Download a PDF of this blog postThis Thursday’s brown bag discussion will be about innovations in participatory governance. We’ll explore why the time is now to reinvigorate the democratic system, identify different experiments to bring participation back in to government and governance, and attempt to make sense of the field. We’d love for people to come prepared to share and have a dialogue around different models they’ve seen, what is working, and what could be next in all these exciting efforts to re-boot the democratic process.
In case you missed it, we are hosting brown bag discussions every Thursday noon at Fiore Caffe in San Francisco. These brown bags are all about learning with and from each other, so please do come join us.
The particular inspiration for this brown bag comes from work Eugene and I did with Code for America last week. Code for America exists to “help governments work better for everyone with the people and the power of the web.” Groupaya spends a lot of time thinking about bigger and better ways for teams, organizations and networks to work together more skillfully. The web has been a transformational tool towards this end, providing new structures for communication, collaboration, and participation. This week, Code for America reminded us of the great potential — and importance — of applying our learning to the experience of being a citizen. We’d love to continue the dialogue this Thursday with anyone intrigued by new models of participation that could breath life back in to the experience of government.