Citizen 2.0 - fostering collaboration (Workshop 2 CEBIT Gov 2.0 Conference)

We have bid farewell to Andrew Stott and welcomed Patrick McCormick to lead the second workshop at the CEBIT Gov 2.0 conference.

One of the first things we've done is an exercise in information overload that is easy to replicate in your own office.

Get a group of four people, nominate one as the subject. Each of the others is responsible for a particular activity that the subject must respond to as follows:

• Person 1: Ask quantitative questions (how much, how long, maths questions, etc) the subject must answer.
• Person 2: Ask qualitative questions (what, why, how, etc) the subject must answer.
• Person 3: Perform physical movements the subject must copy.

For one minute, the participants must, without interrupting each other, question and make physical moves that the subject must answer/copy.

Next rotate the roles to the left and repeat for a minute, and so on until everyone has experienced information overload as the subject.

Pat has also shown great videos on collaboration (below - Jeff Howe) and Ushahidi (also below - Erik Hersman) and Open Street Maps, examples of public collaboration in action.