Civic Intelligence

Pre-Release Announcement! Civic Intelligence's Greatest Hits

2011-07-05T16:39:00.000-07:00

Although I grew up with "The Greatest Hits" of various rock and roll icons like, say, the Byrds or the Kinks (in the form of vinyl records), I have the uneasy feeling that the designation has lost its luster over the past 3 or 4 decades. But "greatest hits" seems to be the sort of thing I'm looking for.

So within the next couple of months I hope to come up with a list of "Civic Intelligence's Greatest Hits" — or at least the first draft. Maybe it's time to dust off the greatest hits meme and test it for virality. I'll be soliciting candidates soon and we'll see what happens.

For now I'll just list a few books that I think should be in contention for a Greatest Hit designation. Other things — apps, events, institutions, public policy, comics, graffiti, etc. — can come later.

John Dewey is one of the earliest — and one of the most significant — commentators on the idea of civic intelligence (although he did not use the term). Dewey stresses the inseparability of thought and action as well as the need to reason together. Intelligence in the Modern World: John Dewey's Philosophy contains a particularly pertinent selection of his writings. I also found Understanding John Dewey: Nature and Cooperative Intelligence by James Campbell to be extremely useful.
From neighborhood mapping to little theater and citizen epidemiology Twenty Years at Hull-House, by Jane Addams demonstrates a unbelievably wide range of civic intelligence. Addams, along with Ellen Gates Starr, founded the Hull House in 1889 where she lived until her death in 1935. Hull House was a vast incubator for civic innovation, an excellent example from history, from which countless more are likely to be found.
Learning to Manage Global Environmental Risks by the Social Learning Group is a well-organized look at how countries around the world have dealt with major environmental threats. Each threat, from the ozone hole problem which was dispatched relatively easily to climate change which is current stymieing the efforts of scientists, governments, and environmental advocates, is addressed by looking at the actions of 10 countries using the same framework. The statement from the book, "Global environmental management will therefore continuously be confronted with new challenges, requiring an ability both to utilize existing knowledge despite its inevitable uncertainties and incompleteness and to generate new understanding of unprecedentedly complex systems," captures key aspects of civic intelligence.
Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action by Elinor Ostrom though academic text brings out the major considerations of how groups of people from various times and places have managed to manage resources collectively. Traditionally these have included physical places like fishing grounds, wood lots, or pastures, but, presumably, Ostrom's insights will be relevant in thinking about the Internet.
Street Science: Community Knowledge and Environmental Health Justice by Jason Corburn presents several case studies including projects by El Puente and the Toxic Avengers where "ordinary" citizens used science and scientific methods to understand and pushback disease and environmental degradation in their communities.
Democracy as Problem-Solving by Xavier de Souza Brigg provides examples from the US and around the world of people working from civil society and the grassroots to build intelligent responses to wicked problems. Breakthrough Communities, edited by M. Paloma Pavel uses a similar approach by documenting how communities across the US are working together in broad coalitions to address important chronic problems.
Preparing for the Twentieth-First Century by Paul Kennedy and Ingenuity Gap by Thomas Homer-Dixon both lay out major problems for society and discuss ways of addressing them. While Homer-Dixon does acknowledge the problems of having inadequate knowledge there are assumptions that ingenuity in the form of new technology or new scientific knowledge will save us — an argument that I find unconvincing.
The Limits to Growth with the help of sophisticated computer modeling looked at a variety of "systems" issues including our various "stores" of natural resources and how fast we use them and degrade our environment was first published in 1972 and has gone through many printings. The latest version, "The 30-Year Update", by Donella Meadows, Jorgen Randers, and Dennis Meadows, contains World3 a more sophisticated computer model that builds on previous ones. Although its focus is an exploration of scenarios — not forecasting the future — the fact that so many of the scenarios end in collapse should definitely give us pause for thought. (And speaking of collapse, let's not forget Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond or The Collapse of Complex Societies by Joseph Tainter, both of whom undertake a systematic look at societal collapse and the factors that caused it.)
A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander and many colleagues, is about more than architecture. It provides a holistic view of human habitations and invites people to take charge of their own dwellings. It also provides a compelling framework based on "patterns" and "pattern languages" that have influenced people from a variety of disciplines, including Liberating Voices: A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution that I developed with the help of 85 colleagues.
Finally, Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming chronicles how a devoted and well-financed group of professionals can — and do — sow civic ignorance. Unfortunately we collectively don't always make the wisest decisions (and books and article that explore this are important candidates for this effort!).

The books listed above should help convey the scope of civic intelligence. Even then there are still a hundred gaping holes: the role of education, technology, the arts, or cognitive science, for example. The U.S.-centric aspect of this preliminary list is also a problem. Another thing to notice, finally, is that none of these books actually covers more than a portion of the civic intelligence territory. Perhaps that's because the territory is too large. Maybe it's because authors don't care to bite off that much. Maybe however it's not a sign that the territory is too large, nor that authors like smaller topics, only that nobody has really conceptualized this particular focus before.

So, please watch for the call. Hopefully you will have some suggestions. Maybe we'll identify the right categories. And maybe ultimately we can agree on the "greatest hits." At the very worst we'll put together a nice list that contains examples of both theory and practice, in short, a list that encourages more civic intelligence.

