Posts
Brought to my attention by a reader, the Brazilian city of Belo Horizonte, capital of the state of Minas Gerais, has begun using evoting to support it's participatory budget setting process.
Documented in the research report, e-Participatory Budgeting: e-Democracy from theory to success? (PDF), the experience is a very interesting example of the use of evoting in increasing direct democratic participation by the public.
Belo Horizonte is a city of 2.3 million people and 1.7 million voters.
It has used a participatory budget setting process since 1993 to prioritise spending across a range of public works, with the budget directly allocated by voters growing to US$43. This works on the basis of voting in each of the city's districts for specific works within that district.
In 2006, the city launched a Digital Participatory Budgeting (e-PB) involving a fund of US$11 million in addition to the existing participatory budget.
The e-PB allowed registered voters to exclusively vote online for one out of four potential public works for each of the nine districts of the city.
Based on the research report,According to the administration, the launching of the initiative had three main drivers: i) to modernize its PB through the use of ICTs; ii) to increase citizens’ participation in the PB process and iii) to broaden the scope of public works that are submitted to voting.
The approach seems to have worked. While the traditional PB approach attracted around 1.5 percent of voter participation, the e-PB attracted close to 10%, greatly increasing the direct democratic involvement of citizens with the running of the city. It also allowed the PB process to consider public works of interest to all city citizens, rather than those only of interest to the inhabitants of a specific district.
As part of the e-voting process the city adinistration's website featured a forum where citizens could discuss the potential public works initiatives in a moderated environment.
The voting process took place over 42 days with voters able to vote separately for each district's public works - allowing them to vote up to nine times, once per district.
The security of the vote was managed by using unique voter IDs, termed electoral title numbers, which Brazil issues as part of a compulsory identification document to all voters.
Public voting points were established at 187 points across the city to avoid disenfranchising people without internet access. A mobile internet bus was also used, moving from place to place to between areas with the lowest internet access and those with the highest voter concentration (city centre).
While the IT involved in the initiative was significant, the research paper points out that significant factors in the success of the initiative were the communications campaign and ability for voters to interact online to discuss the public works.
The e-PB attracted 503,266 votes by 172,938 voters, or 9.98% of eligible voters.
While this might seem low by Australia's compulsory voting standards, it was seven times greater than the number of participants in the traditional participatory budgeting process, which only received 1.46% of voter participation in the same year.
Interestingly, the research report found that there was no correlation between socio-economic status and propensity to vote, meaning that the e-PB was not weighted towards more highly educated or richer voters (who are more likely to be internet users).
Also a minimum of 30% of votes were recorded from outside the city's limits. Given that only citizens of the city were eligible to vote, the research report found that the internet approach provided an effective avenue for residents who were not present in the city at the time to vote.
The research report has a lot of additional information on the IT systems and communications approaches used, as well as the use of the online forum.
It is an excellent read for any administration looking at introducing a level of electronic voting, either for offices or for policy or budget measures.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Participative budget edemocracy initiative in Brazil provides insights into the future | Tweet |
Red tape reduction via smarter online forms | Tweet |
There's a lot of activity in the online forms space across Australian government at present and it is proving to be an area of real cost savings and environmental benefits for public sector organisations at all levels.
Business.gov.au has supported a centralised whole-of-government approach to business focused forms for several years now and its forms section has grown significantly, particularly in the last twelve months, as agencies have recognised the potential, geared up and invested in the area.
This has been recognised in an Australia article looking at initiatives by councils, Online forms cut council red tape.
The AGOSP (Australian Government Online Services Portal) initiative at AGIMO is also implementing a forms capacity, via business.gov.au, for citizen forms, and this offers significant benefits for any agencies looking to leap into the realm of 'smart forms' - online forms that can be prepopulated or adjust in response to customer answers and then send the data back in a secure format (as email or directly into agency systems).
If you're an Australian public sector organisation at any level who needs to collect data from customers, it's worth checking this out and viewing the presentation given by Anthony Steve of business.gov.au.
Intranet Innovation Award winners for 2008 announced | Tweet |
The Intranet Innovation Award winners for 2008 have been announced, and their details, together with an executive summary (PDF) containing two case studies of award winners is available at Step Two's website.
The case studies feature an example of collaborative information sharing via a wiki used by staff of one organisation to track competitors and an innovative intranet people finder that improves staff networking and discovery by combining elements of both Twitter and Facebook.
I was inspired by both of the case studies, but a little disappointed to see only one government site mentioned in the awards this year - the Department of Human Services (South Australia) was commended for their CEO blog.
I hope there will be a greater public sector presence next year.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Locating and learning about future public employees using social networks | Tweet |
I am a reasonably active LinkedIn user (view my profile here).
It's one of my professional networking tools for keeping track of 'people of interest' to me - from business contacts to potential employees and employers.
It, and similar social and professional networks, are also useful recruiting tools for managers and HR professionals seeking to find or screen job applicants.
This isn't news to US HR teams. A recent survey by Careerbuilders.com, as reported in Reuters, found that 22 percent of hiring managers screened applicants via social networks.
From the article, One in five bosses screen applicants' Web lives: poll, of the managers screening applicants, 24 percent found information that solidified their decision to hire, while 34 percent found information that made them drop the candidate from the short list.
I also tend to Google people before making short-listing or hiring decisions (or when hearing about or meeting them professionally). It helps me build context and understanding and it draws on publicly available information (provided by the person in question), so there are no privacy considerations.
In terms of the full hiring process, for HR professionals and managers the online channel doesn't replace resumes, selection criteria and interviews, but it can certainly supplement this process by adding depth.
And for anyone seeking a new job, it is worth reviewing what you've said about yourself online - to ensure that you are representing yourself professionally.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Tapping into the return of the innovative individual | Tweet |
One of the primary changes resulting from the growth of the internet has been to place professional media tools and distribution capabilities in the hands of individuals.
Any individual with access to a computer and internet connection can create and distribute prose, poetry, commentary, software or services to millions at little cost. Add a microphone and they can conduct talkback or share original music and ass a low-cost digital camera with video capacity and they can also share photos and video.
As detailed in Paul Budde's article, The rebirth of the innovative individual, this is a return to the individual creativity stifled by 'big media' through the 20th century.
The private sector in Australia has already begun effectively tapping into this media change - but how about the public sector?
Car, computer and shampoo companies have supported customer-created television commercials. Prominent political bloggers have been invited to political rallies and 'mummy bloggers' courted by large consumer goods companies. Online musicians have hit the top of the charts and been 'discovered' and online programmers have contributed solutions to major corporate software solutions.
We've even seen other media, newspapers, radio and television channels add the capability for individuals to break stories and provide video and audio coverage used around the world.
On the public front, in other jurisdictions we've seen some government efforts to tap into this space, from the New Zealand police wiki Act (an Act of Parliament written by the public via a wiki) to the UK cash prizes for mashups (where the government is rewarding the best applications built using government information).
In Australia I have not seen any developments on this scale.
Certainly we have a few mechanisms to listen to citizens via different online consultation channels, but listening isn't the same as collaborating.
I am not aware of any major initiatives in Australia where government is saying to the public, We don't know how to achieve the best outcomes in this area, so if anyone has a good idea put it forward and we'll both reward and use the best of them?
This can be challenging step for any organisation used to be the source of answers, rather than the facilitator of solutions.
However, as the private sector is discovering, the new approach delivers excellent outcomes.
I'm hopeful that within a few years we will also see Australian governments using collaborative approaches to write legislation, generate program ideas, produce creative and develop (online) applications and systems.
