Quick event tip: This month’s guest speakers for the Virtual Worlds for Stakeholder Engagement Group meeting are Eric Gordon, PhD and Steven Schirra of the Engagement Game Lab at Emerson College (http://engagementgamelab.org).  Join to hear about Eric and Steven’s exciting work on place-based digital communities, media and urbanism, and games for civic engagement.
 
When: Wednesday, September 8
Time: 16:00-17:00 Eastern (New York) / 20:00-21:00 GMT
 
Please RSVP today to beth@publicdecisions.com

Click on this link to teleport to the meeting location: http://www.slurl.com/secondlife/Squirrel%20Island/125/135/23

According to Right Now’s Open Government Research Report, 57% of citizens of voting age don’t believe the federal government is serious about implementing the Open Government Directive.  Moreover, 96% of all surveyed thought the government should improve how it engages with citizens.  Respondents in the survey offered simple solutions to improving engagement.  Over 71% stated they would like the search capabilities of government agencies’ websites to be improved.  And over half of respondents suggested creating agency specific forums or communities online. 

Interesting shifts are occurring across age demographics when it comes to interactions with the government.  Overall, 83% of those surveyed preferred to speak to a live agent over the phone when seeking information.  However, of the 18-34 age group, 92% preferred engaging with the government online.  If this trend continues, the value of online government interactions is clear.  Not only has online interaction become a viable choice, but it would seem to be the future of the government-citizen relationship. 

With this in mind we must ask ourselves, how and why are people currently engaging with the government online?  Findings from the same report show that over half of all respondents have interacted with the government online or through social networks.  Nearly 70% of respondents believe social media should be more of a priority for government agencies.  Those surveyed typically use government websites to find information when offices are closed, to get their questions answered faster and to search for more detailed information.  Slightly less than the majority (49%) of respondents use online government tools to support or advocate for specific work agencies do.  Citizen feedback is a key indicator of the results of President Obama’s initiative.  His lofty goals may not have been reached yet, but it’s important to be cognizant of how people are utilizing government websites and tailor their future uses with citizens in mind. 

Find the full report here:  http://www.rightnow.com/pdf/press/2010-open-government-report.pdf

David McCandless turns complex data sets (like worldwide military spending, media buzz, Facebook status updates) into beautiful, simple diagrams that tease out unseen patterns and connections. Good design, he suggests, is the best way to navigate information glut — and it may just change the way we see the world.

Here at Engaging Cities, we love to tout the possibilities that public participation and collaboration can provide for planning. With the goal of innovation in mind, how can we better stimulate the great minds of people collaborating to make great things happen?  As it turns out, some of the experts at the Harvard Business Review have a few suggestions.  First on their list is meeting people’s needs.  Innovative and creative solutions are born from questioning social norms.  Those in uncomfortable or distracting surroundings are unable to devote their entire energy to solving the problems at hand.  Every person is different and feels comfortable in entirely different situations.  It’s impossible to meet everyone’s collective needs at once.  The natural alternative is providing many different scenarios for engagement, from large scale town hall meetings, to charrettes and small group sessions, from online engagement to public outreach at social events.  When a variety of options are presented, people can choose what feels right for them. 

Nurturing passion and recognizing that creativity is a systematic process is important to cultivating innovation.  It’s widely accepted that creative thinking typically occurs in five stages: first insight, saturation, incubation, illumination, and verification.  Feeling as if we’re contributing to something meaningful is also inherently critical when seeking creative insight.  A truly compelling mission tends to ignite passion in us all and fuel the fire towards greater innovation.

Lastly, time is essential to the creative process.  Not only do we require an appropriate amount of time to be innovative but we require open-ended swathes of time in which answers are not demanded in unreasonable deadlines.  Recall stage three in creative evolution: incubation.  At certain junctures it’s important to step back from the problem and allow our gray matter to subconsciously ponder the issue at hand.  Great innovation comes not in an instant flash, but in a breakthrough after analyzing and agonizing over the same issue again and again. 

