Nearly two months ago was a meeting of the Innovation Parks Task Force in which there was good feedback and discussion, but at the same time, as we remarked at the time, only one side of the room showed up – the more pro-economic development, pro-development wing.
What was missing, for example, was that there was no one in the room who helped to work on either Measure J or Measure R. Since that time the city has been struggling to reconvene and find days when the major stakeholders could all show up.
Yesterday, I stumbled on a possible answer in a rather unlikely place, the blog for a company called Onvia. They deliver “data, business intelligence, analytics and tools that help our clients succeed in the government market.”
What they address is exactly the issue that we face, “Social media has given voice to a new group of constituents who were unlikely to participate in public political discussions in the past. While writing your local representative is still a powerful way to connect with your elected officials, governments are starting to embrace a new trend in their project planning and spending initiatives.”
There has been a “trend of local governments turning to crowdsourcing to solicit feedback from constituents and create buy-in for government projects.”
They defined crowdsourcing as “distributed problem solving,” a means to “mine collective intelligence, assess quality and process work in parallel,” and argued that “cities across the country are jumping on the trend to build richer relationships with their citizens.”
They cite three examples of crowdsourcing by local governments.
For instance, in Boston, the city is asking residents to select their own transfer music. They write, “We don’t like to leave you hanging on the telephone – that’s why when you call Boston City Hall, you can reach a real person 24 hours a day at the Mayor’s 24-Hour Call Center. But if you’re transferred, you’ll hear a short clip of music. We think that music should be as uniquely Bostonian as you are.
“That’s why we’re turning to you, Boston: we’re turning our newly upgraded phone system into a place to showcase our talented local musicians. Between now and December 2, submit your original tracks to be included in our transfer music playlist, and we’ll promote you and your song via our website and social media. Read the rules below, and we can’t wait to hear from you!”
In New York they are asking residents to report crashes and near misses in order to better identify trouble spots.
And in Kansas City, the residents “actually crowdfunded the city’s B-cycle project to the tune of $420,000 to provide 90 sharable bikes at sharing stations across the city.”
Now that sounds like something for Davis.
Onvia writes, “We looked through Onvia’s database of government bids and RFPs at the federal, state and local level to see if there had been an uptick in crowdsourced projects over the last three years. The numbers speak for themselves – crowdsourcing references have grown steadily over the last 3 years with local showing the largest area of growth as cities, counties and school districts engage on a deeper level with their constituents. “
This of course gets me thinking, why not use crowdsourcing in Davis to help with the public process for the Innovation Park Task Force?
The city council has asked the Innovation Park Task Force to reconvene to initiate a community engagement process providing opportunities for community dialog about possible Innovation Center options and related issues.
At the meeting in November, we suggested that if this really is an “innovation” enterprise, why are we using 18th and 19th century townhall meetings as the means to solicit input?
As Onvia suggests, there are many in the community who are unlikely to participate in public political discussions – and yet they may have crucial feedback.
You might argue – and with justification – that a city without a reliable email list, that does not use Twitter, and has barely used Facebook is not well equipped for such a crowdsourcing experiment.
But the Onvia blog entry points the way – how about an RFP (request for proposals) put out to find a firm that can do what the city needs to do?
Expensive? How much is the Measure R process going to cost anyway?
Engaging the community can answer critical questions. Where can we put an innovation park? How large can it be? Will an innovation park pass a Measure R vote?
For the past several months, the Vanguard has been pushing for community discussion. As Rob White noted early on in the discussion, this was not going to be a discussion about Mace 391. As we have noted in previous discussions, the Innovation Park Task Force looked at Nishi as one early site that could focus on an innovation center, and areas to the west of Sutter-Davis Hospital and east of Mace Blvd. as potential medium range sites.
If this simply becomes a discussion by the more pro-development forces in town – including business people and real estate developers, then any Measure J/Measure R vote at the end will be unsuccessful.
The only way that the bulk of the town, the majority who opposed Covell Village and Wild Horse Ranch and the majority who overwhelmingly renewed Measure J through Measure R, will be able to support a business park is if they are included in the conversation, if their concerns are not only listened to but addressed in the discussion.
Getting everyone into a room might be problematic, but engaging discussions on Facebook, Twitter, and sites like the Vanguard might be a better way to go.
