twitter youtube flickr rss guidelines wegov online organizing backchannel civic hacking techpresident home all topics facebook twitter flickr rss licensed under cc by sa 3.0 via wikimedia commons hello world civicist is born friday may 1 2015 we re very excited to announce the launch of civicist a hub for news and analysis of the civic tech world . we will cover the growing ecosystem of people and projects using tech for civic purposes building on the community organizing and network weaving we ve done every june since 2004 during personal democracy forum and now year round at civic hall . with this announcement we re also going to mothball techpresident the group blog and news site that we started in 2007 to focus on how tech is changing politics . if you are a loyal techpresident reader don t worry we are still going to keep an eye on that arena . but with civicist pronounced civik ist we are going to focus especially on the ways people are using tech for social good . read more facebook twitter reddit democracy club finally lets brits know who is running for parliament by wendy m. grossman wednesday april 22 2015 may 7 2015 is the date of the next british general election . on that day everyone who cares to vote will go to their local polling station pick up a small piece of paper and mark on it with a stubby pencil their choice of candidate for member of parliament . the person with the most votes in each district wins . if one party wins a majority of the 650 parliamentary seats that party can form a government . if no party wins a majority there will be a lot of dickering to form a coalition as there was at the last election in 2010 when the liberal democrats emerged as kingmaker and chose to ally with the conservatives . by doing so the libdems offended so many of their own supporters that their number of parliamentary seats is expected to drop precipitously this time round . according to a recent poll by the guardian the next government could well be a coalition of labour and the scottish national party . read more facebook twitter reddit with fiskkit anyone can criticize the media by jessica mckenzie wednesday april 1 2015 comic by xkcd wouldn t it be nice if there was only one day a year that people were wrong on the internet unfortunately that s simply not the case . and the problem doesn t stop with fake news . although that in itself is such a problem that the washington post puts out a fake news roundup every friday . there are more insidious problems in media biased wording overly general overly simplistic or unsupported claims and false assertions . these are just a few of the things that one can flag on the new social media platform fiskkit which recently won the 2015 launch fest social impact award . read more facebook twitter reddit in utah participatory democracy powered by loomio and nationbuilder by jessica mckenzie thursday march 26 2015 ricardo630 wikipedia earlier this week the people s lobby launched their first participatory democracy experiment in provo a city of just over 115 000 people in north central utah . incorporating tools from both loomio and nationbuilder the process is meant to foster increased community participation in city government . read more facebook twitter reddit pdf15 theme imagine all the people the future of civic tech by micah l. sifry tuesday march 17 2015 edward snowden and john perry barlow a conversation across cyberspace at pdf 2014 . announcing the theme for this year s personal democracy forum our twelfth since 2004 imagine all the people the future of civic tech . we want to take you into a future where everyone is participating a future that we build together using technology appropriately powering solutions to shared civic problems . the future is what we make it ; at this year s pdf we ll gather to hear from the people who are making civic tech that genuinely matters and fighting to ensure that everyone gets to benefit . register now to attend this is the last week to save 100 on conference registration our early bird rate has been extended through sunday march 22nd . read more facebook twitter reddit new organization data justice to work on society s big data problem by jessica mckenzie tuesday march 17 2015 lady justice lonpicman wikipedia yesterday saw the public launch of data justice a new organization dedicated to promoting economic justice in our data driven society . simultaneous with the announcement the organization released its first report taking on big data as an economic justice issue written by data justice director nathan newman . read more facebook twitter reddit interest is rising in cooperative alternatives to the sharing economy by micah l. sifry tuesday march 17 2015 trebor scholz sara horowitz nathan schneider saket soni caroline woolard douglas rushkoff l r at civic hall if last week s turnout at civic hall is any indication a lot of people technologists as well as organizers are interested in figuring out how the 21st century economy can be built on more cooperative and less exploitative principles than the libertarian gig economy exemplified by companies like taskrabbit and uber . folks came out for a panel discussion called think outside the boss cooperative alternatives to the sharing economy which was triggered by a thought provoking essay by new school for social research scholar trebor scholz in medium . watch the video below the jump ... read more facebook twitter reddit next generation political crowdfunding platforms reimagine small dollar giving by jessica mckenzie friday march 13 2015 pennies can add up . wikipedia at a social media week event held at civic hall last month benjamin yee a former democratic campaign fundraiser