Όλοι γνωρίζουμε ότι η έκταση του πρώην αεροδρομίου του Ελληνικού είναι το μεγαλύτερο development project της χώρας και πιθανότατα ένα από τα μεγαλύτερα στην Ευρώπη, με προφανείς αναπτυξιακές και περιβαλλοντικές διαστάσεις. Θα περίμενε κανείς ότι η σημαντικότητα του έργου στην εποχή της ανοιχτής και συμμετοχικής διακυβέρνησης θα προκαλούσε την ανάγκη για ένα ανοιχτό διάλογο με όλους τους πολίτες (και όχι μόνο με τους γνωστούς “φορείς”) οι οποίοι στο κάτω-κάτω είναι αυτοί που θα ζήσουν με το έργο αυτό μέχρι η μελλοντική αρχαιολογική σκαπάνη να το ξεθάψει μερικούς αιώνες αργότερα.

Είναι πολύ της μόδας να μιλάμε για τη δύναμη των social media και του διαδικτύου, αλλά εκεί που πραγματικά ο δημόσιος διάλογος μπορεί να κάνει τη διαφορά, το πράγμα έρχεται να μας θυμίσει ότι τα εργαλεία από μόνα τους δεν κάνουν τον παπά. Η χρήση του internet για την συμμετοχή των πολιτών (e-participation) σε θέματα σχεδιασμού πόλεων δεν είναι ακριβώς νέα ιστορία. Αντίθετα αποτελεί μια από τις γοητευτικότερες και πιο σύνθετες διαδικασίες, οργανωτικά και μεθοδολογικά. Μερικά παραδείγματα από πολλα που θα μπορούσε κάποιος να καταγράψει.

Αμβούργο, Γερμανία

Η πόλη του Αμβούργου έχει υλοποιήσει αρκετά διαφορετικά προτζεκτ. Στο Domplatz, από τον μεσαίωνα μέχρι τα μέσα του 19ου αιώνα που κατεδαφίστηκε, ήταν ένας καθεδρικός ναός που ήταν η καρδιά της ιστορικής πόλης. Ένα σχολείο που χτίστηκε στη θέση του καταστράφηκε κι αυτό στον Β’ παγκόσμιο πόλεμο και έκτοτε ήταν μία αχρηστη περιοχή που καμιά φορά λοιτουργούσε σαν παρκινγκ. ‘Ενας αρχιτεκτονικός διαγωνισμός το 2005 δεν προχώρησε λόγω έλλειψης στήριξης από την τοπική κοινότητα και τότε προτάθηκε η διενέργεια δημόσιου διαλόγου μέσω διαδικτύου. Οι πολίτες μπορούσαν να δουν και να συζητήσουν εναλλακτικά concepts (57),  ιδέες, σχέδια (51) και προτάσεις (1.000 αρθρα), με αποτέλεσμα την αναζωοπύρωση του ενδιαφέροντος για το έργο και την υιοθέτηση μία πιο ήπιας “πρασινης” λύσης στο τέλος.

Δεύτερη περίπτωση ήταν η συζήτηση γύρω από πρόταση γνωστού αρχιτέκτονα για την δημιουργία μίας υπερσύγχρονης διώροφης γέφυρας πάνω από τον ποταμό ‘Ελβα, όπου θα υπήρχαν κτίρια από πάνω και ένας δρόμος από κάτω.  Στη διαδικτυακή συζήτηση πήραν μέρος υπάλληλοι του δήμου, αρχιτέκτονες, καλλιτέχνες, κάτοικοι της περιοχής, φοιτητές κλπ. Το έργο δεν προχώρησε λόγω αντιρρήσεων για την φυσιογνωμία της πόλης.

Τρίτη περίπτωση, η συζήτηση γύρω από 4 εναλλακτικά σενάρια για την αξιοποίηση των κτιρίων του Πανεπιστημίου,  με αντίστοιχα σημαντική συμμετοχή χρηστών και τελική επιλογή της μίας από τις προτεινόμενες λύσεις.  Διαβάστε εδώ περισσότερα για αυτές τις περιπτώσεις.

Στην Γερμανία έχουν γίνει και άλλα σχετικά προτζεκτ, όπως στο Βερολίνο  για τον επανασχεδιασμό της περιοχής Gleisdreieck, ή για την διαμόρφωση ενός μνημείου για το τείχος του Βερολίνου στην Bernauerstrasse, στην πόλη της Δρέσδης για αντίστοιχα θέματα σχεδιασμού, κ.α.
Σε πολλές πόλεις σε όλο τον κόσμο διεξάγονται βέβαια και συμμετοχικοί διάλογοι γύρω από τον δημοτικό προυπολογισμό (participatory budgeting), που είναι μία άλλη ιστορία, πολύ “προχωρημένη” για τα δικά μας δεδομένα.

Νέα Υόρκη, Η.Π.Α.

Σε ένα ιστορικό project με την επωνυμία “Listening to the City” που οργάνωσε η εξαιρετική America Speaks το 2002, μία συμμαχία απο 85 ΜΚΟ, εταιρίες, εκπαιδευτικά ιδρύματα κλπ, συγκέντρωσε 4.300 ανθρώπους σε ένα συνεδριακό κέντρο για να συζητήσουν την αξιοποίηση της ευρύτερης περιοχής του World Trade Center και τη δημιουργία ενός μόνιμου μνημείου για τα θύματα της 9/11.  Αφετηρία για την συζήτηση ήταν 6 προτάσεις που παρουσιάστηκαν, πεισσότερο σαν concepts και λιγότερο σαν τελικές αρχιτεκτονικές λύσεις. Με  άψογη μεθοδολογία διαλόγου και υποστήριξη από σύγχρονα τεχνικά μέσα συντονίστηκαν οι συζητήσεις όλων αυτών των ανθρώπων (παράλληλα στρογγυλά τραπέζια 10-12 ατόμων με συντονιστή το καθένα, remote voting κλπ), ενώ παράλληλα οργανώθηκε και αμιγώς online διάλογος με άλλα 800 άτομα, σε μια ενδιαφέρουσα πιλοτική προσομείωση του φυσικού διαλόγου (moderated virtual round tables) σε μία περίοδο δύο εβδομάδων. Το τελικό ρεπόρτ για το προτζεκτ εδώ.