What the city needs, of course, is someone who has the expertise to be able to take a large amount of data and turn it into a useful analysis – to harness the power of crowdsourcing.
Onvia, while angling for its own product, has some answers.
They write, “Operations and Maintenance vendors can differentiate themselves from competitors by building a crowdsourcing program into their contract proposals to create a two-way dialog with the citizens they are serving. Vendors bidding on the maintenance & operations of a city or state park for example could build a mechanism into their proposal for citizens to offer direct feedback to the vendor and the contracting agency regarding staff service and customer satisfaction, cleaning & maintenance schedules and facility availability or resource concerns.”
They add, “Local incumbents often have an advantage when it comes to state and local bids and RFPs, but savvy regional or national players can engage local constituents effectively through social media campaigns to build a rich relationship with the community.”
Can it work? We will see. But it seems worth a try.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
If every person only represented one opinion then it might work. The problem with this is you might have one group that posts under multiple aliases or hires people to do their bidding and it ends up skewing the numbers.
Along that line, what would be the difference between ‘crowd-sourcing’, and ‘mob-sourcing’?
That seems like a federalist argument against democracy, no? Hasn’t that largely been debunked?
Ever heard of “lynching”?
This isn’t a vote, it’s trying to shape a policy going forward.
Yes but if an overwhelming number of people and posts suggest that something is wanted then it has a good chance of being put forward. How would we ever know those numbers weren’t manipulated?
There are ways to know, but that’s not really the point. Anything that goes forward has to go to a vote anyway, you’re using this to shape the proposal rather than approve policy.
“If this simply becomes a discussion by the more pro-development forces in town – including business people and real estate developers, then any Measure J/Measure R vote at the end will be unsuccessful.”
A little presumptuous don’t you think. Given a new group of choices; development, tax increases or reduced services the voters of Davis might behave differently than you know.
This isn’t an outcome based policy, it’s a process.
Distinction between “democracy” and “republic”? Perhaps a ‘crowd-sourcing’ process would ban gay marriages, Medical, and defund social services.
Why does this idea frighten you?
Never said I was frightened, particularly from your semi-thought out ideas. I guess that is the answer… “crowd-sourcing” could easily lead to the crowd denigrating, attempting to intimidate those who disagree with ‘the leader of the pack’.
It could lead to that. But since the process would be non-binding, they would simply throw it out and plan anew. Given the success other locales have had however, I’m not that concerned.
Does my reluctance to embrace ‘crowd-sourcing’ (another form of a ‘selfie’) frighten you?
No, it surprises me given all of the problems crowdsourcing could have avoided in the past here in Davis.
Re-read artiicle/opinion. Not everyone has access to or inclined to use ‘social media’. Should they be excluded?
Good point hpierce. You know Democrats never want anyone excluded, like a 90 year old rural grandma that can’t get to the DMV to get an I.D. in order to vote. How many don’t use or have access to social media?
Your ignorance is showing (if not your desire to change CA law). No identification from DMV is required to vote.
I know that hpierce, I was using that as an example of why Democrats don’t want the voter ID law. Sorry I didn’t elaborate more for the confused.
Voter I.D laws could be the GOP way back to relevance in CA. When your own voting coalition is suppressed by old, stale, xenophobic, misogynistic and homophobic ideas devoid of any guiding light beyond holding the line on tax increases no matter the consequences you may as well try to suppress the oppositions ability to vote.
Um Don, now Toad’s political post is way off topic.
You brought it up. I just finished it off.
Je d’accord
Merci’ beaucoup.
Haha, we all know the real reason, Democrats know that if voter I.D. was enacted it would be harder for them to cheat the system.
Third request, growth issue. Next time I’ll just start pulling your posts. Please stop trying to make national political commentary on threads that are not about national politics. Yes, I am singling you out, because you are doing this every day and doing it consistently. So: stop. Please.
Thanx for admitting that you’re singling me out anyway. All I want is the same rules for all.
Yes, and my comment applies to Mr. Toad as well. When David does a thread about national political issues, go for it. Otherwise, please everybody keep at least tangentially to the topic at hand, and avoid national issues unless they are directly relevant.
