The Government of Canada recently released a study on “New Technologies (the Web 2.0) and government communications” that seeks to frame the opportunities and challenges of Web 2.0 deployment by government agencies.  There’s nothing earth-shattering in these results but nonetheless it provides some support to agencies trying to implement these technologies for citizen engagement while highlighting some sobering stats about public awareness of the Web 2.0. In particular, only 30% of those polled were familiar with the term “Web 2.0.” Of those polled online, actual usage topped out at 30% for social networking, with blogs and wikis utilitized by just 14 and 8% respectively.

Those numbers nothwithstanding, here are some of the highlights that showcase where and why government agencies may want to add Web 2.0 apps to their communications agenda:

Why should government agencies use Web 2.0 apps?

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Tags: citizen participation gov 2.0 government web 2.0

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Since Fidel’s (Castro) departure from office and his brother Raul’s succession, bans on Cubans buying consumer electronics, cell phones and staying in luxury hotels have been lifted. But these activities which used to be illegal were common place – the difference is that now, they’re legalized. Many Cubans have been buying these technologies on the black market. Internet access is still tightly restricted by government, but that hasn’t stopped people from getting online.

While this definitely isn’t the case in a communist regime, many democratic countries are looking at using Web 2.0 technologies to facilitate collaboration and engagement with its citizens:

1. Citizens as consumers of government services
2. Citizens as employees of the public service
3. Citizens as stakeholders in the policy making process.

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Tags: blogs censorship citizen participation gov 2.0 government

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Friend of New Paradigm, Alexandra Samuel, has been nominated for a Webby award in the social networking category.

She developed the  online community for Vancity Credit Union, which New Paradigm faculty member Sean Moffitt wrote about in his Wikibrands project:

VanCity is Canada’s largest credit union, with $12.3 billion in assets, more than 354,000 members, and over 50 branches throughout Greater Vancouver, the Fraser Valley, and Victoria. Its successful brand is based on a corporate culture focused on a triple bottom line of impacts: investment, environmental and social responsibility.

Broadcasting its brand values and leadership is more an announcement of its “heart characteristics,” than any form of strategic campaign. The organization is as interested in making its community work as it is in making money. CEO Dave Mowat explains, “We believe that an integral part of being a smart provider of banking services is being a good neighbor and community leader. We just can’t have one without the other.” Read More »

Tags: citizen participation community social networking

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Will citizen journalism be the force that brings down Obama? I don’t think so, but the question brings up some interesting points. Although the press has been saturated with stories about Barack Obama’s now infamous statement about how bitter middle-Americans “cling to guns and religion,” few have looked at the broader implication for political communication; namely the death of “off the record.”

For the candidate with the strongest Web 2.0 presence (leading in YouTube videos, Facebook friends, blog mentions on Technorati, and many other indicators), it’s ironic that another Web 2.0 force – citizen journalism – has dealt him the biggest blow to his campaign so far. Mayhill Fowler, the 61-year-old political blogger (and Obama supporter) that managed to record Barack Obama’s speech while at a fund-raising dinner is a member of Off The Bus, a collaborative project with the Huffington Post to cover the elections with a network of citizen journalists.

The fact that the fundraising event was technically “off the record” and journalists weren’t invited shows just how blurred the lines are becoming between official press and everyday citizens. As I said before, the idea of “off the record’ no longer exists. Every word that comes out of a candidate’s mouth must now be scrutinized by the PR/campaign machine. Just think about that for a second. What will future campaigns look like? Will the candidate of the future just be one of those crazy humanoid robots from Japan that spews pre-recorded sound bites?

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Tags: citizen participation featured post journalism politics

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RBC, Canada’s largest bank, has recently launched a program to engage N-Geners though peer bloggers and a Facebook site. The bank has recruited six university students who post their daily thoughts on managing finances and other student issues. This seems like a progressive move for a conservative financial institution – if it’s done right.

