It’s been a year of personal milestones. 25 years since graduation from St George’s, then appearing a few months later as a fresh, eager, inspired and largely naive first year student at the University of Victoria. Those were heady days – full of energy and ideas, no clue about time management but we were all ready, able and willing to get involved in absolutely everything.

On Thursday Oct. 28th I hosted a dinner of 1984 St. George’s grads – those living close enough on Vancouver Island to attend, with a visiting Georgian from Germany, and one of the teachers who inspired all of us. The reason this is mentioned is what he instilled in me, and others – a love of language (he taught English Lit.), attention to detail, the use of voice in school theatre productions (directed of many school productions); ultimately the ‘art of conversation‘.

CFUV - On Air

So, when perusing the booths at the Uvic Club Day in early September of that year my initial thoughts were The Martlet (visions of campus journalist becoming an award winning New York Times travel writer) or the amateur Theatre Club. As the line ups to either of those were long, I spied a table with a small sign ‘CFUV – Campus Radio‘ – but no wonder there were few takers. At that time the University radio station only broadcast internally, actually within the Student Union Building – not much of a platform for aspiring DJ’s. Oh, but they had plans. That was the year the station transformed (with hiccups) from background noise in the student coffee shop, to a full blown FM delight – and it continues today with a dedicated, and growing, audience.

My contribution was minimal. Floating for a while between equipment setup, office reorganization, spot production: there was an eventual opening for a slot Folk music show – which I took on with relish for over a year. ‘The Flip Side of Folk’ which used vinyl (remember that), cassettes, reel to reel – whatever could be found, borrowed or frankly stolen from the station collection, family and friends.

Those were formative years for an aspiring radio station, the staff and volunteers who made it happen. The transmitter initially could barely reach the confines of the campus, but when the power was eventually boosted community response was inspiring. Phone calls, letters (these were the days before internet, or even CD’s!) – every DJ and show received feedback, which led to new shows, changes in format, a more professional approach to production, but never a loss of the fun.

Some memories from that experience

• Running to the roof of the Student Union Building to prop up the antenna in high winds
• ‘Adjusting’ the Canadian Content list – ‘that drummer was from Vancouver (Wash. State, oops)’!
• Doing the weather from the roof of the station as we could not get through to Environment Canada “uhhm – looks like it’s raining”
• Off station interviews with a beat up tape recorder that never worked
• News: On the Hour, Every Hour – 10 minutes after

Returning to Victoria after over a decade away on another continent, it has been an wonderful experience to meet up again with people like Catherine Novak and Bernard von Schulmann, through unrelated networks – but with that A-HA! moment – ‘weren’t you at CFUV?’

On Saturday, thanks to Georgie Wilson (morning program), we did a pre-recorded session recounting some of those moments for an upcoming CFUV Anniversary Program, due in December or early in the new year. Everyone who has contributed to the station should contact the station, provide anecdotes – let’s make this come history alive.

Little did I know in those heady days of 1984 that 25 years later what we did was a part of Uvic, in fact radio, history.

Looking back at those years, and where it came from. A teacher who instilled an appreciation of the power of the written and spoken word, a radio station which provided an ‘open mike format’ (mistakes will happen!) – those leading into a life path…

Thanks

City of Victoria Public Engagement Forum

In an emerging Web 2.0 world how will technology change the conversation between voters, stakeholders and government? Can government keep up with the amazing growth of online social networks – Facebook, Twitter and what about the new Google Wave? What about community organizations or wisdom councils working with elected officials and staff?

These questions and more are part of the City of Victoria’s Engaging Victoria program – with a Public Forum held at the Victoria Conference Centre on Wednesday October 28th as a face to face event for citizens to voice opinions and ideas.

Good Governance

This is a first for any municipality in British Columbia. While Vancouver and Nanaimo are ahead in implementation of technology (like video streaming of council meetings), and Vancouver especially has a program for the ideal of open information streaming, it is through the leadership of Katie Josephson, the City of Victoria Communications Director, with councilor Sonya Chandler, who have created an engagement format, about engagement. Providing numerous settings – online and off, for local Victorians to make suggestions and preferences. In essence – one ideal does not fit all communities. It should be up to the local voters and stakeholders to decide the priorities on any new engagement strategy.

The plan is to take feedback up to November 9th, create a report to City Council – and have a priority list for action early in 2010. This will include a new website for www.victoria.ca – use of online social media platforms, and policies for staff and elected officials.

