Electing2Blog

What the Readers Want

2010-07-26T07:05:00.000-07:00

People usually don't much care how you, the elected official, make a decision. They just want to know whether they agree or disagree with you.

That insight was a surprise to me. I didn't begin this blog thinking that. I began my city council blog years ago sort of naively approaching my content as a former newspaper reporter. "People would appreciate a window into the decision-making process," I thought. "People would participate in the decision-making process," I thought, and appreciate the chance to do so.

There's no question people do want to participate in their democracy through town halls, committees, even blog forums on news sites. But they don't necessarily want their elected officials involved. They just want to know whether they disagree or agree with the elected official.

What I found over time was that after I described how I was making up my mind, and asked for feedback, people said I was being wishy-washy or indecisive. Sure - if you asked people in the abstract, they'd say they want their politicians to be open and thoughtful. What people have been trained to expect is for politicians to manipulate and deceive them. So it's a pretty long road to take if you try to involve the public in your decision-making process.

This comes to mind after reading a fascinating exchange on the blog of a fairly new city council member from Massachusetts, Ari Herzog. He's clearly a bit frustrated, and titles his blog "This Blog is for You, Not for Me." I'm not familiar with the specific issue referenced in the post, but it sounds like Ari had to vote on something where he had not heard from citizens. Apparently some citizens did not approve of his vote, and contacted him. He writes:

If you don’t share your thoughts with me before votes occur, it’s harder for me to appreciate a complaint after the fact ... if you don’t tell me what you think I need to know until after a vote occurs, how should I respond?"

His point in the blog post is, If you want an elected official to know something, tell them. The idea of a blog is to have one more way of exchanging information.

If you read down the page a bit, you see one of the comments to the blog perfectly summarizes what I've heard from a lot of citizens here on the other side of the United State:

In the end, we voted Councilors into office to make decisions even in the absence of our input. We don’t expect you to vote for each item based on a poll. We want you to make a conscious decision based on fact and then if/when appropriate explain your reasons. We reserve the right to disagree and obviously we’ll let you know! If we agree more than we disagree by the end of your term, maybe you can stay

Isn’t that how this works?

The citizen is right. That's how this works. Citizens have been trained to think that a politician asking for feedback is taking a poll - not honestly asking for help or collaboration.

That's how this works. Those of us who blog often wish there was another way.

Why We Do This

2010-07-23T09:02:00.000-07:00

Preparing for the recent talk to other city council members in Washington, I hit up one of the best council bloggers in our state for a testimonial. Councilman Jon Snyder invests a lot of time into his blog for Spokane. Here's his well-spoken words about why he does this stuff:

The reason I blog is to be proactive in communication with citizen.

As a councilman, I am very close to the issues and engrossed in the nuances of policy, but if I forget to take the time explain those nuances to my constituents I leave the door open for other interpretations that may be based in ignorance.

My blog, my monthly email, and my Twitter and Facebook feeds have been invaluable in focussing attention to this issues I think are important and getting my message out. It also shows my constituents what I'm doing with the immense amount of time I put into public service.

Ultimately how you spend your time is one of the most important decisions you make as an elected official. My electronic communication helps create a story of that effort that people can understand and respond to.

Some of the biggest reaction I've ever had to blog entry would be a very detailed response I wrote about a very expensive and controversial downtown real estate purchase. You can see it here:

http://councilmanjonsnyder.com/?p=223#more-223

Most of my entries aren't this involved, but there are times when the blog is the best way to get complex treatment of an issue out to the public. I've found citizens respond positively to being talked up to instead of being talked down to. My weekly recap of our City Council meetings is my most popular regular blog feature. A lot of folks have thanked me for writing about Council meeting content that isn't being covered anywhere else. I usually announce new blog entries on Facebook and Twitter.

The biggest piece of advice I would give about blogs is settle on a minimum posting frequency and stick to it.

Jon writes something worth repeating for someone considering elected office or someone in office: "Ultimately how you spend your time is one of the most important decisions you make as an elected official."

That's a point worth contemplating often. It was astonishing to me, once I got elected, how many times people expected me to come to events in a ceremonial role. These things, and many other aspects of elected office, public service, and public policy, all take time. I've found when I spend time too much time communicating, it takes away time I would otherwise spend on research. However, besides all the advantages Jon notes above, communicating about something forces you to frame and focus on the topic in a focused way that can help you make, or reinforce, a decision. Communicating is vital.

Frankly, it tells me something about Jon that he's willing to take time to write, and fact check and self-edit, a post about elevator inspection fees. It tells me something good about him. When I look at my own workload, I find it pretty intimidating to write up topics in Lakewood to that level of detail. His desire to be definitive is impressive. I don't think all of us choose to be that definitive because of other demands on our time, but it's impressive to see in action.

How do other elected officials find time to communicate when there are so many other demands on their time?

A Change In Approach

2010-07-02T13:32:00.000-07:00

It hit me with a dull thud, strolling from an air-conditioned conference center in Vancouver to a hot downtown street, that I've been going about this all wrong. Well, somewhat wrong.

By presenting twice now to my fellow city council members at the Association of Washington Cities .... by being in a "how to" webinar last January ... by helping in my own modest way with OpenGovWest ... I thought we'd help current elected representatives find new ways of using social media and other aspects of the so-called "Gov2.0" movement.

The brutal truth the other day in Vancouver at the 2010 Association of Washington Cities meeting was that co-presenter Everett Asst. City Attorney Ramsey Ramerman and I had probably a fourth of the people we had at the 2009 meeting of the Association of Washington Cities. Honestly, I'm not surprised. If you talk to a lot of city council members, they don't get it. They were elected without social media. They were elected without Gov. 2.0 Why bother? People are clamoring for more services and lower taxes. Isn't that enough of a challenge?

There are a few exceptions - the moderator of our panel, for example, City Councilwoman Jennifer Gregerson of Mukilteo. But in general, the currently elected folks are pretty ambivalent about diving into these waters. After the workshop, I spoke with two city council members thinking of blogging. Both are motivated by a lack of competent news coverage. So there's interest but ...

What I'm left to wonder is whether it's better to focus on the people who got elected last year who practice new forms of communication, and those of us few 'old fogeys' taking a swing at a better world of communication and democracy. Maybe we can share examples of how this stuff helps. So I'm going to take more of a focus on sharing best practices than trying to convert anyone. Maybe if those of us using the tools use them better, and share how that strengthens democracy, it will matter.

I sort of went down this path with the collection of city council bloggers I began on Friendfeed. But we need to share more aggressively. And of course there's a lot lot lot more to digital democracy than blogging, which is really a communication vehicle of last result for more politicians.

Still, blogging is what I know best. As part of prepping for the AWC meeting, I got a great note from Spokane Councilman Jon Snyder that explains why he blogs. I'll post that next week after the holiday, and try to do a better job of highlighting how a new generation - regardless of their chronological age - is using digital tech to strengthen public policy and democracy.

Neither Fish nor Fowl: Better Gov 2.0

2010-06-16T09:08:00.001-07:00

As a city councilman, I found myself reflexively nodding my head up in down in agreement while reading the entire post. Citizens will often suggest solutions as well as concerns. But the ideas often end up floating in a big soup of words. When social media can make organizing possible, it's a win for the community. Just off the top of my head, I can think of one neighborhood situation described on my blog in which some great people found each other but it was very unstructured - just chatting on a blog. The tools described in this post are intriguing, and any elected official should want to know more.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Open Government West

2010-03-27T08:53:00.000-07:00

Open Government West is just revving up on this second day. People from several states and British Columbia are gathered around, looking at the various proposals for presentations here in Seattle City Hall. We're all voting about what talks people would like to see and hear.

The picture from right is from yesterday, at a panel I helped moderate about social media policy and government. People were voting there too, this time on recommendations for how to best implement social media policy and government.

It's only normal to look at what's happening now in the light of what happened to you in the past. As I look back over my career, the most workshops I went to were staged by or for benefit of journalists, such as the National Writers Workshops. Journalists would gather for a couple of days and talk about reporting and writing. These sessions were always valuable for the people you met and for what you learned. The other day, at the first gathering of Social Media Club Tacoma, one of my former writers floored me by saying she remembered a writing technique I had taught her. I had picked up the technique at one of those national writers workshops.

There's clearly a need for something similar in the Open Government community. As I look around the room and pick out people I know, I see citizen activists, community organizers, a slew of Information Technology workers, Web techies, PR people, software developers, small business entrepreneurs, grad students from the Evans School at UW and officials who work in a variety of jobs and a variety of levels at a variety of government levels.

The challenge, of course, is that this is not a unified group of people who are used to meeting with each other. So it's an open question whether events like this will continue to take place. I hope they do. The group of us do not constitute a profession that naturally gathers. But we constitute a movement that believes passionately in the importance of communication and the dialogue of government. There are tools to be learned, challenges to overcome, opportunities to be recognized and articulated.

What makes me smile as I type is the biggest difference. Journalists were a profession that organized workshops. Open government believers are here a conference organizing a sort of profession. Five years from now, our vocabulary and tools about open government will be much broader than any of us can imagine. So will a new 'profession' - the profession of linking communication, data and democracy for better public policy and a better world.

