Deliberation : Online

This week I submitted my proposal for Civitas to the Looking at Democracy Challenge. I'm also working with Simon and Jaime on some audio stuff, they need to work on their podcasts. We're having a difficult time coordinating, but trying to be game about it. 

I'll start on Eliberate again this week. Actually looking forward to it since it comes back to a specific challenge. 

I have some pro bono stuff afoot; I'm trying to push out  a website for the fracking interests and someone asked me to consider the data strategy at the Thurston County Food Bank. I can't do any work for them, but I could possibly help them make a proposal for probono IT via a nonprofit who does such things. They are outgrowing their database. 

I'll be meeting with DemocracyLab on Thursday and we'll be discussing the concept of manageable projects - what do you need to take an idea from inception to funding? I'm considering a budget and a spec, but we need to hammer out some details. This is part of DLabs initiative to become a technology incubator for civic tech. 

I'm about to start working on a full-time professional contract to create a collaborative environment for engineers at a high tech firm in Lacey. It will run for at least three months and includes participative design for information architecture and workflows. My interview drew heavily on my research in implementing offline methodologies in online environments.