Deliberation That Matters -- From Krems, Austria

2011-05-16T15:10:00.001-07:00

I just got back from a trip to the Czech Republic and Austria mixing (luckily) both work and pleasure. One of these mixtures involved a presentation on "Deliberation that Matters" at the Conference on e-Democracy and Open Government at the Danube University. Here is an interview (audio) conducted by Ulla Ebner at the conference.

And here is a follow-up interview that was conducted by Angelika Ohland for Upgrade, the magazine of the university.

How can an average citizen become a motor for innovation and the implementation of solutions by e-participation? 
When we talk about "ordinary" or "average" citizens we need to remember that nobody knows everything nor does anybody have absolute control. That means that everybody is a potential contributor. Generally, the first thing that an average person needs is a desire to participate. But lurking behind the seeming lack of desire to participate is the underlying belief that it's futile to do so. On the other hand, sometimes David beats Goliath! Things do change, and sometimes for the better.

Which technical tools does he need? And are they already available? 
In my opinion, the technological tools that support deliberation don't exist yet. While it's true that people can use Facebook or other social networking systems (or email or pencil and paper) for deliberation, we need to construct systems that support deliberation and other forms of collaboration. As my colleague, Fiorella De Cindio of the University of Milan says, "You wouldn't conduct meetings in the discotheque." Deliberative systems — in contrast to e-commerce systems — require careful calibration as they are trying to balance a variety of conflicting forces.
At the same time that deliberation software is difficult to develop (and with little promise of financial reward) there seems be somewhat of a vicious cycle: Nobody uses deliberation software so there is no demand, without demand nobody develops deliberation software. We're trying to introduce deliberative systems into a Facebook world with our online system called e-Liberate. The system is based on Roberts Rules of Order, a set of rules for conducting meetings that has evolved over a 30 year period.

How do deliberation networks function? Are there any rules, is there any control? Are there any barriers to participation? 
Deliberation networks can be formal or informal and each network uses their own set of formal rules and informal conventions. I wish I had more visibility into the vast numbers of experiments that I assume people and organizations (what I call "open action and research networks") are conducting today — generally without thinking of their actions as experimental. Online environments also have barriers of various sorts but they have been successful at bringing down some of these barriers, particularly those of distance.

How can we organize a deliberation process that matters and avoid ineffective talking without any results? 
The first thing we have to do is try. To some degree this is a design process — which is something that academics often eschew. I'd also characterize the work that I'd like to see as being experimental and constructive. I believe that we need to build, somewhat gradually and piecemeal, deliberative systems at the same time that we're building deliberative cultures.

How can collective thinking help to solve problems in the community? Do you know any examples for successful  e-participation today? 
Most (if not all) problems that are solved in communities are the result of collective thinking — we just don't ordinarily acknowledge this or think of it in those terms. And without trying to rewrite the question, I'd like to suggest that deliberation is an ongoing process that is generally a hybrid process that may incorporate digital communication but needn't consist only of that.

Food shortages, despoiled natural resources, economic inequality, wars, dictatorship: Is collective reasoning also able to help to solve global problems? 
As I mentioned before, any viable approach "solution" to any of these problems will require collective intelligence (and collective reasoning is part of that). Although other resources will be required including time, money, effort, and technology, civic intelligence is an absolute necessity — and the sooner we acknowledge that explicitly, the better. The Internet, of course, would be indispensable to any effort at building global collaborative partnerships.

What are the characteristic traits of civic intelligence? And on the contrary: How would you describe civic ignorance? 
Civic intelligence is the ability of social groups to successfully, equitably and humanely address problems facing them. In other words, civic intelligence addresses civic ends through civic means. Civic intelligence is a feature of a group or collectivity. It acknowledges that solving any major problem will require focused attention and collaboration by groups of people — people who aren't necessarily those with power.
I'm glad you asked about the ignorance side of the civic intelligence orientation: our ignorance is profound and ignoring it won't make it go away. I make a distinction between simple ignorance — not knowing about a situation or problem — and active rejection of evidence, which is something individuals, organizations, and governments all do at least some of the time. There is also the serious danger of professional cultivation of ignorance. One doesn't have to go very far to see this in the states: well-resourced campaigns to keep Americans stupid about tobacco use, handguns and public health, and climate change are prominent, well-documented examples.
Incidentally, I'm not trying to besmirch any particular segment of the population. We're all profoundly ignorant. We all "know" an infinitesimal amount of what there is to know. But some types of ignorance are very dangerous — and not just to the people with these traits. Unfortunately you can't just pass a law prohibiting ignorance. Fighting against ignorance (including our own) is essential — and it will be a long and difficult process.

What do people have to know and to learn for being able to deliberate? 
In addition to having the desire to deliberate and some promise, however remote, that their deliberation may have some effect, people will need to have knowledge of the subject matter and deliberative skills. And although neither of these capabilities comes for free it should be possible to improve both over time — an effort that ought to be supported by the institutions in a society: the government, schools, even the media.

