So we’ve been feeling a little bit innovative for the past week too. After all, we worked closely with Schleswig-Holstein, giving technical support, training and telephone assistance to the wide range of stakeholders who will be working with DEMOS-Plan.

DEMOS-Plan is an online tool that closely follows the procedure laid down by German law for conducting consultations on a particular type of spatial plan (the “Bebauungsplan”). It allows statutory stakeholders to manage submissions internally by requiring one representative to sign off the submissions from different departments. These submissions can be linked to a particular paragraph of the planning document and/or the participant can draw on a map of the plan.

It’s great for the planning authority, because it saves them the trouble of sending paper copies of plans and collating all the submissions manually: instead, this is done automatically.

We think there are other countries in Europe where DEMOS-Plan could be useful and have been investigating this through the Parterre project. If you were at the PEP-NET Summit, you may have caught Francesco Molinari’s presentation of Parterre. (Hopefully you will also have noticed that the Summit was sponsored by Parterre!)

There will be more news on Parterre soon, so keep your eyes on the blog!

* Bauleitplanung Online-Beteiligung Schleswig Holstein

Image: Wikimedia Commons, Mrjohncummings

The Welsh town of Monmouth is to become the world’s first “wikipedia town”. In a project that involves kitting out the whole town with free wifi hotspots and sticking QR codes on all significant monuments and places of interest, “Monmouthpedia” enables tourists to call up community-generated articles on their smartphones.

The project doesn’t simply use QR codes that link to a specific article, but to a wikipedia article in the user’s own language where available. This is enabled by the QR-Pedia website, which anyone can use to convert a link from a Wikipedia article into a QR code that ascertains the user’s language an delivers the article in the right language.

I can see this being a success because the QR codes make it much easier to find information about specific objects without having to type in a long, complicated URL, and you have a good idea of what information you are requesting. In many cases, QR codes are used unnecessarily (presumably because they are fashionable) on flyers and posters and link to a company’s website, which would be easier to call up by typing in the URL or searching for it. I also find that you often do not know what the QR code links to, which isn’t a great motivating factor either.

Another innovative example of QR code use is the Korean supermarket in an underground station that consists of pictures of products, each with an associated QR code. Again, the QR code links to a very specific object and it’s obvious what you can expect when you scan the code.

The two manuals: “E-inclusion guidelines: supporting diversity” and “E-Participation guidelines: supporting diversity”, published in English, Estonian, Finnish and Swedish are the main outcomes from the IIeP – EU/Central Baltic INTERREG IVA project. These outputs found online and in pdf-versions on the new website: www.supportingdiversity.eu are aimed to meet the needs for those involved in participatory processes and immigrant involved issues. They also provide ideas and best practices for authorities to facilitate inclusion. The manuals can be used widely to support residents´ active participation in local multinational communities.

Avaaz thus follows the recente move from change.org, the “social action platform that empowers anyone”, which just two weeks ago ‘absorved’ the Spanish platform “Actuable” and is now planning to translate its ‘petition making system’ to many other languages to really extend its reach worldwide.

Each of these platforms claims to have promoted petitions that forced very important political ‘actors’ to react: from Hillary Clinton to Presidente Morales, from Bank of America and Apple to Hilton Hotels.

This is an interesting ‘tectonic’ move in the realm of (e)Participation, which we should follow closely. It is, additionally, much related to the discussion about “Sticks and Carrots” we hold in Pep-Net’s blog a year ago.

We were then reflecting about questions like: is it better to praise “good deeds” of Corporation and Politicians, or is it better to warn and punish them when they “misbehave”? Why not both things at the same time?

Anita Roddick, the founder of the Body Shop, reported that once an executive of Shell told her:  “We don’t fear regulation, we only fear consumer revolt”

Well: it is clear now that consumer and citizens are getting better at revolting and exerting pressure. Change is happening out of anybody’s reach, and (e)Participation is slowly “getting teeth”, which soon will be able to hurt enough as to influence behaviour: if you do not want your brand reputation to get ruined… you better behave!!! And this applies to corporation as much as political actors.