The Public Forum was interesting. Display boards had tables with sticky posts for visitors to note responses and ideas, or vote for priorities. There was a special table for conversations, a children’s play table right in the centre and a variety of opportunities to talk with city staff.

Derived from the Cuff Report, the City of Victoria is under going a public consultation process to determine priorities and ideas from citizens, business and stakeholders for community decision making. Lead by City of Victoria Communications Director Katie Josephson and Councilor Sonya Chandler there are a number of platforms for people to participate – an IdeaScale online Wiki to suggest, comment on and vote for ideas, a discussion board on the City’s Facebook page, a PDF document for group work, and a Public Forum this week.

Wednesday October 28th – at the Victoria Conference Centre – from 4 to 9pm. The City is inviting everyone who has an interest in Public Engagement to attend. This has been designed as a family friendly event with games and interactive stations.

Mayor & Council > Governance

City Council has endorsed a new decision-making model to align advisory committees with Council priorities and create more meaningful opportunities for public participation. This model was endorsed based on a recent review of Council decision-making processes, conducted by the management consulting firm of George Cuff and Associates.

The City of Victoria Governance Review recommended a number of strategies to improve Council decision-making and make the advisory committee structure more valuable to those contributing and to informing Council decisions.

The new model includes four Council standing committees and six public advisory committees to support those committees. Committee of the Whole will now be known as the Governance and Priorities Committee and will focus on issues that affect the community or organization as a whole.

Terms of Reference for the new advisory committees will be finalized in the coming weeks and an information session will be offered on April 2009 before the new model will be implemented June 30, 2009.

George Cuff Report on Governance – [PDF 621KB]
Standing Committees of Council - Terms of Reference – [PDF 62KB]
Public Advisory Committees - Terms of Reference – [PDF 70KB]
Standing Committees of Council – Summary of Terms of Reference – [PDF 55KB]
Governance Model Diagram – [PDF 30KB]

Part of the discussion with this process about public engagement is a definition and limits – the ‘blue sky’ ideals of open governance models with online social media and meetings, versus the practicalities. In conversations and emails with Katie Josephson a number of points, and thoughts for consideration become apparent – and thanks to Katie for these…

• What types of activities fit into the spectrum of participation. I.e. If we’re working from the category of inform and raise awareness on the left to empowerment and collaboration on the right of the spectrum, what type of civic matters require what level of public participation?
• At what point should a referendum be called, when should the City limit activity to simple awareness strategies…
• How can the City balance the views of “ a “well-informed minority” with  the views of the “silent majority” who do not regularly participate?
• How should the City balance exploration and learning activities with opportunities for vigorous debate?
• How much is “too much” public engagement?

All these points should be considered as the City moves into a new ‘PE’ program, with a note that no engagement policy should be fixed, rather it can and should change as new technologies emerge and gain popular usage (like Facebook and Twitter).

On the IdeaScale online forum one idea gaining a number of votes is ‘Wisdom Councils‘ – while the one I feel should be prevalent as the basis for all forms of engagement is Open Data …there are certainly more ideas for real public engagement with our elected city officials and city staff, and everyone is encouraged to participate.

Tonight’s Live internet feed from the Rose Bowl – via Google’s Youtube – of the U2 Concert is a game changer in so many ways. This is not the first time high value events have been broadcast on the internet (notably the Hyde Park concerts were available via BBC web), but this is the 1st that has NO IMMEDIATE TV value.

U2 - Live Youtube Concert

Starting at 9pm (Pacific time) and wrapping up the encore as I write (11:19pm), the concert started with songs from U2’s new album ‘No Line on the Horizon‘, and quickly moved into old favourites like Mysterious Ways, One, Where the Streets Have No Name and Sunday Bloody Sunday – songs were dedicated to the struggle in Iran, An Sang Su Xi, and Aids in Africa.

Why is this a Game Changer? The bandwidth value of the feed was incredible. Youtube videos, even those professionally produced, or copied, have a tendency to pixelate or lag in full screen mode, and server issues can cause buffering issues. Of course not all computers have the necessary graphic cards to handle HD (or a similar scale), but generally the picture was as good or even better than TV on both a Mac G5 Tower with 22″ Acer Monitor and a Mac G4 Laptop. It was the audio – that was MOST amazing. The producers obviously spent a great deal of time, expertise and bandwidth to ensure the sound was CD quality for online streaming. Tested on both broadband our local broadband and wireless – there was little difference.