Read the full Harvard Business Review article here: http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/08/six_invisible_secrets_to_a_cul.html

Defining goals and evaluating open data policies in government can be tricky business.  As with everything else, transparency in government functions on a sliding scale.  There’s no basis for transparency and no way of gauging just how open an open data policy actually is.  The groundwork for these initiatives has largely been unlaid and in the end, we’re only hurting ourselves.  The theory at the core of open data policies is that information is the driving force behind innovation.  But how does one tell if their local open data policy is comprehensive or severely deficient?  And most importantly, what can be done to improve those policies? 

The Sunlight Foundation, a non-profit organization devoted to catalyzing government openness and transparency, has developed a set of parameters to aid in evaluating open data plans in government.  Each criteria naturally has a range of transparency in and of itself, and the list is far from exhaustive but I must commend them for attempting to define openness in government. 

The ten parameters they’ve highlighted include completeness, primacy, timeliness, ease of physical and electronic access, machine readablity, non-discrimination, use of commonly owned standards, licensing, permanence and usage costs.  If implemented they are intended to “empower the public’s use of government-held data”.  Some of the criteria, such as releasing complete data sets from primary sources, seem ground in common sense.  Others, such as the use of commonly owned standards, is a point that many plans may have gleaned over in the past, but one that is critical for wide-spread adoption.  Data is often treated as an ever-evolving item, but creating permanence with regularly archived data sets and steady URLs and query mechanism is important in tracking changes over time and long term success of applications built on government data. 

Read more about all ten principles here: 

http://sunlightfoundation.com/policy/documents/ten-open-data-principles/

With daily promises being doled out by elected or trying-to-be-elected officials, have you ever pondered how many of them keep their word?  When Britain’s newly elected Coalition Government released a declaration itemizing all promises they had agreed to; local journalists seized the opportunity to seek accountability for lawmaker’s actions.  What resulted is Pledge Tracker, a tool for keeping tabs on promises kept and unkept and most importantly, those that would have otherwise been forgotten.   

Pledge Tracker was developed and is now maintained by The Guardian.  The real-time database allows users to sort the over 400 pledges by various metrics including policy area, difficultly level and of course, current status.  In spending thirty seconds with the tool, it’s easy to discover that already 44 pledges have been kept, 5 have been blatantly broken, and 3 are reportedly ‘broken in spirit’.   

The Pledge Tracker interface is incredibly user-friendly, and the data contained within does a flawless job of merging subjective and objective data for analysis.  Sources for each pledge are clearly cited.  Since the lines may blur between pledges ‘in progress’, ‘in trouble’ or ‘not kept’, the current status denoted for each pledge is further explained in the context section.  According to The Guardian, the context area allows them “some room to explain what this all means”.  Links to external information are also provided in this area, for those who would like to learn more.   

Adding to the entire operation’s transparency, Pledge Tracker doesn’t operate in isolation.  They fully encourage users to email them about any pledges contained within their database.  Pledge Tracker also consults colleagues in the journalism field, proven experts in their given specialties, to gain a more well-rounded view of all pledges and issues involved.  Their encompassing data-gathering and sourcing protocol affords users a sense of security that the information found on Pledge Tracker is reliable, accurate, and improving accountability at a grand scale.   

To see Pledge Tracker in action, visit: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/interactive/2010/aug/12/coalition-pledge-tracker

Once seen as a means of escapism for technology fiends the world-over; Second Life has more recently been harnessed for collaborative purposes with educational and informational goals in mind.  Government agencies from the federal level down to cities and townships are using virtual reality programs as a cost-effective approach to conducting simulations, holding meetings, and hosting strategy sessions.  

Cities across North America are using Second Life as a career center; advertising available jobs and holding online career fairs.  Jefferson City, Missouri uses Second Life in partnership with local K-12 schools to promote careers in information technology.  The Ontario Public Service agency hopes to “create a better awareness of the breadth of jobs” available by allowing users to simulate different career paths.  Through Second Life users can become virtual firefighters or experience a day in the life of a traffic engineer.  

