Public Policy Open Charrette

Goal: Get broad/open/intelligent input into a rapid Public Policy discussion, leading to rough Design.

Background concept: Design Charrette - The word charrette may refer to any collaborative session in which a group of designers drafts a solution to a design problem. While the structure of a charrette varies, depending on the design problem and the individuals in the group, charrettes often take place in multiple sessions in which the group divides into sub-groups. Each sub-group then presents its work to the full group as material for future dialogue. Such charrettes serve as a way of quickly generating a design solution while integrating the aptitudes and interests of a diverse group of people. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charrette http://www.charretteinstitute.org/charrette.html

Possible scenarios:

• already often used in Urban Planning - 2004-06-01-CreativeClassNeighborhoodDesign
• generate alternative ideas to ARRA/Bail-Out mess

Basic idea

• sketch issue/scope
• appoint 1-3 key people who agree to process: czars
• launch open Collaboration Ware space; publicly announce
• czars have 1 day to assemble list of people to invite, then send out invitations for a ~1-week F2F Charrette session, to start in 1 week. No schedule negotiation.
• close acceptance of those RSVP-s when ~10 slots have been filled
• define ~5 additional "slots" by type/Persona, set any requirements for independence/disclaimer. Have online election to fill those slots
• have a pure "facilitator" type person in the room
• have at least 1 person Expert in reality of government process in the room
• have quasi-stenographer Live Blogging in the room: should have some interest, but is there mainly as a best-efforts channel (process needs heavy timestamping to tie to Audio/Video)
• have someone in the room responsible for tossing ideas into the F2F discussion from the online space
• record Audio/Video, stream it live
• offline discussions by F2F attendees can be documented online
• online discussion continue even during off-hours for F2F activity
• output: semi-Coherent policy recommendations (not formal enough for rule-making - written for understanding)

What I haven't got a handle on: the design of that Collaboration Ware to get "better" results than typical Discussion Forum/voting systems.

• see Dialogue, Disputation Arena, General Semantics, 2006-11-06-BrinBrownGoogleTalk, 2008-11-12-EssenceClimateChangeDiscussion, 2007-01-31-CascioVirtualScenarioWorkshop, 2009-03-17-WengerMeetingDynamicFormat