Building Community Connectiveness

Methods to engage a community include: holding town hall meetings, focus groups, strategic community groups/board platforms, holding events, connecting through libraries, community centres, targeted programs and partnering with specialised community groups - to name a few.

But here's the 'game changer' as they say in the States - digital connectedness.  The advent of network technologies enables collaboration on a scale that hasn't been possible before.  It's creating new ways to bring diverse stakeholders together.  

Having spent time in the epicentre, Silicon Valley, I now have a new perspective on how fast technology is changing the world. New modes of engagement are allowing councils/cities to reach out to a much larger, wider audience and demographic.

Examples include - the world of APPs; Crowdsourcing; Open government; Wi-Fi connectivity; public/private partnerships and I haven't even started on Facebook or Twitter.   

Here are some links just for starters -

Crowdsourcing

Mayor's across the nation used crowdsourcing to get ideas from the public for entry into the Bloomberg Mayor's Challenge.  An open call to residents for ideas (crowdsourcing)  by one Mayor gave the winning person 3 tickets to a major league game.

The Mayor of Milwaukee, also put a call out to the public and picked the 12 top ideas.  The 12 chosen presented at their large city meeting which they called a ‘TORNOVATION’.  The Mayor of Lexington made a city wide conference call with 1000’s on the phone at same time.  SFO also used crowd sourcing to elicit ideas from its constituents, ImproveSF.

Council's work with citizens to set up their own connections and then stay out of the conversations so as not to be Big Brother. Check out 'nextdoor.com'  or https://3japantownsanjose.nextdoor.com/city/

IDEO use crowd sourcing to contribute to social good - Open IDEO  definitely check this one out.

Apps

 

 Applications are revolutioning the way community members interact with their city/council.  Download the APP such as San Jose Clean,  Boston's citizens connect, or many others, take a photo and you have reported graffiti, litter, a missing sign or city park condition to the appropriate department such as Public Works.   The resident gets notification when their discovery has been fixed. 

 

 When it’s that easy, the community gets involved.  Also when it is fun they get involved or if there is a competition.  Check out New York BigApp competition.  Then there is Code for America which is like the 'Peace Corp' for computers - they help council's with fiscal restraints to code new ideas and Apps. 

 

Public private partnership. 

Cities around the world are exploring new partnerships that stretch further in local government than they used to.  They leverage their existing resources which include individual businesses, developers, entrepreneurs, non profits, universities and colleges, Chambers of Commerce, innovation agencies and through crowdsourcing platforms potentially all residents .  They engage the private sector to take more interest in their community and be included in decision making in new ways.

 

I have a disc with an array of information to bring back, including such articles on New York's Network of Business Leaders. The Partnership is a non-profit membership organization comprised of a select group of two hundred CEOs (“Partners”) from New York City’s top corporate, investment and entrepreneurial firms. Partners are committed to working closely with government, labour and the non-profit sector to enhance the economy and maintain New York City’s position as the global centre of commerce, culture and innovation. 

The Bloomberg Mayor's Challenge has also highlighted the way councils can get powerful new partnerships together to help councils and cities tackle tough problems.
 

Mapping

Cities digital road map – check out New York's Roadmap.

Free WI-Fi

The race is on to get WI-F in as many places as possible.  Santa Cruz have it all coffee shops down their main street.  San Francisco are aiming to have it all the way down one of their main city streets, Market St.  New York is aiming to have it in all their parks.  And on the subject of parks, Bloomberg's aim is that every person will live within 10mins of a Park - this includes using school grounds for parks after school hours.

Open Government.
Transparency for our community  -  check out https://nycopendata.socrata.com/


311

Once upon a time residents had to go through 500 or more phone numbers to reach the right department or ask a simple question.  Now it all goes to the one number, 311.  It’s very innovative, check  New York or San Francisco

Social Media  - I haven't even started on this – ‘it’s where the public are, so it’s where governments should reach out to them’  says  Ron Vinson, (Director of Media in the Department of Technology, SFO)  but that's for a blog of its own