Alameda County, California has created a polling place in their virtual courthouse to aide in training the influx of new poll workers for upcoming elections.  The program has gone so far as to plan outreach events for first-time voters, allowing them to practice voting in a virtual world.  
The reach of Second Life has naturally extended to NASA.  NASA’s CoLab is a dedicated virtual island think tank intended to promote brainstorming and generate new ideas by making educational materials available to all interested parties.  The International Space Station has adapted Second Life to function as the virtual component of a classroom course held at the virtual International Spaceflight Museum.  The virtual reality they’ve created contains accurate replicas of every component of the International Space Station.  Students work together to virtually assemble the space station, learning about space sciences and picking up technical skills along the way.  
View a Wiki touting real life examples of government using Second Life here:

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Real_Life_Government_in_Second_Life_Examples

Portland, Oregon does nothing half-heartedly.  As is the case with the city’s newly spearheaded 25-year master plan.  In true Portland fashion, this master plan has dreams of grandeur; of a thriving and sustainable city where all citizens are prosperous, healthy and educated.  While I’m sure all cities want the same for their residents, we can’t help but have faith in Portland’s gumption.  Their strategy is admirable as well.  Because they believe “more voices means better choices”; Portland is taking it to the people.
 
The 25-year Portland Plan is hoping to entice people to join in the conversation through Facebook, Twitter and Flickr.  The Portland Plan (@PDXPlan) twitter feed has over 1,100 followers and their Facebook page has over 1,700 fans.  Portland has taken their social media endeavors seriously.  It’s clear they view social media not as a bandwagon to jump on, but as a genuine and earnest way of reaching a diverse group of residents who, without social media, likely wouldn’t contribute their ideas.
 
Thought-provoking questions such as “How can we more fully incorporate arts into our daily lives?” are frequently posted by the Portland Plan.  Others post to the Portland Plan’s Facebook wall thanking them for supporting their event.  Flickr is used to highlight city workshops.  The PDXPlan twitter feed is full of ways to experience Portland and become more involved in the planning process.  Pictures from events are posted and added to regularly, all the while with Portland Plan thanking contributors for their ideas and comments.
 
One of the most encouraging aspects of Portland Plan’s endeavors is the amount of discussion that’s been generated.  Social media aside, Portland created a great website and is truly going to the people by attending street fairs and summer events looking for big ideas with the help of their Portland Plan Game.  The social media extension of their outreach efforts truly highlights all the work their doing.  While it might not quite be sparking discussion as much as we would all like to see, it’s clear that Portland is on the cusp of something great.  And we can’t wait to see how social media plays into their ultimate master plan.
 
Learn more about the Portland Plan’s efforts here:  http://www.portlandonline.com/portlandplan/

Guest Post by Ryan Link, AICP, Planning/Public Involvement.

Today, when grabbing my morning coffee at Whole Foods I picked up a flyer that read “Help Put Salad Bars in Schools!”  This year, in cooperation with Chef Ann Cooper, Whole Foods is striving to install a salad bar in at least one school near each of their U.S. stores.

Then, on my way to work, while listening to “Linchpin” by Seth Godin (which I highly recommend), Seth discussed why Twitter has become the fastest growing communication medium in history.

So, right now you may be asking, “what do these two things have in common, and how do they relate to Planning?”  The answer is…..

They didn’t follow the business model, they BROKE it!

I truly think there needs to be a bit less “following”, and a lot more” breaking” in the planning field.  On a weekly basis, Chris Haller posts some great content on this blog relating to Gov 2.0, open government, technology and innovation.  Many governments, planners, etc have followed along and are slowly “breaking” the model.  However there is still a long way to go for planners and the AEC industry as a whole.  A few weeks back Kristen Carney posted a great entry on the Plannovation blog titled “5 Reasons Why the AEC Industry is 2 years behind in adopting social media” addressing this very topic.  I have conversations weekly with planners across the country regarding the use of social media in planning, and I still cannot believe how many planners say “the problem is, I cannot access Facebook, Twitter, etc from work.”