The promise of a ‘Future Goverment’ that becomes FAST (flatter, agile, streamlined and tech-enabled) -which was delivered in the last World Economic Forum- starts to be truth. But, for sure, it is not government who is promoting it. It is NGOs and CSOs. It is citizens.

It is important to note that the technology behind these petition plattforms is very, very simple. The concepts and processes of use are also not sci-fiction. But for sure, this kind of powerful, sustainable and social minded (e)Participation was rarely promoted by our Governments’ Innovation Support Actions. Instead of an impact oriented eParticipation research, put at the service of Civil Society, a Government- and Academia-centred approach was preferred. And thus eParticipation has just advance by little steps.

It is a pitty, because these platforms are now out there, growing. They were created with less (or ‘no’) involvement of eParticipation researchers. And that means that we do not have easy access to the very valuable information about eParticipation that these systems are generating (about pattern and reasons of use, users’ demographics, typologies of action, success rates, etc).

We should reflect about this. We have not so many more opportunities to miss. The field is developing faster and faster. Do we want to be part of it?

A new digital engagement database is launched today by ParticiTech and Kind of Digital  in association with Consumer Focus (UK).

Digitalengagement.org is different from other digital engagement databases in that it is a methods repository, not case study database.  The website also doubles as a search engine, allowing methods to be matched based on a set of simple input criteria relating to the participation characteristics.

Give it a whirl and let me know what you think!

Read the full press release here

Birmingham Civic Dashboard screenshot

In its recent consultation document ‘Making Open Data Real’, the UK Government expresses high hopes for open data, heralding it as possibly “the most powerful lever of 21st century public policy”. Following several years of open data advocacy, activism and hack days, in the UK open data is moving towards the mainstream thanks to unanimous backing from the coalition government and the opposition.

The latest move in open data comes from Birmingham City Council, which today launched its ‘Civic Dashboard’. This is a web site publishing raw customer services data along with a slick visualisation, which was made possible by a grant that Digital Birmingham received as a result of winning a competition run by the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA).

The Civic Dashboard draws its data from the customer service centre set up as part of the Council’s Business Transformation programme. An extract of data about all customer enquiries, whether by telephone, internet or email, is recorded by the customer relationship management system and fed into the Civic Dashboard in an aggregated (anonymised) form once per day. Where the data is geocoded, it can be presented on a map to show how many contacts originate from a particular ward or constituency. You can even see which channels the enquiries come through, which shows that the Council receives far more enquiries by telephone than through other channels.

This is an important step towards bridging the gap between eGovernment and ‘weGovernment’. Coming from the Council that was heavily criticised for spending £2.8m on its website as part of its eGovernment transformation, especially by Birmingham’s vocal social media users, opening up the data that is produced in the background shows what the new infrastructure can do beyond serving up static content. Doubtless there are many more datasets that exist as a result of the transformation programme, and if these are released in the future, perhaps Brummies will feel they got a better deal out of transformation than they first thought.

This itself is quite a paradox: such a handover of control to the citizen wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for the huge transformation programme because IT is absolutely necessary for the collection of data in a reusable form.

Another important aspect is the fact that the raw data comes with a ready-made visualisation tool, which is presumably what most people will interact with. On the one hand, some would argue that it should be left to non-state entities to interpret the data. Although this will probably be the case in future, Birmingham (together with NESTA) engaged Mudlark, a local service provider, to develop the website on their behalf. This model – of commissioning the data visualisation, not developing it in-house – addresses the issue of risk sharing: especially in the early days of open data, small companies may not be able to afford to risk creating applications based on data that there may not be a market for, and that – for all they know – may not be collected for ever, at least in the current format.

