https://www.facebook.com/groups/communityinnovators
Today, with the next wave of "neighbors online" taking hold across
Facebook Groups, sites like NextDoor, the many localized .coms, and
with good old YahooGroups still plugging along, MILLIONS more people
are connecting with their neighbors online around the world.
So what is the next civic challenge?
Connecting people with great ideas and inspiration _across_
neighborhoods to accelerate innovation that everyday people can see,
feel, and participate in locally.
We need to connect local people, volunteering their time and energy
toward good things for _their own_ neighborhood with their peers in
other neighborhoods. Rather than segment and "expertize" this into
narrow interests, we need to embrace the wide range of new ideas and
good ideas for our blocks, neighborhoods, and wider communities. We
need serendipity that makes new connections.
While most people who join neighborhood online groups are hyper-local
in their focus (few people join spaces outside their immediate area)
at least 1% are big time idea importers and lesson sharers. They
thrive on gathering "local" ideas globally and making them happen in
their area. They share big ideas locally, involve others, and either
do the work to make it happen or strategically hand off the idea to
their neighbors who are best positioned to make it happen.
So, as a complete experiment, I am looking for people to nominate such
Community Innovators and send them here:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/communityinnovators
Join us yourself.
I am looking for people who do not just who talk buzzwords, but
actually do the heavy lifting of making new ideas happen in their
local community and are open to exploring what's next and sharing
their passionate experience with other "local up" people from around
the world.
One practical goal is to gather people from our own
http://BeNeighbors.org network who will then be inspired to share good
ideas back with their own local neighbors forums. We see this form of
"ad-hocracy" surrounding projects pop up on our forums from time to
time and I think the opportunity to "do something" and act locally
could be 10x more powerful and inspire neighborhood spaces to build
from lost pets and free stuff to making their neighborhoods even more
awesome places to live, raise a family, work or retire.
Steven Clift
E-Democracy.org
P.S. While Facebook Groups have their limits, they are by far the
easiest way to gather people when passion is your only budget line for
an idea. (Our Open Government and Civic Technology Group now has over
1200 members https://www.facebook.com/groups/opengovgroup/ and is
working quite nicely.) FYI - We are going to start a topic in the
group on the Knight Green Line Challenge - http://bit.ly/kglc - which
is a $1.5 million dollar idea challenge for part of St. Paul,
Minnesota. I am inviting local folks into get global feedback on
ideas.
Steven Clift - http://stevenclift.com
Executive Director - http://E-Democracy.org
Twitter: http://twitter.com/democracy
Tel/Text: +1.612.234.7072
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