I got the joke and thought the comment was funny…
Again, this isn’t a vote. Rather it is a mechanism to include ideas from the community into the planning process rather than have it dictated by developers and a few insiders.
Input good… total reliance on that type of input, not so much.
Agreed. The point of crowdsourcing isn’t to rely completely on a single mode of communication, it’s to expand to reach more people.
Did anyone say anything about total reliance?
Felt it was implied… may have been wrong… do know that Covell Village folks “vetted” the proposal with known ‘citizen activists’ (could name names) long before it was presented to professional city staff, and used the “crowd” argument to try to convince staff to back off. Ultimately, a bigger “crowd” decided to indefinetly defer the development. Key staff wanted to consider a synergystic plan that would include theCannery site. Both “crowds” effectively killed that idea, and I believe that we will pay for that.
I understand that having more people involved in a process often makes getting things done much harder, and thus can have negative consequences, and I understand the impulse not to engage on an issue for this reason. But even with these sometimes negative outcomes, I firmly believe a better engaged, educated, leads to better outcomes. In your case above, if the public was made more aware of staff’s synergetic plan, my guess is that a big crowd would have appeared to support their efforts.
Social media isn’t the only means to accomplish this.
” Not everyone has access to or inclined to use ‘social media’. Should they be excluded?”
Not everyone can show up at council meetings to express their opinion. Are they not being excluded?
There is no one action that will guarantee inclusion for everyone, creating opportunities for more involvement should be encourage, not discouraged because on particular method is not accessible to everyone.
pr firms who engage in the cs process are savvy enough to avoid the pitfall of only using one medium.
The question I have is why aren’t we already doing this. As the system stands now, only the people highly engaged or invested on an issue, or in city politics in general, are being heard from, and they don’t necessarily represent the views of the majority of people in this town. If the city’s goal is to get more people involved, educated, and engaged in the process this seems like an excellent tool to do just that.
this is the only intelligent response i have seen to an intriguing proposal. i don’t understand the fear here – crowdsourcing is not a vote, it is not binding, if it ends up being junk, you move on. at least it takes the process out of the hands of the few with money and the few who show up at meetings.
Yeah like a twitter feed into City Council meeting read out load by the clerk during public comment or crawling across the screen like on the Sunday morning D.C. news programs. Perhaps we wouldn’t be saving old stinky latrines as historic structures if all the parents at home with their kids could weigh in online, on the choice between a beautiful new playground and preserving an old outhouse instead of being able to show up in person to say, if I may paraphrase The Gipper “Mr. Mayor, tear down that pisser.”
A twitter feed in reverse is not a bad idea. My guess is that a lot of people don’t show during an issue thats important to them because they don’t want to sit through issue’s that aren’t and they are never quite sure when their item may start being discussed. A twitter update on where council is on the agenda might help with this. (it could be spiced up by including the details of any good fights that are happening in the lobby during breaks).
A few thoughts but first a concern. You write (quoting someone?): “At the meeting in November, we suggested that if this really an “innovation” enterprise, why are we using 18th and 19th century townhall meetings as the means to solicit input.” Why is the use of a newish technology (social media) considered, a priori, innovative? Every time I hear about how a new technology is going to transform something I wonder if we are enamored with the newness of a thing rather than asking how it will really help us achieve a critical end.
Now I realize that Onvia is arguing that crowdsourcing will expand the base of participation in policy/decision making. If it can do that–encourage previously excluded groups or inviting new people to participate in the discussion–that would be good, and possibly even innovative. The question is whether or not they have evidence that their crowdsourcing approach actually does that.
My sense is that some people, depending on their schedules, learning styles or personal concerns about speaking out in public, may find crowdsourcing to be a useful tool that enables them to participate in discussions they would otherwise not participate in. Even if that is the case, the tool should maximize everyone’s ability to engage in dialogue rather than just toss off non-sequiters or non-contextualized comments. Those framing the discussion will have to work harder to frame tight questions that enable them to garner maximum useful input (I say this having done a fair bit of online teaching–to maximize the virtual learning space takes a great deal of creativity and the ability to ask very good questions).
So… by all means, let’s be open to increasing our dialogue spaces. If crowdsourcing enables that, great. But let’s also be honest that it is not, nor will be a panacea, and it certainly will not replace that oh-so-18th-century practice of getting people into a room to talk to each other.