How influential are age, education, income, regional and cultural factors? 
It is well known that people with smaller incomes, people who are judged to be too young or too old, people without university credentials, and others are generally excluded from deliberation and decision-making. I don't believe that technology by itself will solve these problems which is one reason why I support university-community partnerships.
Conventional wisdom says that the wisdom will come from the young primarily because they are digital natives and can text while they do their homework or drive. While young people are generally more comfortable with new technology that's no reason for being sanguine about the future. We need to remind ourselves of the "real-world" that in a variety of ways is not "virtual."

How can we increase the inclusiveness of e-participation?  
As I continue to stress, awareness of the importance of participation is primary. Government involvement will probably be necessary but I'm dubious of big government projects. These projects don't have to be wasteful and unproductive but the potential certainly exists. I'm not sure that we know enough about some of these challenges to actually solve them in all at one time.
Deliberation — especially inclusive participation — is difficult but we can't say that it's impossible and not try. We need to theorize and experiment and repeat! I've developed a declaration for online deliberation that contains my views on what we'd need to do to actually have an impact in relation to deliberation, offline and on. Unfortunately it's out of the comfort zone of many academics whom I'd like to see play leadership roles.

Which role will ordinary people play in the new civic society? And will the political and economic elites be less influential in the future? 
These are both crystal ball questions. I'm generally skeptical of people who make strong claims that their view of the future is clear and accurate. For whatever reason, I'm unwilling (or unable?) to make these types of forecasts. Perhaps I see them as deterministic, meaning that they act to preclude action. Why should anybody act if the world of the future has already been determined? I prefer to think in terms of opportunities and possible outcomes. This forces us to think about our actual roles in keeping to or detouring from our current trajectories.

Will e-participation implement more grassroots democracy? 
As I mentioned above my crystal ball is relatively hazy. The opportunity is certainly there and we should work hard to make it a reality. But who knows? Radio started out with great promise and it has been generally domesticated into forms that are basically antithetical to the notion of grassroots democracy. The Internet is of course is central; it has many characteristics that we could build on to support democracy. On the other hand, lobbyists never sleep. The battle for the soul of the internet is in progress. Is the internet only a way to sell things and provide entertainment or can it be also a tool for collective collaboration and social imagination that helps move us forward with more civic intelligence into the 21st century? E-Participation — especially when coupled with "traditional" (non-e-) participation — could absolutely change the ways that politics is practiced around the world.

Deliberating networks do not have any democratic legitimation. Can this be changed? How can ideas be transformed into political action? 
By this I assume you mean the lack of formalized links between the results of deliberation by civil society and governmental policy. I call these links "social access points" and I argue that deliberation makes no sense without them. It's unlikely that these links — to media, government, education — will be opened up without a fight.

Do you think that citizens are interested in e-participation? Aren't they busy enough taking care of their ordinary life? Aren't they relieved if politicians and experts do the job for them? 
In some countries people might be relieved when governments and experts do their job (as many often do). In many cases, however, the highest risk is when governments and experts and other elites are doing the jobs entirely in the service of powerful companies and other institutions with little respect or consideration of the "public good." Citizens ignore civic work at their own peril. I don't see, however, that the business of running their lives as the most significant barrier to participation. People in the US seem to find the time to sit in front of television sets for uncountable hours, some of which could probably be devoted to civic action. But the main cause of their inaction is probably the feeling, at least partially supported, that their work would be ignored, that government and other big institutions have little interest in their deliberations, especially since in many cases the deliberations would have an effect on how they ran their affairs. I believe that the more people actually saw themselves taken seriously, the stronger their inclination to participate might be.

Lobbyists spend huge amounts of money to anticipate a debate about the danger of atomic power or the destructive influence of our consuming habits on the climate. Do ordinary people have a chance to see through these aggressive forms of anti-deliberation? 
The civic ignorance industry is well-financed and completely devoted to separating the message from its sponsor. Although some people don't apparently care whether they're being manipulated, the fact that certain people and institutions with a financial stake in something are spending big money promoting a point of view, that they themselves distance themselves from, raises big warning flags with me and it should with others as well. Certainly if people were more aware of attempts to manipulate them, the manipulators would have to work harder for their money. They could even shift to more intelligent ways to make their points. If the views of people coalesced into a broader more insistent voice for civic intelligence I'd be a lot more optimistic about the prospects for the earth and its habitants.

And at last: Will we be smart enough, soon enough?
This, to me, is the most important question to ask ourselves. We have certainly reached a point in our history where it is not unreasonable to pose the question. That alone makes it worth asking. The point of asking it, however, is not to identify a yes or no response. The only suitable answer — to me at least — is that since we really don't know the answer, the only answer is to work hard — and intelligently — to help ensure that the answer is yes. If we don't change directions we'll get where we going. This statement, although trivially true, reminds us that the forces that have brought us where we are today must be reformed, rerouted, rethought or things will continue in their non-reflective and individualistic quest for short term gain for the few at the expense of long term gain for the many.

Anti-Patterns

2011-05-16T14:33:00.000-07:00

Thought I'd share some anti-patterns about thinking from my Liberating Voices book... Good suggestions as to how to be irrelevant in the 21st Century!

