kpeters's blog

If there's a statute of limitations on event-blogging, this update probably exceeds it - thankfully, innovations in government transparency and citizen monitoring are always timely. Three weeks ago, Facebook teamed up with the offices of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer to host a "Congressional Hackathon." While no actual hacking took place during the event, it was a great opportunity to collaborate and brainstorm new ideas as part of an ongoing conversation about demand for legislative data, standards for sharing, and how to modernize constituent relations. Congressman Darryl Issa even announced a new platform that allows individuals to collaborate and mark up legislation with their own proposals and suggestions. READ MORE »

I've blogged about the importance of studying failures, but the most recent Fail Faire inspired me to speak out today about the tech team's most disappointing failure to date: the persistent status of the North Pole as the last truly closed society. Even North Korea regularly leaks reports and video via channels of dedicated citizen journalists using stealthy new technologies.

And while I can't speak to the details of our (*cough*netfreedom*) work, I can say that I'm sorely disappointed that not a single report from rumored "Reindeer games" to select the sleigh-leader has surfaced. This being a season for hope, I'd like to believe this is because the happy elves simply don't have any messages to broadcast to the outside world. But we all know just how unaccountable the Workshop can be, so if you find any curious images or recordings on your shiny new Christmas electronics, please let us know. READ MORE »

Last Thursday evening, the New America Foundation hosted a panel on building trust through technology. They'd put together a fantastic collection of case studies: Stephanie Schierholz of NASA discussed how tweetups had built a community around and among space-watchers, while Deborah Dignam talked about the British Council's experiences building digital campaigns around art exhibitions and events. Danny Harris told the story of how he became a curator of community stories via the People's District blog. I enjoyed hearing about the hybrid online/offline bonds these projects have generated, but I was disappointed to realize during the Q&A that none of the community-builders could really offer a recipe for those successes.

While building trust online is difficult, however, it's not entirely mysterious. In my previous life as a graduate student, I explored the academic research on the topic and convinced a few kindly web-oriented nonprofits to let me interview them for a benchmarking study. And while my conclusions were anything but groundbreaking, I've found them to be a useful shorthand for thinking about the things good community-builders instinctively do - including all of last night's speakers. READ MORE »

After several busy travel weeks, the NDITech team finally enjoyed three consecutive days with everyone in the same office. Amid orienting the new and newest team members and catching up on other projects, we missed out on a local Fail Faire reviewing and celebrating (yes, you read that right) recent failures in the development community.

Though discussing failures publicly isn't a popular practice in a field where most organizations rely on successful work to bring in new grants and funding, the development world is learning to embrace flawed projects as possible iterations on the way to success. Here at NDITech, the team has learned to fail early and plan for contingencies, but it's still reassuring to see statistics like a 70% failure rate for World Bank ICT programs (which is lower than Silicon Valley start-ups!) and hear about bicycle-powered cell phones no one wanted to use and remember that we're not alone when things go wrong.

A friend who studies ICT for justice systems recently blogged about a fantastic guide [pdf] from the Center for Court Innovation on experimentation and failure. READ MORE »

The Internet Governance Forum's annual conference started today in Nairobi. This year's theme is the "Internet as a catalyst for change," and the role of Web tools in sparking social change appears to be a popular topic. I've been following the conference today, listening for what new ideas and norms will come out of the confluence of civil society groups, human rights activists, tech experts, and government representatives the UN brings together each fall.

The Internet is such a sprawling, fast-growing network of devices, users, and applications that many of us who call ourselves residents or digital natives can hardly define the place, let alone manage it. In that spirit, the IGF is an ambitious attempt to bring together all the Internet's stakeholders and provide an inclusive conversation on the policies and principles that underpin these global connections and the many, many ways in which we use them. READ MORE »

Happy opening day of the UN General Assembly, folks! While half of Manhattan grumbles about the traffic snarls caused by an endless stream of motorcades, I always enjoy watching the pomp and protocol of the General Debate. But while the “will they or won’t they” of the Palestinians at the Security Council steals the big headlines, yesterday also brought big news in government transparency: the Open Government Partnership.

At last year’s General Debate, President Obama announced that “In all parts of the world, we see the promise of innovation to make government more open and accountable.” The Open Government Partnership brings together eight founding countries to help fulfill that promise. They’ve developed initiatives to improve the availability of government information, support increased civic participation, and develop new technologies for sharing and accountability. The first projects under development include real-time expense reporting in Brazil and a citizen water reporting in Tanzania – and 38 additional countries have pledged to develop their own openness plans. READ MORE »