Tonight was a demonstration on live steaming of events that blows others away – the Youtube U2 Video Page incorporated a Twitter timeline and Facebook link: this quickly became a live event reported and shared around the world.

Comments from Victoria BC Twitter Feed:

@joshaughnessy RT @Hermida: Remarkable how music & people, combined with tools like YouTube and Twitter, can create new shared experiences. #U2webcast

@b_WEST U2 live stream is pretty impressive. Smoother even than most recorded YouTube video.  Too bad I’m not a big U2 fan…

@yukarip U2 Live stream is awesome quality…amazing. #u2webcast

What does U2 and Google get out of this, bypassing TV? Think about the 10s of millions watching live online, then sending messages on Twitter and Facebook, the replays – and the simple, but nicely designed page, with links to ‘Buy the Album’,’ Join the Newsletter’, ‘Visit U2.com’ and ‘Donate to Red’. Likely far cheaper to present than a TV deal (with commercials) – and a great deal of return traffic for album buys, donations to causes, and user signups for future actions. Plus it gives Google a great push for the Youtube brand and service.

Webpages provide interaction that is impossible for TV. Number of viewers of the concert will be an interesting stat to follow in the coming days.

With thanks to Jennifer Van Grove @Mashable for her article on Wordpress Themes for Mobile Browsers. For anyone hosting their blog via wordpress.com (yourblog.wordpress.com) this is automatic -

According to WordPress, there are more than 60 million page views that come from mobile phones per month for WordPress.com blogs. With that kind of traffic, how your site renders on mobile devices could be a big boon to increasing engagement.
That’s why we’re excited to learn that WordPress two new mobile themes for WordPress.com blogs that will be automatically displayed when a compatible mobile phone attempts to access your site.

Unfortunately Jennifer let it hanging at the end of the article for self-hosted WP blogs (like this one) -

While we think the news is great for hosted WordPress blog owners, we’re slightly disappointed that the mobile themes aren’t available for those of us who have self-hosted WordPress blogs.

Wordpress for iPhone

There are a variety of plugins from 3rd party developers that will create mobile browser versions for your self-hosted Wordpress blog, some of them have been around for a while, and with all development mode API’s, plugins and themes for open source software, some are better than others. If you have a self-hosted WP blog (or website, if you are using Wordpress as a CMS module), you can check for new plugins directly from the dashboard, and use the rankings as a basic indicator of preference.
Why is it important to make your website/blog mobile compatible? Judging by the latest stats and trends 25% of Facebook users access their profiles via mobile devices, even more for Twitter, and projections for the next few years are stunning. According to Mary Meeker speaking at the Web 2.0 summit -

Japan is years ahead of the U.S. in mobile data and Meeker believes it will serve as a model for what will come. She said that the U.S. has a long way to go to catch up with the patterns of mobile Internet usage in Japan. By 2013, the number of heavy web mobile users will triple to a billion users.
The shift to the mobile web is no less than a new computing cycle, such as the shift from mainframes to minicomputers, from minicomputers to PCs, from PCs to the web and laptops. Each time one of those shifts happens, the number of users increases tenfold. Indicators of this growth: Global positioning system (GPS) chip shipments are up 57 percent this year, while Wi-Fi chip sales are up 42 percent. On the content side, Facebook has seen huge growth in usage, as have social networks on mobile phones.

Mobile Plugins for your Self-Hosted Wordpress Blog:

If you are a super blogger, and know a little about WP Admin functions, themes and, of course, mobile devices, this plugin might be for you.

Wordpress Mobile Pack by James Pearce, dotMobi, and team

The dotMobi WordPress Mobile Pack is a complete toolkit to help mobilize your WordPress site and blog.

It includes a mobile switcher to select themes based on the type of user that is visiting the site, a selection of mobile themes, extra widgets, device adaptation and a mobile administration panel to allow users to edit the site or write new posts when out and about.

The pack has been tested on WordPress 2.5.1, 2.6.5, 2.7.1 and 2.8.1 to 2.8.4. It has been tested on WordPress MU 2.6 in the ‘plugins’, rather than ‘mu_plugins’, mode. PHP 5.x is also highly recommended, although the plugin will tolerate PHP4.x.