Even where an authority doesn’t publish its own visualisation of the data, in my opinion there will still be a role for them to intervene in some cases. For instance, if someone were to notice that there are far more requests from Hodge Hill than Sutton Coldfield (a more affluent area), and claim that resources are unfairly distributed, a Council official might intervene using social media to draw attention to the fact that far more council housing tenants are located in that area, and are most likely making enquiries to the Council as their landlord. This assumes that the necessary data (on distribution of council housing) is available; if not, it could lead to calls for more data to be opened. Thus, opening some data can lead to calls for more.

There is much more to be said about this example of open data in practice, which is possibly the first time a large public authority has bridged the gap between between e-government and ‘we-government’ using open data. I’m sure it will be said on this blog and elsewhere for a good while to come!

Many thanks to Simon Whitehouse, of Digital Birmingham (part of Birmingham City Council), for explaining the Civic Dashboard to me.

This results in a test report, including actions and recommendations for product development enhancement generated by experts in eParticipation.  Software and services which meet a certain grade will be granted the use of a logo which can be used on all marketing materials as a sign of product confidence.

An announcement will be made on 29^th September regarding the first vendor to achieve successful accreditation during the annual TCI ‘Technologies for public engagement and consultation event’ (London).

For enquiries, please email Fraser.henderson@btinternet.com

Nikolaus gained inspiration for the idea when he took part in a European exchange programme in 2009, completing a secondment at Birmingham City Council. That is where I met him and where he learned about Birmingham News Room. Apart from anything, I think this is a nice bit of European best practice exchange, which can often be hard to quantify. It’s also nice to see Frankfurt getting something in return for the Christmas Market that they send to Birmingham ever winter!

John Heaven (JH): What is a Social Media Newsroom?

Nikolaus Münster (NM): Our Social Media Newsroom brings together all of our social media channels on one website. The user can view this site to see news about the city on Twitter, Facebook, blogs, YouTube and other media at a glance.

We have been using these means of communication for a while now. Since 2009 we have been on Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. When we started we wanted to gain experience before actively publicising our social media presences. Now, social media are central to our communication strategy.

JH: What is the main aim of the Newsroom?

NM: The Newsroom representes an improvement in user experience. The most important point is that all channels are brought together on a single website, enabling users to get an overview of what is being put out by the city — whether on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube or other channels. This is more convenient for all users, not only those that aren’t Facebook or Twitter members.

JH: How does Frankfurt choose which tools to communicate with?

NM: Communications and PR always have to keep up with current developments in the way people communicate. Newspaper and email, for example, still play an important role. However, the channels that we currently use are simply the most important in terms of reaching large numbers of citizens. This may change in the future, so we keep an eye on new developments and must be open to trying new things. We are monitoring Google+, for example.

JH: Where did the idea for the Newsroom come from?

NM: It was Birmigham News Room that gave me the idea when I was in Birmingham. The idea of a social media newsroom was unheard of in Germany. At first it was difficult to describe the idea concretely and plausibly. However, following a conversation with a SAP-employee, we were able to define it more exactly. He advised on the technical realisation, which in our case is based on WordPress. I think it’s really important to have people in-house who have a thirst for innovation and who are able to put ideas into action.

JH: Is there a big difference between Frankfurt Social Media Newsroom and Birmingham News Room?

NM: The biggest difference is that we don’t have the Media Watch. That is something that we are looking into, because it would be nice to have all news relevant to the city displayed in a prominent place on the website, although our newsroom does display news from local newspapers.

JH: How do you keep track of social media use when any employee is able to set up a Twitter account of Facebook page? And how do you stop the resources required from spinning out of control?

NM: We tackle this problem with our social media guidelines, which state that only the Press Office is allowed to represent the city in an official capacity. But we have nothing against departments opening social media accounts for their particular target audience. That can make a lot of sense for services with specific audiences. Of course employees are free to use social media in a personal capacity.

