Elijah van der Giessen

I help nonprofits build community.

Category: Greenest City Camp

Net Tuesday: Flexing Facebook’s Civic Muscles with Susanna Haas Lyons — September 12, 2011

Net Tuesday: Flexing Facebook’s Civic Muscles with Susanna Haas Lyons

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RSVP

Meetup.com OR Facebook

LOCATION

W2 Media Cafe

111 W Hastings, Vancouver, BC

DATE AND TIME

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

  • Doors at 5:30 PM
  • Starts at 6:00 PM
  • Wraps at 7:30 PM (but stay for drinks!)

Governments around the world are experimenting with social media as a site of civic engagement. Online public participation is a young field however, and little is known about the benefits or limitations of these projects. Key issues that must be considered include anonymity, privacy, government activity in privately operated spaces, demographic diversity, delineating between crowd-appropriate and expert-appropriate tasks, community building and more.

Vancouver was recently the home of an innovative Facebook based public conversation. Hundreds of Vancouver residents and commuters participated in a July 2011 Facebook conversation about the City of Vancouver’ Transportation Plan. Using a uniquely developed Facebook app, this ground breaking social media conversation asked Vancouverites to share their own commuting stories, learn about key issues, propose transportation recommendations to the City. This project was both an innovative engagement exercise in partnership with the City of Vancouver and it was the focus of Susanna Haas Lyons’s masters thesis research with the University of British Columbia.

The City has already written a response to recommendations resulting from the conversation, and these ideas will be considered for integration into the City’s draft transportation plan. Results of the research are emerging.

ABOUT OUR PRESENTER

Susanna Haas Lyons is a public engagement specialist who develops strategy and provides training for better conversations between the public and decision makers. Bridging online and face-to-face methods, Susanna has worked on some of North America’s largest and most complex citizen engagement projects. Currently, Susanna is researching collaborative policy development, with a focus in digital engagement practices, at the University of British Columbia’s Institute for Resources, the Environment and Sustainability. She is also a senior network associate with AmericaSpeaks, a global leader in large-scale public participation. Previously, Susanna was project coordinator with the British Columbia Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform, which was shortlisted for the prestigious Mohn Prize. She holds a certificate in Public Participation from the International Association for Public Participation, and is an advisor to the Alberta Climate Dialogue project.

OUR SPONSOR

Net Tuesday is thrilled to have the W2 Media Cafe as our venue sponsor for the 2011-12 season. They do cool things. Check them out!W2 Media Cafe

Greenest City Camp — February 23, 2011

Greenest City Camp

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Time for Camp in March

Learn. Connect. Take Action.

RSVP: http://greenestcitycamp.eventbrite.com/

Remember summer camp? Crafts and projects and meeting lots of new people? Well, March 5th is Greenest City Camp, a full-day of learning, connecting and finding allies and collaborators to make Vancouver the Greenest City in the world by 2020.

This is your chance to connect with Vancouver residents and organizations that are passionate about making this a green city and find out how we can move forward together. It’s about finding people, and the resources, to do what you always wanted to do like:

  • Making your voice heard by coming out to speak at a Council meeting
  • Organizing your neighbourhood to take over your laneway to create a garden
  • Working with your local Business Improvement Association to reduce waste

Residents of Vancouver are passionate about greening the city. We plant community gardens. We walk and ride our bikes to work. We take transit. We purchase healthy green products. We compost. We recycle. We support local businesses. Camp is about linking the actions we are already taking to the ten Greenest City goals in order to build momentum for change. The City can do some things like build bike lanes, provide curbside composting and plant trees on city land but the real impact comes when everyone in Vancouver is part of this story.

The day will be an “unconference” which means that all of the participants -that’s you! – jointly create the agenda and lead discussions, talk about projects and find solutions. We provide the space, some background information, the coffee, the cookies and some fun. Then turn it over to you!

It’s a lot of chaos, a lot of connection, a lot of fun and will result in a lot of action. You will also have the opportunity to meet folks from the City, learn about the draft Action Plans, and help fine tune and prioritize actions before they go to City Council.

And by the end of the day, everyone should leave with concrete ideas and action items on how they fit into the map of making Vancouver the Greenest City by 2020.

We’re already doing a lot, now it’s time to take it to the next level.We hope you can make it!

Make sure to add your name, suggest a session idea and comment on other ideas on the wiki at http://greenestcitycamp.wikispaces.com/

If you can’t come to Camp, there are many other ways to get involved with Greenest City:

  • Visit the website and read the draft Greenest City 2020 Action Plans, watch the videos, comment on the strategies and prioritize the actions
  • Come out to a Greenest City event
  • Co-host a 1-3 hour workshop with the City of Vancouver and your organization (email greenestcity@vancouver.ca to arrange)
  • Host your own workshops by downloading the DIY Kitchen Table Conversations kit
  • Join the online conversation on talkgreenvancouver.ca