Features highlights:

mobile switcher, i.e. the plug-in automatically suggests desktop or mobile presentation, but lets users switch to the other and remembers. Read more about “switching” on mobiForge
base mobile theme, crafted by ribot, a top UK mobile design team, the WordPress Mobile Pack comes with a base theme and 3 color variations that you can choose. All mark-up is valid XHTML-MP 1 and the site scores 5 on mobiReady
device adaptation, the plug-in has basic recognition of mobile devices and is capable of rescaling images, splitting articles and posts in multiple pages, simplifying style and remove media. With the upcoming release of DeviceAtlas Personal, full adaptation will be implemented.
mobile admin panel, allows the blog managers to access the admin interface, specifically designed for mobile, with simplified access to the most common features such as editing a post or approving comments.
mobile ad widget, easily enable mobile ads with AdMob or mobile Adsense
barcode widget, add to your full site a barcode that devices with a suitable reader can use to quickly visit the front page of the mobile site, or deep link within it

A simpler plugin, which will auto-detect the mobile device and render your WP blog to it’s format, but without many features, is the Word Press Mobile Edition: and this is the one being tested now on this blog. Based on the Carrington Blog Theme (CMS module) and produced by Crowd Favourite. This does require adding a mobile theme into your themes directory (and possibly updating that along with future plugin versions).

More mobile Wordpress features and plugins can be found by going to Extend/Plugins section – and simply browsing!

Every October 15 Blog action Day takes a theme, passes that onto bloggers from around the world, and collates the posts. The goal is one day – one message. This year is Climate Change…

First and last, the purpose of Blog Action Day is to create a discussion. We ask bloggers to take a single day out of their schedule and focus it on an important issue.

By doing so on the same day, the blogging community effectively changes the conversation on the web and focuses audiences around the globe on that issue.

Out of this discussion naturally flow ideas, advice, plans, and action. In 2007 on the theme of the Environment, we saw bloggers running environmental experiments, detailing innovative ideas on creating sustainable practices, and focusing their audience’s attention on organizations and companies promoting green agendas. In 2008 we covered the theme of Poverty, and similarly focused the blogging community’s energies around discussing the wide breadth of the issue from many perspectives and identifying innovative and unexpected solutions. This year we aim to do the same for Climate Change, an issue that threatens us all.

Post something on your blog (or get a blog if you don’t have one), and write about something that is relevant to climate change.

So here is my thought about one of the many themes surrounding climate change – and has relevance in a shrinking economy. The ideal of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, This can be as simple as personally sorting paper, cans, glass and plastics into a recycling box, to municipalities making certain that principle is forefront when dealing with larger infrastructure projects.

Johnson Street Bridge Victoria BC

We all recognize that buildings, roads, and bridges need constant maintenance, sometimes replacement, but too often the planning is all about new build, with not enough thought going into restoration. In Victoria some of us are questioning City Council over the plans to replace the 80+ year old Johnson Street Bridge, with Reuse and Recycle themes paramount.

Reuse – instead of primarily seeking answers to restoring the ‘Blue Bridge’, Victoria City Council went for the shiny new replacement option: even in that they did not consider utilizing recycled material as the main part of a new structure, simply to include some elements of the old bridge for ‘historical relevance. The entire plan is about economic stability and sustainability in the short term, very little is seriously being considered regarding the long term.

Recycle – in the event the Johnson Street Bridge receives the local (Provincial and Federal?) support for replacement, where are the detailed plans and environmental impact studies for the dismantling of the current bridge? There have been discussions of using all, or part, of the bridge in a new location – which begs the question, if it can be reused, why not as it is, in place?

Reduce – a new bridge will cost an estimated $63 million, with refurbishment estimated at $25 million. The message propagated by city council is enhanced and safer crossing for all traffic – vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists. In fact the current bridge could offer the same with refurbishment, using little imagination and less direct cost. The argument against refurbishment is possible lengthy closures, impacting traffic and businesses.

Victoria’s Johnson Street Bridge is an example of local politicians paying lip service to the basic concepts of climate change policy and themes, and re-directing the ideal of sustainability from environmental to primarily economic.

Maybe we should organize a local Victoria BC blog action day on the Johnson Street Bridge!

The City of Victoria is fast tracking a citizen and business consultation process for a new Public Engagement Strategy – with an announcement on the city’s Facebook page, and, judging by the current comments, there will be a long road to gaining trust for any any sort of new “engagement process”.