So far, the blog topics have varied - finding summer jobs, reward cards, starting a business, cell phones and mortgages. The posts are free of marketing pitches and offer some useful advice. It seems like a good start.

The key will be for the bloggers to engage other young people in the conversation. However, with most N-Geners wary of large corporations and their marketing pitches, the blog’s authenticity will be vital. The two key tests for the program will be the handling of any negative feedback about RBC and whether the bank actually acts on any recommendations that may result from the conversation. It would also be nice to know what motivates the six bloggers to maintain their involvement in the program.

We will be watching the conversation over the coming months to see how the bloggers fair. If done in an honest and transparent way, the program has the potential of helping RBC attract a new generation of customers. However, with too much oversight or interference, the blogs could all too easily go the way of many other failed N-Gen engagement strategies.

Tags: Facebook Net Generation citizen participation community customer service

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They aren’t all rocket surgeons, people.

There is a lot of brilliant content provided by everyday people on the web. I enjoy debates on the talk pages of Wikipedia as much as the actual articles.

The comments on epicurious add tons of value. People provide suggestions on how to improve the recipes or how to make the process easier (such as suggesting substitutes for bizarre ingredients…cumin shows up a lot, or reducing steps…such as using tin foil instead of banana leaves). Check out this wasabi potato dish that nicely complements miso-glazed sea bass. For those boycotting sea bass, black cod works as well.

When people can rate anonymously, you sometimes get opinions that are somewhat unsatisfying. Below is a thoughtful review of Lobster “Potpies.” Sometimes you get people that say things like “caviar is too expensive, so I substituted chick peas and wasn’t impressed.”

Here is another example, a fella wasn’t happy with his stay at the Wynn in Las Vegas, but doesn’t want to tell us why. It still, of course, counts towards the average rating as much as a thoughtful, well thought-out post. Read More »

Tags: amazon citizen participation collective intelligence

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Government agencies around the world collect unimaginable quantities of data on pretty much everything. And while I don’t doubt that teams of statisticians in those organizations make good use of that data, the firewall between that data and the public seems counter-intuitive for two reasons:

1. It’s rather logical that information gleamed from the public should be made available to that very public
2. Why limit your population of experts to those inside the organization, why not tap those within a country,
   or for that matter, across the globe?

Hans Rosling, founder of the GapMinder Foundation, and now employed by Google (who bought his TrendAnalyzer software in early 2007) is one of the biggest proponents of making data freely available to the public. We chatted a couple of weeks ago and he noted that government agencies were still struggling “to build the sidewalks that allow the public to access data stored within their organizations.”

One organization that seems to have heeded his advice, however, is the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA). Their statistics division (in partnership with GapMinder and the Government of Sweden) has opened up their database of over 60 years worth of statistics on everything from agricultural yields to internet users to patent applications.

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Tags: citizen participation crowd sourcing data human development

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Along with Don’s coverage of the Wii Pay to Play model, the gaming system has also been building steam on the web recently with the announcement and distribution of the Twilight Hack. This marks the first time that the tools to hack the Wii have been made readily available and this opens the door to a wide range of user-generated programs for the Wii, which can now run unsigned code. In non-geek language, this means that it is now possible to write your own programs for the Wii, using nothing more than a plain old Wii, a loophole found in the Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess game and an SD memory card with an SD media reader.

Some of the early homemade programs allow gamers to use their Wii as an MP3 player and also to run the Linux OS. While I couldn’t hack a mainframe to save my life, I will be keeping a close eye on this development - first to see what kinds of great applications ensue, but also to watch for Nintendo’s official reaction.

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Tags: MP3 business model citizen participation customer co-creation user-created wikinomics

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Set to launch in August of this year, Flexbooks is a new open source model of textbook creation that will allow schools, teachers, parents and even students to create custom textbooks in a way that is faster and cheaper than the traditional method. Using open source tools such as Wikipedia, Wikibooks, and WikiUniversity to create content, Flexbooks allows users to drag articles and images into an easy to use user inerface to create various standards based learning materials.