If we truly want to make change, if we want true collaboration, if we want to take our profession to the next level, if we want to make planning fun we need to start by breaking the model.  Let’s break our obsession over security issues, break the false notion that youth are the only ones using social media, break the myth that the use of emerging technologies cost too much to implement, and break the idea that employees will just wind up wasting time if they have access to these sites.

It may not always be easy.  Making a conscious decision to take things in a different direction will not always be well received.  But the planning profession needs those with the courage and the perseverance to break our old ideas and build a better, more collaborative planning process.

So what do you plan to break today?

The Netherlands Architecture Institute announced the launch of UAR - Urban Augmented Reality last month: the world’s first mobile architecture application featuring augmented reality with 3D models. It allows users to see and experience the built environment of the past, present and future, via Layar Browser. The NAI has set itself an incredible challenge: to make the Netherlands the first country in the world to have its entire architecture viewable on smartphones thanks to augmented reality. UAR can be downloaded from Android Market and the Apple App Store.

Even the best Gov 2.0 plans can quickly become overwhelmed by their own prosperity.  On active forums, moderation and facilitation can become an all-consuming job.  Devoting valuable resources to implementing open data policies or social media campaigns is a noble cause but most likely not a top priority.  Peak Democracy is proposing an alternate option: outsourcing the management of government forums.  Peak Democracy strives to include those that are unable to attend public meetings or otherwise don’t engage in discussions through online public forums.  According to their website, Open City Hall  was developed as a public comment process monitored by Peak Democracy to have the order and decorum of a government meeting.  The Open City Hall application provides the forum, and Peak Democracy manages and monitors the activities on that forum 24-hours a day.  

Peak Democracy deems themselves a non-partisan company with the mission of broadening civic engagement to build public trust in government.  The third-party company manages public forums derived from topics generated by government agencies.  Freedom of speech issues are handled through order and decorum rules for the forum.  Not only does Peak Democracy moderate discussions, but they provide support to all users requiring special assistance.  Advertising is forbidden, as is lewd and lascivious behavior.  And Peak Democracy estimates that government agencies can administer the application using less than one hour of staff time per topic.  

You may be wondering if anyone has tried Open City Hall yet.  The forum page of Peak Democracy’s website lists over a dozen active forums across the country.  The City of Palo Alto, California has one of the best success stories.  They’ve integrated Open City Hall with a comprehensive social media strategy.  Users can sign up for subscriptions to Open City Hall topics and follow the action through daily emails, twitter updates, on their facebook news feed or through their favorite RSS reader.  Palo Alto posts minutes from recent city council meetings and opens the topics up for further discussion by the public.

Future Gov TV recently sat down with Patrick McCormick, the Manager of Digital Engagement for the Department of Justice in Victoria, Australia, to discuss the evolution of government 2.0. The state of Victoria has been proactive in adopting Gov 2.0 technologies and social media campaigns due primarily to their premiere, John Brumby’s, forward-looking stance on the movement. The premiere himself has a Youtube channel and has embraced ‘Question Time’, a Youtube forum where he answers questions from citizens that he finds interesting and probing.

Based on the premiere’s policy, McCormick notes that he has witnessed an evolution within government as the state has integrated Gov 2.0. Government 2.0 can be a difficult term to define. In Victoria, the movement towards user created content and thoughtful participation is the driving force and defining feature of their gov 2.0 campaign. As the Manager of Digital Engagement, McCormick is witnessing an evolution of government based on these policies. He believes government is transforming from a hierarchical and rigid entity to a more accommodating and agile cooperative in attempting to meet the needs of the greater population.

