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QHSR National Dialogues nominated for citizen service award

Posted by Ben on Mar 08 2010 | Democracy and government, Good examples, Projects and client work

Last summer, we, in partnership with NAPA, worked on a series of three pioneering National Dialogues for the US Department of Homeland Security. Excitingly, this project has now been nominated for a Citizen Service Award. The awards, which are hosted by the U.S. General Services Administration, recognise innovative citizen outreach efforts by government offices. The Quadrennial Homeland Security Review was an initiative by DHS to… read more

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Dialogue App makes debut at GSA webinar

Posted by Ben on Feb 25 2010 | Delib news and events

We were excited to have the opportunity to introduce our Dialogue App, complete with shiny new skin, to a whole bunch of US government staff at a GSA webinar last night. It was slightly strange talking to an audience that you can't see or hear but I think it went well. We set up a demo especially for the occasion – check it out at… read more

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My favourite thing on iPlayer? That advert for a BBC Trust online consultation…

Posted by Ben on Feb 01 2010 | Consultation, Engagement, Good examples, Projects and client work

Further to my post last week about delivering the BBC Trust's online consultation system, here's a pleasing example of it in action: the Trust are currently running a consultation on the BBC's on-demand services and have been promoting it through iPlayer.

Screenshot of 'what do you think?' consultation advert on iPlayer website

We like this for a few reasons:
  1. as big
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We’re making Opinion Suite join up with Linked Data (through RDFa)

Posted by Ben on Jan 29 2010 | Delib news and events

With so much chat and buzz at the moment (and rightly so) about Tim Berners-Lee et al's data.gov.uk, I thought it'd be timely to say a bit about how we'll be doing our bit towards publishing online consultation information as Linked Data (Steph Gray has recently blogged on a similar subject). We've built (and are continuing to iteratively improve) Opinion Suite, an open-source online consultation management… read more

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Delib helps the BBC Trust run their consultations online

Posted by Ben on Jan 26 2010 | Delib news and events

Often, the most exciting work we do has to stay under wraps, so we're really delighted to be able to buck that trend and show one of our favourite recent projects: delivering the BBC Trust's online consultation system. In their own words, 'the Trust sets the course for the BBC. We represent the public who own and pay for the BBC'. Clearly, the BBC Trust has an enormous responsibility… read more

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“Technology vs Policy Debate” – we are full!

Posted by Ben on Jan 18 2010 | Delib news and events, Democracy and government

Once again we have surpassed our expectations and are now over-subscribed for the debate on Monday 18th Jan. For those who have responded and will be attending, please make sure you get there with plenty of time to get through security and get into the queue - it will be first come, first served on the night!  Kick-off's at 6.30pm – speakers include Rishi Saha, Kerry McCarthy MP, Rory… read more

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Overall local authority online consultation scores

Posted by Ben on Jan 11 2010 | Delib news and events

Before Christmas, we sent out the report on our audit of local authority online consultation offerings.  The audit's been really well received, with lots of positive feedback coming from councils, but the one recurring question has been 'where do I rank against the others?' We deliberately avoided 'naming and shaming' or critical comparisons when we published our report because we were more interested in encouraging every authority towards progress than… read more

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‘Spooks’ and the fear of online participation

Posted by Ben on Nov 23 2009 | Bad examples, Democracy and government, Social media, web 2.0 and other buzzwords

Anyone else catch this (the episode and the drift)?  I watched the latest episode of Spooks over the weekend (and enjoyed it, so what?) and, part-way through, realised that it was actually a dramatisation of what's going on in the heads of those risk-averse types who see in online participation cause for terror and dread and disruption, rather than opportunity and progress and value. I don't want to give the… read more

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Washington Day 1: thoughts (part 2) on White House Citizen Participation

Posted by Ben on Nov 05 2009 | Democracy and government, Engagement, Participation

Part 2: projects and pragmatism

So in the previous exciting installment, I tried to briefly summarise how the current US administration has taken hold of the principle of participation.  The next part of our conversation was about the work of realising that principle in activity, about the challenges of actually adopting more participation into the process of governance. I'm not gonna pretend to have answers to these; I'm just gonna represent… read more

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Washington Day 1: thoughts (part 1) on White House Citizen Participation

Posted by Ben on Nov 03 2009 | Delib news and events

This morning (edit: that should now read yesterday morning, the 2nd), we were lucky enough to meet with Katie Stanton, the White House Director of Citizen Participation.  It was only coffee and 40 minutes but it was a great (and reinvigorating) insight into/summary of the agenda and job of increasing citizen involvement in governance.  I'm gonna try and do a quick round-up of our reflections in three bite-size blog posts… read more

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