Idea Lab

The Intelligence is in the Network, Social Media and Local Public Life Gathering in Boston Thursday

by Steven Clift
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

Join me this Thursday evening at Harvard's Berkman Center for a discussion of Social Media and Local Public Life. It should be an interesting conversation, particularly if you bring examples with you. On a related note, I am getting ready to speak on Saturday at the Newout.Org conference in Boston which is described as: _NEWSOUT: What to do when the newsroom lights go out: _ _In the last 18 months, some 15,000 U.S. working journalist have lost their jobs through retirement, buyouts or layoffs. New England newsrooms have not been immune. _ _If independent, watchdog journalism is critical to participatory...

• March 18, 2009
• 2 comments

Online-News@ reborn as News-Online@ -- E-mail List Nostalgia or the Best Way to Interact?

by Steven Clift
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

As spaces for those interested in online news like WiredJournalists.com and Poynter's online groups go completely web-centric, my heart pangs for the simple e-mail list. Something I can easily read and post to in those rare idle moments in transit on my handheld or from the place I still spent the majority of my time online - conveniently from my desktop e-mail. On a whim, I decided to contact those who posted to the Online-News e-mail list (Steve Outing started it way back in the early 1990s) in the months before it was retired. Poynter's moved on with their conversion...

• January 27, 2009
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Digital Community Builders Can Roll Their Own Economic Stimulus Package

by Steven Clift
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

I come from the "citizen" side of citizen media and work a lot with community building online. Everyday, I an privileged to live in a neighborhood with a vibrant online community far from the wretched shores media hosted mostly anonymous and frequently disturbing online reader comments. So, from my non-profit perspective, when I look at all the money the U.S. government might be throwing into cement, I figure we digital folks need to come up with similar job-creating ideas that provide real value to community infrastructure. So below is my proposal. (Also in PDF format.) Community Infrastructure Builders - The...

• January 13, 2009
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Twittering the Minnesota U.S. Senate Recount

by Steven Clift
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

Politicos and media-types are crowd sourcing the continuous change in the unofficial count between Al Franken and incumbent Senator Norm Coleman. By coalescing around the tag #mnrecount on Twitter, a dynamic conversation and exchange is developing. You can see the national reaction with simple searches of franken and coleman as well. Also, on E-Democracy.Org's MN-Politics forum (an e-list/web forum dating back to 1994) you can see some old skool exchange as well. Oh, and here are posts across the blogosphere. Here are just the last 18 minutes on the Twitter channel: # wabbitoid: #mnrecount Coleman, 5 Nov: "I would step...

• November 6, 2008
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My Advice to Knight on Local Democracy Online

by Steven Clift
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

The Knight Foundation is beginning to make some waves in local democracy circles. And I am not just saying that because they fund this blog. Earlier this year they hosted a conference with community foundations on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy, then they announced the Knight Center of Digital Excellence focused on universal access to the "digital town square," and most recently announced a commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy and $24 million in matching funds for community foundations (see my collection of online civic engagement resources for community foundations referenced in a...

• July 30, 2008
• 3 comments

Sidewalks for Democracy Online

by Steven Clift
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

Government websites don't have sidewalks, newspaper racks, public hearing rooms, hallways or grand assemblies. There are no public forums or meeting places in the heart of representative democracy online. The question that this essay will ask and answer is not what can we do to redesign democracy for the Internet Age, but, rather, why have we decided to delete democracy from the most visited interface citizens have with "their" government? And what are we going to do about it? After almost two decades of "e-democracy," we seem content with simply accelerating online what's already wrong with politics. We raise money...

• June 22, 2008
• 5 comments

Finding Local Community Online

by Steven Clift
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

I've been thinking a lot about just how "local" most people want to be online. The greatest myth about the Internet is that people only want to go to world online. That they only care about creating social networks with friends or people like themselves with similar interests from thousands of miles away. It is as if the cross-dressing organic gardener from Sweden connecting with those like themselves on the other side of the world (someone I met once who shared his tipping point experience with the power of the Internet) has more virtue than enabling a plant swap online...

• May 2, 2008
• 2 comments

How Would You Engage People in Public Policy?

by Steven Clift
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

The one million figure is my number, but seriously, the UK government wants advice on how to engage lots of people online. Engage is the key word, the British Prime Minister already receives e-petitions online (nothing like that with the White House, Congress, or even one U.S. governor despite our constitutional right to petition) which is more about political expression than engagement. From the UK-based OpenDemocracy site you can learn about UK government's "desire to hold a national debate on a British Statement of Values as part of the Governance of Britain Green Paper." You can read a summary of...

• March 25, 2008
• 1 comment

Is Citizen Media Skipping Small Town America?

by Steven Clift
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

I am on a hunt. While the new EveryBlock.com site uses maps to display aggregated content for three major cities and Outside.in gets local with select geotagging blogs in a number of high population areas, I am looking for tools that display organic "user-generated" content via maps that get out of urban areas and into small town America. As part of E-Democracy.Org's Rural Voices project in Minnesota we seek to discover bloggers, social networking groups, wikis, online community forums, etc. from rural/Greater Minnesota. This map of 200 blogs aggregated by MNSpeak, shows just three outside the Twin Cities metropolitan area....

