Participation the Best Ribbon
“One man of superhuman mental activity managing the entire affairs of a mentally passive people. Their passivity is implied in the very idea of absolute power. The nation as a whole, and every individual composing it, are without any potential voice in their own destiny. They exercise no will in respect to their collective interests. All is decided for them by a will not their own, which it is legally a crime for them to disobey. What sort of human beings can be formed under such a regimen? What development can either their thinking or their active faculties attain under it?”
John Stuart Mill
In London our engagement system looks more like a manufacturing process with a marketing budget vs the service provider with the customer experience focus I think it should be. We seem singularly focused on developing land in exchange for the prospect of economic benefit, and hoping the rest will take care of itself with all the excess prosperity. Service vs manufacturing is about tangibility. The output of a service is often intangible, manufacturers produce physical goods and services shouldn’t hold inventory. We create a service when someone requires it. Manufacturing produces goods with inventory levels dependent on demand and forecasting to consume them. Relying on the accuracy of demand, forecasting and capacity to meet demand can create and incentive to induce demand, this is the tyranny of metrics. Service organizations don’t produce a service unless it’s required, although they should design and develop the scope and content of services in advance. Service organizations must be tailored to customers’ needs, manufacturers can produce goods without an order on forecast of demand. Service organizations must attract and retain constant engagement, service delivery is labor intensive and cannot be neglected. So pay attention to the development of an active, critical and engaged citizenship.
“All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy.”
John Dewey
Our new website is a technical solution available to us at the exact right time. Iterate on the site with programs that coincide with new functions and renewed means of engaging citizens, Advisory Committee Portals in lieu of an email address.
Committee's should have a mail ID, a list of past and future meetings, with agendas, and minutes, and a documented intake process to participate on those future agendas.
Maybe we’ve lost control of government by building a non-functioning layer between it and us to capture our displeasure, but effect no change (Like my fruit fly trap in the kitchen). This layer can’t effectively hold governments accountable fast enough and it doesn’t provide adequate in roads to meaningful engagement. Our interaction with government has become a distraction and not an adequate control point. I think we need better democratic processes and outcomes. Find actual new ways to engage democracy and to live as democratic citizens, we’re clearly open to new process and systems in some aspects of our lives, why not governance? Restarting committees and building their influence will lay the foundations for the big change to come “The Participatory Budget”.
Participatory Budgeting is the ongoing process where citizens can have a regular venue to be engaged between elections, and address issues that align with there values. The municipal level is the closest to the people and where it makes strategic sense to rebuild our civic engagement from.
Engagement can’t happen in in a vacuum, our current engagement is engineered like a Dyson, instead let’s build enabling systems and processes that provide appropriate and inclusive forums.