A Conversation on the “Fix Rate” with Integrity Action

Tuesday, May 21st, 2013

By Christina Crawley

Last week, we were lucky enough to catch Integrity Action’s CEO, Fredrik Galtung, while he was in Washington and have him run a special Brown-Bag Lunch (BBL) on his newly published report The Fix Rate: A Key Metric for Transparency and Accountability.

Through the use of “Community Integrity Building”, Fredrik discussed the importance of bringing citizen and public officials together as a key element of the fix rate which, “measure[s] the incidence with which transparency and accountability-related problems are resolved to the satisfaction of key stakeholders.” As Fredrik pointed out, the ability to close the loop between groups is what is at the core of a lot of transparency issues; it’s the connection that matters, as outlined in the reports various examples of ways in which communities have come together – in often very different ways – to build their communities.

As an integral part of the approach, there are Five Phases in Integrity Action’s Community Integrity Building Approach:

To learn more about the full approach, have a look at Integrity Actions full report The Fix Rate: A Key Metric for Transparency and Accountability now available online. 

Open House @ OpenGov Hub – Friday, May 3rd

Stop by for a visit. Get a tour. Grab a coffee. Use our space to work and relax for a few hours. The OpenGov Hub is more open than ever on Friday, May 3rd from 9am – 5pm.

OpenGov Hub would like to welcome you to its office in downtown Washington DC for a special Open House on Friday, May 3rd. Our main excuse is that many folks are in town for Sunlight Foundation’s Transparency Camp (May 4-5), and our second excuse is that we should simply do this more often!

So if you’re out and about on the streets of Washington on Friday, we’d love for you to include a visit to the OpenGov Hub on your tour list.

If interested, please get in touch at info@opengovhub.org.

Make it Flow: CrowdHall Brings Order to Online Policy Discussions

Friday, April 26th, 2013

By Christina Crawley

First there was the bulletin board. Then there was the Internet forum. Today there is (additionally) social media in its various forms. Whether it is a Twitter hashtag, Facebook post, or more traditional online forum thread – people are talking more than ever. In the policy space more specifically, a government representative poses a question, and - if the timing, interest and/or frustration is right – a rapid fire of questions, answers, retweets, likes and +1s then ensues. But after 200+ comments, how do you get even back to the point that the 17th comment was making? As people continue to talk, we too must strive to make it a conversation - not a dartboard.

This week at the OpenGov Hub, our friend Kat Schmermund at CrowdHall came by to lead our most recent Brown-Bag Lunch (BBL) and demonstrate how to bring a little order to popular, yet many times chaotic, online policy-related discussions. CrowdHall takes what is often a “noisy problem” and puts some order to it so that discussion may flow.

Roughly six months in, CrowdHall has already been the venue for a number of online policy conversations, with political figures such as Rep. Paul Gosar, Cincinnati councilman P.G. Sittenfeld, and Arkansas Rep. Tim Griffin. In all cases, the crowd itself has been responsible for shaping large discussions by pushing certain questions forward so that the hosts are able to best reply to them.

Having spent many hours myself creating and moderating online discussions, I’ve seen how threads can multiply at an incredible rate and (in many cases) loop over themselves. The ability to shape and group so many voices can be majorly supportive and allow for online discussions to have a impact rather than just a presence. After all, wasn’t that always the point?

BBL: Beyond Citizen Engagement - Thursday, May 2nd

Join us at the OpenGov Hub for a special Brown-Bag Lunch (BBL) session with P.K. Kannan, co-author of Beyond Citizen Engagement: Involving the Public in Co-Delivering Government Services.

Dr. Kannan - Chair of the Marketing Department at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, College Park - will give a reprise of the recently published report followed by a Q/A session.

And remember: it's a BBL so be sure to bring your own lunch! Refreshments will be provided by the OpenGov Hub.