The Webinar about Social Media, Cities and the Law in Washington State

2010-01-15T15:04:00.000-08:00

The recording of a pretty detailed webinar about social media, digital communication, governments in Washington state, the law and cheese is up! It's available for your viewing pleasure. I tell people in all candor that it's about 75 minutes, so have coffee nearby. I'm very grateful to attorney Ramsey Ramerman for his lead role in, really, the state of Washington, in making important information known to local governments.

Here's the slideshow. We debated whether to post it separate from the webinar. We already got some feedback, well said, that we left something out. We really should have counseled elected officials and others to meet not only with attorneys but also their IT department. The computer people play a huge role in this, as we discuss in the webinar, and Ramsey and I agree we could have called that out better in the slides.

Friends, Faux Pas, Tweets and Traps: How Elected Officials Can Use Social Media and Comply with the Law

View more documents from Walter Neary.

Something that's a bit frustrating is that we don't really have an online forum anywhere to have an 'afterparty' to discuss what came up during the webinar. So the webinar happened, there was a good discussion, and then everyone dispersed. But someone familiar with the webinar's contents will probably enjoy the question and answer document which we worked on after the webinar was concluded.

Interesting Websites about "Gov20" Law and Issues in Washington State

2009-12-27T12:44:00.000-08:00

I'm looking forward to an appearance tonight on "Government 2.0 on Blog Talk Radio" with Barb Chamberlain of Washington State University. I thought I'd open up this file to place URLs of items that may come up in the conversation. I'll probably shape this up after the interview so it's got the URLs that actually did come up in the conversation.

Dated events:

Friends, Faux Pas, Tweets and Traps Webinar: Jan. 7 Discussion with Ramsey Ramerman, an assistant city attorney in Everett about legal issues particularly of interest to Washington State.

Open Gov West: Workshops and an "Unconference' about Digital Democracy: Jan. 29 and 30.

Legal Issues Special to Washington:

Here's my original post about the conference where the attorney and I gave people conflicting advice. The two of us are now joining forces to present the webinar mentioned above on Jan. 7, hosted by the Association of Washington Cities.

Here's a post about the Arizona metadata case that mentions the phrasing in Washington State law that we all have to be aware of: wwww.ediscovery.law

This then leads to the Shoreline case, where there are a number of writeups. These offer different, but equally interesting, perspectives. If you have time, you might as well start with the actual court decision.

Evergreen Freedom Foundation

Center for Justice

This document, filed by an attorney for the city, is the most favorable rendition of what happened from the city's perspective, and discusses the metadata involved.

Finally, I just found this, what seems to be an excellent and up-to-date review of legal issues about metadata: Illinois Municipal Review

Elected Officials Will Rely on New Media During Disaster

2009-12-04T05:43:00.000-08:00

'Course when it happens, no one tells you that you and your community will be landing in the middle of a social communications revolution.

Nope. Instead ... You sip your morning coffee, all relaxed cuz everyone else in the house is asleep, and it's just you and your coffee and Twitter. You look at your TweetDeck column that searches for all references to "Lakewood WA."

And you can't believe what you read. You just do't want to believe it. And then you find out it's true.

And then you just go numb. And tear up. And go numb again.

For hours and hours and hours.

So that was my Sunday last. It's probably not wise to write definitive blog posts when you've been going to bed late and waking up at 5 early every morning since then. But one thing I do know: elected officials HAVE to learn social media and new tools of communication.

Why is very clear. It's not just that you will be one of the first people to learn about a problem or disaster, though of course that's helpful too. More importantly, the city of Lakewood seized up and focused during this horrific tragedy. The focus was on a crime, on four families, on those who remain, on emergency operations, and on daily operations. As a city council member, I can say nearly everything I learned about the incident, and shared with constituents, came via media. As just one example, the next day, the only way I found out that our city was having a news conference at a particular time and place was from radio, 90 minutes before the event.

I was the only other council member besides the mayor who was able to attend the conference, standing among the media reporters whose pack I once belonged to. I was able to look out officers in the eye as they stood proudly in front of their station. I suspect they had other things on their mind, but it was an important moment for me.

True, radio is an older form of media, but the vast majority of the information I got came from Twitter. I was able to inform my constituents and answer their questions via Twitter, Facebook and my blog only because of new media. The first time I learned that I would be in a memorial service Tuesday at a certain time and place was by way of Twitter.

I'm sure that will be true for your city as well if you get caught up in something like this, unless you've got a huge communications staff sitting around. Lakewood has one city manager and one communications director, and they had more to do than worry about keeping their city council informed. This event was a tsunami. Nothing was normal. Nothing about it should be normal. Something like this should NEVER happen again.

There are probably newer links on this topic - how social media informed this breaking news event - but the one I know about is well-written and found on John Cook's TechFlash blog. If you are an elected official, it is worth reading this post closely. Think about where and how in your particular community both old media, new media and all of your citizens will participate in the communications revolution.

As it is, Lakewood is catching its breath and is communicating very effectively, including a powerful website. By the way, we welcome suggestions for it.

So that's all for now. If you are another elected official, the message is clear: learn the tools. You need those tools today to be effective. The lesson here is that someday you may someday REALLY need them.

Update, Saturday morning: Another good link about how some Seattle media used new communication tools to be the first to find, announce news: http://crosscut.com/2009/12/03/media/19419/

Cautions from an Unknown Prophet of 1873

2009-11-27T13:31:00.000-08:00

The April 6, 1873, issue of The New York Times had an anonymous story that's well worth reflecting on for its take on modern times. There are implications for politics, and those who conduct public policy with all these new social media tools.

I found this article, "The Drama of the Future," from the book "Buffalo Bill's America." The book tells part of the long story of how both the truth and fiction of the Old West got baked into U.S. culture.

What the article seems to be about is the fad of famous figures playing themselves on stage. For example, Wild Bill Hickok, before his death, briefly starred on Broadway in exploits supposedly based on real-life adventures. Buffalo Bill built a whole long career on doing this. That's the two of them, pictured before one of their shows together, at right with Texas Jack Omohundro in the middle.

As the article states,

"The gist of the movement, as thus portended, consists in going beyond the old idea to "paint matters living as they rise," and to illustrate current history through the painting of actual events, by the real actors in them.

"By this means, the theatre may be made a kind of pictorial disseminator of the news of the day, and public curiosity as regards noted individuals may be gratified by having them appear on the boards in dramas depicting their own exploits."

Now, the article goes on to give one example of this trend that could be completely serious, namely, an Arctic explorer who uses his real tools, pots, pans, etc.., to illustrate the adventures he was just on. The article then seems to make fun of its own idea by suggesting Brigham Young could also illustrate his life on stage accompanied by "a score or so of real wives."

If you are like me, you're already thinking of reality television and how much of this has come to pass. Some very popular and very real programs feature the supposed girlfriends or boyfriends or even spouses of both famous and 'everyday' people. We can imagine a long-dead writer from the New York Times smiling knowingly in his grave.

So what's this got to do with politics?

What I wonder is if the person smart enough to pick out this trend in 1873 is smart enough to predict how it might be abused. Hear this, toward the article's conclusion:

"By and by, a still further step forward may be taken, and we may find people deliberately seeing strange adventures, or even courting deadly perils, with the idea of thus acquiring attractive material for a success on the boards."

Of course, "balloon boy" comes to mind. But what of the politician? Right now, any of us in politics can perform on the public stage by Tweeting or posting on Facebook or a photo site or may other forums exactly what we are doing. At what point can we be sure the politician is not now doing what she or he should be doing, but instead what looks good on Facebook or Flickr? Can we trust ourselves to know? Are we going to consciously or unconsciously subordinate wondrous communications tools to create the dramas we enjoy chronicling? And will the voter reward this behavior by saying "Thank you for communicating with us!"

The article concludes:

"Some such thought may have been in the mind of Shakespeare when he made Jacques tell us that "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players;" for the lives of most people are already more histrionic than they think, or own, and consciously or unconsciously to themselves, there are infinitely more actors and actresses in real life than there can possibly be on the stage."

Just something to think about.

You can read the whole article by way of this link. Photo credit's here.

Does Interacting with Elected Officials and Bureaucrats Matter?

2009-11-11T13:33:00.000-08:00

Disillusioned citizens: Had some interesting reaction to my recent city council blog post about a controversial action in Lakewood. Basically, state government is throwing Lakewood under the bus - or in this case, under the train - to reroute trains through town for benefit of Seattle to Portland commuters to shave six minutes off the route.

The pros and cons don't matter in terms of this posting. What matters is the reaction I got from a couple folks about
my blog posting that encourages people to write state and federal officials.

Here are quotes from some of the responses ...

I would appreciate your suggestions as to the most appropriate next step and assistance in preparing a letter format we can use so the message from our neighborhood is consistent and articulating our concerns clearly. We are also concerned that we are careful not to undercut the efforts being made by City staff to force change upon the State DOT.