The project is in its infancy right now but its future prospects seem very promising. The first step will be to pool together a large collection of educational assets mainly through a combination of licensing activities, incentives for community-based authorship, and university collaborations. Following that, Flexbooks will continue expanding its knowledge base and team up with various print companies to provide paper-based materials in addition to its core set of online offerings. 

Why do we need Flexbooks? the makers of Flexbooks CK-12 explain:

“Today, textbooks that are used in K-12 system are limiting, expensive and are difficult to update. Because of this, K-12 teachers find it hard to introduce new concepts and cater to different needs. What we need is a more flexible and less expensive system to create and distribute books and online content. FlexBooks, by their very nature, satisfies this need. They contain high quality online content, and are easy to create, update and print. They provide a new system that will follow an open source philosophy to place content on-line that can be “mixed, modified and printed.”

Tags: academia citizen participation collaboration community education open source prosumers wikinomics

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Starting later this week, you will be able to not only hear all about Britney from CNN, but you will also be able to report back on the station’s favourite sweetheart using the Network’s new site iReport.com. CNN is set to take Internet news to the next level with this launch that will feature entirely user-generated and reported stories from around the world. Visitors will be able to search indexed clips based on keywords such as location and subject matter and according to CNN, “The community will decide what the news is”, with the only monitoring to be for “objectionable content”. This will mark the migration of the iReport news content from the CNN site and on to its own platform. (The domain name “iReport.com” was earlier purchased for a tidy sum of $750,000, with the name “i-report.com” being thrown in for free)

While CNN has left a very open window to reserve the right to judge what can be proclaimed “objectionable”, this will mark a big step into not only community produced, but more importantly community moderated news. If the Wikipedia model of community self-regulation can transfer for iReport.com, the new site will have tremendous potential for developing the way the world views its news.

Since launching their iReport feature in August of 2006, CNN has received nearly 100,000 news photos and videos, with over 10,000 trickling in over the past month alone. Typically less than 10% of submissions have been featured in on-air broadcasts or on cnn.com, but with iReport.com, this could reach nearly 100%.

According to CNN, nothing will be encouraged or discouraged and “iReport will be completely unvetted”, but the site will make it clear that content does not reflect CNN’s editorial views.

Stay tuned, and for anyone interested, I’ll consider taking bets on how many minutes iReport will remain “unvetted” – I’ve got one and a half.

Tags: censorship citizen participation news

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An innovative website called “Love Earth” is bridging the gap between the scientific world and people’s interest and concern over endangered species. The website tracks five species of animals along with the activities of scientists studying them. The result is an online blog and Google mash-up of the animal’s locations. An interesting way to bring home what mammalogists and cetologists actually do.

With the ever growing endangered species list, animal science and conservation could definitely use some popular support. The inaccessible nature of scientific work, however, makes it difficult for people to identify with the cause. While in some cases this may be mere apathy, there seems to be pent up demand for more accessible and interactive ways to learn about the environment. A perfect example of this demand is BBC’s Planet Earth series, a nature documentary, which was the most popular DVD sold on Amazon in 2007.

The work of thousands of scientists and conservationists is critical to the survival of many species. Finding a way to bring this battle into people’s living rooms could galvanize them to lend their support. Interactive, online experiences such as “Love Earth” might go a long way in doing this.

Tags: academia citizen participation environment

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There’s a shocking ad that many Torontonian’s are seeing lately - one I pass every day on my way to work. I think about this ad every time I pass it, so yesterday I decided to bring my camera in to take a photo:

The image is of a woman holding a dice-sized nuclear pellet and the caption reads, “This little nuclear energy pellet powers an average home for six weeks”. I like it because it represents, in a single image, the tradeoff we have to weigh with nuclear energy - incredible power in a tiny package, but also deadly risks to health and safety from radiation. I like any ad that challenges my assumptions.
For me, the image is shocking. I get an immediate aversion just looking at an photo of someone holding something that would, if the image were real, likely kill them - the image is so far from the truth that (I believe) the pellet would be too hot to even touch! If the photo depicted someone holding their hand just inches above a bear trap I’d probably have the same reaction.

