With the help of Google and some friends on Twitter, I’v put together a few examples and strategies for using social media tools to increase public involvement in local government and public policy. Additional suggestions and examples are always welcome.

• Crowdsourcing to increase public involvement, investment, and solicit actionable ideas: http://tinyurl.com/c23bne
• Leveraging a mobile / SMS network as a mobile newsletter, for polling, or petitions: http://publicsphere.worldbank.org/m-government-promise-participation
  http://wiki.mobiles.tacticaltech.org/index.php/Enabling_participation
  http://www.ejeg.com/volume-4/vol4-iss2/griffin_et_al.pdf
• A “plain talk” community dissemination and commentary portal: http://bigcitytalk.org.uk/

And, here are a few other links on the subject of public involvement:

• The Government 2.0 BarCamp (sorry, the last meeting was March 29, but you can find all the sessions here)
• Government 2.0: the February 2009 Social Media Club SFSV Meeting
• Simon Wakeman’s “social media and local government” presenation
• The FutureGov collaborative consultancy
• Building event attendance: http://www.susanmernit.com/blog/2009/03/case-study-using-social-media.html
• Using consultants to develop custom public involvement portals: http://www.newcommreview.com/?tag=social-media-case-studies (see: Nanos Research)

I found many other examples in this space, but they tended to overlap with “good social media strategy” in general for businesses and organizations.  Many thanks to the following twindividuals for their suggestions and links: RevzNexus, badgergravling, kristiewells, Polledemaagt, simonwakeman, and jennifered.  I’m still collecting some examples, and if I get some good ones I’ll update this post.

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