So far only one neighbor has expressed doubt about our opposition and he said it is useless and unwise to oppose the state. Yes, I did point out that we had a revolution to establish our right to oppose government heavy-handedness, however, he seems not to think it relevant (must be a tory!!!).

I am so disturbed by this news, that I am physically ill. The future looks bleak for us in the Nyanza area. I have written to every single person Walter Neary suggested on his webpage. Will it really matter?

Notice the ideas running through here.

There's a concern about whether a citizen writing a letter could somehow interfere with what government is doing.

There's a concern that it is useless and unwise to oppose a government.

There's a concern that corresponding with officials may not matter.

I've spoken to many people who've been even more direct; they don't see the point of commenting to government.

To me, there's a huge tension between these real citizens and all the "stuff" I see floating around the Internet: breathless Twitternouncements with the hashtag #gov20 and references to stuff like open source data and Drupal. Heck - we need to get citizens thinking their participation even matters. Can the Government 2.0 movement do that? Or all we all running around Tweeting, Facebooking and generating meetings and workshops for our own amusement?

The real question is whether our use of these tools will rebuild credibility with citizens. That's the real challenge and the real goal.

Photo credit: Peter Halen and The Tacoma News Tribune.

Writing the Night Before About The Morning After: My Advice to Newly Elected Officials

2009-11-03T16:03:00.001-08:00

It's a few hours from when the polls close in Washington State. Around the country in different time zones, people are being elected to local and state office. The official declaration of who wins and loses will come in future days, but in a lot of cases, it's pretty clear or will be clear from the vote tonight who will serve in office.

So ... If you are one of those who gets elected tonight, congratulations. Elected office is a wonderful adventure. It's a call to make a difference. You will now have a real vote to make that difference.

Here's something you probably already know but can now experience: People are going to look at what you say and write and do in a new way. It's going to be odd. Even some of the people you've known for awhile will treat you differently. That's because you're now a politician. Being with a "politician" pushes buttons on some people, regardless of who the politician is. When I first started blogging as a city council member, I had the voice of the journalist that I had been. The actually really upset some people, and it took me way too long to figure that out. You're a political leader now. You have to act like one.

Whatever your background, the tools that helped you get elected now become tools that suddenly develop a much sharper edge.

Many of these new elected officials have used Twitter, Facebook, and other Internet tools to talk with voters and others, and thus, to help get elected. Obviously that's good. We communicate more fluently and broadly than our ancestors could have dreamed of. Communication is the fuel of democracy.

What I worry about is, so where do these new elected-officials-to-be wake up tomorrow and turn to for advice? I hope that if you are one of them, you will wake up and know you now need advice. These communications tools are new, and what you can or cannot do as a political leader with these tools is still being decided in courts around the country.

In other words, when those election numbers came up, your world changed. I have two pieces of advice then. Here is one piece of advice: Don't write anything on Facebook or a similar place that you wouldn't want to see in print in the morning paper or read aloud to you at a local restaurant. I don't care if you only have three friends on Facebook. Doesn't matter. You write something juicy, it's going to be known: if not now, then later.

Be aware of that. Please, don't be someone who puts something jarring on Facebook or Twitter and then claims to be surprised anyone noticed. You make us all look silly.

Your voice suddenly quadrupled in volume; whether you want it or not, you now wear a megaphone. You are now in the public spotlight. Enjoy it. You wanted this job. Step up. The spotlight can be bright, sometimes blinding, but it's part of the role.

Second piece of advice, by far the more serious: Don't break the law inadvertently by using communication tools the wrong way. I can think of one city council member who may or may not get re-elected tonight who helped to cost her city a fortune in legal damages because she was accused of participating in secret meetings even before taking the oath of office. There are many other examples of people who meant well but cost their city big money, and, more importantly, broke the law.

Don't break the law and inadvertently hold a secret meeting. It is very easy for someone who gets elected to keep doing what they have been: using Twitter, Facebook, and email to communicate with others. And you should. These tools are amazing. Just be aware that if you start or continue communicating with other future or current elected officials, you run a big risk of breaking the law. I can't say if that's true everywhere, but it is true in Washington state. You are responsible for knowing the rules where you are.

If you did just get elected in Washington state, and for considerations on how you conduct yourself now, I recommend reading the "Don't Hold a Meeting" section in the Washington state wiki that some of us put together: http://citycouncilbloghandbook.wikispaces.com/Legal+Issues+and+Guidance

If you currently use social media or other Internet tools to talk to a lot of other elected officials, then it would be very, very smart to read this post with guidance from the Washington State Attorney General.

So that's the advice for the morning after.

Oh ... and have fun. This job does not last forever, nor should it. You've got the spotlight and a share of the podium for a limited time. Enjoy and make use of it while you can.

The power and potential to inform about budgets

2009-10-22T14:53:00.001-07:00

'Tis the season for budget hearings in local governments across our land. Budgets are not particularly sexy. But budgets are important for the conduct of local government. Budgets are where local governments enshrine priorities by encasing priorities in specific allocations of cold, hard cash. The city council bloggers around the country who write about budgets have been doing a great job educating people. As you might expect, there are lots of different approaches.

Douglas Athas of Garland, Texas, tells people just how much in debt their government is on their behalf. He's got a real gift among us council bloggers for his use of graphics to explain things. I don't know issues in his town, but in Lakewood, Wash., if 45 percent of our budget went to pay debt the voters woulda strung us up by now.

Matthew Petty of Fayetteville, Ark., finds himself in dialogue not only on his blog but on Facebook and the papers over the 'T word:' Taxes.

Seattle's Tim Burgess directs people to video.

Alderman Garry Schroeder of LaSalle, Ill., gives some heck to the local newspapers and his peers on the council, but more importantly, says he's setting the record straight on a proposal.

And in what I thought was the funniest post, playing with references to clairvoyance, Dallas' Angela Hunt talks about what happened after the previous budget was passed and what collisions may be expected this year. She also has some budget town hall video on her blog, which combines very well with the printed material including a third element, Excel spreadsheets of her own design. Impressive.

As I read or skim all these items, I think: how did all these things get said and distributed *before* all the digital tools we have today on the Internet? Just looking over our partial compilation of the city council members who blog can get you excited about the growing potential of digital democracy.

Photo credit: And thanks to East Carolina U for a great mood photo of money!

Washington Considers Creating an Agency to enforce Open Meetings and Records Laws

2009-10-05T12:04:00.000-07:00

The Washington state auditor, Brian Sonntag, and attorney general, Rob McKenna, have set up an open government task force to get at one of the big problems with Washington state open public meetings and records laws. Right now, the only way you can enforce them is to go to court.

A slew of references about current issues, controversies and potential solutions for issues about open government can be found at the attorney general's website.

Clearly, what a lot of members of the group seem to be moving toward is formation of an agency that enforces public records laws and open meetings laws. The idea is that there has to be something better than the current system. If I am unhappy with an agency's response in Washington, I have pretty much one choice: sue. And that means hiring a lawyer, dealing with courts, and delay. That's expensive and slow, as a famous case out of King County shows.

If the idea of an agency doing this sounds strange, it's actually not a new idea at all. The committee that met yesterday morning in Olympia got on the phone with the chief enforcement officer of Pennsylvania's open government laws, Terry Mutchler. She says that the agency has the power to command governments to follow the law and give citizens what they want. That certainly sounds appealing. And they also have credibility when they have to explain to citizens that certain records may not be available under the law. More information about what they are doing in Pennsylvania is available here.

The direct link to the Penn agency is here. Take a look. It's impressive.

Here's the handbook and guide for citizens

Here's something that anyone would find useful: A list of what requests have been approved, or not.

And here's something that at least *ought* to prevent lawsuits: informal mediation between the requestor and the agency.

The committee also discussed something that most of us never expected to come out of the public records act. There is a small, but significant group of people who file bizarrely huge numbers of records act requests that cities have to respond to. In Lakewood, we have one fellow who we figure costs us $40,000 a year in staff time. Ms. Mutchler of Pennsylvania said nearly every government she knows of has one of these folks.

It would only inflame these folks if I speculate on why they do it, and the reasons vary. Let's just say that even advocates for open government who were at the table in Olympia generally agree that this is a problem and, to an extent, real squandering of public resources. This problem is much trickier to solve, because citizens do have a right to inquire of their government.

And finally, for another view: A guy I used to work with who thankfully is still at The Olympian, Brad Shannon, wrote a news story about the meeting.

The committee will meet again in November to recommend something, presumably, to the Legislature. I'll post an update then.

Hope it helps digital democracy

2009-09-27T16:40:00.001-07:00

Can't wait to see how this is applied to local government websites. Power to the people.

in reference to: Google Sidewiki (view on Google Sidewiki)

Useful Legal Advice about Twitter, Facebook and Blogs

2009-09-23T12:46:00.000-07:00

Washington attorney Ramsey Ramerman, who has been mentioned here before, has a very useful column in the current issue of the Association of Washington Cities magazine. I'd call this required reading for anyone dipping into, or currently immersed in, the waters of social media. If you know someone who is a candidate for office, be sure to give this to the person because they would not normally get the magazine. Both Ramsey and the AWC are to be commended for compiling and presenting this material.