Now there is a slogan: “Robb Davis keeping Davis an 18th century kind of place.”
Sorry Robb, I just couldn’t resist.
Wow! Can I use that Toad (with proper attribution of course)?
Permission must be obtained in writing (that pre-Guttenburg technology) from Mrs. Toad.
I noted my own comment at the meeting which was that we were using old techniques for a process to bring in an innovation park. My argument or at least I suggest the possibility that this technique will bring in groups of people who might be too busy or disinclined to otherwise participate. Part of the discussion at the time was finding a way to get broader participation.
My other point would be that if we move to one mode of communication, we are excluding people, what we need to do is use multiple techniques and media types to get as broad a participation as possible.
I think we are on the same page David. I DO believe that the potential is there to invite participation of different people. Anecdote (repeated several times): I was teaching a “hybrid” graduate course a few years ago with mid-career professionals. During the classroom portion I had one person who never participated in discussions, appeared bored and disengaged and did not seem to be getting much out of the course. During the on-line portion (after the classroom part was done), this same person blossomed, writing eloquent reflections and actually leading the class in some critical examinations related to the topic. In the end, I invited this person to take over framing the critical discussion issues for the class and he was amazing. He was extremely introverted and not a good public speaker. He never felt safe in the classroom setting and had lots of anxiety borne out of a terrible experience in elementary school. The point is, he found his voice online. So, can that method help? Yes. Absolutely.
However… and this takes me back to what I said earlier: It is no easy thing to figure out how to frame issues to maximize people’s engagement in a virtual setting. If we want more than a series of “one-off” reflections, we need to think about how to facilitate virtual conversations and probe to understand people’s points. This can be done but it takes more than a platform. It still takes human resources to facilitate the engagement in my view.
“It is no easy thing to figure out how to frame issues to maximize people’s engagement in a virtual setting. If we want more than a series of “one-off” reflections, we need to think about how to facilitate virtual conversations and probe to understand people’s points. This can be done but it takes more than a platform. It still takes human resources to facilitate the engagement in my view.”
I absolutely agree. The “correct” framing of a question is crucial to getting relevant, useful, responses.
“But let’s also be honest that it is not, nor will be a panacea, and it certainly will not replace that oh-so-18th-century practice of getting people into a room to talk to each other.”
If a social media tool resulted in a more educated and engaged public, ultimately, you may end up with more people actually in the room to talking to each other. (I’m living proof of that;-)
Good point B Nice. I am not a naysayer on this. I am merely cautious about being enamored with “technique” (of any kind–technology-driven or not). It is cool that social media provided an entry way for you and I am glad you are more engaged! That may be the case for others too.
Technology is a tool, not an end.
I have no problem with your statement. Have concerns about “weighting” of the input.
You are assuming this is a process of voting rather than a process of brain storming. The city operates blind right now. They float out a proposal, they get a few letter, a few public commenters, they don’t do a good job of vetting proposals, they do a good job of getting a few people who are always at council meetings and a few people who have personal stakes to weigh in. I’m suggesting this occur not at the level at which a vote takes place, but rather at the level at which the proposal is being developed. And we don’t do it on everything.
These are meant as a friendly question asked to further this dialogue: Do you have concerns about how input is currently weighted? Do you think the input that is currently being given reflects the views of the majority of people in this town.
Let me attempt a less controversial topic for the subject. John Troidl has done a tremendous job going around town and alerting staff and council about light outages. Now imagine, instead of John doing this alone, people were encouraged to Tweet or Facebook locations of light outages, much as NYC is doing in the example above with crashes. The city could do this today and fix the problem.
David – Let’s be clear on the use and outcome sought for any use of social media or virtual engagement. It is one thing to use these methods for alerting staff to repair/safety issues. We have a rudimentary system for doing that now. It is not well advertised and requires going to the City website but other methods could be used. It is a completely different animal (in my view) to use crowdsourcing to discuss policy options, budget or project proposals. Again, I am not saying it cannot be done but these require VERY different approaches and the HR requirements for the latter (I would argue) are much greater. Perhaps a taxonomy of “crowdsourcing outcomes” would be useful.
