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September 14, 2006
Experientia's e-democracy, RED's “Kitchen Cabinet,” and Planetizen: bringing experience design to the public sector -- and the public
Posted by Bob Jacobson
e-democracy is a new blog launched by Experientia, the Torino-based experience-design consultancy co-founded by Mark Vanderbeeken, author of Experientia's well-read other blog, Putting People First. It's a necessary new venture aimed at exploring the interface between more representative forms of governance, technology, and social innovation. The announcement:
Experientia, the international experience design consultancy, launches today a thematic blog on e-democracy.
E-Democracy is aimed at public authorities.
It gathers information on citizen participation, the use of web 2.0 technologies, and innovation in general in the websites of public authorities, public administrations and local governments.
The blog starts from the premise that the role of public services is to help people or to represent them, based on people’s needs and contexts. It is set up to guide innovation-oriented public website managers with examples of best practices and a discussion of the main issues. It is managed by Mark Vanderbeeken.
The role of experience design in governance, the provision of public services and infrastructure, and public participation has become timely given the many crises facing local and national governments. The UK Design Council's RED program (written about earlier) has embarked on “Kitchen Cabinet”:
Kitchen Cabinet is a project to design and prototype new systems of interaction between MPs and constituents and to create an open resource of ideas, suggestions and best practises that MPs can use to strengthen the connection between people and politicians.
A summary description, downloadable video, and report are available on this work-in-progress.
A third source that focuses on similar issues is Planetizen, a volunteer-edited, news-and-features website/blog that serves the planning community and which is hosted by Urban Insight, a web and interactive design firm in Los Angeles that provides services to a large number of local governments, public agencies, and non-profits. (It also serves commercial clients.) I read it regularly to keep in touch with my planning roots. Planning as a discipline has evolved from utopian “City Beautiful” and more mundane zoning practices to become highly involved with citizen visioning of desirable futures and planning for their achievement. At UCLA, where I studied, heuristics were the order of the day, learning how to make decisions to bring about desired futures.
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BOB JACOBSON is fascinated by the experience of experience. A planner and technologist, Bob has a Ph.D. in Urban Planning & Design from UCLA. He's been a policy researcher, technology CEO, science writer, and consultant. As a Fulbright Scholar, he studied cellular telephony's impacts on transborder communities in the Nordic Arctic Circle. Bob edited Information Design (MIT Press 2000) and is now writing a book on the theory and practice of creating edifying, transformative experiences.
PAULA THORNTON says, "Understanding human behavior (economics), optimizing interactions (design) and facilitating conversations (markets), are the means to achieve strategic differentiation. This is the focus of our discipline. It is not a 'nice to have'‚ and is not, like documentation once was, an afterthought. It is the means by which to start a strategic discussion and the means by which to drive a tactical initiative. All design should be evidence-based."