Thinking that people can do nothing
Thinking of people and institutions as being autonomous and strictly competitive
Thinking of technology as being autonomous and immutable, as being something that technopundits alone are capable of creating
Thinking of our own habits of thinking and acting as being as being correct and immutable
Thinking about value in restricted ways
Thinking that experts and professionals will solve all our problems
Thinking that there is no need to develop a collective social agenda
Thinking and speaking using a constricted set of allowable actions and vocabulary
Thinking that propaganda, simplistic explanations, and toxic media are acceptable
Thinking that the free market or vague ideas such as ‘‘progress’’ will rescue us effortlessly through side effects
Thinking that we have no responsibility for other people and the planet now and in future generations

Of course the reason for these anti-patterns is to resist them!

Easy to Print -- and Use! -- Liberating Voices Pattern Card Deck

2011-04-04T10:30:00.000-07:00

Here are the pdfs for the complete set of the Liberating Voices pattern language cards:

set 1, Introduction to project and patterns 1 - 40

set 2, Patterns 41 - 88

set 3, Patterns 89 - 136

And Ken Gillgren has posted some useful workshop reports and worksheets.

Benefits of Interdisciplinary Inquiry

2011-04-04T10:25:00.001-07:00

Here's how I've summarized the benefits of Interdisciplinarity:

· Leveraging the use of language and other intellectual tools developed for one realm in another realm
· Increasing the portability of knowledge and increasing the size and impact of intellectual communities
· Identifying areas of inquiry that are important but under-explored
· Discovering better mappings to the "real world"
· Bringing submerged or marginal issues to light

Pattern Cards now available!

2011-03-25T16:03:00.000-07:00

We have finally finished the job we started over a year ago!

We have created a card for each pattern in Liberating Voices: A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution. We are making these cards freely available for download (in three parts) in the hopes that people will use them in creative and productive ways. One approach is to develop a workshop or game that will help lead to effective projects.

Each of the cards in this deck represents one pattern from the book that MIT Press published in 2008. Each pattern represents one idea for using information and communication for transformative social change. The book contains longer versions of the patterns as well as chapters on the theory and use of the patterns. The long versions of the patterns are also online.

A PATTERN IS INTENDED TO ACT AS A SEED FOR THINKING AND ACTING, THEORY AND PRACTICE.

Patterns are not intended to provide step-by-step instructions. As Christopher Alexander stated in A Pattern Language, the book that brought the idea of patterns and pattern languages to the world, "Each pattern describes a problem which occurs over and over again in our environment, and then describes the core of the solution to that problem, in such a way that you can use this solution a million times over without ever doing it the same way twice."

PATTERNS ARE INTENDED TO BE USED BY THEMSELVES OR WITH EACH OTHER PATTERNS.

Currently the idea is to print the patterns on stiff paper or card stock and then cut each sheet into four cards. And there is an image included in this document that can be used as the back of the card. We are also looking into having the cards printed with higher resolution images on more durable material and making these available at a reasonable price. Let us know if you might be interested in that.

Of course there are more than 136 patterns in the world! For that reason we are continuing to support the development of new patterns. Let us know what your needs are in this respect.

Please feel free to use these cards any way you like. We'd of course like to hear from you about your experiences and what you've learned. What worked for you? What didn't? Do the cards work better for certain types of tasks or with certain groups of people?

The Good Life, Gary Chapman

2010-12-28T09:43:00.000-08:00

Gary Chapman, died on December 14, 2010 while visiting Guatemala. He had been planning to view the lunar eclipse that occurred on the winter solstice from the Mayan temple of Tikal.

I met Gary in 1986 while he was the executive director of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (its first). Gary was the founder of the 21st Century Project and was involved in a variety of fascinating projects including the International School for Digital Transformation where I was a faculty member in 2009 in Porto, Portugal. He contributed chapters to several books that I co-edited. From a web page about Gary at the University of Texas, Gary was "senior lecturer at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, associate director of the Telecommunications and Information Policy Institute at The University of Texas at Austin and internationally recognized expert on Internet policy, telecommunications and technology policy."

Gary also was an author of the one of the Liberating Voices patterns, The Good Life. I've included the verbiage from the pattern card, abridged from the full text. It reminds of Gary's humane values, and serves as an important challenge for all of us:

"People who hope for a better world feel the need for a shared vision of the "good life" that is flexible enough for innumerable individual circumstances but comprehensive enough to unite people in optimistic, deliberate, progressive social change. This shared vision of The Good Life should promote and sustain conviviality and solidarity among people, as well as feelings of individual effectiveness, self-worth and purpose. A shared vision of The Good Life is always adapting; it encompasses suffering, loss and conflict as well as pleasures, reverence and common goals of improvement. An emergent framework for the modern "good life" is based on some form of humanism, particularly pragmatic or civic humanism, with room for a spiritual dimension that does not seek domination. Finally, the environmental crises of the planet require a broad vision of a "good life" that can harmonize human aspirations with natural limits. All this needs to be an ongoing and open-ended "conversation," best suited to small geographic groups that can craft and then live an identity that reflects their vision of a "good life."

Gary Chapman was patient but persistent in his pursuit of progressive goals and a better life for all. He'll be missed.