Most importantly, McCormick has observed how Gov 2.0 is changing the way governments interact with citizens. Not only have new forums and channels for interaction been created, but a deeper level of engagement has been reached. Fostering participation and a sense of connection requires an authentic voice. Social media forums and twitter feeds allow for that. They allow for a sense of humor and freedom not seen before in gov 2.0; they foster a more genuine connection.

What are some of the other results the second most populous state in Australia is seeing? The Victoria police department is attempting to shift public perception through more open, transparent interactions with the public. Through a highly active Twitter account, locations of roadblocks for vehicle searches, seatbelt checks, and DUI checkpoints are tweeted well in advance. The department is trying to convince the public that they’re not out to get them, they merely want to keep the city safe. Prompting changes in behavior can be a tricky thing, but taking a proactive stance is always a great start.

Watch the full interview with Patrick McCormick here: http://www.futuregov.asia/tv/government/laws-gov-20/

Image via Wikipedia

It’s not often that one is able to use the words ‘research and development’ when describing new initiatives within their local government.  If you’re one of the lucky 6,500 people living in Manor, Texas, research and development just entered a new era.  This small community on the outskirts of Austin has partnered with Stanford University’s Peace Dot Project to create Manor Labs, the official research and development division of the City of Manor.
 
Addressing its citizens as innovators, Manor Labs is best described as a citizen-powered think tank.  The initiative is reaching out to the public for ideas about how the city can better serve everyone.  This think tank isn’t capped at 6,500; anyone wishing to contribute ideas need merely register with the site.  And not all users are required to submit ideas.  In fact, Manor Labs hopes to engage citizens on multiple levels by allowing anyone to view submitted ideas, and allowing registered users to review and comment on each others ideas.
 
The City of Manor has taken a genuine stance with respect to the ideas being generated.  A strategic process has been developed to ensure that no idea goes unrecognized.  All submitted ideas first enter an incubation stage.  During incubation, the idea is posted for public commenting and voting.  As the idea gains page views and promotions through the voting process, it may eventually be propelled into the next stage: validation.  Once the idea has been ‘validated’ by the public, a department head within the City will review the idea.  He or she takes into account the cost and sustainability of the idea, and if determined a worthy endeavor, will advance the idea to the emergence stage.  In this stage, a pilot project will be discussed as well as ways of implementing the idea.  If the City deems the idea feasible, the initial brainstormer will be rewarded and the idea will be implemented.  If the idea is aborted, Manor Labs will provide a full debrief as to why the idea was determined unfeasible.
 
It’s clear from this process that the City of Manor has great appreciation and respect for the ideas and feedback of its citizens.  And residents are responding, to date over 500 people have registered with the site and seven ideas have already entered the emerging stage.  What are some of the current ideas being tossed around in Manor Labs?  The top-rated idea as of writing, is a request to convert all GIS maps to Google Earth formats to make them more accessible for the public.  Other ideas include creating a mobile version of the City of Manor website and instituting ticket reminders that would notify citizens of unpaid fines and tickets in efforts to minimize the amount of warrants issued and the burden on the court system.
 
Check out the Manor Labs website here: http://www.manorlabs.org/

Games like World of Warcraft give players the means to save worlds, and incentive to learn the habits of heroes. What if we could harness this gamer power to solve real-world problems? Jane McGonigal says we can, and explains how.

Candi Harrison, former manager of a U.S. government website for over a decade, has some advice to offer when it comes to customer service.  In the case of government websites, customer service equates to citizen service since citizens routinely flex their ownership in this democratic nation by voting and electing their own officials.  And to facilitate the best of partnerships in this government/citizen relationship, customer service is crucial.  Harrison believes the foundation of customer service can be boiled down to the simple tenant of “listen, respect and follow”.
 
Governments continually strive to earn citizen’s trust, entice them to utilize services and participate more.  In this constant push, the agencies that stop for a second, listen to their audience, respect the feedback they receive and follow citizen’s advice, are the government entities that ultimately build stronger relationships with their communities.  Obviously as citizens we have a reciprocal duty to engage in our government and offer opinions.  But isn’t becoming involved much more enticing when you feel your opinions are respected and you witness change being instituted based upon your suggestions?
 