asked a conference room full of people if they had ever donated money to a political campaign . nearly everyone raised a hand . when asked if they felt it had ever made a difference not a one . even if someone does feel like they have been a part of something bigger one of the many small donors who helped carry barack obama to victory for example that in no way means that the candidate you back knows why you contributed or what you hope they will do once in office . money talks but only if you have enough to get a phone call or an invite to a fundraising event . everything else is just chatter . read more facebook twitter reddit the rising fight against isis on social media by onnik james krikorian thursday march 12 2015 typical twitter profile pictures used by isis supporters photo courtesy j.m. berger and jonathon morgan in 2013 humera khan executive director of d.c. based think tank muflehun watched as a teenager was radicalised and recruited on twitter . over the course of two years she recently recounted for foreign affairs that individual went from an activist championing minority rights to supporting jabhat al nusra al qaeda in syria and in a final shift of allegiance to one of the the largest distributors of isis propaganda . he is now in syria . despite reporting the case to the law enforcement agencies in the united states khan says her warnings fell on deaf ears . but in the wake of a sophisticated online media campaign that includes a number of gruesome videos of beheadings governments are starting to take the use of social media by groups such as isis more seriously . read more facebook twitter reddit inbox zero why hillary clinton s email mess isn t over by alex howard tuesday march 10 2015 today s press conference at the united nations will not quell the controversy raised by a report from the new york times that former secretary of state hillary rodham clinton exclusively used a personal email account for government business at the state department from 2009 to 2012 . if you missed the political event of the day and want to watch or read it for yourself unvarnished and unspun on demand video is available from c span and the washington post has published a full transcript . read more facebook twitter reddit even in the birthplace of democracy holding parliament accountable is a challenge by antonella napolitano tuesday march 10 2015 once a symbol of democracy the greek parliament in particular represents to the majority citizens a painful systemic failure wrote antonis schwarz and panagiotis vlachos shortly after they launched the political monitoring and accountability website vouliwatch in march 2014 . read more facebook twitter reddit how a holy shit visualization could transform detroit by ethan zuckerman monday march 9 2015 screenshot of why don t we own this what s a holy shit visualization it s a way of looking at data that makes turns a statistic you might have flipped past in a book or skimmed by on a web page into something that you can t forget . it s a visceral reminder of the power of images and the power of looking at dry numbers in human terms . read more facebook twitter reddit with quorum see what and who makes congress tick by jessica mckenzie thursday march 5 2015 wikipedia trying to influence congress is hard work . you have to know who cares about what issues so you approach the right people . it also helps to know who has the power to actually make waves so you don t waste your time with ineffective members . in january two harvard seniors launched an online platform called quorum that does the bulk of that work automatically using a number of public data sources . read more facebook twitter reddit in romania banipierduti brings a funky approach to budget awareness by antonella napolitano monday march 2 2015 budget simulator on the banipierduti.ro website in every country fiscal policies are a mystery for the majority of citizens . this often generates the feeling that somehow the tax money is not well used by the public administration . banipierduti romanian for lost money is the name of a project that aims to increase awareness and understanding about local budgets . read more facebook twitter reddit op ed we need a yelp for civic engagement to get the 21st century democracy we want by matt leighninger thursday february 26 2015 citizens could be assessing all kinds of civic opportunities . yelp.com we have more opportunities to get involved in our communities through a wider array of tools processes meetings and apps than ever before . some of these opportunities are interesting and beneficial while others especially the ones supported by governments in the name of public participation can be frustrating and may even be harmful . so how should we judge what kinds of public engagement are helpful read more facebook twitter reddit mark pesce on hypercivility at civichall by micah l. sifry thursday february 26 2015 mark pesce speaking at civic hall in nyc feb 26 2015 a week ago digital ethnologist mark pesce gave a talk here at civic hall on the topic of hypercivility . as you will see from watching the video it s an extension of years of research and thinking he has done on the effects of hyperconnectivity on our world . be forewarned this is not an easy talk to watch or digest . while pesce definitely has our social media powered age of outrage on his mind he grounds his talk in a much more serious place post genocide rwanda which he recently visited . read more facebook twitter reddit scoring for livability how place i live wants to empower homebuyers and renters by jessica mckenzie wednesday february 25 2015 screenshot of place i live ratings for a house in bedford stuyvesant nobody