Or they could just go to the city web page and click on http://cityofdavis.org/report-a-problem
That’s what I was referring to Don. I can see some value in having multiple ways to do this. Some cities allow people to text photos of safety hazards to city departments for rapid response. I can say that when I have used the City’s website for issues I have always gotten prompt follow up. It may be worthwhile exploring ways to expand the means to communicate with staff.
“Or they could just go to the city web page and click on http://cityofdavis.org/report-a-problem.”
Way to many steps Don, that could take up to minutes, people don’t have that kind of time. I’m only partially joking, the simpler a process is the more likely people will utilize it.
I think crowdsourcing is best for non-controversial topics like letting the city know about light outages, pot holes and graffiti since there is no reason to “game” it.
It is easy to spin things on line (Astroturf) so the city thinks a “huge” amount of people in town want to give firefighters big raises and/or develop Covell Village.
I don’t disagree with the danger – on the other hand, that’s already happened. The firefighters bring their supporters to stack a council meeting, the developers and pro-development side is involved in the IPTF.
“It is easy to spin things on line (Astroturf) so the city thinks a “huge” amount of people in town want to give firefighters big raises and/or develop Covell Village.”
It’s on these topics I think a system like this could be most useful, especially if it’s goals is to educated. I have a good friend, who is really well educated, and the topic of the firefighter union contracts came up, her initial response was to defend the union. As we discussed the issue I came to understand that she had very little knowledge of what the negations were about. She was basing her decision to back the firefighter union not on facts but on a gut feeling. If she had been exposed to information regarding the entire situation, her response may or may not have been different, but at least they would be based on factual information, which I think this type of system, if done right could provide.
I share your concern that questions can be easily spun and result in biased responses. All attempts should be made to avoid this scenario.
Most people think the average firefighter works about 20 days a month and makes about $50K a year and are surprised to find out that most work around 10 days a month and make about $100K.
Before the internet most people thought I was lying before I could give them a link to see that our college dropout friends who were firefighters were all making more than the Governor of California.
The link below shows that more 100 BART union members have a TCOE of over $200K (it is nice to let the $9/hour people that need to get up two hours early to catch a bus every time they go on strike know this).
http://www.mercurynews.com/salaries/bay-area?Entity=Bay Area Rapid Transit&appSession=55939113271823&RecordID=&PageID=2&PrevPageID=&cpipage=4&CPISortType=&CPIorderBy=
Bad example. Street light outages can be reported directly to pg and e from the website. Mr Toidl appears to like to email city staff, electeds, etc. I see no good reason to add twitters, etc to city staff and/or electeds.
I think John started contacting city officials BECAUSE he couldn’t get PG&E to act.
Also you don’t need to tweet to city staff, all you do is create a hashtag that would flag Davis Lights Out and then someone at public works could monitor the hashtag.
Hi David, I very much like your redesign. I must say, however, that the “modern” white letters of the dark gray ground is very hard to read…how about reversing and you just go back to the plain old – dark letters on white?
Would be much easier on the eyes.
Crowdsourcing to pick Aerosmith as Boston’s telephone wait music?
I have a feeling the crowdsourcing data in Davis will look alot like medwoman vs. Frankly fights in the Vanguard comments.
Best point here isn’t about crowdsourcing, it’s pointing out that the lack of presence of a major “side” of the discussion will lead to a proposal designed by one “side” that is less likely to pass a vote. Inclusion by whatever means is useful to all.
Fighting? No, they are just passionate debates between friends. Without medwoman my blog life would be much less fulfilling.
I’m impressed here because David is thinking like a tech entr
If you go back and read posts on many subjects related to city policy issues, there is a lot of projecting and conjecture related to majority opinion. I think it would be good to be able to get the pulse of the population to contribute to decision-making.
That does not mean in our representative democracy that politicians have to decide the majority opinion. Just look at national Democrats and policy issues like gay marriage and Obamacare. The majority has been against both, but that has not stopped these ivy-league technocrats from deciding what they think is best for all us biased and uninformed country people.
Lastly, I think that we need to start embracing technology as a way to better move information. There is a lot more. Policy issues seem much more complicated these days. And there is a lot more at stake because of the crappy state of our finances. The old ways are cutting it.
The old ways are NOT cutting it.
