

Best,
Wayne

---
Wayne Moses Burke
Executive Director
Open Forum Foundation
http://openforumfoundation.org/
202.640.1787
LinkedIn.com/in/wmburke

"Giving you a voice in the decisions that shape your world"

[Patrice McDermott]

Thanks, Noel -- and Wayne and Rob...

This is a great idea.  We (Amy Fuller & I) will certainly be involved.  Late in August, we may be in the final throes of getting our 2009 Secrecy Report Card finished but we can certainly assist with earlier parts.

Patrice McDermott, Director
OpenTheGovernment.org
1742 Connecticut Ave NW, 3rd floor
Washington, DC 20009
202.332.OPEN (6736)
www.openthegovernment.org

---

From: Wayne Moses Burke [mailto:wa...@openforumfoundation.org]
To: ndic...@gmail.com [mailto:ndic...@gmail.com]
Cc: Open House Project [mailto:openhous...@googlegroups.com], andrew...@grasshopr.com, pmcde...@openthegovernment.org, j...@gilliam.com, Thomas Gideon [mailto:cm...@thecommandline.net]
Sent: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 10:52:16 -0400
Subject: [openhouseproject] Re: Citizen Engagement with Congress BarCamp

[ndic...@gmail.com]

Hi David, the more that get involved in helping, the merrier. As you
can see by the discussion we're still in the beginning stages, so
please please get as involved as you can.

Noel

On Jun 21, 10:48 am, David Weller <poetspi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I wish you had spoken to me too, for that has been what All Things Reform

> has been all about.  www.AllThingsReform.org<http://www.allthingsreform.org/>

>
> Please, as I live in Abilene Texas I still may be able to help out; also

> check out All Things Reform's Political Activist Calendar atwww.bit.ly/dw-calfor upcoming Congress District Working Days and more.
>
> David Weller
> poetspi...@gmail.com

>
> On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 8:28 AM, ndicko...@gmail.com <ndicko...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > At PrivacyCampDC, Wayne Moses Burke (Open Forum Foundation), Andrew
> > Wright (http://grasshopr.com) and I came up with the idea of having an
> > unconference BarCamp around the idea of Citizen's Engagement with
> > Congress.  My interest is in my thought on getting citizen's on par
> > with lobbyists, that I wrote about here:
>

> >http://www.communibuild.com/2009/03/16/putting-citizens-on-par-with-l...

>
> > I've spoken with Patrice McDermott (openthegovernment.org) and Jim
> > Gilliam (whitehouse2.org) and others previously about this.  In fact
> > there are a bunch of really great ideas out there for engaging
> > citizens more fully with congressional policy making and advocacy.  We
> > think an unconference BarCamp is the right next step to take.
>
> > Ideally we could schedule this during a congressional recess so we
> > could get good participation from congressional staffers.  Late August
> > might be a decent target time frame.   How does August 22-23 (Saturday/
> > Sunday) sound?
>
> > More importantly, who's interested in helping us organize this?
>
> --
> Hitch your wagon to a star.  -Emerson
> David Weller

> email: poetspi...@gmail.com

[ndic...@gmail.com]

Hi Rob, let's definitely look at having a Monday in there if that
helps- and yes, definitely come over to the group Wayne set up to help
with the date- looks like the first weekend in sept might be a good
compromise.

On Jun 21, 11:21 am, Rob Pierson <piers...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Great idea, and I'd be happy to help.
>
> We can continue the discussion more extensively in the new google group you
> created, but it may be worth considering the possibility of having the event
> partially held on a Monday as well. That would get much higher staff
> attendance. I can probably reserve a space in the Capitol.
>

> On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 10:48 AM, ndicko...@gmail.com
> <ndicko...@gmail.com>wrote:

[Thomas Lord]

After reading the blog piece, I think you
are in the right direction but I spy, with my
little eye, a big structural bug.

In the diagram of the better situation, where
"citizens" (some "class") take their side at the
bar alongside lobbyists (a society and profession),
the hint is that "we" set up some wikis and, if you
build it "they" (those citizens) come.

