I didn’t realize until a couple of days ago, but last week OpenMass.org turned the ripe old age of one. Still in it’s infancy, not quite yet a toddler. Over the last year OpenMass.org has been viewed over 1.5 million times with over 20,000 unique visitors.
While I hope that OpenMass.org has helped in some way make the State House more transparent by making legislators and legislation easier to track, we still have a long way to go. Some new features in the works include linking the House and Senate video to bills and legislators.
OpenMass.org I believe is one piece of the inform, engage and make a difference loop and over the coming years I hope to see more, for lack of a better word, synergy, between blogs, official information sites, party platforms and engaged individuals.
One idea I have been kicking around is to take perhaps the most boring document in the world, the Party Platform and turn it into an action agenda by bringing together Blogs like BMG, sites like OpenMass.org, activist organizations and grassroots organizational tools like APebble (Charles Steelfisher’s new gig) together to help empower individuals to make a difference and in some way create their own platform for change. I’m not quite sure how it would all work together but I would love to start a discussion on the possibilities.
It’s a great site, Jim. I use it a couple of times a month, I’d say. Thanks!
Thinking out loud a little here…
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p>I’m thinking allowing folks to select issues from a Party Platform (or platforms) and add their own issues to create, in a sense, a personal platform. It would be interesting to see which platform issues are picked most often and which issues are not covered. This could conceivably be used in some way by a party to get feedback on their platform.
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p>Each issue would have an inform, engage and action section.
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p>Inform – links to news stories and legislation related to the issue.
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p>Engage – links to conversations on the issues so that folks can engage in discussion (I’m thinkg BMG and others here – possible using tags from the posts.)
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p>Action – at a minimum links to organizations supporting the issue, reps, senators etc… and into grass roots tools like APebble to help people organize and take action.
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p>A personal empowerment platform of sorts…
I love and recommend OpenMass, esp. to legislative candidates I work with. I was sad to see the post about ‘the’ platform, as I thought you might be ‘partisanizing’ the site.
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p>The GOP has an Issues Committee, deliberating now – take a spin on Red Mass, there’s quite a thread there by the Issues chairman. I’m not a member, but I’d be happy to shoot our stuff over to you as its approved.
I’m thinking that this project (right now it’s just an idea and I do have a lot on my plate in the coming months…) as a separate site from OpenMass.org. I want to keep OpenMass pretty much a primary source information site and as far from partisanship as possible.
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p>So for this potential new project, multiple party platforms is a must, so yes it would definitely include the dreaded
Republican platform as well as others.
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That’s a really excellent idea, Jim. I hope you can find a way to make it happen!