ChangeCamp Toronto 2010!

[Mark Kuznicki]

Hi everyone,

I wanted to ask ChangeCampers for their ideas on what we could do
together in Toronto in 2010. I am putting together a proposal for the
Toronto Community Foundation (deadline December 1st) to fund a program
of work in Toronto during 2010 and I need your input.

(FYI, I will eventually hive off Toronto into a separate city-focused
Google Group, but for now I'd like to host this conversation here.)

ChangeCampTO 2009 was a success by many measures. Toronto's open data
program and DataTO.org, the Ontario Public Service WiredCamp event and
myriad other conversations and connections were made that have planted
seeds of change in many different parts of our public life.
ChangeCampTO became a model and a meme that moved to Ottawa,
Vancouver, Edmonton and soon Halifax (December 5th) with Victoria,
Windsor, London, Barrie, Thunder Bay and on and on all have interested
organizers. I think it's fair to say we started a movement.

So what's next for Toronto?

Considering the 2010 municipal election context, I think a strong
municipal and hyper-local focus is something that makes a lot of sense.

I would like to develop the model further, see how it can get to the
neighbourhood or community level, how we can connect more
conversations and ideas together, and how we do a much better job at
post-event action.

I am thinking about a shift from a government focus to a community
action focus (with government at the table) and enabling neighbourhood
ChangeCamps that can be self-organized by neighbourhood leaders.

These leaders will need tools, training and support. They will need to
learn how to design, organize, recruit, pay for and promote a
ChangeCamp. They will need help in terms of methods, resources and
relationships.

I am also thinking about a penultimate ChangeCamp event that would
draw from these hyper-local neighbourhood ChangeCamps and feature the
best ideas, the most interesting voices and give them a platform the
size of the city to share those ideas and inform the public discourse
during the election season.

I am thinking about what happens after an election, how ideas can
really be turned into action and positive change for our city.

But this is just a beginning based on my ideas.

What do others think? What would you want to do? How could you
contribute to something big and impactful in 2010?

[karimkanji]

Hi Mark and thanks for organizing this.

I would like to be involved. in what way, I don't know as i've never
been involved in a ChangeCamp.

In terms of ideas and the upcoming municipal election here is an idea
I have:

How can we use social (and traditional) media to hold our elected
officials accountable to what they promise during election campaigns?
Is this a topic that ChangeCamp2010 is able to focus on?

Thanks for letting me respond!

@karimkanji

[Malcolm Bastien]

Since this is something we want to replicate at the local level, why
don't we do things and create media with that sort of replication in
mind, or maybe encourage local groups, like the local BIAs to start
recording the events they are already running.

Two ideas I got just from reading Mark's post came to mind (warning,
it's very "let's build a new website that does..." heavy):

1. Any sessions that are held with the purpose of spreading an idea of
method of doing things targeted towards all these different
communities could be communicated through a new web property.

Different than posting Change camp session videos on the a change camp
wiki (where mostly people interested in and aware of change camp would
see it), a community centric site, with content categorized by area
and by interest (small business issues, education, local gov) could be
made to house all the videos, and also deliver it with end-user
consumption in mind. (one category of video could also relate directly
to holding effective local change camps).

In the end it's packaging the content Change Camps and other local
discussions and packaging them in a way to increase the ease by which
the people who are interested in the content (either by geography or
subject) can consume it.

2. As far as local elections go, the recent release of YouTube Direct
makes me wonder about the impact having constituents pose video
questions and comments to their representatives, while including in
there a way for representatives to communicate back (either broadcast
or one on one) to who they are accountable to. Something like this
could exist for the long term, longer than any one election.

Ok, so it's very "let's build a new website that does..." but when I'm
reading the sorts of things that are the possible goals of ChangeCamp,
I feel like video would the best way to communicate those messages to
the everyday person, as well as for constituent-to-representative and
vise-versa.

Malcolm