Cit of Victoria Public Engagement Plan

This has been in the works for a while. City of Victoria communications staff, led by director Katie Josephson, have been in the vanguard to change the internal culture of communication policy and technology since the new administration was elected in 2008. One of Mayor Dean Fortin’s platforms was increased citizen engagement, and a more open information policy. This does take time, and consideration – while I personally hope it will lead to a new paradigm in how municipal governments engage and inform the citizens they represent, recent events (like the Johnson Street Bridge debacle – which is still on going) call for questioning the process, yet again. Why does this have to move so quickly? How are Victoria residents being informed – why a deadline of the end of October? To get involved you can attend a Public Ideas Forum at the Victoria Conference Centre: 4-9pm, submit your ideas to an online forum through Idea Zone, and/or download a PDF Workbook for your community group, for submission.

Then there is the question of what engagement actually means and provides. Ultimately this should derive from open and credible information. Which is where Open Data Platforms - as now adopted by Vancouver, New York, Portland Oregon, and others is paramount. Maybe the question should be not about how we engage – but how governments provide information?

In a Web 2.0 leading to a Gov 2.0 world – online and off – defining the paradigm is important.

Quote from the RemarKK blog: Community members with an interest in open civic data in Toronto have a unique opportunity to engage City government, to learn about what the City is planning and to participate in a meaningful way in helping to shape the future of Toronto as a “city that thinks like the web”.
Toronto Open Data Lab, part of the Toronto Innovations Showcase
Monday, November 2nd, 2009
1:00 – 4:30pm
City Hall Council Chamber and Members Lounge

Special Guest Speaker: Peter Corbett, iStrategy Labs and AppsforDemocracy.org

The Open Data Lab is an opportunity to explore the innovation possibilities of open civic data in Toronto. Join City subject matter and technology experts, community stakeholders and talented members of Toronto’s vibrant technology and design communities in an interactive and collaborative afternoon imagining commercial, social and civic applications of the City’s newly launched open data program.

What is Open Civic Data – Why is that important?

The example provided – along with Vancouver, Portland and New York, illustrates where the engagement policy should begin. This is not about just Social Media (facebook, twitter and RSS feeds), the paradigm begins with taking all the collected information from all municipal departments, and providing that in a format that can be accessed, utilized and freely ‘mashed’ by outside sources, leading to some interesting results.

Quoted from Vibrant Victoria:

There’s the Vancouver example: Vancouver opens up the city to web developers; Data collected by the city can be found online (it refers to the drinking fountain google map mash-up I posted earlier, too). The Vancouver initiative is also discussed by David Eaves, Vancouver’s Open Data Portal: Use it or Lose it. Boris (in comments) chastises Eaves for his “use it or lose it” formulation:
I think the “use it or lose it” is an incorrect framing. Use of Vancouver’s open data to create new things creates new value, which adds value to the city. With mashups and “citizen coders”, I’m sure there will be a handful of apps created — I love the fact that we’ve got our own city to experiment with all these cool tools with.

But waggling your finger and saying “use it or lose it” is not, I think the correct approach. In most open source projects, unless there is continued economic drivers, it is very hard for a project to continue. Growing a commercial ecosystem is healthy.

It’s great to see Sandy from HomeZilla here. This is an example of economic value seen by one commercial entity. How do we attract more? How do we maintain the apps that do get created?

I’d love to see a contest with prizes to motivate people to set up some usage of this data with real longevity. I think the Apps for Democracy contest in DC was a good example of this. (source)
I thought that both Eaves and Boris Mann point to the fragility of these initiatives. Just because they’re out there, doesn’t mean they’ll get used enough and/or thrive. It takes users, and also economic drivers (as per Boris’s comment).

…Meanwhile… Here’s another example: Smart Grid a Reality in Boulder, Colo. This project allows residents to monitor their energy / utilities usage:
Boulder Colorado’s $100 million SmartGridCity project, which launched in May of 2008 and was the subject of an ABC news story last year, is completed, according to Xcel Energy, the company responsible for developing the system. With the smart grid system, meters and sensors send information via broadband over powerline to an operations center. Functions for customers include the ability to monitor energy usage, select when to use high-energy devices such as clothes dryers, and keep track of how much carbon the household is putting into the environment. Customers will soon be able to access a Web portal to monitor and control home energy management devices. SmartGridCity functions also include switching power through fully-automated substations; re-routing power around bottlenecked lines; detecting power outages and proactively identifying outage risks. The deployment integrated more than 20 applications, 95 new interfaces and more than 300 test cases according to a company release. Xcel Energy says it can now read customer meters remotely and have reduced power outages and false alarms. According to the company, the new smart grid warned about transformers that were ready to fail and they were replaced without loss of service.
iirc, Boulder is smaller than the CRD (i.e., Victoria-as-a-whole). Pretty cool to get this up and running.

