NewGov

= "an open source platform offering “a way to connect with your community, engage on the issues, and influence politicians”. It allows people to identify and promote issues and to prod their elected representatives to take up causes". [1]

URL = https://newgov.us/

Discussion

Simon Carroll:

"Britt Blaser, the founder and CEO of NewGov, told Internet of Me what is at stake for American politics: “When we hear the words ‘politics’ or ‘government’ that is a black box — people don’t even want to talk about it. What you are really describing is an industry like any other industry — the policy development industry. On one side you have 535 vendors with rent-free offices on Capitol Hill and ignoring the landlord, selling their services — and you can’t be too cynical about this — to businesses so they can make their appeals to the landlord to keep them in office.”

NewGov allows voters to highlight or suggest policy issues and galvanise into groups to build influence, with anonymised identity verification ensuring those participating are genuine. Interactive maps reveal information and data on politicians at all levels of government. Crucially, suggestions, posts and other interactions — including social media activity — are pinned to those maps as permanent records of actions and responses. Users are encouraged to get their neighbours on board to support causes, with the cumulative effect of all this being to generate a level of activity and input that cannot be ignored.

Such direct cause and effect has clear potential to ignite pubic engagement in politics. And there is an obvious need for that.

...

The NewGov project has been shaped to a large degree by the VRM model — Vendor Relationship Management — pioneered by internet visionary Doc Searls, who told Internet of Me: “What Britt’s trying to do is to give leverage. What NewGov is doing is always about getting the better lever — not just the lever in the voting booth but the lever you have on your phone or your computer or through whatever other means. His work on the way power and influence might flow and finding digital ways to do that are potentially profound if they get adopted.”

NewGov and Crowdpac are capitalising on the ever-growing opportunities offered by technology and digital media." (https://medium.com/the-internet-of-me/democracy-disrupted-we-need-a-new-politics-thats-open-source-and-crowd-sourced-ffbc88439ac5#.6dms1zco0)

More Information

• Crowdpac "positions itself as a “new platform for a better democracy” with a mission “to give politics back to people”. Already established in America, Crowdpac launched in the UK in April, and offers objective information and data on politicians and issues, plus the opportunity to help finance campaigns through Kickstarter-style crowd-funding." [2]