Βεβαίως, πέρα από όλα αυτά τα ωραία που γίνονται με πρωτοβουλία είτε των τοπικών αρχών είτε της κοινωνίας πολιτών, θα μπορούσε κάποιος να θυμίσει ότι η Ελλάδα (και σαν μέλος της Ε.Ε.) υποχρεούται να εφαρμόζει το Aarhus Convention,  τη διεθνή συνθήκη που προβλέπει μεταξύ άλλων την ελεύθερη πρόσβαση των πολιτών στην πληροφορία που έχει σχέση με έργα που έχουν σημαντικές περιβαλλοντικές επιπτώσεις, αλλά και κατοχυρώνει το δικαίωμα της συμμετοχής του πολίτη σε σχετικές διαδικασίες λήψης αποφάσεων, με σαφείς νομικές επιπτώσεις σε περίπτωση που αυτά δεν τηρούνται (επίσης εδώ και εδώ).

Εμείς όμως, ψάχνουμε με το τουφέκι να βρούμε καμιά φωτογραφία του μελλοντικού Ελληνικού, λες και ο επενδυτής από το Κατάρ (λέγε με “θείος από την Αμερική”) είναι πιο σημαντικός από τον Αθηναίο πολίτη που θα “λουστεί” τις επιλογές του κ. Acebillo.

Fast track – Slow democracy….C’est la vie.

The World Bank is -for some- an unlikely institution to be related with the open data philosophy, but this is what they have done since April 2010. They have released development related datasets (and two APIs) in their website, allowing everyone to download, analyze and reuse over 2000 indicators. The initiative has been so successful , that the Bank is now recruiting an Open Data Evangelist.

The 107 submitted projects from 36 countries (30 from Africa) are grouped around desktop, mobile, web and SMS apps. Some of them use the datasets to create insightful visualizations, others are content related or support advocacy, while some attempt to solve specific problems mainly in the developing world.

• There is one SMS app which facilitates access to World Bank by people who have no other way to communicate than an ordinary mobile phone (the almost default way for developing countries which suffer from lack of adequate internet access infrastructure)
• There are 7 mobile apps like, for example, Contrib8 which  enables citizens to contribute financially to NGOs that support the fulfillment of the Millennium Development Goals.
• 19 desktop and 80 web apps complete the submitted projects

A committee which includes Craig Newmark (Craigslist), Ory Okolloh (Ushahidi) and Kannan Pashupathy (Google) will decide on the rest of the winners.

Apart from the obvious showcase of what these kinds of competitions can offer in terms of attracting engineering talent and fostering true innovation, one other thing that I found interesting is that the Bank is using the ChallengePost platform which is a marketplace for challenges.

ChallengePost allows you to find, solve or post challenges on their platform, individually or as an organization. There is also a more “loose” way to advocate for an issue by posting a “wish” which does not involve any kind of judge or rules process. The platform joins quite a formidable array of platforms with similar aims but differing mechanics and functionalities (more on this in a future post).
I think the World Bank is commendable in using a platform like that, instead of opting for yet another solution developed from scratch, for which obviously there would be no lack of resources. This is a lesson for many similar institutions and especially governmental ones which do not seem to exploit adequately existing solutions and platforms.

Οι “καλοί” και οι “κακοί” λοιπόν. Εκ περιτροπής όμως.
Ο ίδιος ανθρωπος μόλις 1 χρόνο πριν, όταν ψήφιζε στις βουλευτικές εκλογές ήταν πολιτικοποιημένος και δημοκράτης. Ηταν ο  καλός”.
Ο ίδιος άνθρωπος, μόλις ένα χρονο μετά είναι “μουγγός”, αδιάφορος, σχεδόν μίασμα, που του αξίζει να απομονωθεί. Είναι ο “κακός”.

Μόνο που δεν είναι ένας και δύο. Ειναι 1,65 εκ άνθρωποι που ψήφισαν ΝΔ ή ΠΑΣΟΚ το 2009, κάπου 2,5 εκ άνθρωποι συνολικά. Είναι όμως και ένα πσοσοστό από 5,5% έως 9,1% (δημοτικές και περιφερειακές αντίστοιχα) που ψήφισαν άκυρο/λευκό, όταν συνήθως το ποσοστό αυτό είναι κάπου 2,5%.

Σκεφτείτε: Κάποιοι ξύπνησαν το πρωί, ντύθηκαν, μπήκαν στο αυτοκίνητο, στήθηκαν στο εκλογικό κέντρο…για να ρίξουν λευκό. Ούτε βαρέθηκαν, ούτε πήγανε στην καφετέρια. Δεν τους “μετράμε” όμως. Δεν μας ενδιαφέρει καθόλου τι σκέφτονται. Άλλωστε αυτοί δεν επηρεάζουν την “καρέκλα” του επόμενου δημάρχου, υπουργού ή γενικού γραμματέα.

Ενώ κάποιος άλλος, έχει το ψηφοδέλτιο στην τσέπη, έτοιμο, σταυρωμένο και το ρίχνει “μονοκούκι”, χωρίς να έχει σκεφτεί δεύτερη φορά ποιόν και τι ψηφίζει, μόνο και μόνο γιατι “έτσι ψηφίζουμε πάντα στην οικογένεια”, γιατί ο δήμαρχος θα μου δώσει άδεια τραπεζοκαθισμάτων, γιατί παίζουμε μαζί μπιρίμπα κλπ. Αυτός λοιπόν, που στην ουσία περιφέρει το ύψιστο δημοκρατικό του δικαίωμα σαν κουρελόχαρτο, είναι ο “πολιτικοποιημένος”, ο συνειδητός πολίτης, είναι ο “καλός” της ιστορίας.  Χαρισμά σας.

Θα πρέπει να μας ανησυχήσει η στάση όλων αυτών που μεσα στην επικίνδυνη αφέλεια τους διακινδυνεύουν αψήφιστα να διχάσουν τον ελληνικό λαό στα δύο. Η αποχή όμως δεν επιδέχεται εύκολη προπαγάνδα. Το Συμβούλιο της Ευρώπης μεταξύ πολλών άλλων, ασχολείται πολύ καιρό με το φαινόμενο με την σοβαρότητα που αρμόζει ευτυχώς. Αλλά και για όλους εμάς που χρόνια ασχολούμαστε με την ηλεκτρονική δημοκρατία, ένα ήταν πάντα το ερώτημα. Εάν και πως  το διαδίκτυο μπορεί να συμβάλλει στην “ολοήμερη δημοκρατία”,  με ουσιαστική συμμετοχή του πολίτη, σε αντίθεση με τη στιγμιαία δημοκρατία της κάλπης (που είδαμε που μας έφτασε). Κι ας αφήσουμε τις λαικίστικες αναφορές στον “ιδιώτη” της αρχαίας Αθηναικής δημοκρατίας, γιατί τότε αυτό ακριβώς ήταν το νόημα:  Η  δημοκρατία της συνεχούς συμμετοχής και καθημερινής τριβής με τα κοινά. Όχι το 1′ της ψηφοφορίας κάθε 5 χρόνια που σήμερα πρεσβεύουμε.

