trading notes - http://e-democracy.org/locals )
Check out some great news from:
http://www.mbpo.org/speakupny
Speak Up New York
Click here to join the Meet Up group for Speak Up New York!:
http://www.meetup.com/SpeakUpNY/
Speak Up New York is an initiative of Manhattan Borough President
Scott M. Stringer and Open Plans to create the first government
sanctioned and supported web-based platform in New York City that will
use online technology to provide communities with tools for
self-organizing and encourage greater civic participation.
Speak Up New York held its first organizing meeting on June 11, 2010
at the OpenPlans offices in lower Manhattan. Participants included:
Beth Noveck, United States Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Open
Government; Steven Clift, founder of E-Democracy.org; Scott
Heiferman, CEO of Meetup.com; Joseph Porcelli of
neighborsforneighbors.com; representatives from numerous community
boards and block & neighborhood associations; and many others
representing the fields of web technology, news, media, and community
organizing. A full list of participants can be found here.
At the close of the daylong meeting, participants agreed upon the
community-based activities and advocacy to be supported by the new web
platform, and the collaborative work plan that will create Speak Up
New York.
Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer is working with OpenPlans
to develop and launch a 1.0 version of the Speak Up New York web
platform before the end of 2010. The goal is to create a website that
provides:
* Online tools to help community groups self-organize. Speak Up
New York will integrate the best online communication and
participation tools (blogs, discussion forums, issue reporting tools)
to offer a solid starting point for citizens looking to get engaged
online.
* Educational materials on community building and navigating
government. The new web platform will make local government more
accessible and promote civic awareness through online workshops and
trainings on topics such as: "What community groups are around me?";
or "How to start a tenant association"; or "Understanding the land use
process."
* A Platform for communities to connect with and learn from each
other. Speak Up will leverage the expertise and commitment of
community boards and civic associations while also opening up local
government to new voices by aggregating the most relevant news,
commentary, events, groups, and other civic information related to
neighborhoods (e.g., community board votes, neighborhood blog posts,
topical discussion groups).
In parallel, a Speak Up New York Meet Up group will convene regularly
to advise on the development of and help build the “web platform.
Click here to join the Meet Up group for Speak Up New York!
Steven Clift - http://stevenclift.com
Executive Director - http://E-Democracy.Org
Follow me - http://twitter.com/democracy
New Tel: +1.612.234.7072
Also:
From: Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer
<<email obscured>>
Date: Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 9:39 AM
Subject: Thank you for coming to Speak Up New York!
To: "<email obscured>" <<email obscured>>
Dear Steven,
Thank you for participating in Speak Up New York's first
"unconference" last Friday! We appreciate your time and insights.
We are still processing all of the exciting ideas that were discussed
at the meeting, and are currently working on a number of follow ups.
As a reminder, rough versions of the session notes from Friday's event
are still available here: http://etherplans.org/SpeakUpNY
Today I am pleased to formally announce our partnership with OpenPlans
to begin work developing the Speak Up New York platform! Visit here
to see the press release: http://www.mbpo.org/speakupny .
Our goal is to create a website that provides:
* Online tools to help community groups self-organize. Speak Up New
York will integrate the best online communication and participation
tools (blogs, discussion forums, issue reporting tools) to offer a
solid starting point for citizens looking to get engaged online.
* Educational materials on community building and navigating
government. The new web platform will make local government more
accessible and promote civic awareness through online workshops and
trainings on topics such as: "What community groups are around me?";
or "How to start a tenant association"; or "Understanding the land use
process."
* A Platform for communities to connect with and learn from each
other. Speak Up will leverage the expertise and commitment of
community boards and civic associations while also opening up local
government to new voices by aggregating the most relevant news,
commentary, events, groups, and other civic information related to
neighborhoods (e.g., community board votes, neighborhood blog posts,
topical discussion groups).
For those of you who would like to continue exploring these ideas with
us, we have a few ways you can stay involved:
* Join our meetup group. We've created a Meetup group at
http://www.meetup.com/SpeakUpNY/ and sent each of you an invitation.
We plan on using this group for continued discussion and to schedule
future events. OpenPlans has graciously offered to host monthly Speak
Up New York meetups in their penthouse space.
* Blog! If any idea struck you as particularly interesting or
important during the event, please blog about it and let us know so we
can link to it.
* Help us identify small, doable projects. As an initial effort, we
are going to review the event notes and pull out a list of small
projects that can be done *right away* to help wire up NYC community
groups. These can be really simple (such as creating a list of all
neighborhood organization websites in NYC) and don't necessarily need
to be high tech.
Thank you again for participating, and for helping the Borough
President's office and OpenPlans make the best investment in this
important space. We look forward to working with you over the coming
months to create a new era of civic engagement.
Sincerely,
Scott Stringer
Manhattan Borough President