Yet, on the other hand, I also look at the size of that pellet, and wonder how many square meters of surface of the earth torn up from the oilsands or what size of coal-plant-produced cloud is required to produce the same amount of energy. And then also need to ask, where do we store that pellet afterward? Most of our power generating capacity has terrible side effects.

Raising Nuclear energy is sure to raise some hackles - but if sharing this image sparks anything, it should be about getting people thinking about the real problem - reducing consumption. It’s hypocritical to stick our finger at any single method of power generation while continuing to use more energy per capita than almost any nation in the world. We shouldn’t be forcing ourselves to choose one undesirable side effect over another in the first place.

This one has definitely given me food for thought. What’s your reaction - either to the ad or the topic of energy tradeoffs in general? Maybe it’s time for mass collaboration on some of our energy consumption choices.

Tags: advertising citizen participation energy environment wikinomics

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Last week Anthony wrote about the application of the mass collaboration concept to climate change. He noted that despite the evident potential for Web 2.0 tools to be used to disseminate information and galvanize public opinion, unlike the human genome project or efforts to develop specific drugs, “it seems unlikely that someone, or some organization, will ever be in a position to coral the entire world around developing one “magic bullet” solution to climate change in the same way that organizations such as the National Institute of Health and Wellcome Trust helped to coordinate efforts to synthesize the genome.”

At the heart of the issue is the fact that climate change isn’t a “magic bullet” issue (let’s ignore nuclear for the time being…). Rather, it’s the aggregation of billions of actions, billions of daily decisions, and a short vs. long-term trade off of economic and social well being. Because of those factors, I fall firmly among the pessimists, doubting that we can collaborate to tackle such a dispersed problem.

But perhaps there’s a precedent that proves pessimists like me wrong.

Earth Hour 2007 might just be it. The brainchild of joint efforts between the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the Sydney Morning Herald, Earth Day 2007 saw Sydney, Australia plunged into darkness in a what could be considered a collaborative effort to combat climate change. Evidently, Web 2.0 plays little role in this project, outside of acting as a medium to facilitate information flows and discussion, but this may be the closest we see to the “magic bullet” that gets everyone pushing in the same direction. Read More »

Tags: citizen participation climate change environment mass collaboration wikinomics

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The lack of transparency and information has for decades been a friend to rampant polluters. On the flip side, without objective comparisons, it is very difficult to recognize the positive efforts of some industrial plants to clean up their acts. Now a project called MapEcos is bringing the kind of transparency that tackles both sides of the problem.

MapEcos, which is an effort by a team of Harvard, Duke and Dartmouth academics and students, is a mashup that maps environmental performance of U.S. industrial sites. The emission information comes from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The mashup also includes information reported by plant managers on their efforts to improve their environmental performance.

Without information sources, such as MapEcos, most people view the environmental problem as an abstract issue that does not affect them directly. Finding out that a massive polluter may be located next door will bring the issue home. This type of information has the potential to galvanize communities into putting more pressure on companies to improve their performance.

MapEcos also has the potential of highlighting the positive efforts made by industrial managers. As good environmental performance will not be overlooked, managers have an incentive to come up with ways of cutting pollution. This in turn, puts additional pressure on polluters to fall in line.

The value of the site can be increased by adding new information sources and analytical tools. MapEcos already gives the ability to sort by industry, corporate owner, chemicals emitted and emission levels. An easy way to calculate industry averages or displaying the environmental profile of a chosen area would be useful. A difficult, yet worthwhile undertaking, would be to develop an objective green rating for every U.S. industrial plant that would quickly allow stakeholders to assess environmental performance based on the plant’s activities.