Όμως. Και υπάρχει ένα μεγάλο όμως.

Σε αυτές τις εκλογές υπάρχουν δύο άνθρωποι πολύ άτυχοι.  Ο Γιώργος Καμίνης και ο Γιάννης Μπουτάρης.
Δύο άνθρωποι από αυτούς που  πάντα θέλαμε, από αυτούς που πάντα έλεγες οτι είχε ανάγκη η ελληνική πολιτική σκηνή,  ελπίζοντας ότι τα πράγματα μπορεί να ήταν αλλιώς αν ήταν στα πράγματα. Δεν είναι καθόλου λεπτομέρεια να είσαι Συνήγορος του Πολίτη, ένας θεσμός από τους λίγους που στην Ελλάδα έχουν υπηρετηθεί επάξια, από τον Νικηφόρο Διαμαντούρο μέχρι τον Γιώργο Καμίνη.

Είναι άτυχοι γιατί τους “έκατσε” να κατεβαίνουν σε μια στιγμή εκλογικά πιο ακατάλληλη από ποτέ, που ο κόσμος κουρασμένος, συγχυσμένος  και φοβισμένος μαζί (κακό κοκτέιλ), θέλει να τιμωρήσει και θέλει να “φύγει” με όλους τους πιθανούς τρόπους, φυσικούς, ψυχικούς και νοητικούς.

Σε όλους αυτούς που σκέφτονται αν θα ψηφίσουν την ερχόμενη Κυριακή αυτό έχω να πω: Αυτοί οι δύο άνθρωποι μέχρι στιγμής έχουν όλες τις προυποθέσεις να αποδειχτούν οι “καλοί” της ιστορίας.  Αν δεν τους ψηφίσουμε δεν τιμωρούμε αυτούς. Επιβραβεύουμε τους “άλλους”, αυτούς που έπρεπε να τιμωρήσουμε εξ’αρχής. Και δεν είμαι καθόλου σίγουρος αν αυτό θα μας κάνει να νιώθουμε “καλοί” την επόμενη ημέρα.

On Thursday 23rd September , the PEP-NET Summit will take place in Hamburg, Germany. PEP-NET, mostly known for its excellent blog on e-democracy, is of course the European network of experts and practitioners in e-participation, supported by the European Commission.

I am honoured to hold one of the four presentation corners that will take place during the summit, under the theme: “Greece: OpenGov@times of crisis”.

As everyone knows, Greece is currently in the middle of a grave economic crisis. What is probably less well known is that we approach the first anniversary of a new effort being made towards open government, promoted as being pivotal towards wider reforms that are being introduced.
Since it is difficult for non-native speakers to follow these efforts, I will briefly present the projects under way, but more importantly, will attempt to assess them and stir a discussion on if, how and to what extent open government & e-participation can be valuable allies in engaging the healthy and productive sectors of society under such extraordinary conditions.

What I find truly symbolic is that the PEP-NET Summit will take place in Dialog im Dunkeln (Dialogue in the Dark), an exciting venue which exhibits a role-reversal experience of everyday situations, led by blind people. This certainly gets you thinking on hints and parallels with the state of things in Open Government today.

So, I am sure we will have some really good discussions in Hamburg this week!

The hashtag for the event will be #pepsum.

Credits: Many thanks to e-trikala for making possible my presence in this event. Photo by Daniel Rose.

[UPDATE]: My presentation at the PEP-NET Summit

The Format

The form chosen is essentially a website where text documents, mainly in the form of draft legislation or ministerial decrees, are published and are open to simple serial commenting paragraph-by-paragraph by anyone. The split of paragraphs follows the form in which the document is already structured by the writers, so in many cases, even a general preamble or a concluding note is also open for comments. No comment threading, voting by users or some kind of ranking is currently available. Login to comment is straightforward via a form which requires name, non-publishable email and optionally, a link. The way to follow any deliberation topic is via RSS feed subscription. Up to date opengov.gr has hosted 23 deliberations on a wide range of topics relevant to 7 out of the 14 ministries and attracted roughly 38.000 comments from citizens (40% submitted for a single consultation on the Tax Reform Bill).

Opengov.gr & e-deliberation

The main premise is that this platform was hastily called “e-deliberative” and, although it has delivered some benefits in the symbolic level, now is the time to take a step back and rethink/redesign the process and the format if we wish to transform it into a truly permanent and formidable weapon for citizen engagement and accountability.

One could easily initiate a discussion around the notions of participatory, direct, representative, or deliberative democracy but I am afraid it would become too academic (valuable nonetheless) and in any case others are better equipped to tackle these issues adequately. But a few early thoughts can hopefully spark a useful discussion.

A few definitions may help to begin with:

• Dialogue is a two-way exchange of views, experiences and ideas among people, an open conversation which may well facilitate learning, understanding and trust but does not aim to produce any definite outcomes or decisions.
• Deliberation (or consultation) on the other hand, is a structured process which aims to produce actionable results. As such, it must take into account all opposing and well-informed opinions before culminating to decision-making.

The Involve organization puts is that way: “Deliberative public engagement is a distinctive approach to involving people in decision-making. It is different from other forms of engagement in that it is about giving participants time to consider and discuss an issue in depth before they come to a considered view.”

In this respect, the opengov.gr does not serve well the criteria put forward by other organizations which have a long-standing experience in public consultations and deliberative exercises.

It is worth reminding here that the act of public consultation has a long history in democratic societies and in no way is exclusively linked to online methods. In Greece, as in other countries, offline consultation practice does exist among decision-makers and interest groups (trade unions, professional bodies etc).  The Economic and Social Committee is for example empowered to act as an intermediary in such consultations. Whether it is done properly or not is another matter. One of the important factors to observe here is the role played by intermediary groups which either “represent” the interests of relevant parties who are affected by future policies or act as “experts” (in the form of academics, NGOs, think tanks etc).
The web of course has made possible for everybody (at least those connected to the internet) to participate remotely, instantly and easily in public consultations and in this respect change the terms of public engagement. This fact in no way should detract from the importance and the invaluable input of “expert publics” and the need for “peer review”, especially in complex and demanding topics.

All these being said, in the opengov.gr case – and all similar cases of open consultations where the general public is invited to participate – there are several questions that we need to consider, like:

1. Does my opinion count? Will it reverse decisions of public administration and how?

In the same report mentioned above, Involve.org also states that:
“Deliberative public engagement should not be used: a. when crucial decisions have already been taken; or, b. if there is no realistic possibility that the engagement process will influence decisions.”
It is hard for me to understand what exactly one can hope to change in an almost “final” legislative document which obviously has been drafted carefully and expertly by legal teams and is one step before voting by parliament.