A wiki is a media, not an organizing effort.

What's to be the governance of these "wikis"
and what organizing draws people to them?
How are these people a micro-society with something
substantial in common and human relations among them
that give them authentic common cause?

I would normally think that better defining the
organizing effort - and executing it - would precede
the choice of technical media of how a proper
class - a group of common interests and cooperative spirit -
forms.

Get the people first, the tools second?

-t

[David Weller]

I think that marketing is the key to any success in the barcamp.

 

It must be open and free and fun, at a time when most people may come.  It shouldn't be a clique, however much unintended.

 

David

[Thomas Lord]

On Sun, 2009-06-21 at 23:25 -0500, David Weller wrote:
> I think that marketing is the key to any success in the barcamp.

I'm not asking about the "success [of the] barcamp"
I'm asking about the project that the barcamp is
supposed to advance. If they are said authoritatively
to be one in the same then I guess I have my answer
but I presume you didn't mean it that way yet in that
case, what about the larger question I was asking?

-t

[John Wonderlich]

I suspect that your question is well within the realm of things the organizers would want to discuss.  Noel's blog post about the future of engagement with Congress is one vision for what a solution should look like.

The question is an interesting one: does the technology or the community come first?

The answer is probably neither/both -- development for community can't happen in a vacuum, or, in other words, if you build it, they won't necessarily come.

[Steven Clift]

I have a simple idea I'd like to throw into the hopper.

* Create a network of online groups with basic civility ground rules
for each congressional district restricted to voters who live in that
district to discuss national affairs.

* Only open the space with at least 100 participants and someone who
volunteers to enforce the ground rules including a rule that requires
the use of real names. (Otherwise the space will be used first and
only by those in opposition.)

* Recruit at least one person from the Member of Congresses office to
monitor the forum.

* Create some scrape and post tools that would automatically puts
press releases etc., major floor speeches, from that member in the
forum as discussion fodder.

* Tie into Twitter with "#mnH05" tag tied to Tweets automatically
generated by new topics and feed daily Twitter digests into the forum.

My experience with local forums (and noting the decline in
"interaction" in Minnesota's blogosphere) is that only those that
clearly are made up actual voters get the attention of elected
officials. The online spaces also have to be viewed as having a
potential impact on public opinion formation within the district and
not simply as a partisan protest board to approached strategically by
an elected official.

Steve

[Wayne Moses Burke]

And if I may be so bold as to speak for Noel, I thing that his intention in mentioning his blog post was not so much to define the barcamp, but to define his interests within the broader topic of citizen participation with Congress.

I see the goal of organizing the camp being to provide a space for everyone with a related interest to find each other and co-develop understanding and solutions.

---
Wayne Moses Burke
Executive Director
Open Forum Foundation
http://openforumfoundation.org/
202.640.1787
LinkedIn.com/in/wmburke

"Giving you a voice in the decisions that shape your world"

[Thomas Lord]

On Mon, 2009-06-22 at 11:20 -0400, John Wonderlich wrote:

> The question is an interesting one: does the technology or the
> community come first?
>
> The answer is probably neither/both -- development for community can't
> happen in a vacuum, or, in other words, if you build it, they won't
> necessarily come.

If you they come but you haven't built it, perhaps
they wander away disappointed. Sounds right.

I just had a forehead-slap obvious-in-retrospect
idea:

In every city and town, just about, there are
multiple established and existing groups of
politically engaged citizens.

There are PTAs, neighborhood groups (in Berkeley,
these are even registered with the City!), crime-watch
organizations, single-issue groups ("stop the
new condominium project" / "shut down the neighborhood
polluter" / "elect J. Average for council").

How's about the notion of:

a) seeing if we can't do some "crowd-sourcing"
to discover these either from direct knowledge
or examination of public records (as in the case of
registered neighborhood groups in Berkeley).

b) coming up with an invitation to extend to
all of them. Make sure the invitation is designed
to be obviously "viral" - so people can pass it
on.

c) sending that invitation.

