Posts Tagged: involvement

When You Don’t Belong: Finding Your Place In The Government

Ever had a crisis of self? Ever thought “What am I doing here? If they look too closely, the will realize I am a fraud!” No? Just me? Well, it may not be you but it could be someone on your team. It could be a peer or, yes (gasp), even your boss. If it… Read more »

The Moment of Oh! – Introduction (ebook free on the 5th)

Public servants and community leaders get a lot of things right. Because of their efforts, their communities enjoy services and benefits that the community rarely needs to consider. However, a few crucial decisions can become lightning rods for communities we know. This guide was written with those high-voltage community decisions in mind. We, the authors,Read… Read more »

The Power of We and Civic Engagement

Recently for Blog Action Day, the topic revolved around the Power of We and how the continued interaction and connectivity between hundreds and thousands of people can change the world. Not surprisingly, one re-occurring theme that kept surfacing was how Civic Engagement is needed in order to facilitate that change and bring together people toRead… Read more »

Couch Potato Democracy?*

I was thinking about the remarkable power of citizens and their determination to peacefully overthrow the governments in Egypt and Tunisia. Their hope now is to replace decades old regimes with a democratic form of government whose leaders are selected and elected by the people. The model nation they are using? The United States ofRead… Read more »

The Paradox of Pilots

As many organizations in business and government try to capture some of the magic created by network communication, they often and understandably formulate strategies beginning with “pilots.” “Pilots” are a paradox. When it comes to creating networks for customers, partners, and employees or citizens, designation of “pilot” status—by definition an experiment—can doom a project toRead… Read more »

Governments’ success with new social media depends on success with old engagement methods

[Note this is a cross post from my blog, the original (with links & images) can be found here.] Transparency, open government, e-government, Gov 2.0 are all terms to describe government’s new relationship with citizens in the age of the Internet, particularly using the social media technology solutions of Web 2.0. Many believe in itsRead… Read more »

The myth of engaging with everyone

When I talk to people about the possibilities of engaging with people online, using social technology, I often get questioned about the numbers issue. Stuff like: How many people in our area actually use Twitter? What about people who don’t have web access? What do we do about people who don’t like using the internetRead… Read more »