What all of this illustrates is that Open Information is the KEY to public engagement. Up to now the City of Victoiria has been relying on ‘less than timely’ updates to the victoria.ca website – which is difficult to navigate, and does not provide open RSS data feeds; with print post notes on bulletin boards. It is time not only the City of Victoria, and all CRD municipalities, entered the new communication paradigm. This is not simply about internet, social media and open data – it involves all levels of information provision.

The City of Victoria should be re-assessing it’s engagement strategy.

Open Data = Realistic Engagement

After the viral hilarity (at least for those in the know) of the What’s a Browser Video? – Google has gone one step further, and more seriously, into basic understanding and education, on web connected applications. They must have realized how many users, a significant proportion of the population, have no clue whatsoever, what a browser is, and the basic functionality.

A question for tech and online marketing people who may read this blog – how many of your clients, family or friends call a website, through any browser, by typing in the www.company.com into the search field, rather than the URL toolbar? A two step process!

Recently when a client was trying to show me her new self created website she attempted to call the url through the Bing defined search bar on her IE 7 (oh god!) browser; went through page after page of search listings to no avail (as Bing is awful to begin with, and she had no robots or sitemap not surprising). Days later, after patiently teaching how browsers work (and some website SEO) – I watched with some amazement as she did the whole routine again. Old habits die hard – and we, as designers, social media marketers and facilitators, and increasingly educators, are to lead these clients into a new Web 2.0 paradigm? But I digress…

What's a Browser?

Google realizes it has a problem. The majority care less about browsers – but they are THE MOST USED application. They need to not only pump out Google Chrome, but get everyone ready for Google Wave. So the back room, highly educated and motivated (share price anyone?) marketing gurus get together and create a dedicated website ‘explaining what a browser is – and, of course, promoting Chrome as the fastest, most compliant, and secure browser application. In may ways Chrome is all of that – except if you are using a Mac, you are out of luck. (my personal beef with Google, as a Mac user myself – Give Me Chrome, Let Us Play Too!! )

As MG Siegler puts it in a Tech Crunch blog…

I all of a sudden don’t feel so bad having difficulty trying to explain to people what Google Wave is. And maybe now we know why Google actually is making Chrome OS: To stop having to explain to people what a damn browser is.

Open Information comes before Open Participation

44 pages of pure gold when it comes to defining Gov 2.0 principles, and actual examples. Too bad this is from our neighbours to the south, the USA, and not from Canada, which should be leading in this field. Unfortunately a local Victoria BC Canada example illustrate the worst case of the attempt to use online social media for citizen engagement – the flawed message and program.

As a director of johnsonstreetbridge.org I have watched with some amusement, and alarm, at the City of Victoria forging ahead with a new website for a bridge replacement project and starting a city facebook page. (the bridge discussions, or lack thereof, on the facebook page demonstrate how citizens felt about the effort). Why? The entire issue was based on a false premise of outside funding – taxpayers, community volunteers and city staff were engaged to forge ahead on choosing a new bridge design, when the actual program had never been economically certified. Since the ‘hopeful’ funding fell away, the Mayor and Council have to play a Mea Culpa, and try to re-engage citizens on how to move forward; in the mean time trust in the process has been lost.

Why is this local example important? The premise was false from the start. Civic participation in a Web 2.0 world is a worthy aim, one to be sought, but it requires the enacting government body to fully understand, and adopt Web 1.0 principles beforehand. Open participation follows open information.

The movement to adopt openness and transparency
principles and strategies, including those related to
participation and engagement, is coming at a time when
government entities are struggling to master Web 1.0.
According to most definitions, Web 1.0 refers to Web
infrastructure, including basic Web pages, Web sites, the
implementation of basic search technologies and
metadata schemes. The basic open Web standards for Web
1.0 should be the foundation of a government’s Web
infrastructure plans, to ensure the intended goals are
achieved, a solid infrastructure is in place, and the
demands of new technologies and opportunities are met.
Once the Web 1.0 standards are understood, governments
should begin to learn and incorporate the open Web
standards that allow for a richer experience via the Web.
What some describe as Web 2.0 – including engagement,
participation, transparency and openness – requires
incorporating or extending Web 1.0 principles to allow for
advanced and complex functions, and a richer and more
dynamic online experience.