Yes? :-) !

-t

[David Weller]

A few resources in addition to our own present participants:

 

National Civic League http://ncl.org/

 

e-Democracy.org http://e-democracy.org/

 

Everyday Democracy http://www.everyday-democracy.org/en/index.aspx

 

CGS Center for Governmental Studies http://www.cgs.org/

 

David

[Thomas Lord]

On Mon, 2009-06-22 at 14:48 -0500, David Weller wrote:
> A few resources in addition to our own present participants:
>
> National Civic League http://ncl.org/
>
> e-Democracy.org http://e-democracy.org/
>
> Everyday Democracy http://www.everyday-democracy.org/en/index.aspx
>
> CGS Center for Governmental Studies http://www.cgs.org/

Those look interesting but I'm not sure they fit
what I described in this way:

Those look to me like they target individual citizens.
J. Q. Random goes and signs up etc. CGS has some
franchising stuff I'll comment on below. I may have
missed more and if so, I apologize.

I am thinking about an outreach program to established
groups and organizations. For example, slightly fictionalized,
I might know of the Pleasantville District Neighborhood Association
who already has a weekly newsletter, periodic meetings, and
so forth. They happen to be explicitly non-partisan and take
no sides on nearly all issues but they also try to keep membership
informed of local governmental issues that impact people in
this neighborhood (e.g., meetings coming up, important matters
before council, etc.) Or I know of a "Neighbors Against Rich
Developers Group" which is similar in form but decidedly
polarized on one side of certain issues.

The point is: those small groups all have secretaries, newsletters
or email lists, main organizers, etc.

IF the openhouse / opengov people had a plausible on-line
forum for participation ready and IF it could recognize both
individuals and those groups then outreach to those groups
would be a plausible way to work on the "they come" that
goes with "if you build it". Assembling a marketing list, basically,
of contact points for such orgs seems like one of those crowd-sourceable
tasks.

There is a danger to the proposal is that such a list of contact
points is ripe for abuse. I still think it's an interesting idea
to consider.

There is an opportunity beyond openhouse to, like CGS seems
to do, "franchise" on-line tech for group self-actualization.
That seems to me like a better project for "we" than, say,
bidding on recovery.gov - although I'm sure we'd have lots
of interesting discussions about the best (most just, rational,
unbiased etc.) way to do such tech franchising.

Regards,
-t

[Greg Elin (Sunlight Foundation)]

+1 Steven. Having some social groups is key.
+1 Noel's blog post. The social groups of citizens must be ready to intervene early in the process.

Both of the patterns are already established and practices by PACs, Trade Groups, Lobbyists, political parties. It's a robust pattern. The trick is making more friendly to the openness factor of the Internet instead of older social network patterns.

Greg

[Steven Clift]

In general when it comes to engaging elected officials, organized
interests will use tried and true ways unless they think the best way
to get their way is do something different. That is definitely via a
public environment online. Only local groups with poor or outsider
relationships would risk ticking off the Member of Congress by being
too public with input before trying traditional private communication.

In Estonia they were working on an online consultation framework for
NGOs, interest groups, etc. to make submissions that we clearly
labeled coming from groups. This might be something to encourage in
Executive branch online input session first in the U.S.. I could see
how you might try this with congressional committee hearings for
groups not invited to testify in-person to do so virtually.

Steve

[AllThingsReform]

Here's another resource for organizing our barcamp:

AmericaSpeaks
http://americaspeaks.org/

David

On Jun 22, 2:48 pm, David Weller <poetspi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> A few resources in addition to our own present participants:
>
> National Civic Leaguehttp://ncl.org/
>
> e-Democracy.orghttp://e-democracy.org/
>

> Everyday Democracyhttp://www.everyday-democracy.org/en/index.aspx
>
> CGS Center for Governmental Studieshttp://www.cgs.org/

> > -t- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[ndic...@gmail.com]

Because not everyone who participated here has moved over to the
Citizen Engagement w/Congress Barcamp google group, I thought I'd
repost this :

We just had a last minute cancellation on one of the panels for the
Open Government and Innovations Conference:

http://www.opengovinnovations.com

If we want, we can have a panel discussion specifically on Citizens
Engaging with Congress, which could lead toward the barcamp approach.