Even if we sidestep this, what are the conditions for this to happen? For example, does the number of comments matter, the “quality” (and how do we rate this?) or what else?  Of course it is not an e-petition system where ideally we should have some kind of critical mass (like the 1 mill signatures needed for the Citizens’ Initiative in the Lisbon Treaty), but nevertheless a citizen has the right to know how much weight his opinion carries and under what conditions and to which extent policies are reversible.

2. What is the process of evaluation for the opinions submitted?

And what happens with a large amount of comments like the 15.000 submitted already in the case of the all important Tax Reform Bill? What would happen if those views reached six-digit numbers?

This is of course the “holy grail” of e-democracy technology today. Semantic ontology-based algorithms, text mining technologies etc, that will extract, aggregate and synthesize meaningful results out of millions of words and characters (some comments submitted run into 2.000 words or more). To my knowledge, there is no real applicable technology available today and I will gladly stand corrected on this. Whatever methods we may employ (taxonomies, folksonomies or collabularies where classification experts collaborate with end users to create rich and controlled content tagging systems), we still have to undergo a painful process of manual moderation and intelligent aggregation and reporting in order to extract meaningful conclusions on “what the people think”.
This is why we usually have multiple models and tools, and none is better than the other, but at least we need a set of transparent rules and principles by which we abide and perform the dissection of public opinion. We haven’t seen such models deployed here but, in fairness, a good attempt in intelligent summarizing of the outcome was produced for a Ministry of Citizen Protection consultation which however had to analyze only 229 comments.
Moreover, moderation of a discussion is a highly specialized and demanding task and one should really take every measure to put adequate teams in place, develop training toolkits and guidelines and ensure that appropriate procedures are followed.

3. Am I properly equipped to have a fairly informed opinion on the subject discussed?
Does my comment weigh the same as those submitted by experts in the field?

Recent consultations in opengov.gr include topics like: “The pricing of energy produced by photovoltaic systems” and“Technical consulting services for the implementation of the national infrastructure of passive open access fibre-to-the-home optical network (P2P-FTTH)”.
I must admit that I have difficulty to understand these titles, let alone make any meaningful comments. Can the average person claim to have a really useful or insightful opinion on these topics?
Of course these are extreme cases, but even in other top-line themes like the one on the “Development of Renewable Energy Sources to Combat Climate Change” ideally one should have a distilled and balanced account of pros and cons, in a language that can be easily understood and digested by anyone. In the case of opengov.gr none is offered, apart from links to other official background documents with the same legal lingo. But this is essentially what “inclusive democracy” is: Access of citizens to user-friendly material which can help them grasp the issues discussed and equip them to debate on issues usually reserved for experts. The single most important benefit of e-deliberation is its capacity for empowerment through an informed citizenry.

On a similar note, people should be able to follow the consultation easily but in the case of opengov.gr, the only way to do this, is to visit the website regularly or subscribe to an RSS feed. We all know that unfortunately still very few people are familiar with RSS, so the option to subscribe to a regularly updated email (still the default way of communication for most) should really be the first option.

4. Do citizens have the time needed to engage into meaningful debate?

This is a critical element and an obvious oversight by opengov.gr but also an area where the government has been open to sharp and adverse criticism by the opposition and the media. The practice of e-deliberation has been blamed for significant delays in the government decision-making process, especially at this time where the country is facing a huge economic crisis and speedy decisions are needed.

Now, the government of course brought this down on itself by engaging into this format and implicitly promising something that it should never promise in the first place. The truth is that any proper consultation needs a significant lead-time to mature. All the international guidelines and practices prescribe lead times to the order of several weeks (usually between 6-12, the UK explicitly prescribing the 12 weeks minimum rule) to allow ample time for reflection, opinion forming and constructive debate. In our case we have seen topics open only for a few days. For example, the “Local Authorities Reform Bill” (Kallikratis), which the government itself promotes as one of the most critical reforms it will implement during its lifetime, was open only for 14 days. Many consultations were open only for 5 days, the consultations on “Market Liquidity” or the “Renewable Energy Sources” were open for 7 days, and so on.

It is hard to justify such limited time periods considering that citizens –hopefully- work and do not stay at home endlessly drafting their responses to consultations. The media and opposition are clearly wrong in expecting a speedy delivery but in all fairness, the government has mismanaged expectations for a process which is novel and unfamiliar territory for journalists and other opinion leaders (let alone the public). The government has to educate people but first of all, it has to deliver a framework of reference for consultations which will clarify the scope of the whole exercise. In any case, public e-deliberation is not a magic wand you waive every time you need speedy and inclusive decision-making.

5. How can we safeguard the democratic nature of deliberation?

Which means, how can we ensure that minority views are treated equally, that entrenched positions do not dominate the conversation and that all views are heard and respected?
Despite what one may think, apart from the obvious political nature, these questions can also have a technology aspect. For example, Tiago Peixoto (aka @participatory) in his post titled “Serendipity for Online deliberation”, proposes the use of an inverse tag cloud, a simple method for a redistributive function in favour of less popular opinions. The idea here is to create tag clouds which favour minority opinions and as these surface to the top they have a better chance of being fed back into the discussion.
In the opengov.gr case we observe a simple serial blog-type posting which obviously simply favours the latest comments submitted. Naturally, no blogger in the world would claim that he is engaging into formal e-deliberation just because there are comments in his blog. The tool for commenting paragraph-by-paragraph is perfectly fit for a collaborative exercise among a group of like-minded people but does not fit well into an e-deliberation platform which needs a mix of highly intelligent and demanding human moderation and the appropriate technology tools to support it.

Opengov.gr: Moving on from Alpha to Beta

All these being said, we do not need to reinvent the wheel of course. The OECD for example, proposes a set of  “Guidelines for Online Public Consultations” which may shed some light (my summarizations):

• LEADING UP to the consultation: Begin the consultation process long before the consultation per se. Advertise upcoming online consultations several months in advance so that organisations expect and prepare for it. Involve civil society organisations (CSOs) in dissemination and identify organisations with the appropriate expertise, etc
• LAUNCHING the consultation: Explain in detail and clarify the procedure, include direct contact details, include relevant background documents and offer user-friendly executive summaries of the issues, avoiding jargon and technical terms. Allow 8-12 weeks time for responses, and time to summarize them in a comprehensible manner. In other words…be “inclusive”.
• FOLLOWING the consultation: Compile, analyze and intelligently summarize responses, comments and feelings and post them back for further feedback. Summarize next steps and circulate to parties involved and monitor effectiveness.

Similarly, one could have a look at the “9 Principles of Deliberative Public Engagement” proposed by Involve.org. It is clear that it shares many of the principles put forward by OECD and similar reference materials are numerous since there is a rich corpus of knowledge worldwide. The UK government is continually updating its practices and it has a road map in the form of a “Code of Practice on Consultation” (general, not necessarily online) which now runs into its 3rd version.