Tags: academia advocacy networks citizen participation climate change environment

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Recently, the United Nations released its 2008 E-Government Survey entitled, From E-Government to Connected Governance whose goal was to determine, “the e-government readiness of the 192 Member States of the UN according to a quantitative composite index of e-readiness based on website assessment, telecommunication infrastructure, and human resource endowment. “ You can read all 246 (yes, 246) pages here.

They also have a number of interesting comparative tools on the report’s website. The Graph It feature allows you to compare up to five countries against a specific region while the Country Profile section lets you drill down and do some specific examination of an individual country. These tools have been invaluable in my eGovernment Fantasy League - any one interesting in trading for Burkina Faso?

There are a number of key takeaways in this report, from my perspective. First, the report emphasizes the central importance of the customer in the process of developing eGovernment services - always a good thing. The report also highlights the need for a number of key components in order to achieve results. Namely, country’s require adequate infrastructure, the ability of users to access government services on mobile platforms, basic literacy and internet abilities and a sufficient level of trust in the government as a service provider. It also focuses on the need to bring citizens into the policy development process.

According to the above criteria, the following countries scored in the top 10 on the Readiness Index:

A follow-up point from the survey:

It is worth noting that in this year’s Survey, there were no countries in the top 35 from the African, Caribbean, Central American, Central Asian, South American, and Southern Asian regions.

I’m certainly not suggesting that countries in these regions haven’t made significant gains. Barbados, Angola and El Salvador (to name just a few) are all examples of countries that are embracing the principles of eGovernment with great success. However, in looking from top to bottom on this list, there is significant disparity. The countries at the top have a plethora of resources to focus on eGovernment while others on the list have to contend with the basic needs of safety and security.

For me, the most important takeaway is this: Government 2.0 can fundamentally change the way citizens interact with their government - for the better. It allows for true citizen involvement in the creation of policy and responsive government services tailored to individual citizens. My question then is, how do we take the next step? How can the results of this survey be used to focus assistance and resources for further gains?

Tags: United Nations citizen participation egovernment gov 2.0 government policy web 2.0 wikinomics

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Courtesy a friend of mine who lives in Kisumu, Kenya: the Ushahidi post-election violence tracker. It’s very raw at the moment, and lacks the critical mass of entries to create a powerful message, but the potential to act as a source of “citizen journalism” is quite interesting. Ushahidi, by the way, is the kiswahili term for witness.

According to the site:

“Ushahidi.com is a tool for people who witness acts of violence in Kenya in these post-election times. You can report the incident that you have seen, and it will appear on a map-based view for others to see. We are working with local Kenyan NGO’s to get information and to verify each incident. “

Scale notwithstanding, it’s an interesting complement to traditional news source, and if beefed up with pictures, could provide a real window into this political quagmire. But what would have been even more helpful for both Kenyans and the outside world, however, would have been using this type of mashup during the election itself to record instances of (what seems to have been common) electoral fraud.

Thanks for the link, Weks!

Tags: citizen participation gov 2.0 media wikinomics

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As reported yesterday, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and IBM (the leading earner of US patents for the past fifteen years) are partnering with Nokia, Pitney Bowes and Sony to release a portfolio of dozens of innovative and environmentally responsible patents to the public domain. This portfolio of IP is entitled the “Eco-Patent Commons” and is available on a website hosted by the WBCSD.

According to the WBCSD, the patents are searchable by anyone through a search engine on their website and global participation from businesses in diverse industry sectors are welcome. It will be fed with initial and subsequent patent pledges by companies that become members of the Commons. Through the Commons, the patents will be made available for free use by all, subject to defensive termination.

The objectives of the Eco-Patent Commons:

• To provide an avenue by which innovations and solutions may be easily shared to accelerate and facilitate implementations to protect the environment and perhaps lead to further innovation.
• To promote and encourage cooperation and collaboration between businesses that pledge patents and potential users to foster further joint innovations and the advancement and development of solutions that benefit the environment.

