Social Media Tools Showcased at National Civic Summit

Earlier this month, I attended the National Civic Summit in Minneapolis, a two-day event which was free and open to the public, with much involvement from Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie.  Since e-democracy and civic engagement are a core part of ZeroDivide's community investment portfolio, it was exciting to get a glimpse of some of the the new and existing tools in this area. 

Citizens League launched and held a demo of CitiZing! at the National Civic Summit.  CitiZing! is the first ever web platform for civic networking and is built on the premise that there has to be a clear purpose and direction for people to participate and assurance they will be listened to, otherwise they won't use  the tools no matter what.  CitiZing! combines the power of social networking with easy-to-use tools like surveys, wikis, forums, prioritizers, and stakeholder maps, to provide the toolkit to work through problems collectively either online or in complement with existing in-person activities.

The National Conference on Citizenship presented a session on "America's Civic Health Index: Measuring the Civic Return on Investment" which touched upon how online engagement can help bridge the civic divide.  Included among its 40 civic indicators in 9 specific categories were indicators on social innovation and social enterprise with the question raised of "How do we measure social innovation?" 

A speaker from the Public Agenda, based in New York, emphasized a broad definition of 'citizen' and the need for authentic engagement versus business as usual in fostering public dialogue and collaborative problem solving.  As stated earlier, two-way communication (vs. town halls, etc.) is critical.

Sunlight Foundation, which works to strengthen the relationship between citizens and elected officials and foster public trust in government using technology and the internet, focuses on the fact that open government and transparency destroys apathy.  The wiki Littlesis.org is an involuntary facebook where people can comment on elected officials.

Given the lack of civics knowledge of K - 8 students and the fact that civics as currently taught in schools tends to be boring, what I found particularly interesting was the session on "Our Courts: Informing and Inspiring Students Through Interactive Civic Education."  Spearheaded by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, Our Courts is a web-based education project designed to reinvigorate civics learning inside and outside of the classroom.  It features free lesson plans, interactive modules, and games.  With these tools, Our Courts hopes to empower the first generation of digital natives to become knowledgeable civic participants and leaders in the 21st century.