The Art and Science of online public deliberation goes directly at the heart of how democracy works and it deserves a lead time for proper adoption. Other institutions and countries have long debated on the how and when and their practices continually evolve. The fact that through the web we can do things very fast and easily is no excuse for not giving the proper attention to sound methodologies. Nor does it mean that it is only a “technology” issue. If there was one subject that we needed a truly interdisciplinary approach to tackle it adequately, then surely this is it. In my opinion, the Greek govt might well think of launching a “consultation on e-consultation” and attempt to put an appropriate framework and an evolving dynamic roadmap in place (by the way, this was the spirit of my comment in an article by Kathimerini.gr).

In a way, it is encouraging that Prof Ioannis Panaretos, a worthy statistics academic and a Deputy Minister of  Education, is now officially in charge of the e-deliberative experiment in Greece. It is useful to know that he has been an associate of Stanford Professor James Fishkin and his work on the Deliberative Poll (mind you, Fishkin has trademarked this!), a methodology which apparently adapts and blends the well known qualitative method (focus groups) used in traditional market research with quantitative survey-based methods. The Deliberative Poll is a policy-making tool which allows organizations to measure the difference of people’s opinions before and after carefully constructed informative sessions, where opposing opinions are presented and discussed extensively. The simplicity of the idea has gained him wide recognition and the “European Poll” was a demanding pan-european project implemented in 2007, in which Prof Panaretos himself was involved as member of the high-level scientific committee.

Other people involved with the opengov.gr experiment are also familiar with some of these issues and we have to acknowledge that PASOK (the ruling Socialist Party) has a definite head-start vis a vis all other political parties in Greece in terms of intent and capacity. But this fact places an even heavier responsibility upon its shoulders to make opengov.gr work right. Otherwise, we run the danger of disappointing citizens very early on, observe falling participation rates and eventually discredit the process.

Clearly, this would be a net loss for everyone.

The pdf conference in Barcelona was fascinating, as expected of course. Great atmosphere, great crowd, great ideas. So, here are a few belated scattered tidbits and thoughts:

Pdf being a New York-born conference brought in a whole bunch of people from the other side of the Atlantic, people we usually “follow” through the web. The heavy artillery were of course the people who were involved with the Obama campaign. Now, a couple of things come to mind when talking about the Obama campaign.

First of all, our American friends have a tendency to paint an almost activist picture of the campaign. There is always talk around notions of “bottom-up”, “citizen engagement”, “grassroots mobilization” and so on. However one cannot fail to notice that the Obama campaign was still a … hmm…well, “campaign”. Which means that by definition was a top-down exercise and a very expensive one.

Listening to Joe Rospars from Blue State Digital and Kate Albright-Hanna describe their experiences – possibly for the 1000^th time – this came very clear.  The “dinner with Obama” idea is a campaign idea, the 2.000 videos (!) produced and the incredible amount of content developed and shot across the web galaxy can only be produced at great expense in money, human effort, coordination and so on. Not considering the sophisticated web platforms developed and maintained.
This is not to detract in any way from the brilliance of the campaign. On the contrary. But it is worth reminding because too many politicians in Europe now “want whatever he’s had” (remember Meg Ryan’s famous orgasm scene?).

What do European politicians want?

And what’s worse, some still think that the internet is a “cheap campaign medium”. Nothing can be further from the truth of course and for all of us working in the field know that it is a highly labour-intensive effort. However, this point was never raised by us starry-eyed Europeans. Throughout the pdf conference the lines were consistently blurred; between online political marketing and the web’s potential for self-organization and mass mobilization or novel e-democracy experiments for which old Europe can still show a thing or two (at the same time, in Malmo, Sweden an eGov exhibition was showcasing 52 projects from all over Europe).

I think that the success of the Obama campaign must be attributed to a conscious strategic decision to invest heavily on the web vs offline media. And with crystal clear conversion metrics: Votes & Donations.

On the question then of whether the Obama case can be copy-pasted to Europe most European commentators rightly gave a clear NO answer and Dominique Piotet emphasized this from day1. But I didn’t hear (I did not follow of course all the parallel breakout sessions) the simple argument that the US President has always been nominated through a bottom-up process whereby you need to form community support two years before election time whereas in Europe political parties more-or-less “appoint” their leaders. It’s worth re-reading this article in MotherJones which explained well the online/offline link.

Other tidbits that I can recall:

• Linkfluence presented their First Map of the Eurosphere. An impressive visual map of the structure and dynamics of the European political web and the communities that form inside it. We recall of course the Politicosphere, the similar work they carried out for the American presidential elections.
• Rishi Saha, Head of New Media for the Tories, reminded us that politics in the past was never the cosy, small-town, get-together, personal, honest, face-to-face affair that some people think we are moving away from in this internet age. In this sense today, he said, “we are not re-inventing politics, we invent politics”. I couldn’t agree more.
• A true activist spirit was demonstrated by Jeremie Zimmermann who put the case of the mobilization against the Telecoms Package. He explained how decisions were constantly overturned between the European Parliament -where the case went public -and the Council of Ministers -where decisions were taken behind closed doors. “When the issue was decided in public we won, when it was decided behind closed doors we lost”, he said (not exact words). Jeremie said that putting relevant and accessible info on the web raises the political cost for the politicians and also made a useful distinction between “lobbying” (you have to be nice to everybody) and “advocacy” (you have to annoy some).
• Jack Thurston put the case of farmsubsidy.org which is a great case of a european transparency project, tracking the single largest EU budget, out of which 85% goes to the 18% wealthiest farmers in the EU. He noted the significant difficulties they had in unlocking the data from government agencies and how important it was to have succeeded in doing so for the two first countries, Denmark and UK. The rest had to follow. Their umbrella project is followthemoney.eu and the next project is the fish subsidy programme. Good luck to them.
• Julian Assange of Wikileaks, said that there are 200-300 secret gag orders in the UK forbidding press to write about certain topics, something that cought many people by surprise, and he wondered why aren’t more journalists arrested in Europe, which he attributed to a “lack of courage”.