• March 19, 2008
• 1 comment

How Far Should Transparency Go?

by Steven Clift
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

Government Technology reported on public employee protests to seeing their names and salaries online via a database on the Sacramento Bee. What about public employee salaries - should all be publicly posted online? Should only management level and above be listed specifically with others displaying the salary range per pay scales for various classifications? I have a hard time imagining a democracy where any and all legally public government information is not on the Internet for all to see in a decade or so. This means the ethics filings of public officials will be liberated from the dusty paper files...

• March 18, 2008
• 7 comments

Crashing the E-Politics and E-Democracy Gates

by Steven Clift
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

My focus tends to be the "citizen" in citizen media. Over the last few years I've increasing found myself at conferences like Public Media and the Online News Association. I always feel a bit out of place, because despite the adoption of online interactivity in online news and media, I am still pretty much viewed as a "consumer." Someone to be captured and delivered to advertisers or to become a donor to public broadcasting. Interactivity is often viewed in the context of news be it reacting with reader comments or creating "news." True conversation, the heart of being a citizen...

• February 21, 2008
• 1 comment

Public Notices 4.0: Time to Upgrade Public Meetings

by Steven Clift
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

Over the years my work has brought me to Rome a few times. The Roman Forum as well as the Athenian Agora have always intrigued me as a model for envisioning online public spaces. Surrounding a public space you have major public and religious institutions, a commercial market in one corner, a place for public speeches, and in Roman Forums the "Albus" or a white notice board with public announcements written in black. Today we often experience institutions (online and off) without a town square or commons in the center, which I try to counter with Issues Forums. However, today...

• February 13, 2008
• 1 comment

National Night On(line)!

by Steven Clift
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

The other night it was -10F with a windchill of -40F here in Minneapolis. When things get that cold, we Minnesotans start thinking about ways to get warm. I think this is why we have a reputation for public innovation, we have a lot of indoor time to think up schemes when the rest of the country is out on their deck enjoying a beer. So I started thinking about ways to better connect with my neighbors despite the cold. I am a huge fan of National Night Out when neighbors around the U.S. put up road blocks and hold...

• January 31, 2008
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Questioning Candidates on Government Openness and Transparency - Pick your Top 5

by Steven Clift
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

While the mainstream media community raises awareness about open government each year during Sunshine Week, we need to push local up strategies that promote greater government transparency online so local citizen media has access to the raw "info" materials we need to improve democracy. We need to take a lesson from OMBWatch's Open Government online survey and ask questions of state and local candidate. Here is the survey introduction from OMBWatch: Open Government: What We Need to Know We deserve a more open and honest government. Elections are the time when politicians pay the most attention to people and issues,...

• January 29, 2008
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Online Voter Guides and Election Coverage Down the Ballot?

by Steven Clift
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

I was pretty amazed last night with the multiple live feeds CNN.com provided to the different Iowa Caucus candidate parties. Each Presidential election, the major media sites and a gazillion .com ventures ratchet up their online coverage of this signature race. My question to blog readers - is there any sign that this creativity has any momentum down the ballot? Please share any links in your comments. In 2006, I was the host of a unique asynchronous two week online candidate debate among all the candidates on the ballot for Minnesota Governor. Beyond basic online voter guides and article packages,...

• January 4, 2008
• 1 comment

The Media's Opportunity to Promote Democracy Online - Get Government to Do It

by Steven Clift
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

As I noted in my IdeaLab introduction, my background is in online citizen engagement. Specifically, I run a non-profit, E-Democracy.Org, that promotes both government and media accountability at the local level through online town halls we call Issues Forums. (Note our Minneapolis discussion of changes at the StarTribune here and here.) In the mid-90's I managed the main website for the State of Minnesota and staffed the Minnesota Government Information Access Council. I am passionate about government's responsibility to play a lead role as the supplier of information "raw materials" for democracy. The media can and should do a much...

• November 12, 2007
• 2 comments

Reader Comments: Send Me Your Success Stories

by Steven Clift
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

I am working up a post on reader comments to news stories on media sites, comments on media-hosted blogs, or media hosted online forums. At the recent Online News Association conference there was definitely a sense of turmoil surrounding reader comments online. I'd hate to see interactivity switched off due to the lack of "here is how we make it work" knowledge sharing. Those in local media are in particular asked to send in some success stories. Please comment here or privately to me - clift@publicus.net - about your success stories. Add links to examples when possible. Some questions to...

• October 31, 2007
• 3 comments

10Questions Offers a 'Netroots' Presidential Debate

by Steven Clift
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

On my Democracies Online blog I shared my dismay about the so-called online candidate debates thus far this election cycle. With E-Democracy.Org we hosted the first online candidate debate back in 1994, so I am looking for innovations that involve the public in determining the questions and would be satisfied without real candidate rebuttals online. E-Debates have a long way to go, but 10Questions.com is a huge step in the right direction. 10Questions, with scores of netroots and some media sponsors as led by TechPresident, allows you to upload you video question to various video services. You simply tag your...

• October 19, 2007
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To What End? Introducing Democracy Online

by Steven Clift
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

Over the next year as a Knight News Challenge "ideas blogger," I'll be blogging a bridge between my world of online citizen engagement and the world of online news/citizen media. As far as I can tell, both areas overlap as hosts of extensive expression. The end goals differ with media folks looking at news generation as the primary objective and online citizen engagement focused on participation and public problem-solving. I look forward to poking and prodding the online news world to exercise their power to move people and ideas online. As the number one destination websites in local communities, media...

• October 16, 2007
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