As Ideas for Change Competition Ends, What Can We Learn?

With nearly 8,000 ideas and more than 600,000 votes, the Ideas for Change In America competition of Change.org made evident a widespread interest in the power of technology to enable citizen-centered policy change. We’ve been watching with great interest here on Social Citizens as thousands of ideas have funneled into Change.org since early November.

But with yesterday’s announcement of the top ten ideas and a lively panel discussion at the National Press Club, I’ve been focused on what it means as this new era of participatory democracy takes hold - perhaps even more so than on the ideas themselves. It’s one thing to rally your network to elect an individual candidate or to vote for a specific idea – but how do you take that network and sustain it, and more importantly how do you use technology to bring new and diverse voices into the dialogue?

These are the questions that will be at the forefront as we watch with great interest the evolving strategies that move these ideas forward. And, this is what Chris Hughes, a co-founder of Facebook and Obama's director of online organizing, brought up in yesterday’s panel discussion, when he explained that social networks and the Obama campaign, "empowered people to self-organize, but leadership and structure are needed, too.” Online voting can be viewed as a first step, but pushing popular ideas into the public debate and finding a way to influence national policy is an entirely different beast.

In a line that got some good laughs during the panel yesterday, political advisor Joe Trippi said, "Congress will find itself between Barack and a hard place if they get in the way of this President and the American people."  It's true, citizen participation will only be meaningful if there's a three way street that allows for open exchanges that involve Congress, the White House, and the American people.

Even if you don't agree with the top ten ideas this time around, there's a lot to be learned from those who were successful in mobilizing their networks during this competition. After all, civic engagement  is not a conservative or liberal issue - it's about casting the widest net possible and building a broad and diverse base of citizens who are inspired to take action on issues they care about.

I think we can all agree the idea of open sourced citizen driven democracy is just beginning to take shape. So, what can be learned from competitions like this one - and what will help ensure voices from all sides of the spectrum are represented?