Journalism That Matters Launches Innovative Civic Intelligence Venture

2010-08-23T13:30:00.000-07:00

It's exciting to report on a new local civic intelligence initiative. A group of civic innovators has been meeting regularly since the "Reimagining News and Community in the Pacific Northwest" unconference organized by Journalism That Matters was held in Seattle in January 2010. Ten related initiatives, called "collaboratories" are the product of these meetings and a public meeting devoted to one of the initiatives will be held monthly. The first meeting, to discuss the Civic Communications Commons initiative, will be held on September 24. That initative "plans to launch an online commons that will serve as an information hub and conversation place for news topics." Other collaboratories include Creating Abundant Journalism, Media Mapping, Digital Literacy Initiative, Building on Transparency, Seattle Happiness Index, and Global Health Reporting.

I'm planning to use the civic intelligence lens to examine (and possibly inform) the project and the initiatives as they move forward.

Here is more information from their recent press release:

A calendar with specific dates and locations will be posted as soon as details are available on the JTM website, http://www.journalismthatmatters.org.

For more details on the initiatives please see Matt Rosenberg’s current update on the JTM website at http://journalismthatmatters.org/content/jtm-pacific-northwest-update or Heidi Dietrich’s at http://wanewscouncil.org/2010/08/10/new-journalism-ventures-in-the-works/.

For updates on the initiatives please go to the JTM website or contact JTM Outreach and Information Coordinator, Cate Montana: cate@fairpoint.net; 360-894-1868.

Towards a Leeds Declaration on Online Deliberation

2010-07-31T13:43:00.000-07:00

The following sketch for a "Leeds Declaration" was the basis of my presentation at the "Strategies for Extending Deliberation" panel discussion at the recent Online Deliberation Conference at the University of Leeds in the UK. The organizers (myself included) had hoped to actually finish (and ratify by some means) a declaration by the end of the conference but that didn't happen. While it may still happen I thought it would be reasonable to publish my thoughts in some form on the web.

How do we take advantage of this historical opportunity to play meaningful roles in the work (now in progress) of designing tomorrow? Perhaps a jointly developed document could help inform this effort?

The Leeds Declaration:
Building an Enlightened and Empowered Citizenry [A DRAFT] July 2, 2010 / Version 0.1
This DRAFT template is based to some degree on the original idea to promote a “Citizen’s Assembly.”

All over the world attempts are being made to trivialize citizenship and reconstitute citizens as (everyday) consumers and (sporadic) voters. At the same time, real power is in many ways being transferred to large corporations and other unelected organizations such as the World Trade Organization. We, the organizers and attendees of the Online Deliberation Conference at the University of Leeds, July 2, 2010, hope to help counter that trend with this declaration.

Realizing the growing and critical importance of citizens and civic society in addressing humankind's common problems, we the undersigned propose the initiation of a prolonged and multi-pronged focus on deliberation — online, "offline", and, most importantly, the relationships between the two. We realize that this is an extremely complex project that will require years of complex, nuanced, creative and thoughtful negotiation and collaboration. We are aware that this project will have to address an extremely broad range of social and cross-cultural factors. We, however, believe that beginning this discussion in an explicit and open way is preferable to many other varieties of globalization that lack this transparency.

Moreover, we realize that precisely defining an ideal system in advance is impossible. For that reason, we propose to begin a principled, long-term, incremental, participatory design process that integrates experimental, educational, community mobilization, research and policy work all within a common intellectual orientation: specifically to provide an inclusive and pluralistic intellectual umbrella for a diverse, distributed civil society effort.

Civil society historically is the birthplace of socially ameliorative visions. This effort is intended to help build a more effective platform for these efforts, to help address humankind's shared problems — such as environmental degradation, human rights abuses, economic injustice and war — that other sectors — notably government and business — are seemingly powerless to stem.

[The proposal contains the follow main tenets or themes that the proposal declaration is founded upon.]

Need for Deliberation and Citizen Engagement

Obstacles to Deliberation and Citizen Engagement

Collaborative Emergencies

The Internet as a Critical Platform

The Importance of Civil Society

An Emphasis on Social Innovation and Civic Intelligence

Building Across Boundaries As Well As Within Boundaries

New Venues, Transformed Venues

Many Audiences, Many Stakeholders

Diversity of Deliberative Spaces and Approaches

Support for the Deliberative Community

Building on Current (and Building Additional) Knowledge

Suggestions and Recommendations to All Sectors...

All sectors of society would be affected by a more enlightened and empowered citizenship. Although no one group will be responsible for the design, development, maintenance, and use of a more engaged and effective deliberative culture, we are directing our recommendations to specific sectors. This declaration should contain suggestions to (at least) these groups: the academic and research community, parents, teachers, and other educators, the government at various levels (the responsibility to respond to citizen input social innovation -- in addition to technological innovation -- should be funded), the media, the funders, the NGOS and to the civil sector in general.

Finally, the last line in the declaration should make it clear that the declaration must be addressed to people everywhere — all citizens of the world.

Holy Grail, NewsMan!