But for me the higlights were the following, which just confirmed my preconceived “groupie” tendencies:

• Tom Steinberg of MySociety.org , who won’t tell you that for many in the UK he is a “black sheep” (a medal of honour) because he builds innovative projects on a shoestring budget (6.000 GBP  for the whatdotheyknow.com project). He said that we need to build online projects that don’t stem from or replicate our offline ideas (“think of something that could not happen before”) and that we need to “nurture the geeks who can really make a difference, not just hire them”.  At the closing of the conference he rose from the auditorium to put a question he said “he may regret”. He proposed for pdf to start a movement to kick-out the people in the European Commission who fund the wasted e-participation projects and give the money instead to some of the people who can do a better job with it. Well, I think only Tom could say this, which is in many people’s minds but nobody dares to express.
• The other highlight, was watching and meeting in the flesh, the people of the Sunlight Foundation, the predominant force of e-transparency in the USA and possibly beyond. Ellen Miller, co-founder and executive director, said that transparency and technology is a hot issue right now, that “technology is not a slice of the pie, is the pan” and that when asked by the administration what should they do, their answer was “put out data in raw, machine-readable format; we’ll do the rest”.
  Esther Dyson, member of the Sunlight’s BoD, gave her top-line five points to consider and I keep from those: “power corrupts but also seduces, even people with little power. It’s not enough to change govts, we need to change citizens also” (quoted because it is relevant and true for my country Greece).

There are many more interesting points and discussions that went on and thanks to the amazing work by Civico, they are documented and archived.

Thanks to Google for making my presence feasible (as part of the Google fellows team) and thanks to Andrew Rasiej and Micah Sifry for being great hosts. See you next year (with better wi-fi access hopefully).

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And, naturally, I am really excited that as a “Google Fellow”, I have been given a unique opportunity to attend this great event as part of a 20-strong team from all over Europe which I really look forward to meet.

Micah Sifry and Andrew Rasiej are the two people leading pdf and TechPresident, the “sister” great blog resource on how political candidates are using the web, covering everything from campaign websites, online advertising, social media etc, up to how the campaign tools can be used in governance.

• Andrew Rasiej has advised many American politicians like Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Dick Gephardt.  What is probably less known about Andrew in our part of the world, is that he is also a social entrepreneur by kick-starting various other projects. One example is MOUSE (Making Opportunities for and Education) which aims to improve technological access at schools in the NYC area. He also writes for Politico and appears in major media outlets while he has served as Chairman of the Howard Dean Technology Advisory Council in 2004. Andrew is also a senior technology advisor for the Sunlight Foundation, no introductions needed. During last year’s “World eDemocracy Forum” in Paris  he was nominated as Person of the Year, and I had the pleasure of watching and listening live to a very warm and inspiring person (who I didn’t have a chance to talk to then).
• Micah Sifry has been a senior analyst with Public Campaign, a non-profit, non-partisan organization working on campaign finance reform. He has been an editor and writer with The Nation magazine and an author or co-author of various books like “Spoiling for a Fight: Third-Party Politics in America”, co-editor of  ”Rebooting America” (available online for free download at rebooting.personaldemocracy.com). He is also an adjunct professor at the Political Science Department of the CUNY/the Graduate Center.

It will be really interesting to witness the clash of the US with the European mentality towards the internet as a political campaigning tool and an e-democracy vehicle. The Obama saga overshadowed significant conversations and efforts that were under way in our old Europe and up until this great web-machine proved its worth in battle, a lot of people in Europe were quick to dismiss the effort as a victory for online marketing and nothing else. Others were quick to point a finger at the difference between online political marketing and e-democracy paradigms.

But after Obama became President, an even more interesting story started to unfold, with all the efforts and attention falling onto the issues of transparency and open government data. Probably, the moral of the story once again is that we have to stop thinking in silos. Yes, the Obama campaign was the greatest internet led marketing campaign to date. But it did open the gates “for more”, and once people are allowed in, it is difficult to regress to old methods and paradigms.

On the other hand, old Europe has still some cards up its sleeve. And my personal opinion is that it must resume its thinking around the issues of true e-democracy (a paradoxical term really) and e-participation which are not only different from online marketing but can also infuse another and more substantial meaning into e-government itself.

Now, if and how different we Europeans are from our American colleagues remains to be seen…at the pdf conference.

• Follow Micah Sifry at http://twitter.com/mlsif
• Follow Andrew Rasiej at http://twitter.com/rasiej
• Follow pdf europe at http://twitter.com/PdF_Europe

The Sabanci Foundation (where Filiz is Head of Programmes), has just launched a new project called Turkey’s Changemakers, a weekly television program highlighting a new Changemaker from all across Turkey each week.

The first episode (with English subtitles)  is about the inspiring story of changemaker Dr. Zeynep Simsek, the Founding Director of the Harran University Medical School Public Health Department. Together with her colleague Dr. Ibrahim Koruk, she dedicated her work to improving health conditions of migrant farm workers which comprise almost 20% of the population in the Southeastern province of Sanliurfa (also known in short as ‘Urfa’). The episode was aired on Sunday 4 October 2009 on CNN Turk.

There is also a Turkey’s Changemakers fan club on Facebook in which each new programme is announced and where comments and suggestions are welcome.

The Sabanci Foundation is currently planning other phases of the ‘Turkey’s Changemakers’ project which will include the publication of a book, a series of DVDs and other initiatives to promote the program. By the way, the foundation was awarded the 2009 Raymond Georis Prize for Innovative Philanthropy , launched five years ago by the Network of European Foundations’ Mercator Fund, and aims to reward innovative high-impact European initiatives that illustrate European leadership on global and social issues.

«Παίζοντας» λίγο λοιπόν με κάποια web-based εργαλεία, να τι βλέπουμε για τις ελληνικές εκλογές.

Κατ’αρχήν, το ενδιαφέρον για τις εκλογές μπορούμε να το δούμε και σε ένα γράφημα από το Trend Search της Nielsen, καταγράφοντας τις αναφορές του όρου «εκλογές» στα blogs. Δεν κρύβει εκπλήξεις, δεδομένου ότι είναι έντονο αμέσως μετά την προκήρυξη στις 2 Σεπτεμβρίου. Η φημολογία περί ανακοίνωσης εκλογών, φαίνεται ότι επιδρά και από την ανοδική τάση λίγες μέρες πριν. Μια μικρή μείωση παρατηρείται τις τελευταίες ημέρες (κόπωση?) και επιβεβαιώνεται και από τα στοιχεία της Google.

Χρησιμοποιώντας λοιπόν το Google Insights for Trends και βάζοντας σαν όρους αναζήτησης τα ονόματα των κομμάτων της Βουλής, η εικόνα είναι ξεκάθαρα υπέρ του ΠΑΣΟΚ, με δεύτερη τη Νέα Δημοκρατία, τρίτο το ΚΚΕ και ισοδύναμα νούμερα για ΣΥΡΙΖΑ και ΛΑΟΣ (οι αναζητήσεις έγιναν με τους όρους “Νεα Δημοκρατία” και ΝΔ μαζί και στον Σύριζα συμπεριλαμβάνεται και ο Συνασπισμός; το ΛΑΟΣ ίσως δεν είναι τόσο ακριβές λόγω της ίδιας της λέξης που είναι γενική).
Ενδιαφέρον στοιχείο, η πτώση των αναζητήσεων – μείωση ενδιαφέροντος ; – τις τελευταίες ημέρες.

