Democracy in Action

Preamble: Invigorating Communities Through Democracy

Citizens today often feel disconnected, disenfranchised, and out of touch with what is happening around them.  Being far removed from the decision-making of their government and business leaders, many opt-out of working toward changing old models into more productive new models.  Strategic Doing Forums are designed to create an opportunity to reverse this trend so citizens become an integral part of redesigning public policy to effectively reflect a 21st century global economy.

In the recent article, "How Web 2.0 Can Reinvent Government," Paula Klein of CIO, Insight Magazine writes:

"Traditionally slow to change, bureaucratic in decision-making and constantly under public scrutiny, governments are ripe for new collaborative technologies, says Anthony Williams, co-author with Don Tapscott of the groundbreaking book Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything (Portfolio, 2007). That book detailed how Web 2.0 technologies such as blogs, wikis and social networking would radically transform business models and alter the way organizations think about collaborative relationships." Read the full article, "Web 2.0 Transforming Democracy."

Williams says the Web offers the public sector huge opportunities to collaborate with citizens.  He foresees Web 2.0 technologies being employed to transform service delivery, make smarter policies, flatten silos and, most importantly, reinvigorate democracy.

In a support economy, all members of a community's talent and assets can be used to move toward prosperity. The I-Open process accelerates "linking and leveraging" of resources to transforms communities and regions through education, economic, and workforce development.

We believe the above excerpts show how our partnership with you and your organization will reinvigorate democracy and give hope to our citizens by showing them that they can shape the future by helping themselves prosper through new models of behavior and strategically doing what needs to be done to create wealth.

We look forward to working with you to achieve this.

- Gloria Ferris, I-Open