You might find it easier to click on the link below, which should open the document at its source so you can move it around and read it.

Government and Social Media: The Legal Issues to Consider

View more documents from Walter Neary.

Among the highlights:

- Don't post anything you don't expect to see in the local paper or blogs. This stuff we Tweet, post or 'Facebook' is public regardless of who you think might see it.

- If your site allows comments, don't moderate them. You could violate the First Amendment.

- Be extremely careful so council members don't start deliberating via social media. That breaks the law.

- There are court cases going on now concerning what material you have to archive from all this social media to comply with public records rules. Be aware of the latest rules and guidelines, and act smart so you don't get fined for failing to produce something (and there's a link from his article to the blog of Ramsey's former law firm to get the latest news)

And that brings up a personal note. Ramsey developed his interests as a private attorney and has recently become assistant city attorney in Everett. That's great for him and Everett, but it means he will have a lot more on his plate than social media. We can only hope the officials there can give him some time to take advantage of his knowledge of social media. Government attorneys need to provide more of this sort of advice, and Everett is to be commended for the time they've already given Ramerman.

A Soundtrack for the Collective Sound of Democracy: Crunching

2009-09-23T11:11:00.000-07:00

Mostly during vacation, I shut down thinking about digital democracy. But not all the time. What I heard during vacation was the soundtrack of digital democracy: full citizen participation and steady progress.

And this soundtrack, like those recordings you hear of whales or dolphins in the water, comes from nature.

This is where we find out who has been snorkeling and who hasn't. I snorkeled for the first time only about a year ago. I was mystified not by something I saw, but something I heard.

In some areas, you dip your head into the water, and you hear ... crunching.

The water conveys sound broadly and disperses soundly widely. So when you hear something under water, it can be difficult to pinpoint a location. What I heard during that first time snorkeling was crunching, coming from everywhere.

Turns out it was. This is the sound of creatures like the parrotfish (and assorted critters like them, but let's pick on the parrotfish for simplicity). What the parrotfish does is pretty amazing. He or she wanders the bottom, and bites coral and rock. He or she extracts the living matter, and then gets rid of the crunched material.

That makes what we call sand. One parrotfish, with his or her tiny mouthfuls, makes hundreds of pounds of sand a year.

Now that's an accomplishment.

So what's this got to do with democracy? Suppose for a moment that the conduct of public policy is as important as eating. Maybe it's not that important, but just suppose. People have to get along somehow. So do fish. Notice how the fish approach the Herculean task of eating and generating sand.

You will notice that the fish in a cove do not sit back and elect seven other fish to do the chewing for them.

They don't elect a city council of fish to go out and do the chewing and be responsible for handing out the food.

The fish in the cove also don't sit back and let a few other fish activists do all the work.

Nope. The cove reverberates with the sound of hundreds or thousands of fish, all chewing.

That's what digital democracy on the Internet should be. It shouldn't be blips of posts and dialogue from council members, from staff, from just a few individual citizens who happen to know how to Tweet or post. There should be a way, someday, for a digital dashboard to light up, or sound off, to measure massive citizen participation: Not just the participation of a few.

And that's the trick for Gov 2.0 and digital democracy. What forms of hardware, software and public practices will take us to a digital democracy as participatory as that of the conduct of the parrot fish? Can't we rise to their standard?

Photo credit: Count on National Geographic to tell us about nature ... and the parrotfish.

Elected Officials Should Get on Twitter If Only to Listen

2009-09-02T06:58:00.000-07:00

I recently asked a bunch of folks how they are getting information about a particular topic when they don't read newspapers. Not that long ago, the answer used to be news websites and blogs; more and more, the answer is, Twitter.

It makes sense. In a lot of the circles where I run, including elected officials, people unfamiliar with the service think it's all about people Tweeting what they ate for breakfast. Well, it sometimes is. But Twitter also allows people to exchange links. When I look back, I'm amazed at the amount of information I've taken over the transom via Twitter. It's yet another reason elected officials should sign up and listen, not only about their communities but other topics of interest.

That's my way of introducing a broad theme that I write thanks to all this information, Hints of the Future. Each of these sites are a sign of something that's bound to grow and develop. I found some of these sites via Twitter messages, and some through good ol' fashioned blogs.

Online City Council: This just floors me. You can send a Twitter message or post to Facebook a *part* of a council meeting that might interest people. There's a nice overview about the significance of this site here.

Why would this ability come in handy? It's a lot more significant than breakfast. This is all about informing and involving people. In my town, for example, we had a political dispute about some folks who didn't want to fund social services programs that serve Latinos and gay people. This is an incredibly shocking discussion for this century. But almost no one knew about the situation because we don't have a community print newspaper. We just have a big metro daily that strains under declining staff numbers to report anything, and a local news blog that can't afford a reporting staff. It would have been amazing to be able to send out a Tweet saying, 'Hey, watch this broadcast.' I bet we would have got some public feedback.

Idea exchanges: If someone asks me what Government 2.0 would look like in, say, a year, I think of a site like this. People exchanging ideas. That's what it's all about. I found this site by way of a Tweet, like described earlier, from Seattle tech whiz Bill Schrier.

Reacting to change: I am fascinated with how big ol' staid government reacts to change. Here's something found on Twitter, a story about a city that decided to ban access to Facebook. Expect to see a lot on this subject in coming months as governments try to decide how to interact with the public via Facebook. I am liking it more and more because it's one place where you don't get anonymous comments.

Good models: Several Twitter posts let the world know about model websites such as one from Virginia Beach. More and more websites are going to look like the sites listed at that link, and push the limits of providing service and information. Thanks to Twitter, one can know about these model sites now and see not only the present but a brighter future.

That's long enough but there are plenty of other examples of great sites that one can learn about via Twitter. One can expect more and more services to spring up to aggregate and sort through the raging floods of Twitter posts today. For now, most elected officials as a baseline will want to monitor what's being said in and about their community. I've got a post on my own council website on how listening via Twitter led me to convey a citizen concern. One can expect more and more communities and elected officials will take advantage of these tools to better serve citizens.

This is Publishing

2009-08-27T06:52:00.000-07:00

Listened in Wednesday on the C-SPAN coverage of the Potomac Forum discussion of new technologies and government: the Gov 2.0 Leadership, Collaboration, and Public Engagement Symposium. One phrase kept rattling through my head later in the day, stated by Jack Holt, Senior Strategist for Emerging Media for the Department of Defense, Defense Media Activity.

The Defense Department is doing a lot of innovative things in terms of communicating with the public. Holt was asked if there are risks that information might be revealed. His response was, you have to remember that social media is publishing. And he went on to say, there are rules when you publish something: rules about defamation, for example. One must, or should, follow the rules when publishing. That's a very productive line of thinking, because every local elected official should be familiar with the rules of the publishing road if he or she is going to become a publisher.

I'm going to dive into the wiki guide to a local official's use of social media some of us have been working on and add that phrasing. Remember, you are publishing. As detailed in my post a couple days ago, some government officials have got into trouble for thinking what they are doing on Twitter or Facebook is whispering. It ain't. It's distribution of a form previously undreamed of.

Meanwhile, the conference continues, and anyone who looks at Twitter can keep track of the action.

Tweeting Success

2009-08-27T06:44:00.000-07:00

Wanted to crosspost a case history: how we used Twitter in Lakewood to recognize and fix a problem.

The Politician as Human Being

2009-08-18T14:30:00.000-07:00

Lately what's been on my mind as a blogging councilman is what is going to happen in November after the election. We're going to have a lot of new local elected officials who have used social media tools like blogs, Twitter, Facebook and such in order to communicate and thus, in order to get elected. They are going to come out of the gate expecting to use these tools as local elected officials.

There isn't, to my knowledge, any way of orienting these folks to how they should behave once elected. So my plan right now is try to convene some other Washington elected officials and see if we can come up with something in a hurry.

Why am I concerned? Well, here's the deal. Three of the people who use social media in this state ran into trouble:

1. A councilman from Olympia got embarrassed by use of social media. I've known Jeff for a long time. He is a smart guy, and a conscientious person. If he can make a mistake, so can I.

2. And I did. I blogged during a council meeting when people don't expect you to type during a meeting, and paid dearly for it. Good intentions don't count. I don't know if I am as smart or as conscientious as Jeff, but I sure try. So that's two of us now.

3. More recently, a sister in the use of social media to communicate, a councilwoman from Mukilteo, got embarrassed via Twitter. Her situation also shows council members could maybe have known a little more about what business should be done in public and how meetings should be conducted. It's good the discussion among councilmembers came to light via her post, but maybe that wasn't the best way.

And it's clearly not a Washington thing. A political figure in Oregon was caught very publicly unawares because he apparently did not realize Facebook is a public forum whatever your privacy settings might claim.

None of us are idiots. All of us got caught unawares. It's up to us to come up with something to prevent others from stumbling over great tools. Some of us have been working on a wiki about the usual of social media that might help a lot. But surely there's more we can do.

