[open-government] API for brainstorming and example

Tue Aug 17 15:02:32 UTC 2010

"Brainstorming" or idea submission, prioritization, and
collaborative/assigned action (?) crosses into the territory of
participation online - if you want to be a "cat herder" :-) check out
all of the various competing tools and models:
http://participatedb.com
Simon,

I liked your original reference to working with a small village.
E-Democracy.org does that and we are interested in opportunities to
leverage our base of participants with new ideas and tools.

IMHO the challenge for anyone wanting to use these tools (or an API)
that leverages open government data/processes for community
engagement/problem-solving/action/participation is gathering a
critical mass of participants.

I've been in the open government space for 15 years -
http://stevenclift.com/?p=303 - and in general folks continuously
under-estimate what it takes to engage everyday people beyond the
political class with the information that does become available. Build
it they will come, just doesn't work.

Steven Clift - http://stevenclift.com
  Executive Director - http://E-Democracy.Org
  Follow me - http://twitter.com/democracy
  New Tel: +1.612.234.7072

On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 8:43 AM, Jonathan Gray <jonathan.gray at okfn.org> wrote:
> Simon: ch.ckan.net isn't set up yet, but hopefully will be soon. We
> can then make a nice front end at any URL you like, e.g. using Drupal
> for customisation. CKAN is open-source software which powers
> data.gov.uk and being used to set up more than a dozen data catalogues
> around the world.
>
> If you're interested in Swiss data catalogue (or if anyone else wants
> xx.ckan.net), please join our ckan-discuss list and say hi!
>
>  http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/ckan-discuss
>
> On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 1:22 PM, Simon Perdrisat <perdrisat at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> So apparently they are no standard API for a brainstorming application.
>>
>> I got in touch with developer of ideatorrent a month ago. Sadly, this
>> application need a rebuild from scratch. For the moment, it is not in the
>> "Drupal way" and not flexible. BTW, I think we can almost do the same
>> without the ideatorrent module but with other more generic solution. They
>> are also a new version 6.x-2.0.x-dev at
>> http://drupal.org/project/ideatorrent but it need work.
>>
>> I can help for that and also to create a clone of data.gov (this is really
>> easy) or better but harder http://www.socrata.com. Anyway, I think the data
>> server and the fancy visualization service should be completely separate
>> project.
>>
>> I receive a mail from Claire Gallon but she didn't send to the list :/. She
>> create a catalog of "needed data" and she try now to get it for France. I
>> can push that on google doc and tranlsate it.
>>
>> I can't access to ch.ckan.net :(. For my point of view having one main
>> domain for the "swiss open gov" (like openadmin.ch) would be more easy to
>> promote.
>>
>>
>> Regards
>>
>> Simon
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 12:41, Jonathan Gray <jonathan.gray at okfn.org> wrote:
>>>
>>> Simon: we are currently in the process of setting up
>>> incubator.okfn.org. We've looked into lots of different solutions like
>>> IdeaTorrent. For more info see:
>>>
>>>  http://knowledgeforge.net/okfn/tasks/ticket/141
>>>
>>> Any interest in helping to set this up? ;-)
>>>
>>> Also FYI, we're currently talking to various folks about setting a
>>> Swiss data catalogue (at ch.ckan.net). We already have
>>> French/German/Italian translations we can use for the interface, but
>>> don't yet have Rumantsch! ;-)
>>>
>>> All the best,
>>>
>>> Jonathan
>>>
>>> 2010/8/16 Simon Perdrisat <perdrisat at gmail.com>:
>>> > Hello,
>>> >
>>> > I just subscribe to the list so "hello everybody".
>>> >
>>> > I'm interested to know more about exciting API and tools for
>>> > brainstorming
>>> > in an open gov way. I find some API like http://open311.org/ but nothing
>>> > for
>>> > brainstorming. They are also some open source tools like
>>> > http://www.ideatorrent.org but still is not an API.
>>> >
>>> > I live in Switzerland and we can wait for centuries before the gov open
>>> > any
>>> > data. I'm affrayed if I create a data platform like data.gov nobody was
>>> > interested because it's empty...
>>> >
>>> > But a brainstorming platform is a tools and can be first used by really
>>> > small village and political group too. And so we start create a kind of
>>> > data. I hop also other peoples intersted by the subject  in the country
>>> > start to work together to push the open gov concept.
>>> >
>>> > regards
>>> >
>>> > Simon
>>> >
>>> > --
>>> >
>>> > This email is a green one... don't print it.
>>> >
>>> > _______________________________________________
>>> > open-government mailing list
>>> > open-government at lists.okfn.org
>>> > http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/open-government
>>> >
>>> >
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Jonathan Gray
>>>
>>> Community Coordinator
>>> The Open Knowledge Foundation
>>> http://blog.okfn.org
>>>
>>> http://twitter.com/jwyg
>>> http://identi.ca/jwyg
>>
>> --
>> Simon Perdrisat :: http://cloud33.com :: Skype gagarine42 ::
>> http://twitter.com/gagarine
>>
>> This email is a green one... don't print it.
>>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Jonathan Gray
>
> Community Coordinator
> The Open Knowledge Foundation
> http://blog.okfn.org
>
> http://twitter.com/jwyg
> http://identi.ca/jwyg
>
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