The listen, respect, follow mantra is understandably easier said than done.  However, the state of Georgia is blazing the way in implementing progressive customer service policies.  Georgia is the first state in the country to target customer service across the board and it’s been a long and winding journey.  The initiative first grew roots four years ago when the new governor, Joe Doyle, created the Governor’s Office of Customer Service.  After careful observations incognito, Governor Doyle realized that citizens viewed the state of Georgia as lagging so far behind to being almost entirely unresponsive to their needs.  In this case, getting employees to buy-into the system was the key to increasing their woeful customer service.
 
Without hiring expensive outside consultants, the Governor dramatically increased customer service throughout the entire state.  According to the Governor’s office: “At Child Support Services, the time between a parent’s first contact with the agency and meeting a caseworker went from a 30-day wait to same-day service.  It used to take a prospective teacher an average of nine minutes to speak with a live person at the Professional Standards Commission. Now it takes eight seconds. Medicaid approval went from nine weeks to twelve days.”
 
To read more of Candi Harrison’s advice browse here:  http://candioncontent.blogspot.com/2010/02/customer-service-mantra-listen-respect.html
 
To read more about how Georgia dramatically improved their customer service, browse here:  http://www.ajc.com/news/georgia-politics-elections/georgia-praised-for-customer-320785.html

Guest Post by Ryan Link, AICP, Planning/Public Involvement.

I may be a bit behind in finding this, but I just came across the Levi’s Go Forth Braddock campaign on Chris Brogan’s Blog.  The one question that seems to be on everyone’s mind is “Is this a true investment in community planning and revitalization or simply a well planned publicity campaign?”  One claim on the Levi’s Go Forth Braddock Facebook Page (Not a Town or Levi’s site) states “There is no public input.”  The official press release from Levi’s issued on June 24, 2010 states “Today, Levi’s® is investing in the American revolution that is taking shape in Braddock.  Levi’s® and Braddock are intertwined by an unshakable mantra for progress: Real People + Real Work = Real Change.”

There seems to be no question that the overall effort to revitalize Braddock is spearheaded by a true leader who is passionate about revitalizing Braddock, Mayor John Fetterman.  Regardless of what your opinion is, I would think that we could all agree that Braddock is a town, like many across this Country that has fallen on very tough times, but yet we can all see the promise in it and realize that it can reinvent itself. 

Social media is just starting to play a role in this campaign with You Tube videos from Levi’s an independent Facebook Page and various blog posts debating the project.  This is an interesting example of how social media can take a local project and propel it into the national spotlight and national dialogue.  Could revitalization efforts of this type benefit from additional social media strategies/efforts? 

So what are your thoughts? 

We look forward to discussing this further in the upcoming weeks.

Re-Imagining Chinatown: An Interactive Planning Process

The 4x8 ft. model of Chinatown includes Los Angeles State Historical Park (formerly known as the Cornfields) and portions of the LA River and will highlight the areas topography, streets, and blocks. It is designed to inspire the minds of the participants through its grand interventions, vivid use of materials, colors, textures and by allowing the public to touch and imprint their vision on it.


Fifth Floor becomes an impromptu urban planning store with shelves lining the wall that host an array of small, colorful buildings. Visitors can take these buildings off the shelves and place them on the model located in the middle of the gallery to create their ideal urban form. The model will constantly change as the work builds upon the contributions of others.


This technique, conceived by Rojas, facilitates public participation in the urban planning process by using art as an interactive, creative medium to help people think about their community. The evolving exhibition mimics the dynamic and collective nature of life in Chinatown. These activities reflect how varied groups of players—strangers, neighbors, friends—interact to create a sense of place in Chinatown.