Before Asking 'Where's the Digital Democracy," Ask if Anyone Wants It

2009-08-14T12:26:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to decide if it's good or bad that I had not read Beth S Noveck's book Wiki Government before preparing this presentation for Barcamp Tacoma, a tech event near my home. Maybe it's good I didn't include her points, because the talk went on long enough. I was trying to summarize a wealth of information about how close, and yet so far, we are to tying people, participation, and government together in the digital age. It seems to me a truly collaborative government could not engage citizens but really solve some problems.

The Static Age: Challenges to a More Digital Democracy

View more presentations from walterneary.

You don't need to view the slideshow to follow the rest of this post, which refers to a paragraph from Noveck's book that hit me in the face like the proverbial gush of cold water. I just read it in a diner in Edgewood, Washington, and was so absorbed that I looked down and realized at some point I had eaten two chicken burritos and some white chili but had no memory of them. The book is a good read for anyone interested in the future of participatory democracy.

To be honest, it had not occurred to me that the problem is a lack of demand for digital democracy.

Clearly, there is widespread recognition we have a long ways to go. I will share more about the Noveck book, but I just had to share this comment from page 147 because it seems starkly on target and deadly right on:

While there has been a groundswell of attention to the problem of transparency in government and the need for government to release information that is accessible, searchable, and usable, there is no similarly widespread outcry for participation or collaboration.

Perhaps because the ideal of citizen engagement in government – as distinct from civic life – seems so unattainable or because our experience with citizen participation has been so anemic or because neither government professionals nor the public has yet embraced the theory of shared and collaborative expertise, no blue-ribbon commissions have been convened to address what it might require to reengineer the role of the public in governance.

(Walter interrupts the paragraph: Wow, I would have edited that last sentence differently, but read it again. It's a Zinger. What Beth Noveck is basically saying is that we are asleep to the potential of a stronger democracy)

Just as incumbent businesses are slow to rethink old business models, there does not seem to be a great deal of political will among professionals, who are understandably mired in the day-to-day, to use the newly available technology to develop more effective governance through collaboration.

That's a new way, to me, of considering the question. Creating demand: what will it take to get the public excited about the potential of collaborative government?

Facebook's Missing Nouns

2009-08-11T09:12:00.000-07:00

As Facebook becomes more popular, it seems to become more effective. I posted a note asking for volunteers for our city's transportation board, and I already had a person respond to the Facebook post. That's better than I've seen via blogs or email.

Obviously, more testing is needed, but this is a good sign.

Yet I am leery of putting more time into Facebook. Here's where I see a problem with Facebook as the definitive networking solution. You can be a friend or a supporter, but you can't apparently just be a contact or monitor. The language used within Facebook has not caught up with its popularity. That can create awkwardness both in business and politics.

This has been nagging at me awhile, but a casual chat last night really brought it to mind.

One of my fellow Lakewood city council members has been on vacation in Hawaii. He has posted some pictures of himself scuba-diving. I mentioned after the meeting last Monday to the city manager that I was enjoying the updates on the councilman's trip and mentioned the pictures on Facebook. The city manager said something about how he really needs to get on Facebook, but then commented, "But that raises the question, should I be a "friend" of a council member?"

Well, that's a darn good question. The city manager directly reports to the city council. In a way, it's like asking if an employee in any job should friend a supervisor. And yet when public officials are in a spotlight, it seems reasonable to me that government employees would want to keep in touch with what they are doing via Facebook.

My inclination would be to tell the city manager, sure, 'friend' me and the other council members. But let's say I run for re-election .... would someone accuse me of being "too close" to the city manager? What do people, particularly those unfamiliar with Facebook, consider a 'friend?'

The reason this has been on my mind at all is because there are a couple of organizations I've thought about following on Facebook but haven't. That's because of how Facebook describes someone who follows a page. Right now, if you decide to follow my City Council page, you are listed as a "supporter" of Walter Neary, the councilman. Well, I'd love that ... but it also seems that someone who might want to withhold judgment or someone who might even want to run against me would want to follow my page. It's very strange for that person to have to sign up as a "supporter."

Myself, I'd love to follow a couple of business competitors of my employer, Comcast. I know people who work at some of the other companies; it's not like business competition has to be personal. I'd love to know what they are up to, and would be delighted if they showed interest in my company's local Facebook page. But it seems odd and awkward that I a Comcast employee have to sign up as a "supporter" of Verizon.

Here's a bit of an unusual wrinkle on this matter: There's one business competitor of ours in Tacoma that twice mailed to people attacks on the effectiveness of what I do for the company, community relations. Needless to say, I sure don't want to sign up as a "supporter" of folks who put out a mailing that misled my wife when she read it. That hurt. I'm no supporter of that. But I'd like to follow their page on Facebook, if only to see if they continue to say anything misleading about me or what I do.

So in business and politics, I see a disconnect between Facebook's use of the terms "friends" and "supporters," and it's growing use as a broad social portal and town hall. What do you think?

A postscript: Some of the readers who have been at politics and social media for awhile will have another question. If the city manager and I are friends on Facebook, might we generate email to each other outside the city email system that would have to be disclosed through the public records act? And wouldn't that be an archiving nightmare? Yes, and yes, so that alone might settle the question. But my point remains, does Facebook have the best language for its role as a social portal?)

Personalized Government: Huge Changes

2009-07-24T13:08:00.000-07:00

It's already been widely noted in the Twitter community that two different speakers played the same segment at this year's Internet Strategy Forum in Portland. You should watch it before we proceed. It shows a character portrayed by Tom Cruise walking down the streets, with advertisements coming up just for him.

The reason people played and talked about the segment is that the era of personalized advertising is here. Now, it's unlikely a hologram is going to follow me as I walk offering me drinks. But the point speakers were making is that personalization is coming.

Nobody talked about the implications for democracy and the conduct of public policy and government; sadly, for a second year, nobody else from government was in sight at the conference. But the implications are huge.

Let's talk about the business implications for a second. Consider how you already shop at Amazon or other Internet shopping or travel sites. You can look up reviews of books or hotels or many other products. Amazon makes suggestions for what sort of books you might want to buy based on your preferences and past buying history. That's not new stuff.

What's new is how this era of personalization is extending. So, for example, the keynote speaker, Jeremiah Owyang of Forrest Research used the example of how Volkswagen, in an ad, asked for permission to scan his Twitter stream. The computer program found the word 'family' mentioned in his Tweets, so it recommended a station wagon to him. You can read more about this subject at Jeremiah's blog posting.

The other thing he noted that is you can now browse web pages within Facebook. What that means in practical terms is that Facebook can overlay what it knows about your friends with what you see on that web page. So we are coming to an age, where I could go to Facebook, call up a car company's web page, and the browser will tell you what all your friends think of that particular car company. Imagine wanting to buy anything – cable service, a computer, a lawnmower – and being able to find out what your trusted friends think of the options. In fact, Jeremiah noted, companies are already starting to do this, such as Get Glue.

This brings us back to the clip from Minority Report. My mobile phone contains my Facebook information. Imagine when I can hold my phone up to a sign in a store, and it tells me about the products I may be interested in (the sign might say, "Hey, Walter, it's your anniversary in a month, we have some ideas for what you can buy Cindy ...")

So let's bring it home to government. Just think about what this means for democracy. Within the near future, someone will be able to call up a politician's name on a newspaper website or web page and see exactly what his or her friends think of the person. Imagine calling up my web page either on the Internet or on Facebook and being able to see what your friends think of my voting record on the budget, parks, roads, etc... The information exchange is going to be breathtaking.

It also means politicians will be under sharp demand to consider what people think of them. Right now, I'd argue, the pressure is on candidates and politicians to think most especially of such things the year they are running for election or re-election. But if there is a community constantly generating recommendations and building up momentum 24 hours a day, then politicians will be held to a high standard of accountabilty. It's an exciting era.

Right now, you might see a special interest group rank a politician once a year. Imagine a world where we are ranked 24/7 AND not by interest groups, but by something that will grow to be more powerful: your unique-to-you trusted friends.

This also applies to government, of course. People will be ranking aspects of government. And ...

Will government respond by personalizing? Will there be a time when the government scans your tweets, decides you live in Lakewood and you are interested in dogs, and then send you notes about our dog park?

Will you walk into a city council chambers or go to a city council website, put in some simple info or pass a card or your phone by a printer, and then watch as detailed reports and future agenda schedules about a particular topic or street address come up just for you?

What other implications do you see for democracy in an age of increasing Internet personalization?

Scary Stuff

2009-07-23T10:54:00.000-07:00

Sometimes speaking candidly can come across as speaking severely. So I read my quote in a Government Technology story about blogging with a bit of trepidation.

Lakewood, Wash., Councilmember Walter Neary said an elected official risks his career each time he blogs in the true sense of the word.

"The people who read your blog most carefully are your political opponents. If you blog right, you make yourself a bigger target," Neary said. "You go to a lot of trouble to get elected, and then when you open yourself up, it gives people a lot more information they can use to try to unseat you."

What I said is true. Everytime you put something out to the public, you offer up a vulnerability.