Παρόμοια εικόνα και για τις αναζητήσεις με τα ονόματα των πολιτικών αρχηγών των 5 κομμάτων, όπου λόγω του μικρότερου όγκου των αναζητήσεων το γράφημα ισως να μην είναι τόσο αξιόπιστο για τις  λέξεις Τσίπρας, Αλαβάνος (μαζί εδώ σε μία καμπύλη) και Καρατζαφέρης . Μεταξύ Καραμανλή και Παπανδρέου, υπάρχει μία διευρυνόμενη απόσταση σε όφελος του Παπανδρέου ειδικά τις τελευταίες 10 ημέρες (δυναμική νίκης ίσως ?).

(Οι αριθμοί στα γραφήματα εξηγούνται εδώ για όσους ενδιαφέρονται).

Ξαναβάζοντας να δουλέψει το BlogPulse της Nielsen, (με τα τρία πρώτα κόμματα μόνο γιατί δεν αφήνει πειρσσότερα πεδία), παρατηρούμε πάλι μία έντονη διαφορά υπέρ του Πασόκ στις αναφορές σε blogs αλλά με μία διαφορά. Την μεγαλύτερη αναφορά του όρου ΚΚΕ σε σχέση με εκείνη της Νέας Δημοκρατίας κάτι που προφανώς μας λέει κάτι για τη σύνθεση του “ενεργού κοινού” στο ιντερνετ (που κατά μία έννοια επιβεβαιώνει και την έρευνα της MRB για τα Social Media όπου αναφέρεται ότι το ενεργό κοινό είναι κεντροαριστερής τοποθέτησης).

Το Trend Tool του IceRocket πάλι καταγράφει τις αναφορές στα blogs και βάζοντας τα ονόματα των κομμάτων, βλέπουμε ένα γενικό προβάδισμα του ΠΑΣΟΚ αλλά με κλείσιμο της ψαλίδας τις τελευταίες μέρες (υποθέτω λόγω του οτι η ΝΔ βρίσκεται σε περίοδο αρνητικού κλίματος γεγονός που δίνει τροφή σε blogs). Τα τρία άλλα κόμματα ακολουθούν ενώ βλέπουμε ένα spike για τον Συριζα στις 6 Σεπτεμβρίου που ίσως να οφείλεται στην υπόθεση της αρχηγίας του κόμματος.

Χρησιμοποιώντας το IceRocket αυτή τη φορά για τα ονόματα των πολιτικών αρχηγών, η εικόνα είναι διαφορετική με την λέξη Καραμανλής να έχει πολλαπλάσιες αναφορές από των υπολοίπων. Αν είναι αλήθεια, αυτό σημαίνει ότι ίσως είναι ο σάκκος του μποξ αυτή τη στιγμή για τους bloggers!

…αλλά και πάλι όχι ίσως, μια και το BlogPulse διαφωνεί, φέρνοντας τη λέξη Παπανδρέου πρώτη και σε ανοδική τροχιά κάτι που συνάδει και με τις αναζητήσεις στο Google. Προφανώς οι διαφορές των δύο εργαλείων (IceRocket και BlogPulse) είναι αποτέλεσμα των διαφορετικών crawlers και της μεθοδολογίας που ακολουθούν.

Βεβαίως, τα αποτελέσματα των αναφορών στα blogs είναι ποιοτικά διαφορετικά από τα αποτελέσματα των αναζητήσεων στο Google.
Το ενδιαφέρον εδώ είναι λιγότερο οι ποσοτικές αναφορές αλλά η ποιοτική ανάλυση (πχ sentiment analysis) που όμως δεν μπορεί να γίνει με δωρεάν web εργαλεία (για την ελληνική γλώσσα τουλάχιστον). Επίσης ενδιαφέρον θα είχε η αντιστοίχιση με τα πραγματικά γεγονότα αλλά και τις αναφορές των παραδοσιακών ειδήσεων (TV κυρίως) ώστε να καταγραφούν οι αλληλεπιδράσεις.

Τα αποτελέσματα αναζήτησης στο Google όμως καταγράφουν μία τελείως άλλη εικόνα γιατί αφορούν το σύνολο του κοινού στο ίντερνετ -και όχι μόνο το ενεργό μέρος όπως οι bloggers- και πως αυτό αυθόρμητα αναζητεί πληροφορίες. Ως γνωστόν, η Google χρησιμοποιεί πειραματικά τα στοιχεία αναζήτησης για να προβλέψει τις επιδημίες γρίππης, το γνωστό Google Flu Trends, που βασίζεται στην υπόθεση ότι συγκεκριμένοι όροι αναζήτησης ίσως αποτελούν early warning για εμφάνιση γρίππης σε διάφορες χώρες.

Όσο η διείσδυση του ιντερνετ στον πληθυσμό θα διευρύνεται και όσο αυτή θα παρουσιάζει χαρακτηριστικά ισοκατανομής, τόσο περισσότερο παρόμοια στοιχεία σε συνδυασμό με σωστούς αλγόριθμους θα αποτελούν ακόμα ένα όπλο στα χέρια των αναλυτών και των επικοινωνιακών συμβούλων των κομμάτων…κι ας μην έχουμε δημοσκοπήσεις (…ας μείνει όμως μεταξύ μας αυτό, γιατί αν το ακούσει ο νομοθέτης προβλέπω απαγόρευση του Google !).

[UPDATE: Φαίνεται ότι σήμερα και το metablogging ανέβασε ένα post για το ίδιο θέμα με τίτλο "Google Trends για τα δύο μεγάλα κόμματα και τους αρχηγούς τους" όπου δίνει χρήσιμες πληροφορίες για την "κυβερνητική" αναμέτρηση κυρίως.]

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COP15 (the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference) is the UN-speak for the 15th meeting of the parties of the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change…and is fast approaching. Set to take place between 7^th-18^th December, it is yet one more of those international events that attracts the hopes of the global civil society. The conference traces its origins to the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, which aimed at coordinating international action against climate change. Six years later the Kyoto Protocol was signed in Japan and two years ago signatories gathered in Bali, Indonesia, to launch negotiations for stronger action against climate change.  This process will now culminate at the meeting in Copenhagen.

