Creating new government
From Community Leadership Summit Wiki
Creating New Government - Andy Oram.
Saturday, 2pm, Session #5
Notetaker: Neal McBurnett
Andy Oram - examples of influencing government policies
- Peer-to Patent
- hate crime data analysis
jewish alliance for law and social action--a small group with a lot of influence because they know all the political actors and pull together coalitions
peter mui, neighborhood community, getting them to organize around stuff. Collected its own data on local crimes. They have data that might be useful to police, although the police don't currently use it. But the organizers felt that organizing around fear is a weak way to hold people together, so they stress block parties and other positive ways to build communities.
neal: boulder community network,
- ElectionAudits software for Boulder Colorado
- Boulder 2004 - 4 political parties agree to push for paper ballots
Clint talbert - austin city purchasing agreement against buying from sweatshops
- hard to get purchasing data on purchases of uniforms etc
- demonstrate purchases of nasty stuff
- demonstrate it would cost much to buy better stuff
brett husbands - help govt sort stuff out in the UK - get records online, mashups
- firmstep
jose del moral- tool for spanish parliament - basque
- citizens give ideas to parliament members,
- but citizens aren't using it. e.g. because answers come too slowly
- citizens discuss legislation. but mainly used by lobbyists
internet user application - coopted by government?
andy:
- people start out willing to participate but turn cynical if first efforts are ignored
- data access problems: Sometimes it's hard to get the information one needs to drive a campaign, for various reasons: nobody may have collected it, but the government might start collecting it if the public shows concern. Or it could just be scattered and hard to pull together, like voting data in some districts. Sometimes powerful agents seem opposed to collecting data, but that wasn't generally seen as the problem.
- format problems: Often the information is in an inscrutable comma-separated format or even just on paper. (When one British agency promised to send files of data to an organization, they turned out to be files of manila folders.)
- on the other hand, when data is provided, there many instances of organizations exploiting it for campaigns
Example of a standard format that allows data to cross boundaries: sec company filings - xbrl - corpwatch
outsourcing issues
map of forclosures highlighted that they happened in poor and minority areas
- the "dry katrina"
problem: criminals knocking on doors in neighborhoods posing as solicitors, noting those with no answer, and coming back to burglary
take photographs of doorknockers
petitions work - tell us your story - corby burrough council train station
- 1/3 of the citizens responded
- "i want my train station back" - send form
- received wide media attention
- may have contributed to restoration of station
Conclusion: Advice repeated from an experienced community organizer with the Industrial Areas Foundation: organizing around issues is inefficient and unsustainable because you have to build a new coalition from the ground up each time. Community organizing starts by building the coalition and then finds the issues, so a powerful force is always in place to promote change.
Attendees
Clint Talbert
Brett Husbands
Jose Del Moral
Peter Mui
Neal McBurnett
Andy Oram