HOWEVER that's the nature of politics. The same is true of what you as a council member put in a campaign statement, in a city brochure, in a speech at a council meeting or at a breakfast club.

So ... surely blogging creates more vulnerability. However, it creates more opportunity for success. I've had any number of people thank me for my blog. It creates risk for my career, but it also creates opportunities. That's the other side of blogging not covered in that story.

I do worry prospective bloggers might be scared away by such comments. But you know ... if they are, then they are probably not well served to be bloggers anyway. Part of being an elected official is to try to speak the truth courageously and effectively. If you don't feel called to do that by blogging, then don't.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Public Outreach

2009-06-25T18:10:00.001-07:00

I spoke to a standing-room-only crowd at the Association of Washington Cities annual meeting about the use of Twitter, Facebook and blogging to reach our citizens. It was a great day in Spokane. The overall feedback I got afterward is that a lot of people were thankful for a safe environment to learn about these methods, all of which have a lot of hype and mystique around them.

What got very odd is that four people either from or affiliated with the city of Shoreline warned that these methods could bankrupt a city because of a court ruling involving them. Needless to say, their comments had quite a chilling effect on the discussion. I had to acknowledge their concerns without being familiar with the case.

When I got back to the hotel room, I looked up the court case. It's pretty amazing. It involved tampering with a public document. If I was involved in a case like that, I sure wouldn't be showing up at a seminar claiming to know anything about public outreach (Read up a bit on the case at http://www.wasupremecourtblog.com/tags/oneill-v-city-of-shoreline/ and the more thorough http://cforjustice.org/2008/07/22/chasing-the-metadata/ )

The short version is that one of the former council members deleted part of an email before providing it through the public records act. Needless to say, a court did not like this. I don't blame the court. Tampering with a public document is wrong.

The case does have implications in how cities and public officials archive their documents; some guidelines on that subject are badly needed. How folks from Shoreline reached the conclusion that Facebook, Twitter and blogging were as dangerous as tampering with documents is beyond me. I feel kinda bad that I was not better prepared; I console myself that council members in the room who do research now know a lot more about ways to talk to their constituents. And talking to your constituents is always good.

Update Friday morning: when I wrote the below, I thought speakers were from the city of Shoreline. The mayor of Shoreline, Cindy Ryu, did oppose use of social media, but the leadoff speaker was actually an attorney: Ramsey Ramerman of the law firm Foster Pepper. My apologies to Shoreline council members, who as far as I know don't tamper with public documents. The tampering was done by someone who is no longer on the council)

Mixing Fact and Opinion

2009-06-16T10:14:00.001-07:00

I've picked up good ideas and practices after reading other City Council member's blogs. For one, I've learned to write a lot more succinctly. Shorter is far more effective on the Web.

The other lesson involved an approach I had to learn over a far longer time. The best practice is well summarized by City Councilman Douglas Athas of Garland, Texas, back when I was writing him and other council members for tips:

Indicate what is reporting and what is opinion; your readers deserve to know the difference. I think it generally a good idea to not mix the two. Two separate posts can work better.

I can categorize each post (most blogs can) and if I have any comments that are opinion, I assign that blog post to my Opinion category (and others, too, if appropriate).

I was slow in learning this lesson. I began my columns in the same style as I wrote as a newspaper editor. What I sort of vaguely told myself is that readers must want "interpretation" from me as a councilman. In the life of a newspaper columnist or editor, words are often a tactical weapon you use at those you want to persuade or move.

Of course, what I have learned with age is that darn few people are persuaded of something they don't want to be persuaded about. They are generally looking for reinforcement of their beliefs; or, more relevant to this post, they want information that is relevant to their lives and/or their understanding of something.

What I found is that the slicing words that got me the most praise as an editor ... heck, the words that won me a lot of awards ... got me the most criticism as a City Councilman.

Now criticism comes with the territory. This criticism was right on. People like information about their government "straight up." Walter the opinion columnist had to give way to Walter the City Councilman. Walter the City Councilman would be happy if people just knew what was going on in Lakewood. So he sure doesn't want to repel people with his writing style.

I had to adjust my attitude and approach. People have told me they like it. I haven't written a particularly savage column in a long while. When I do, I will clearly label it as such so people don't enter the post thinking it is something other than what it is.

Take a look at how Douglas categories Opinion posts. Makes a lot of sense and I will start doing it myself.

Allowing Comments

2009-05-26T14:48:00.001-07:00

I wrote to several city council members who blog, asking for tips and advice. I'll be sharing some of that advice. Of all the contents in all the emails, the one paragraph that really turned my head was this one, from Councilwoman Angela Hunt of Dallas. She lives in a city where a council member could probably get a staff person to write the blog, but clearly she writes hers.

This was the advice that struck me:

Don't allow comments. Blogs take a lot of time by themselves, and if you are having to constantly respond to comments, they will eat up all your time. Encourage constituents to email you their thoughts and reply directly to them.

This got me thinking, and I took a look. A lot of council member blogs, particularly those in big cities, don't enable commentary. I'm still going to allow comments on my blog, but after her pithy advice, I won't worry as much about the lack of comments. I do like people to ask questions, but I no longer cherish the illusion that my blog will somehow serve as a sort of town hall.

I'm not alone; most council member blogs don't get a lot of comments. I used to get a fair number from anonymous folks who accused me of trying to destroy the city for whatever reason got them excited. For awhile, I thought that maybe this created some sort of constructive dialogue, but I ended up deciding it just took time. Ever since I required would-be commentators to sign up with their name, I've had hardly any comments. A somewhat sad truth I've noticed is that most of the people who comment to blogs are the people who are in opposition of whatever is stated, and, most important from how I use my time, don't have any real interest in why I support what I support. And they like to be anonymous.

There is a famous, famous cartoon about anonymous blog posters that summarizes what I think of them. Let me tell you right now it is highly highly highly offensive so please do not click on this link if you are offended by obscenities. If you are offended by obscenities and click on this, don't come crying to me. I only post it because it's incredibly true: the Penny Arcade cartoon about anonymous blog posters.

So while I enable comments, I applaud the councilwoman's approach: concentrate on providing information and commentary, and not on trying to hold a town hall on your site when conditions are not right for one.

The Portland Portal to the Future

2009-05-07T09:47:00.000-07:00

There's this one room at a historic hotel in Portland that I am coming to associate with the latest and greatest in technology. Funny how location melts into sentiment.

The room is the third floor ballroom at The Governor Hotel. I've been there twice now. In July 2008, I attended the Internet Strategy Forum which opened my eyes to a lot of ways of communicating with customers and constituents. I started more aggressively blogging and trying new things at both my jobs (Comcast and the Lakewood City Council). Some worked, some didn't.

Yesterday I was at another workshop about digital communications, Communicopia, organized by the Portland chapter of the Public Relations Society of America and the Oregon/Columbia chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators.

Once again, speakers discussed cutting-edge techniques to approach and listen to customers through the Internet and digital media.

The changes between July 2008 and May 2009, less than a year apart, are striking. There were far more good case histories yesterday of how companies are using the Internet to bridge gaps with citizens. I'm still contemplating all the changes, not to mention all the case histories, but two things struck me right away.

GOVERNMENT WAS THERE: There was nobody from government at the July 2008 meeting that I can recall. And indeed, most of the folks yesterday were from business. Still, yesterday, even some of the panelists were from government: Sally Ridenour, Oregon Department of Transportation and Jennie Day-Burget, Portland Water Bureau. Case histories were shared such as use of social media by an airport.

That said, I didn't see any other elected officials. Maybe they'll be there in May 2010. But the government examples were solid and show how agencies are trying to use technology for everyone's benefit. These examples are from Portland, of course; but they're growing all over the place in other states including Washington. Anyone in Washington state who is using Twitter should definitely be monitoring the Washington State Department of Transportation.

TWITTER WAS THERE: There were only a few people using Twitter at the July 2008 conference. Yesterday, there were dozens, and in fact the organizers even had a contest related to Twitter.

The discussions have matured. In July, it was all about 'get on board.' Yesterday, several speakers commented that you needed to be targeted and strategic. My favorite speaker, the plain-speaking Jeff Hardison of McClenahan Bruer Communications, compared people under pressure these days to enter "social media" to kids under pressure to drink beer in college: everybody thinks they need to be on Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, or whatever Oprah and Aston Kurcher are using. He and several other speakers pointed that that it makes no sense to spend time on something like Twitter if you don't have customers there.

"Your culture may not have the culture to do this stuff, no matter what people say ... This isn't high school where you're under pressure," Hardison said.

All the discussion got me thinking that all of us can be more strategic in how we communicate. That got me thinking that I need to spend less time on Twitter as a Lakewood City Councilman, because so far I have found all of one Lakewood voter (out of apprx. 13,000 active voters) dialoguing with me. I love my city, but it's not known for early adoption of technology.

And there are more reflections, but that's good for now. Wanted to share thoughts on two interesting days, nine months apart, in a historic Portland ballroom.