2010-04-22T07:50:00.000-07:00

While the news definitely has a place, the main question that needs answering in my opinion is what information and communication do people actually need to play a meaningful role in society — and, arguably, this goes way beyond news. The subsequent question (not answered here) is what can be done to ensure that this actually occurs.

News attaches prominence on immediacy: What's happening right now is the all-important factor. And for that reason, news itself is often literally useless. It can be very entertaining and enticing, but it falls flat in the usefulness department when the voting, invasion, or bus crash, has already occurred.

When the news is the only thing that matters, the factors leading up to a news story as well as the consequences and implications that follow the story do not receive the attention they deserve.

Focusing on news is a way to entice a society with attention deficit disorder. And months after the news story, the audience can't remember who was bombed (or the reasons that were provided) or where the famine took place (or what factors helped cause it).

This also helps can help instill a feeling of helplessness (and/or cynicism and/or ignorance) because we rarely learn about roles we might play since we didn't see the news coming and we don't see where it's going or what might come next.

News preempts the important — and often unrealized — products of journalism that we could call the pre- and post- news. News shouldn't be the "holy grail" but it could serve as a foundation for developing and disseminating that matters.

Postscript: I developed the above in relation to the recent Journalism that Matters (Un)Conference held in Seattle. This definitely overlaps with the great concept of "Slow News" that was introduced at the conference. I have to admit it took awhile (a few minutes at least) for this concept to grow on me. (I'm now hoping that somebody will also post a draft Slow News pattern to the Liberating Voices pattern language site.)

Open Interview of Liberating Voices

2009-12-11T10:00:00.001-08:00

Ken Gillgren has graciously agreed to conduct an open interview over the web of the Liberating Voices book. Check out Ken's interview in progress. And the patterns are here.

Society — Not Just a Few Individuals —Needs to "Get Smarter"

2009-11-19T15:01:00.000-08:00

In the a recent Atlantic magazine (July / August, 2009) Jamais Cascio spins an entertaining but ultimately depressing variation on the enduring American myth of unbounded future greatness based on technological achievement.

The core of the idea is that people (some) will get smarter and smarter in the future and because of that, things will get better and better. Seemingly unassailable problems related to fossil fuel depletion global warming may vanish against the people who outsmart them.

I have nothing against smart people. Some of my best friends are smart. But smart people created the latest financial crisis and are probably cooking up the next catastrophe right now. Maybe they're so smart that they'd trick us out of our money (again). And why should these new savants deign to help those with lesser IQs? Orthodox economics assures us that it is rationale to maximize your return on investment. W. C. Fields echoed this sentiment when he advised us to "Never give a sucker an even break."

Research on intelligence doesn't support the claim that the great unsmartened mass of us will benefit from the accelerated smartness of the few. Raymond S. Nickerson in his chapter "Teaching Reasoning" reminds us that "Although high intelligence is an asset for good reasoning, it is not a guarantee of it. It does not, for example, ensure that those who have it will be immune to the foibles, such as a my-side bias in argument production, that afflict less gifted mortals (Perkins, Farady, & Bushey, 1991). More generally, high intelligence does not ensure that those who have it will hold only well-justified beliefs (Sokal & Bricmont, 1998)." And in a recent New Scientist article (October 31, 2009), "It's How You Use it That Counts" by Michael Bond, high IQ doesn't correlate with the ability to avoid "some common traps of intuitive thinking" or the ability to make good decisions. Bond also points out that IQ tells us nothing about what a person chooses to focus his or her sharper intellect on.

Unfortunately Cascio's paean to smartness diverts society's attention from our deepest problems and how to address them effectively. That we can make little headway against shared problems without broad social deliberation and collaboration. Although alleviating our problems may require smart people (probably lots of them), our problems won't be solved solely by them. Societal problems must be acknowledged by all of society or at least big portions of it. This is the promise — that we ignore at our own peril — of democracy.

I'd love to see Cascio turn his attention to the more interesting, more challenging, and more useful task, of building collective intelligence. To continue to celebrate and focus our attention on building the resources and capabilities of the privileged few at the expense of the many is folly.

Liberating Voices at Not a Number

2009-08-28T16:05:00.000-07:00

There was a smallish reading and reception for Liberating Voices: A Pattern Language for Communication Revoltion at Not a Number in Wallingford. Their motto is "Disturbing the Comfortable and Comforting the Disturbed." Although it was raining cats and dogs (literally!) there was a good turnout. Pattern authors Ken Gillgren and Alan Borning were there and we expect a few more at the next event — which is planned for September 24.
(out of focus photograph by Zoe Schuler)

The Public Sphere Guide

2009-08-28T15:54:00.001-07:00

Andy Oram has suggested what looks like a very promising effort: The Public Sphere Guide.

From their website: Facilitating and advancing the study of the transformations of the public sphere to enable its renewal – this is the purpose of this Public Sphere Guide, seeking to create a map of this fragmented interdisciplinary field of study. Co-sponsored by NYU’s Institute for Public Knowledge, this beta version is intended to expand incrementally over time. The Public Sphere Guide serves as a research guide and as a teaching guide as well as a resource for the renewal of the public sphere. At the same time, it also serves as a guide to the SSRC’s public sphere program area. The guide is linked to and receives input from the online essay forum Transformations of the Public Sphere. For more information, see the About page.

