From Community to Municipal Hall. Bowen Island: the Development of Web Based Tools for Citizen Engagement.
We look at how the development of web based tools for citizen engagement has been used in a small community near Vancouver. Over the past year on Bowen Island, a qualitative, spontaneous shift has taken place in grassroots technology adoption that is affecting significant cultural, political and social change. The session involves four different narratives from four different community members who have made a difference.
The four presenters will present a mixed narrative, revealing how online technologies and social media has and can be used by engaged citizens, with a special focus on the build and influence of the road mapping tool developed by Stuart and Mark in 2008-9.
* Pre-2000: Official Community Plan (OCP) – traditional gov’t processes with town hall meetings; nominal use of technologies.
* Early 2000 - present: Bowen Forum, Bowen Island Municipal Website, push email campaigns, web assisted letter writing.
* 2005 – 2007: Blogs erupt – Salish Sea, Bowen Island Journal, One Day Bowen; Wiki – Bowen2020 (Bowfeast), Advocacy Websites - CRC
* Early 2008: Opening up the middle-school; IPS, Google Docs & WikiEducator
* Late 2008: Tagging and facing the problem with platforms
* Late 2008:
-Full on tagging and hashtagging: BOWEGOV on Del.icio.us and #BOWEGOV on Twitter
-Road status tool (PhP, MySQL, Google Maps mashup); Flickr
* Early-mid 2009:
-bowegover.ning, a citizen-led governance project
-participate in Vanchangecamps' organization to build political cohesiveness
This session will conclude with a discussion of our approaches to influencing policy change using accessible tools, the challenges to adoption, and our planned next steps in using open tools for citizen engagement, self-direction and a more cohesive, inclusive community.