The Independent notes that it will be one of the most significant gatherings in history, surpassing the 1814-1815 Congress of Vienna or the 1945 Yalta & Potsdam meetings, since between 10,000 and 15,000 officials, advisers, diplomats, campaigners and media personnel from nearly 200 countries, are expected to attend. The mission of the conference is none other than to achieve a global agreement on ways to tackle climate change and global warming. In other words which countries should cut CO2 emissions and by how much. This essentially means, to agree on who will pay the bill. The goal? To limit global warming to 2°C above the pre-industrial levels. The big challenge for governments?  To agree on a treaty that will reduce developed country emissions by at least 40% by 2020.

I think 100 days is a good milestone to get us all interested in this summit and here are a few good resources to get you started. After all, this is one of those cases that we expect a lot from the web and its historically unparalleled power for global mobilization. The information available is huge but it is good to get a few simple facts straight.

1. Of course one could start with the official COP15 Climate Facts page and also read the Guardian’s Q&A which gives you a quick run-down of the issues under discussion.

2. The UK’s Department for International Development also has a quick list of fact-checking like:

• The world has warmed by nearly 1° C over the last century. The rate of warming over the last 50 years is nearly twice that of the last 100 years.
• The costs of ignoring climate change have been estimated at more than that of the two world wars and the Great Depression (5 to 20% of GDP) (Stern Report).

3. If you need a good rundown of the issues involved from the NGO perspective and what someone should aspire to from the COP15, read the WWF – The New Climate Deal – A Pocket Guide.

4. America.Gov, (US Dept.of State) has a nice infographic which explains the carbon cycle and also “what carbon looks like” or “how scientists measure carbon”.

5. The Carbon Quilt is an impressive independent project. It is an online greenhouse gas visualisation tool that attempts “to create a visual language for showing greenhouse gases that helps communication.” It brings the abstract concept of a ‘carbon footprint’ to life and works on all scales – users can see the actual carbon footprint of a whole continent or a single light bulb. I am still exploring the tool which as a prototype is not so intuitive to use but looks like it’s certainly worth the effort.

6. CARMA (Carbon Monitoring for Action) is a global inventory containing information on the carbon emissions of over 50,000 power plants and 4,000 power companies worldwide. Since, power generation accounts for about one-quarter of global emissions, it is worth looking at their interactive maps (yes, it covers Greece also, with Kozani area topping the list).

7. Sandbag, is a not-for-profit organization which aims to exploit the emissions trading scheme in a creative way, allowing anybody to “take out” of the system, “permits to pollute”. So, if you part with €25 per tonne (=one transatlantic flight), you can also have a positive contribution to climate change. “I suppose it’s a bit like burning money in front of someone so they can’t spend it on something bad,” as Bryony Worthington, the brain behind Sandbag explains. See also a Map of EU installations currently covered by the EU emissions trading scheme.

8. Yes, this is the ideal subject for map and mashup enthusiasts, so Google itself would of course have something to show here and it does. A map that visualizes greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions generated by a number of industrialized countries, released by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and members of the Google team (you can read the Google LatLong post explaining the project). This map provides truly rich information and all the interactivity you can expect. You can also download a full pdf report of the country you are interested in (here is the GHG emissions report for Greece, which ranks 7^th in emissions growth since 1990). By the way, I love the capability of filtering results on the EU15 and EU27 level, something that is a glaring omission in most data related analyses especially from the USA.

9. Yet another impressive interactive map (this post should be titled “environmental maps”) is the Climate Wizard, developed by the Nature Conservancy, the University of Washington and the University of Southern Missisipi.

This interactive user-friendly map allows users to access climate change that has occurred to date (past 50 years) or predicted to occur (2050 and end-of-century) and visualize the impacts anywhere on Earth. After setting your filters, you can download the map image or a GIS ready file or a zip file with all the documentation info.

10. The Guardian pages on Environment are a very good resource and naturally they dedicate sections on carbon emissions and the Copenhagen Summit. Of course, you can see a graph showing carbon emitters by country or a graphical countdown of major events leading to Copenhagen. Incidentally, the paper also carries this very interesting story on Internet’s carbon footprint, which seems to be significant and growing by more than 10% each year, according to scientists, a fact which burdens not only the environment but since this is the outcome of huge energy demands, also threatens the financial stability of net companies like YouTube.

The Guardian has also put together a very useful and straightforward list of the demands that 15 leading NGOs and charities are making of the negotiators, in this article aptly titled “What should we be asking world leaders to agree to in Copenhagen?”

11. On this activist front, one should observe the oddly named  TckTckTck campaign, an impressive effort which brings together an alliance of leading INGOs like Oxfam, WWF, Greenpeace, Amnesty International, Christian Aid and others. The Chair of the campaign is none other than the venerable Kumi Naidoo who incidentally also had an article in yesterday’s Guardian explaining the movement (some may remember he was also the force behind the GCAP campaign).

Things you can do at the TckTckTck  is to Explore the Climate Orb, where you can add your own story related to how climate change has changed your life; you can add your name to show your support to a meaningful agreement; you can use the toolkit to organize your local movement and of course spread the word via all the latest social media darlings. Here is a promotional video featuring actor Gael Garcia Bernal.

12. “Adopt a Negotiator” is a “sister” project which follows and reports on the actions of country negotiators in the period leading to the summit. In effect, a person called “Climate Tracker” is assigned one negotiator and he reports on the progress made. All the campaign asks from you is to support it and follow progress which means that each negotiator will feel the public pressure.

13. The “Seal the Deal” campaign is the UN-led campaign which encourages users to sign an online, global petition to be presented by civil society to governments of the world urging them to reach a fair, balanced and effective agreement in Copenhagen. You can also upload your photo which is added to complete a nice photomosaic application called “Climate Warriors”, essentially the earth which gradually shapes up. At the time of this post, only 12.121 signatures were collected…

14. Hopenhagen is a movement created by the United Nations together with the International Advertising Association and a coalition of the world’s leading advertising, marketing and media agencies. It is a nicely designed web application where you write “what gives you hope” and you watch the stream realtime. Impressive it is, but at the same time I would call it “shallow” since one cannot really see the benefit of such a project. Yet another sign of the advertising world’s introversion and self-importance.

15. I personally find “Climate Thoughts” much more interesting. It is another application by the official Copenhagen website, which “makes possible to read many of the thoughts passing through people’s minds on the issue of climate change and add your own personal thoughts to the collection of climate thoughts – a three-dimensional version of the globe-like COP15 logo….Thoughts added by people are represented as shining stars, growing brighter when supported by other users of the site.” The screenshot shows the most popular one currently which is ” We must have a climate bailout”.

16. Finally, Climate Game is another application that lets you take part in an interactive flash game where you upgrade and optimize buildings and plants learning the various processes as you go, again in the official COP15 website.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, so if you know of any significant resource or movement not included here, please share it. I will update the post as we approach the 7^th December 2009 milestone. Potentially this is a true web moment and we should all watch how the next 100 days unfold.