Goal

To enable you to build better software by having a holistic understanding of the market, and a more clearly defined understanding of the needs of the audiences within the market.

Who

This workshop is limited to 30 participants. You should be one of them if you are a developer of citizen engagement software that focuses on the United States Congress, including:

• Constituent Management Systems for Congressional offices
• Constituent Relations Management software for advocacy groups
• Community organization tools to enable political action
• Politically-oriented communication platforms intended to connect citizens, advocacy groups, and representatives, or any subset of those three.

This is a new market, or at least a dramatically changed market with the advent of social media and the Gov2.0 and OpenGov movements.

How

By bringing passionate developers together with Hill staff and experts that focus on advocacy groups, dialogue and deliberation, and UI design. Collaboratively, we will construct something that doesn’t currently exist – an understanding of:

• the boundaries of the market and its current status
• the issues we are trying to solve and how software can help
• the players within the market
• the specific audiences that software needs to be tailored for
• the resources currently available (APIs, open data, etc…)
• resources that should exist or need to be created
• data standards that already exist, their benefits and drawbacks
• data standards that should exist

Too much to do in a two day workshop? You’ll help determine what’s important and what’s not.

Is something missing? You’ll be able to add it to the list.

The final product of this process will provide you with a powerful tool for improving your software and marketing it to your audience(s). In addition, you will have gained a broader community of experts whose advice you can draw on when improving your software.

In addition, ninety days after the end of the workshop, we will release the final product to the broader citizen engagement community with full recognition of the people that made it possible. This will help to solidify your name (or your company’s name) as a leader in this growing market.

Speakers

The speakers will be tasked with introducing new understanding, answering your questions, and critiquing your work. These speakers will include:

• Congressional staff to give you the insider’s perspective
• Advocacy group communicators to let you know what this important audience needs
• Dialogue and deliberation facilitators to help you learn from the offline participation world
• User engagement experts to share what makes an addictive online experience

More Info

For more information, including the proposed schedule, click here.