Comments and suggestions are welcome at publicsphereguide@ssrc.org. Sign up for e-mail updates here in the sidebar of the related essay forum. The past and current SSRC programs in the public sphere program area are listed here.

National Initiative for Social Participation

2009-08-28T14:57:00.000-07:00

Aldo de Moor reminded the community informatics research list that, "An important development in the U.S. is the National Initiative for Social Participation. A group of ICT/IS/... researchers is outlining a policy agenda and are in touch with the Obama administration. Who knows where this will lead? I would urge members of this list to get involved, we cannot afford to lose this window of opportunity as a community informatics-community!"

http://iparticipate.wikispaces.com/

>From the motivating statement:

"The benefits of social media participation are well understood by Obama's staff -- during the campaign they engaged four million donors and volunteers. Replicating their success a thousand times might promote many of President Obama's goals. To accomplish that a National Initiative for Social Participation could stimulate effective collaborations in many professions, restore community social capital, and coordinate national service projects. The challenge is to understand what motivates participants, such as altruism, reputation, or community service. Researchers would have to develop fresh strategies that increased the conversion rates from readers to contributors from the currently typical 100 to 1 to much higher rates. Getting contributors to collaborate for ambitious efforts and become leaders or mentors are further challenges. Coping with legitimate dangers such as privacy violations, misguided rumors, malicious vandalism, and infrastructure destruction or overload all demand careful planning and testing of potential solutions."

The white paper:

http://iparticipate.wikispaces.com/file/view/NISP+White+Paper+-+6-02-09.pdf

Facebook group:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=70985741334

Slides finally available

2009-08-17T10:07:00.000-07:00

I finally posted my slide show from the International School for Digital Transformation earlier this summer in Porto, Portugal. Although this is pretty long it should be useful in explaining how I'm thinking about the concept.

It's Official! 2009 is the International Year of Civic Intelligence

2009-01-05T20:42:00.001-08:00

It's not really official, but isn't it a great idea?

Civic Intelligence and the Election

2008-11-15T16:09:00.000-08:00

Although his face-to-face communication skills appear to be in good working order, Barack Obama is likely to become known as America's first "digital president." From a civic intelligence perspective I think the most important question to ask is "What will happen to the substantial electronic networks that were created in support of his campaign?" That would help us ascertain whether there are major long-term changes in democracy as it’s practiced as opposed to changes in how election campaigns are conducted. According to Howard Fineman (Newsweek, October 25, 2008), the president-elect has "3.1 million contributors, 5 million volunteers, 2.2 million supporters on his main Facebook page, 800,000 on his MySpace page and perhaps a million more names on Obama's own campaign Web site." Will these networks (and numerous others) be the fount of new energy and ideas as expressed by Robert Putnam when he stated that, "Networks of civic engagement embody past success at collaboration which can serve as a cultural template for future collaboration?" Alternatively, will they act robotically solely to do Obama's bidding (see below) or will they merely wither away due to inattention, lack of interest, or withdrawal of resources.

Rush Limbaugh, the icon of U.S. talk radio, the foundation of communicative power on the right, in his dismissive retort to Obama's acceptance speech the day after the election, assured his listeners that the robotic possibility was an inevitability. Rather than having any voice (or mind) of their own, the people involved in the networks, would serve exclusively as shock troops obediently pursuing Obama's agenda and disciplining non-cooperative legislators — democratic ones included.

I'd guess that MoveOn and other groups will retain their independence, sometimes in sync and sometimes in defiance to Obama. It's clear that his campaign and his supporters used the Internet and other ICT more effectively than any political campaign in the US, if not the world. His rhetoric of an engaged citizenry, for example, asking Americans "to join in the work of remaking this nation" in his election night acceptance speech, suggests that he will not try to shut these networks down or coerce them to support his actions. But we shall see…

There remains the very important question of what citizens (people of all countries) can do to make sure that the networks are engaged and progressive and inclusive. This, to me, is exactly where rhetoric and reality may or may not come together. It's my belief that if people don't choose to actively shape these networks, then the hope for the abiding civic intelligence that we need for the future will fade.

Although the Internet helped raise standards and increased citizen engagement in many ways in this campaign ("truth squads", access to polling information, issue networks, voting irregularity hotlines, do-it-yourself videos, citizen journalism, etc. etc.), it's worth mentioning that the Internet helped usher in a type of back-alley whispering campaign, a furtive "people power" that was often xenophobic, racist, paranoid, and violent. Ken Silverstein writing in Harpers ("Useful Amateurs — How the smearing of Barack Obama got crowd-sourced," Nov 2008) made the point when he stated that "In the sheer numbers of scurrilous charges leveled and of individuals involved in advancing these charges, it seems safe to describe the current smear campaign against Barack Obama as being unparalleled in scope." While the U.S. has always had its fringe elements, the recent campaign seemed to encourage the degradation of civic intelligence in some corners of the American electorate, and the Internet, certain parts of it at least, helped facilitate that.