What every other municipal government body has realized from the start is that participation in a Web 2.0 world requires open information – simply put, restricting information, requiring citizen groups to question the provided documentation, and seek clarification (in the case of the Johnson Street Bridge through Freedom of Information requests) only degenerates the process.

Rules of Engagement
The success of AmericaSpeaks’ work can be ascribed to a
set of core principles that underlie all of its citizenengagement
activities and set them apart from other
approaches:
1. Diverse representation ensures that the full
community is represented in the process.
2. Informed participation provides participants with
highly accessible materials that neutrally frame the
issues and provide a baseline of information to begin
discussions.
3. Facilitated deliberation makes certain all voices are
heard and that each participant plays an active role in
the deliberations.
4. Shared priorities are the endgame, so the process is
designed to foster a high level of agreement among
participants’ common priorities.
5. Links to action are the backbone of civic participation,
requiring active involvement from decision-makers and
key leaders throughout a project.
6. Large scale meetings (500 to 5,000 participants)
enable the outcomes to have greater visibility and
credibility with policy-makers, the media, key
stakeholders, and the public as a whole.
7. Sustaining citizen engagement in the policymaking
process – through opportunities to take action –
develops civic leadership and enhances implementation
of public priorities.

Point number two is where the City of Victoria failed in the first place, and where it continues to create problems for itself as it tries to sort the mess they themselves created. How they can rectify that is actually fairly simple – open information. Publish a wealth of documents, information, opinion and potential options – make the information freely available – then let informed citizens engage and drive towards a common, and acceptable solution.

According to Columbia University law professor Eben
Moglen, when relevant public information can reach
interested people with sufficient structure, “government
learns it has users.” A longtime champion in the free
software movement, Moglen says that if government
provides usable data “without platformizing it or
productizing it,” then people will engage “not in some
Platonic way, but at the fish market, in the schools, in the
places where they want to take action.”

There is no doubt the City of Victoria has entered the Web and Gov 2.0 age – now they have to realize and accomplish those aspirations. That means new forms of council and committee minutes, announcements of agendas – and I note with regret, the upcoming Governance and Priorities Committee, which has a public forum on the Johnson Street Bridge, has only been profiled though an agenda PDF on the CoV website – not on the bridge website, on the Facebook page, or in the media. Another example of providing the engagement tools, but not utilizing them.

This is a learning experience for all concerned. There is no going back, the genie has left the bottle. The future for the City of Victoria will be in defining the roles of the platforms they have created over the Johnson Street Bridge project, the application of open information resources, changing the internal communication culture (and assisting in the community shift) – and ultimately providing the systems and education to staff and elected officials for each engagement profile.

Planning is Key – Open Information is Key – Engagement is Key.

As a final quote from the Document…

So we won’t forget the ongoing worldwide collaboration to
create universal standards that makes open government
feasible, The Importance of Open Web Standards for
Open and Transparent Government emphasizes the
importance of available and accessible interfaces and
tools, so that what is saved, discoverable, archived and
managed will be available in the future on demand.
Countries around the world are creating opportunities for
citizens to participate in government. The Web is fostering
better communications and allows people to participate in
improving the operations of their government. By
harnessing the collaborative nature of the Web, democratic
governments are engaging the public like never before. In
the memorable words of folksinger Pete Seeger, who
single-handedly inspired the citizens’ campaign that
successfully cleaned up the Hudson River in New York
State: “Participation—that’s what’s gonna save the human
race.”
Darlene Meskell is the Director of the GSA Center for
Intergovernmental Solutions in the GSA Office of Citizen Services
and Communications.

The USA Online Governance Document (PDF) is available here.

Fall Moon – one of my favourite times of the year for sky watching. The evenings are still warm, the sky is crisp and clear, and the rising moon takes on the colours of autumn. This evening the moon is just coming off full, and rose over San Juan Island is glowing orange before fading into a high bank of clouds.

Photos taken with a Nikon D50. ISO 400 F8 – Lens 70-300mm – with tripod.