Debates between friends, of course. The point is, two lagrely opposing views resulting in infrequent resolution. The other point being, largely the same crowd that emails the council or comments in the Vanguard would be the likely crowdsource. As you get further from the involved, you get a larger portion of the the uninformed. I do not see this as any more functional than what we have now.
IMO, social media is a valuable communication resource that is being underused by the city.
“Without medwoman my blog life would be much less fulfilling.”
What about me Frankly? I called you my sworn blogging enemy the other day, I may have to revoke that title…
Really interesting, thanks!
I think that you would be really interested in some recent research that I have come across explaining crowds and citizen science. In particular I feel you may find these two emerging pieces of research very relevant:
– The Theory of Crowd Capital
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2193115
– The Contours of Crowd Capability
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2324637
Powerful stuff, no?
Sorry for the late post, – City staff are just now getting back to work from the winter break.
First, thank you to David for continually reminding me that we need a broad section of the multitude of stakeholders for a robust discussion on an Innovation Park. I have not forgotten and I am truly working a process, though that can sometimes seem maddeningly slow and not very obvious. The holidays didn’t help.
Second, the regular monthly meeting of the Innovation Park Task Force will be on the 4th Monday of each month from 5:30 pm to 7 pm in the City Hall Community Chambers (23 Richards Blvd.). That means that the first meeting will be on Monday, January 27th. This meeting is the official Task Force meeting and will be publicly noticed in accordance with open meeting laws and is the venue that will be used to have any final discussion of a policy issue prior to recommendations to City Council for final approval.
Third, there have been many good suggestions for other types of stakeholder engagement, ranging from types of meetings, times of meetings, uses of technology and social media, surveys, and road shows to community groups. I can envision the City staff and any partnering orgs using many of these options to more completely discuss opportunities and issues. Our biggest hurdle will always be how to incorporate the discussion into a public record under open meeting laws. City staff are exploring several ideas, so stay tuned on that front.
One activity we will use in 2014 will be a community forum series (likely quarterly), that will be held once during the week and then again on the weekend. We plan to video these events and will make sure that the information from each forum is distributed as widely as possible. These open community forums can be used to both educate and discuss the many facets of the technology parks and the tech sector. These forums will be publicly noticed well in advance, but will not be Brown Act meetings as no decisions on policy recommendations will be made by the Task Force.
Concerning social media and online engagement tools – the City staff are assessing many ways to effectively communicate with the Davis community and its many stakeholder groups. It is not lost on us that simple social media tools like twitter and Facebook are ideal for these efforts. BUT, the drawback is addressing the California public records issues that go with accepting policy feedback through these channels. This issue has not been dealt with effectively by any jurisdiction, though some have just proceeded and chosen to ‘look the other way’. Using this technology to ‘push’ information is not an issue, since the message is controlled already, but taking in public comment on aspects of a project and then cataloging it and making it available for public review is a very time consuming activity.
David aptly points out one third party vendor that does address some of the issues, but Onvia is a tool that helps companies win more government contracts. I can use the tool as an agency to help promote bidding opportunities, bit it is not really a citizen engagement tool. However, some promising tools are emerging and you can do some of your own research on what engagement tools are being assessed by local governments (and ones I have been looking at) by reading govtech.com.
All said, we are all on the right track. And City staff will explore many ways to reach out and engage the larger community and stakeholder groups, including using some form of technology tool. This may even be done in partnership with the Vanguard at some point, where David can posit a series of survey questions and gather specific survey feedback and then report that to the City in an aggregated form. Or aggregate many responses into a trending article and report some metrics based on number of likes or re-posts. Really, the ideas are limitless.
Stay tuned, as some of my coming articles here on the Vanguard (and possibly in other media) will most certainly deal with this topic and the forms of community engagement that are being conducted.
“BUT, the drawback is addressing the California public records issues that go with accepting policy feedback through these channels. This issue has not been dealt with effectively by any jurisdiction, though some have just proceeded and chosen to ‘look the other way’. Using this technology to ‘push’ information is not an issue, since the message is controlled already, but taking in public comment on aspects of a project and then cataloging it and making it available for public review is a very time consuming activity.”
This definitely adds a lays of complexity to situation. I was unaware of this drawback, thanks for bringing it to attention.