If interested, let me know and what you want to speak on (posting to
the Citizen's Engagement w/Congress Barcamp page works well for this -
http://groups.google.com/group/CongressCamp?hl=en). I know
Wayne Moses Burke is already scheduled to speak on another session -
this would just involve re-arranging things.

Noel Dickover

On Jun 24, 7:17 pm, AllThingsReform <poetspi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Here's another resource for organizing our barcamp:
>

> AmericaSpeakshttp://americaspeaks.org/

> > - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -

[George Robertson]

I have just joined this group, and did so based upon the idea of really
opening up the possibility of engagement/contact & exchange of ideas with
Congress. So often out here (specifically in the Palm Springs, Ca. area) I
wonder if they are really listening at all. After several phone calls to
numerous members of Congress both in the House and the Senate, I don't get
the feeling that anyone is listening. I want to contribute to the discourse
On several issues. But first, what is the best approach? This is why I
decided to participate here. I hope this is a true means of making that
happen!
George Robertson

-----Original Message-----
From: openhous...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:openhous...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of ndic...@gmail.com
Sent: Tuesday, July 07, 2009 1:38 PM
To: Open House Project
Subject: [openhouseproject] Re: Citizen Engagement with Congress BarCamp

[David Weller]

Hi George, thanks for joining.

 

I believe you're feelings are what made our idea develop for this barcamp.  Personally, I think it might be great to have a live stream and a chat screen online for those interested, but not able to go to DC for this.  Also, the people "in the know" of how accessible a congress person is, is a representative, and his staff; I'd like to see at least one multi-term rep. participate in addition to staff that are normally involved in taking most of the calls/ emails etc.

 

David

--
Hitch your wagon to a star.  -Emerson

David Weller, OSL.
email: poets...@gmail.com
diigo: bit.ly/dw-d
Political Activist Calendar: bit.ly/dw-cal
politics: bit.ly/dw
poetry: www.poetspirit.org

[ndic...@gmail.com]

Hi George,

I absolutely agree with David that your concern is what led to this
idea - how can we get citizens better engaged with Congress? A whole
lot of folks have a lot of good ideas. The thought with the barcamp
is to get them all together to see what magic emerges from it. Best
case is that energy and effort from the various stakeholders coalesce
to take specific steps to improve things. Worse case is we all end up
knowing lots more about the problem than when we started.

And yeah, I'd love it if we can set it up so that we can get
significant participation from those not able to attend in person.
I'd also love to see a good cadre of staffers, reps/senators and even
lobbyists there.

Noel Dickover

On Jul 7, 10:25 pm, David Weller <poetspi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi George, thanks for joining.
>
> I believe you're feelings are what made our idea develop for this barcamp.
> Personally, I think it might be great to have a live stream and a chat
> screen online for those interested, but not able to go to DC for this.
> Also, the people "in the know" of how accessible a congress person is, is a
> representative, and his staff; I'd like to see at least one multi-term rep.
> participate in addition to staff that are normally involved in taking most
> of the calls/ emails etc.
>
> David
>

> email: poetspi...@gmail.com

> diigo: bit.ly/dw-d
> Political Activist Calendar: bit.ly/dw-cal
> politics: bit.ly/dw

> poetry:www.poetspirit.org- Hide quoted text -

[George Robertson]

OK Guys count me in. For the time being, I am tied down way out here, but I
am certainly willing to participate in a live stream, or whatever can be set
up. I hope my past professional life (worked in technology, specifically
semiconductors) and life experiences (lived in Asia and Europe about a third
of more than 30 years) will result in valued contributions. Though a recent
debilitating disability has forced me out of the workplace, the experiences
I have had to endure should help in certain policy areas. We must be heard
in a constructive and productive way. So use me!
Regards
George