Lead by Laura MacCleery, Chris Wolz, Michael Lennon.
The “agency” as the unit of action. Constraints aren’t necessarily lack of willingness, but lack of access to “constituents,” the voice of the people. Technology as an enabler.
“Drinking from a firehose” is especially a problem during times of crisis.
3 interesting questions – is it possible to do large-scale collaboration? what are reasonable demands for collaboration? how do agencies switch from a broadcast to a collaboration paradigm?
Distinction between “making decisions” vs. giving input on decisions.
Need for a trusted entity to frame the discussion. “Trust” as a keep concept.
Need containers for interaction that include culture.
NCDD has streams: 1) discuss, explore an issue, 2) conflict resolutionn, 3) decision-making, 4) collaborative action – need many actors to respond to an issue (e.g., race relations). Don’t confuse collaboration with decision-making.
How to cope with digital divide? Not just talk to the people in the room.
Government language is not user-friendly. Federal Register is “clear as mud.” How to provide context.
Existing gov’t comment rules designed in the 70’s by corporate stakeholders.
Military Blogger Roundtables (phone calls) facilitated, kicked-off by DoD and DHS. Coordinated by the agency. Any blogger covering military issues can participate if they sign-up. Working on how to monitor cross-feed with mainstream media. E.g., we know a phrase in the MSM came from the Roundtable discussion, but hard to track. Phone or face-to-face. Have to make it clear to Sr. Mgt that it isn’t about the number of people in the session or hits on the website. It is the conversation.
Hard to facilitate converstions at the micro-level. Agency reps have to ’stay in their lane’.
We’re in a process of learning about agency management of social media that mirrors learning about how to manage email (e.g., only the World Bank president can send email).
There’s tension between the legal issues related to free/open info of gov’t deliberations and wanting to be free/open.
Federal regulatory process is very complicated and hard to get into and favors the professionally engaged folks who know what they are watching for in the Federal Register.
“Meaningful input” is not as clear as “cheeseburger” and we’d still disagree about what makes a good burger. Credibility may or may not be an objective of participation.
No training, experience, reward for public engagement. Need to let go of the assumption that “there are people waiting to hear from us.”
At EPA took 12 years to get rid of an award so they could give another reward for collaborative excellence. Managers who don’t read their own websites.
Everyone has to post one final, interesting thought using #edemcamp and #decisions hashtag.
How do we frame discourse so it will be widely accepted as “legitimate”? one person-one vote?