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Meanwhile, Obama's technology policy as reflected on his web site (http://www.barackobama.com/issues/technology/) certainly reflects an appreciation for the power of the Internet that other politicians haven't recognized or capitalized on. The policy statement has six main points (below) — most of them I assume would be necessary for an increase in civic intelligence.

* Ensure an open Internet.
* Create a transparent and connected democracy.
* Encourage a modern communications infrastructure.
* Prepare all of our children for a 21st century economy.
* Improve America's competitiveness.
* Employ science and technology to solve our nation's most pressing problems.

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And here just a few days after the election is a civic site that's promoting public tech policy: http://www.obamacto.org/

An Equation for Democracy??

2008-10-11T09:26:00.000-07:00

I sent this letter yesterday to the editor at our local (Seattle) newspaper.

"This seems like a good time to remind readers about the Eternal Equation of Democracy: If the sum of the citizenry's intelligence, vigilance, and memory is less than the sum of the money of the lobbyists, the venality of the politicians and the collusion of the
media, then democracy is not functioning as it should. Sadly, the equation has been running a big deficit for the last eight years."

Do I believe in an "eternal equation of democracy?" While the conditions will vary depending on the place and time and we'll never have precise measurements for the values in the equation, I do stand by the equation. The one essential ingredient in a democracy is citizen engagement.

Gatos in Rio

2008-08-16T16:53:00.000-07:00

Great article in Harvard Design Magazine: Resisting Representation: The Informal Geographies of Rio de Janiero by Daniela Fabricius tells a story about maps and favellas, the "informal" settlements in Brazil. The discussion on "gatos," where the informal meets the formal, is fascintating.

Whew! A Major Milestone for the Book is Behind Us

2008-08-14T13:51:00.000-07:00

I realize that my first post was a little formal. Maybe I'll be ridiculously informal from now on. But probably not.

The big news of the week is that we've completed the proof-reading and the index to the Liberating Voices: A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution book and have submitted both of them to MIT Press. That was the last deliverable from the author's side.

I'll have a lot more on this project as time goes by. For now I'll just say that the pattern language and the civic intelligence work are deeply connected: The pattern language is an expression of civic intelligence at the same time that civic intelligence is pattern — the first — in the Liberating Voices pattern language.

Whither Civic Intelligence?

2008-07-25T17:24:00.000-07:00

It's official now! "The State of Civilization is More Precarious Than We Thought." (At least according to New Scientist (April 2, 2008). )

Until fairly recently the stereotypical nutcase in the comics was a person — addled but harmless — holding a "the end is near" sign. Ironically, today, anybody who doesn't think that the end might be near, is really out of touch.

The bad news for people who'd rather ignore the situation is that we won't accidentally solve the problems that we've created for ourselves. It won't be easy to clean up a mess that it took thousands of years to create. So, although denial (or even despair) might be reasonable responses, it would be much more useful to consider how we'd address this deceptively "simple" question: Can we be smart enough soon enough?

How people answer that question depends on their view of how things stand. It also depends on their view as to the possibility — and the desirability — of people working for positive social change.

Civic intelligence is the collective capability to monitor, assess, and respond appropriately to social and environmental threats. Like Gandhi's opinion of western civilization, civic intelligence might be more of a "good idea" than something actually attainable. We may have actually reached the historic point where the enormity of the challenges we face overwhelms our collective ability to address them.

At least some of our traditional responses (like war and economic exploitation) to these challenges exacerbate the problems. Two articles by Debora MacKenzie, in the New Scientist issue mentioned above, "Why the demise of civilization may be inevitable" and "Will a pandemic bring down civilization?" raise the issue of societal collapse. MacKenzie asks the question: "What if the very nature of civilization means that ours, like all of the others, is destined to collapse sooner or later?" Although the fatalism of the question seems unscientific to me (destined!?) as well as fatalistic, the contemplation of civilizational collapse (possibly on a global level) is not just for kooks and paranoids any more.

I plan to talk about these ideas in future postings but one of the basic themes is that at the same time that the environmental and social stresses from human activities are at their highest and the environment's ability adapt or heal is most diminished, our society's inherent complexity, which has evolved — and increased dramatically — over the centuries, may, in fact, be a threat in its own right, having reached a point where its own structural nature prevents it from making the appropriate adjustments.

According to MacKenzie, "A few researchers have been making such claims for years. Disturbingly, recent insights from fields such as complexity theory suggest that they are right. It appears that once a society develops beyond a certain level of complexity it becomes increasingly fragile. Eventually, it reaches a point at which even a relatively minor disturbance can bring everything crashing down."

At the very heart of this issue is how humankind collectively learns and how it applies what it learns — which is a large part of civic intelligence. The urgency of this perspective is bolstered by the findings of Jared Diamond, the prominent researcher and author, who studies how societies face challenges that have potentially catastrophic consequences. Somewhat incredibly, Diamond's research reveals that the "commonest and most surprising" of the four ways in which societies fail to address their problems is their "failure even to try to solve a problem that it has perceived" — even one which ultimately results in that society's collapse.

I plan to use this blog to present ideas related to civic intelligence. My hope is that it will help clarify (at least for me!) the research I'm doing as well as helping to promote the work of others around the world, who are advancing humankind's civic intelligence (without, of course, necessarily invoking that concept).