Interactive Forum for Public Engagement and Idea Sharing
Efforts such as IdeaScale / IdeaFactory for Federal employees are good, but we need to think bigger and bring the public into the fold. There are too many barriers to getting a truly collaborative information sharing forum stood up for this purpose. Different program offices within the same dept build redundant, stove-piped discussion platforms. Users suffer from login and password fatigue and they burn out. This results ...more »
Efforts such as IdeaScale / IdeaFactory for Federal employees are good, but we need to think bigger and bring the public into the fold. There are too many barriers to getting a truly collaborative information sharing forum stood up for this purpose. Different program offices within the same dept build redundant, stove-piped discussion platforms. Users suffer from login and password fatigue and they burn out. This results in non-sustainable online communities that miss the synergy and efficiency of dynamic, context powered discussions that cross different program areas and topics. Solution - each department build ONE collaboration forum that encourages user content and ideas on a variety of different topics /communities within the same forum. A good example is http://ourborder.ning.com/ - but unfortunately, too many offices (External Affairs, IT, Legal, Records Retention, Security, etc) find reasons to stifle these innovative solutions, rather than resolve the issues that always lead to “no.”
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