Examples of environmental benefits patented inventions may provide:

• Energy conservation or efficiency
• Pollution prevention (source reduction, waste reduction)
• Use of environmentally preferable materials or substances
• Materials reduction
• Increased recycling ability

It is fantastic to see big business making such great strides to help the environment. Not only will these patents help the public domain to share economical and environmentally sustainable practices directly, but the concepts and specific information in these patents could inspire others for formulate new ideas and methodologies for other products and services.

Tags: citizen participation climate change collective intelligence environment intellectual property patents

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I must admit that I didn’t run a regression analysis, but I think it’s safe to assume that there is a relationship between the release of “An Inconvenient Truth” with the spike in searches for “global warming”.

As you can see, there is a steady increase of interest in the topic, and this interest peaks right around the time when “An Inconvenient Truth” wins an Oscar - Check out point ‘C’ on the graph. It’s interesting to see that a movie was able to increase people’s interest in a topic like this, and if that’s what it takes to raise awareness about pressing issues that people like to pretend aren’t there, then so be it. Angelina Jolie should put out a documentary with a compelling slide show to talk about her forays in Africa… and so on.

For the most part, the human civilization is reactive as opposed to proactive. We see all the signs, but often times, it just seems easier to avoid and deny the situation than dealing with it directly.

There are many web 2.0 initiatives out there looking to deal with this pressing issue. Some of them are even quite innovative and engaging, and you know there are definitely some social networks out there charged with dealing ’solving’ this issue. Hopefully the power of the web 2.0 is strong enough to start a mass movement towards action… and only time will tell if it is up for the challenge.

Here are some of those sites trying to educate and make a difference:

Tree Nation: Help plant one tree out of 8 million in Africa, in the shape of a heart.

MyAbodo: Cool application that teaches both adults and kids how to ‘build’ an environmentally friendly home.

ZeroFootprint: A social network aimed to engage citizens to fight climate change. The City of Toronto, has a community of their own - this is a partnership between ZeroFootprint and the City of Toronto.

A cool Mashup showing rising sea level

Tags: citizen participation climate change environment mash-ups social networking web 2.0

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There is no doubt that the 2008 U.S. presidential candidates have embraced the Web as a legitimate campaigning tool. But, I can’t help but wonder how much of this will actually matter come voting time. Are online frontrunners like Ron Paul and Barack Obama simply “pulling a Howard Dean?” The discrepancy between the Web stats and traditional polls is significant and can’t be ignored.

The political site techPresident has done a great job of compiling various Web stats for the candidates from sources like Technorati, Hitwise, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Meetup, and Eventful (click the links to see the real-time charts). Consider how some of these compare against the recent polls from CNN and you get a real sense that we’re experiencing a campaign 2.0 bubble. Of course, maybe Ron Paul will win the election and the blogosphere will have proven me wrong.

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Tags: citizen participation gov 2.0 government

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That was the topic of last night’s panel discussion hosted by Rethos. Although I wasn’t on the panel, I will come out and say that, “yes” I do believe young people are apathetic. That being said, there were several interesting ideas that were brought up yesterday that are worth sharing.

Youth are much more informed about the issues thanks to the Internet, but knowledge isn’t translating into action. Online communities make it easy for anyone to join a group or sign a petition and feel like they’ve contributed; however, these are low risk, low impact activities. What we’re not seeing is real participation. Exacerbating the situation is the fact that so many online groups are “waving their flags” vying for attention, but few are actually able to reach a tipping point in terms of mass appeal.

Many panelists agreed that where mass collaboration breaks down is in its inability to incorporate physical spaces and generate true empathy through face-to-face interactions. What we really need to do is find charismatic leaders that can inspire youngsters to care about social issues, get people talking to people, take it to the streets, and maybe toss around a couple of Molotov cocktails for good measure – you know like in the good old days. Of course this is exactly the type of thing Rethos was trying to do with the panel (well, minus the flaming cocktails).

The ensuing discuss