Getting Reaction in the New Age

2009-04-20T18:29:00.000-07:00

There's been a lot of buzz about how electronic media will allow elected officials and citizens to exchange ideas. So I tried a little experiment, and posted some news on Facebook and on Twitter.

The news was that the city of Lakewood's collection of traffic fines is up 40 percent for the first three months of 2009 compared with the first three months of 2008, for total of about $200,000 more. I have to say, I didn't get a lot of feedback, but what I got was very high quality.

This is what I posted, because I was interested in what people thought: Lakewood WA traffic cameras collecting 200K more so far in 09, up 40%. Keeping drivers safe or fining people too much?

One person on Twitter, a former co-worker, wrote: or just creepy Big Brother technology that should rile small "l" libertarian minds like yours?

Another person offered two thoughts:

Assuming accident rates are down 20% in camera zones, how does that compare to non-camera zones? w/out those numbers, can't tell.

I responded that there was indeed a reduction and then the other person responded: Thx. If trying to decide if cameras improve safety, prob should get stats on camera v. non-camera areas. 20% citywide is good news.

and meanwhile, another person who've I've never met in the flesh asked for more info. I gave her some News Tribune stories about the subject of traffic fines and traffic cameras. She responded Cool, just curious. Wenatchee is in process of installing red-light cameras.

So that was Twitter.

Meantime, here was the reaction on Facebook. Four very thoughtful reactions:

It depends, if it's you running the red lights. It is frustrating when the light turns green and you have to wait for 4-5 more cars as they keep going through.

It is obviously not high enough. People are still running the lights. It is a major cause of traffic death here in Florida where the red light means next 3 cars.

My theory: Weak budgets and hungry cops. At a minimum, I suspect there is pressure from the top to enforce hard, it seems to be that way everywhere these days.

Keep up the GOOD work. TOO many people speed every day and there is NO reason to drive fast. We are not driving the Indy 500 here - Speed KILLS!

I have to tell you ... I was very impressed with the points of view.

BUT

and there's a BUT

Not a single one of these folks lives in Lakewood.

So ... great views. Great Internet exchanges. Zip interaction with Lakewood.

I think in part it's because Lakewood folks are not on the Internet as much as they will be in, say, a few months or a year. Or .... it might just be I'm not in the right places. So now I am posting this on my Lakewood blog ... will be interested to see if I get more reaction ...

Transparency: All Good, and Growing

2009-03-24T09:16:00.000-07:00

A couple months ago, I 'jumped the shark' by posting a photo of Elvis below and wondering if there's all that much interest in government and social media. I didn't post much after that. It seems like only a few months ago that if you brought up the topic in government circles, there were frowns and hesitation and muttering about how government people couldn't go near social media on their computers.

In the past couple months, that's surely changed for the better. Seems like there are two primary sources: the Obama adminstration embracing social media (and Republicans talking about perhaps it can help their cause) and all the talk about Twittering in Congress. One blogger coined the phrase Goverati to cover people involved in enriching social media and government; and beyond that, the entire Air Force apparently wants to be involved.

The latest articles on the subject offer a lot of excitement. Consider how many ways Secretary of State Clinton is using social media and the Internet. People can follow her around the world. In a few years, when we can upload avatars of ourselves into the 3-D Web, it probably will be virtually possible to follow her into a building in London or the Mideast.

Something I had not thought about before is that this social media emphasis is not just about being more transparent. With the disintegration of newspapers moving faster and faster, we may be fighting for the attention of the public about public policy. A recent story in Time magazine is scary. The article talks of a town without local news that suffers reduced voter participation and fewer candidates. It's a scary scenario unless something replaces the local newspaper to inspire public participation.

We could have told you this before, based on what we've seen in my hometown. It's a very real scenario in my town, Lakewood, a suburb of Tacoma. We're too close to Tacoma to have our own community newspaper. We're too small to get more than a story every couple days, if that, in the Tacoma paper. I know from talking to citizens that a lot of them have no idea what's going on in the town, and that makes them uncomfortable. Some tell me my blog helps .... and our hyperlocal blog definitely helps ... can all the tools of social media help?

They have to! Any way we can be involved in interacting with each other in the hunt for deeper and richer public policy discussions is valuable.

The King

2009-01-13T16:29:00.000-08:00

A state legislator, Kris Amundson, reminds us in a blog posting that an elected official who blogs can always make his or her points in a more creative, original and compelling way ... and also be responsible for an Elvis sighting!

Mapping out the present and future

2009-01-13T16:10:00.000-08:00

Check out this great new mapping website from the city of Seattle. I bet everyone would love to put their town 'on the map' like this. There's a lot going on with mapping, such as Zoodango, a site that notes local attractions and lets people rank and share information about them.

If you couple all this work with technology that makes this information portable - even wearable - the potential is amazing. Wouldn't it be great if a citizen could point their augmented reality glasses or headset, or whatever, at a city building or an entire civic complex and have the device tell the person what services are where?

Imagine a world where taxpayers can ask their machine to give them directions to a place that's being discussed by their City Council ... which of course is possible with GPS technology ... but then also get relevant information about the proposal onsite through one of these devices. And then ... be able to make a 'public comment' then and there by dictating into a machine that saves the feedback for the council?

OK, we're aways from that ... but these are clearly exciting times.

Social Media and the Mayor of Minneapolis

2008-11-14T15:34:00.000-08:00

Blogger Peter Shankman has a wide-ranging interview with the mayor of Minneapolis.

Find more videos like this on PROpenMic

Mayor R.T. Rybak is a good choice on this topic, as he used to be a newspaper reporter and worked at a company that produced web-based video.

Rybak makes a number of interesting points. The most interesting to me was that he listed Napster, of all things, as a model for government and public exchange using new technologies. Just as people share music, they should be able to share ideas via the Internet.

"I like anything that breaks down that barrier between people and allows you to build new relationships," Rybak told Shankman. "People often talk about the Internet as being something that is more isolating ... us sitting staring at our screens. No, no, that's television. The Internet, done right, is really about connecting us all."

As Shankman responded, "Awesome."

That said, I couldn't find a lot of examples in the Minneapolis web site, suggesting once again as if we didn't know that government is moving slowly in terms of utilizing social media.

Rybak has a page on the social networking site Facebook. I had to chuckle someone started a Facebook group to run him for governor.

Top Trends in Local Government Tech

2008-10-21T10:32:00.000-07:00

Trends from Alan Shark, executive director of the Public Technology Institute, at today's local government seminar mentioned below:

- Flat to lower spending on information technologies: (no surprise in this economy). This creates pressure to show spending on technology can save money. There is increased pressure to make a 'business case' ... "to show how technology can actually help in times of distress," Shark said.

- Greater centralization of IT ... combining groups even between entities. "People are reaching out because they have to," Shark said.

- Regionalism is a necessity. This is interesting. Shark is basically saying that in times of declining budgets, different government units are going to have to share resources. I think of government entities .. cities, libraries, whatever .. as being fiercly protective of their turf.

- Greater use of Multimedia: integrating video, voice and data: "We need to understand how the public will use this because this is how the public will be interacting with us."

- Social Media and Government. Now we're talking. Shark didn't list many examples, though, which is disappointing. He mentions online voting, but that has huge implications that were not discussed.

Questions: how do you get different government entities sharing their IT resources? Shark responded that one option is having the groups called together by an impartial outside entity or a politician. I'm not sure I see any implications in my county, but it's surely worth giving some thought.

And here's a surprise: asked for cutting-edge government contact with technology, Shark mentions the virtual world Second Life. That's pretty remarkable when I can't imagine any government networks even allow their employees to access it from their computers. What a progressive thought. Here's one article about how Boston is involved in Second Life.

Today's Workshop about Local Government Sponsored by Microsoft

2008-10-21T08:28:00.000-07:00

I just "arrived" for today's packed agenda during a Microsoft-sponsored workshop on technology and local government. (It's also sponsored by American City and County magazine, which is where I learned about it). The first speaker, Richard McKinney, a Microsoft guy who used to work for the city of Nashville, just commented that they budgeted $2,500 in training for employees when they consolidated their IT departments. As a city councilman, I can just imagine how tough it was to get training money in a city budget. It was smart of the city to invest in their people.

Someone else just asked, How do you convince a political decision-maker to pay attention to IT? If Microsoft could figure that out and pack the answer in a can, they would make a lot of money! The speaker suggests trying to show decision-makers that they will get more bang for their buck - more return on investment. And that's true. If you do have any money in your budget, your elected officials will want to spend it wisely.

Virtual Worlds and Government

2008-09-02T13:08:00.001-07:00

Speaking of using new technologies to reach the public ... here's the story of what a federal agency, the National Defense University, went through to use the virtual world Second Life to reach the community. It's a fun little story as the officials describe their efforts to be taken seriously ...

As should be expected, government is surely not at the cutting edge of using virtual worlds to reach the public. The jury is still out on the future of virtual worlds themselves, though they are sure to have at least some sort of future. This article talks about how universities are using Second Life.

Fear of Google: For Reals

2008-08-13T13:41:00.000-07:00

If you were asked a few years ago, what keeps government open, the answer would have been clear: the laws regarding open meetings and public records. Today, that's still true, but clearly the Internet has played a huge role in allowing the exchange and discovery of information about government.