Our friend Tim Bonnemann recently wrote a commentary on the evolving uses of crowdsourcing technology over at Federal Computer Week.  Namely, the coupling of crowdsourcing with government decision-making and policy creation.  Bonnemann suggests that successful case studies using this technique, may not be applicable in many contexts of Government2.0.  He references an article by Jeff Howe in Wired magazine that originally coined and defined the term crowdsourcing.  In the article, The Rise of Crowdsourcing, characteristics of successful projects are highlighted.  Bonnemann concurs with those characteristics and notes that many projects currently attempting to integrate crowdsourcing strategies aren’t a good fit for the technology and may see less than promising results.

What are these vital characteristics?  According to both Howe and Bonnemann they are:

• Fairly objective, or agreed-upon, evaluation criteria and success metrics for participant input.
• No concept of stakeholders, and thus no need for inclusion, representativeness, consensus seeking and deliberation.

They have a valid point.  If stakeholders are involved in a project but not active in the crowdsourcing efforts or able to give considerable feedback within participatory efforts, disputes will undoubtedly arise that could viably lead to the failure of the project.  And, as Bonnemann notes, when personal values and beliefs come to play, trade-offs are subjective and reaching a consensus becomes inconceivable.

Personally, I’d add understanding of the incentives that drive people to participate as another vital characteristic. Many projects I’ve seen often assume that there’s enough excitement for a cause that people will invest their valuable time. They end up being surprised that the tasks they were trying to crowdsource do not resonate with their audience and response rates remain low.

This all seems logical, but it begs the question: When is crowdsourcing appropriate?  Bonnemann suggests crowdsourcing be used for specific tasks, such as idea generation, fact checking and translations.  Crowdsourcing is a wonderful tool but let’s not forget that it’s just one piece of the puzzle. Effective participatory strategies require a multi-pronged approach, not a one-size-fits-all solution.

Read the full article here:  http://fcw.com/articles/2010/01/25/comment-bonnemann-crowdsourcing-government-policy.aspx

View more presentations from Ryan Link.

Using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to Increase Citizen Engagement is a report recently released by The IBM Center for The Business of Government.  What the technical title boils down to is: how can GIS aid and abet participatory planning?  Are geographic information systems the next major accomplice in the movement towards increased citizen engagement?  Dr. Sukumar Ganapati, author of the report, believes so, but it will first require a political paradigm shift.
 
Ganapti believes we’ve entered the third wave of GIS technology.  The first wave introduced stand-alone GIS applications, the second brought GIS to the world wide web and the third has introduced the “geospatial web 2.0 platform” where spatial data can easily be overlaid with existing maps.  And with this third wave, GIS and GPS technology has been made widely available to the public.  Not only is GIS more accessible than ever, but it now comes with the power to harness public participation in real time.  Ganapti calls out three areas in which GIS applications are having a positive impact and a fourth - participatory planning - where he sees great potential for the technology.
 
Citizen-oriented services were among the first adopters of GIS.  Transit authorities have utilized GIS software to provide real-time reports on traffic conditions and independent software developers have begun creating tools including applications for places of interest near transit stops and alerts at stations.  Non-emergency citizen service requests have started interfacing with GIS software.  Government agencies can now easily generate maps depicting political boundaries, demographic and socioeconomic information, land use and zoning information, and natural environment conditions such as floodplains, making the information available to the public.  Agencies have tackled other services as well, such as enabling citizens to report graffiti, potholes and traffic accidents through a geospatial web 2.0 platform.  The newest area of integration comes from using GIS to gather information provided voluntarily by citizens, such as in the Louisiana Bucket Brigade.
 
Lastly, Ganapti cites participatory planning as an area where there is “considerable opportunity for growth” when taking advantage of GIS technology.  With increasing ease-of-use and accessibility, Ganapti notes the main roadblocks in adopting GIS are likely to be organizational and institutional barriers.  For the full potential of GIS technology to be realized, it will require leadership that recognizes the capacity to increase government interaction with citizens.
 
Learn more about the report and its author at: http://www.businessofgovernment.org/report/using-geographic-information-systems-increase-citizen-engagement