Social media does require investment of extra resources, because it’s not just about broadcasting information over a different channel. Instead, you have to be prepared to innovate. This extra cost is hard to manage. We started using social media without investing extra resources, but soon we will have to think about taking on extra staff. On the one hand you have to make sure you don’t spend your whole time on social media, but if you choose to do so you have to take it seriously and actively look for opportunities to make use of them.

JH: Under what conditions would you advise other cities to open a social media newsroom?

NM: I would advise cities with established social media presences and audiences, and therefore experience with social media, to open a social media newsroom.

JH: Do social media offer advantages over conventional media – newspaper adverts, letters, flyers etc. – other than being inexpensive?

NM: Yes, of course. Social media can be very labour-intensive. You have to respond to critical comments that people may post about you because social media is all about dialogue. But we get lots of “Likes” and social media represent a very direct channel to our target audience. They are really good for our purposes.

JH: Do you know of any examples of innovative social media use by other directorates?

NM: Above all, museums and organisations with direct contact to the public. Examples that occur to me are: Städelmuseum, Kunsthalle Schirn, das Museum für Angewandte Kunst, das Museum für Moderne Kunst (MMK).

JH: What did you learn during your time in Birmingham? Does Birmingham communicate differently from Frankfurt?

NM: Birmingham invests a lot more in communication than Frankfurt does. They make a big effort to make their communication easy to understand and even produce some brochures with pictures and single sentences for people that can’t read so well as well as pamphlets for disabled people telling them about dangers that they should be aware of. Producing these materials is a painstaking process because they are tested on the target groups before being published.

JH: Would you advise others to take part in a similar exchange programme?

NM: Yes, definitely. I learnt a lot from colleagues during my time in Birmingham. While I was there I wrote an article every week for the staff intranet in Frankfurt to share my experience. There was a lot of interest from colleagues, with the articles receiving up to 1,000 views each. I really would recommend taking part in such a programme.

JH: Nikolaus, many thanks for taking the time to talk to me.

Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit on or before August 31, 2011, a 2-3 page chapter proposal clearly explaining the scope and contents of their proposed chapter. Authors of accepted proposals will be notified by September 15, 2011 about the status of their proposals and sent chapter guidelines. Full chapters are expected to be submitted by October 30, 2011. All submitted chapters will be reviewed on a double-blind review basis. Contributors may also be requested to serve as reviewers for this project.

For more information see our previous post:  https://pep-net.eu/blog/2011/06/26/call-for-chapter-proposals-sustainable-eparticipation/

Me, posing in Second Life

This morning I went for a walk in a place on the other side of the channel which doesn’t exist yet. All without leaving my desk. Thanks to Birmingham’s Second Life model of the Library of Birmingham, the real life version of which is due to be opened in 2013, I was able to have a look at what they’re planning.

A couple of months back I blogged about Birmingham’s virtual model of the Library of Birmingham, then in the later stages of development. Earlier this month the Virtual Library went live, meaning that people from Birmingham (and beyond) can see a virtual model of the library that is scheduled to open in 2013 and let the developers know what they think.

As a Brummie, I recognised Centenary Square, and it was clear where the new library will be located and easy enough to get in (although Second Life can take a bit of getting used to before you start walking like you’re sober). Almost all areas of the library are accessible, and you can even choose whether to take the escalators or teleport to the different floors. It gives a good feel of how the library will eventually look and I noticed that some people had already commented on the building: one visitor was  “concerned about the floor — it might do your head in!” and someone advised “Make sure the tables are able to be used by disabled people and children.”

As I mentioned in my previous article, the Virtual Library launch is being accompanied by a range of activities to ensure that it doesn’t go unnoticed in Second Life. Regular workshops are being held at the current library for the public, who are then able to use the computers at the library to access Second Life or go home and try it themselves. Those who don’t fancy signing up for Second Life can either view fly-through videos of the library or submit their comments using questionnaires.

For more information about the launch of the Virtual Library, you see the press releases from Birmingham City Council and from Daden, the company that created the model. I’m going to get an update from library staff after their current phase of outreach work, so watch this space!

Can you spot me?