So that must be why it seems so funny to me that the Internet Goliath, Google, plays secret government. I see this from an article by Zach Patton in the latest issue of Governing. One telling paragraph:

When negotiations began, Google insisted that more than 70 local officials sign non-disclosure agreements forbidding them to talk about the matter. So when two public hearings were held in December 2006 to discuss tax breaks for the company, elected officials weren't allowed to utter Google's name. What's more, local officials helped Google quietly buy up land in the area through a newly created nonprofit that concealed the company's identity. In all, Google won more than $260 million worth of state and local subsidies — and all of it was worked out behind closed doors.

Since the circumstances described in the article, Google and the city apparently have a more open relationship. But clearly there is still secrecy involved .. again, as you would see in a typical business opening a major center like this.

Wow, for a cutting-edge Internet organization, this is a pretty 19th century approach to democracy. As the article notes, though, pretty much everyone plays this game. So maybe it's unfair to single out Google. In fact, I know it is unfair to single them out. But perhaps this situation illustrates that no matter how the technology changes, the politics of situations may not.

On the Attack Against Social Media ... and Thus Democracy

2008-07-25T08:22:00.000-07:00

It's bad enough, as I've written below, that government is failing to interact with the public through social media. Some folks are on the attack against communication. Here's a link to a sad story about Memphis Police Director Larry Godwin who is suing AOL to find out the name of bloggers who have been critical of Godwin.

Spending money on such a lawsuit is a sad corruption of public resources. The blog itself, MPD Enforcer 2.0, claims to be a place where officers and others can gather to talk, and that right is rather protected in these United States.

There's no question that blogs, email and the Internet pose a challenge to government in certain circumstances. But not when someone starts a blog critical of government. To do so is an American right. That's not a challenge. That's an opportunity for democracy.

And most folks clearly realize that. Read some of the comments posted on the Commercial-Appeal site about the lawsuit; many are hysterical.

Missed Opportunity

2008-07-18T08:55:00.000-07:00

As part of my day job, I attended the Internet Strategy Forum in Portland yesterday. As you can see from the link, there were a lot of distinguished panelists who talked about how the Internet ties consumers and businesses together.

There was not one ... not one .. and did I say, not one? ... reference to government. And when I look at the list of attendees .. well, the lack of government attendees speaks for itself.

This is just sad. There is no place more important for people to interact with another entity than with government. It is government that has powers to give and take away freedom, to tax, to spend, to develop, to lead ... and to listen.

And government is not only letting the train go by, it's starting to look to me like a lot of governments do not know there is a station.

But that's not true of everyone. Governing.com has an encouraging item today about how Delaware is making it easier for people to find the most popular topics on their web page through what's commonly called a 'word cloud.' (You can find it under 'one-click search'on the Delaware home page)

Writer Ellen Perlman notes, "The word cloud shows that visitors to the site search for information on employment issues more than any other subject. 'Wanted persons' is the second most popular."

Well, that's a state, not a local government, which is my personal area of interest and where citizens engage with a lot of passion with their government. But it's a start, and a good sign that not everyone is asleep.

Listing Toward Change

2008-07-11T21:46:00.000-07:00

Pensacola City Councilman Sam Hall posted an unusual article centered on the theme of change, complete with clip art of fortune cookies. The post is a list of numerous and varied changes or signs of change.

You can tell Hall is trying to create more of an effect than just providing information. Clearly, he's try to set up an atmosphere in which to embrace change.

Says Hall: Pensacola has some of the greatest assets of any Florida community but we are failing in nearly every measure (education, jobs, quality of life, public services, etc.).

Many of us feel it has to do with the political structure of the area. I feel there is no way we can attract outside talent or outside investment without measurable political change.

I think the city is poised for it. In 2006, only three of ten City Council seats were contested. This year all but one are. Many of the races have two challengers.

I think most of the incumbents will return, but a shift of three will make all the difference in the world.

It's interesting how he is trying to set the stage for change on his blog without slamming someone over the head about who to vote for. Hall is trying to give people little bits of information to carry around, and even share, to support an atmosphere of change. A blog can be so much more than a statement of information about a calendar event. It can set the scene for a gentle version of American revolution.

Using Email to Send News to the Community

2008-07-10T08:04:00.000-07:00

This arrived in my council email a few minutes ago from a company that helps cities send out customized news feeds to citizens:

I am pleased to announce that the City of Kirkland, WA has launched their email subscription system with GovDelivery. They join the ranks with Bellevue, Lake Forest Park and Vancouver in offering free government to citizen email communication. Because communication is a top priority to them, they were able to get GovDelivery up and running in 6 days! They currently offer 39 subscription items, but intend to add more subscription items and features in the near future. Visit their website and sign up for email updates to see what a great job they did. http://www.ci.kirkland.wa.us/E-Bulletins.htm

I love that reference to 'free,' because it is sure hard to imagine charging anyone for this service! Heck, newspapers can't get people to pay for online content. Anyway, I recommend calling up that link to take a look. What I like about this is that people can request email about specific issues. I was sending out an email bulletin for awhile, and I found folks often care most about one or two items in each bulletin. And of course, which item the person would care about would depend entirely on the person.

You can't assume someone will call up a lengthy email if they do not know for sure there will be a topic of interest to them within. With personalized news, you can be assured at least the topic is of interest, even if the development is not. At least the citizen is more likely to read the information.

So it's great to hear of customized news. Here is the text from the Renton list:

The city of Kirkland has recently replaced its e-mail bulletin software and we are in the process of moving all lists over to the new software. We are pleased to offer notices and subscriptions on the following topics at this time.

* Annexation Updates
* City Council Agendas
* Downtown Strategic Plan Update
* Neighborhood News
* Shoreline Master Program Update
* Touchstone (Park Place), Orni and Altom PARs
* NE 85th Street Corridor Improvements Project
* Kirkland Wireless Project
* Totem Lake Mall Development Update
* Kirkland Developers Partnership Forum
* Kirkland Events Guide
* Kirkland Green E-Updates

How it all works may be self-evident, but there's a description on the Bellevue site.

A Revolution?

2008-07-10T07:00:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to get some resources in line before advertising this blog, and the best I have found so far is an online report, The Blogging Revolution: Government in the Age of Web 2.0.

From the very first graf of the introduction:

Moving Toward Citizen Engagement in a Virtual Age

Writing in Foreign Policy, Drezner and Farrell (2004) hit upon an amazing reality of modern life. Today, unlike at any time in the advance of history, people simply no longer need to leave their houses to participate in a revolution. With the advent of new technologies, new means can be used to foster online engagement, in both the individual and collective sense, and to create new dialogues between
government and citizens (Reece, 2006).

The thing runs 98 pages and showcases many examples of blogging. I was quite happy to see a list of mayors who blog, because I am trying to build a list of elected officials who blog. I immediately dived in to add the blogs that were listed individually to my list of links.

The thing I find interesting is that more than half of the links are gone ... and that's only a year after the report came out. What this tells me is that there is a lot of turnover among elected officials, which of course is not a surprise, but also a lot of turnover in blogging. Why, I wonder? Looking forward to learning more about the whole topic.

A Congressman's Use of Twitter Causes Much Twitting

2008-07-08T21:55:00.000-07:00

A post by author Mike Masnick at this link on techdirt describes a fuss in Congress about an elected official's use of the Internet to get involved what the author describes as a partisan battle. It's great that the congressman himself weighs in on the comments section of this blog. What a lively discussion.

I'm intrigued by one of the comments from a reader at the end. If I remove some of the partisan elements, this is what the person wrote:

"Judging from the time he spends twitting & videoing & raising campaign funds,& meeting with oil companies/driller/producers that"I proudly represent" one can see that he has little time to read and comprehend legislation & regulatory issues. Once he does, perhaps he will back down and apologize."

This reminds me of a theme that came up in my little controversy. Is the time spent communicating via Twitter or a blog worth it when the elected official could be spending the time studying an issue? To me, communication is crucial to the understanding of government. And yet an official can always be better educated. It's a good question, and perhaps there's no easy answer. It just feels odd to me that a person can be criticized for communicating, and I feel I myself need to understand better the root of the concern.

(It's also worth reading the post, even though it and the comments are long, because clearly the federal rules about the use of the Internet in Congress are complicated...)

Talk About Embarrassing

2008-07-06T09:21:00.000-07:00

For this project, I have been compiling a list of other local elected officials who blog. Either there are not that many such blogs, or I am looking in the wrong places. I'll keep at it. If you know of any blogs by local electeds, please let me know.

Along the path, I've found the occasional news story that shows how we are still learning .. and how sloppy handling of a local blog can even do damage. This story was both priceless .. and cautionary! As you can read, a city councilman deleted his blog, and someone else apparently took the blog name over. Yipes .. that made for a bad day.

In development ...

2008-07-03T08:09:00.000-07:00

After my recent brush with fame, thought I would see if it would make any sense to compose and collect a blog about elected officials who blog. Still putting it together, as you can see ...