What’s working in our political system? What isn’t? Our company is OnlineTownhalls and we are passionate about improving the quality of our national dialogue. We recently joined the Open Model for Citizen Engagement Working Group here in Washington, DC which inspired us to take action.
From June 23-27, 2010 we are conducting an experiment called the American Townhall on National Politics. Our mission is to find deeper ways to discuss critical issues facing our democracy combining tools for discussion online, in-person, and over the phone.
Join Us In-Person:
This week we’ll kick-start the townhall by conducting video interviews on the National Mall in Washington, DC. We’ll be asking visitors to our nation’s capital what they think is broken and what they think is working well in our national political system. Here are a few example videos:
All the videos are included in the OnlineTownhall mentioned below where others participants can build on these ideas.
Join Us on the Phone:
The central question for the three-day show is, “What is working in our national political system, and what isn’t?” We’ll be joined by Wayne Burke of the Open Forum Foundation and the lead organizer of the Open Model for Citizen Engagement, key staff in the Sunlight Foundation who are leading the Citizens for Open Government project, and members of the National Coalition of Dialogue and Deliberation.
We have three live call-in radio shows and one online discussion:
- Wednesday, June 23, 2010 from 5pm-7pm EST. Click HERE to listen (archived).
- Thursday, June 24, 2010 from 5pm-7pm EST. Click HERE to listen (archived).
- Friday, June 25, 2010 from 5pm-7pm EST. Click HEREto listen.
- 5:00pm-5:20pm Steven Clift, E-Democracy.Org (staying on through 6pm to converse with other interviewees if you wish)
- 5:20pm-5:30pm Ben Roberts, Organizer of the Coffee Party Cafe Calls
- 5:30pm-5:45pm Andrew Krzmarzick, GovLoop Community Manager
- 5:45pm-6:00pm Alex Moll, a civic architect
- 6:00pm-6:15pm Ayofemi Kirby, Communications Director at Mobilize.Org
- 6:15pm-6:30pm Jim Rough, pioneer of Dynamic Facilitation
- 6:30pm-6:45pm Maureen Ross, Cherrydale Citizens Association in Arlington, VA
- 6:45pm-7:00pm Britt Blaser, creator of the NewGov.US project
- From June 23-27, 2010 join this OnlineTownhall to discuss the ideas raised in the radio shows.
Want to call into the radio show? Dial (917) 889-2510 to join the discussion during the times listed above. You can also add your thoughts via email to info@americantownhalls.org or through Twitter using the tag #ATHNP (for American Townhall on National Politics). We look forward to hearing what you have to say!
Join Us Online:
Using this conversation at OnlineTownhalls, participants will be able to take the conversation started on the videos and the radio show deeper from June 23-27, 2010.
OnlineTownhalls is different than standard commenting software; it helps participants visualize all the branches in a conversation and see which issues are controversial and which are common ground.
For those that would like a brief orientation to the software, we will be available over the phone. The dial-in number for the live walk-through is 605-715-4920 with an access code of 616033 from 7pm-9pm EST on June 23-25, 2010. The online discussion will be open through June 27, 2010.
If you’re comfortable with online tools, you’ll probably be able to figure out the townhall technology after watching this three minute intro video:
