Debategraph

Debategraph honored as one of the AASL’s Best Websites for Teaching and Learning

Posted by David on 26 July 2010, 10:51 pm

Peter and I were delighted to discover last week that Debategraph has been named as one of the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) Best Websites for Teaching and Learning 2010.

The award honors the top twenty-five Internet sites for enhancing learning and curriculum development and for fostering the qualities of innovation, creativity, active participation and collaboration, with the chosen sites identified as the “best of the best” by the AASL.

It’s a particular joy for us to see Debategraph recognized in the company of sites that we love using ourselves, such as TED, Creative Commons, Prezi and Evernote, and to discover marvellous new sites among the awardees that are fast becoming favorites too.

The full list of awardees is available here, along with the individual citations accompanying the award for each site.

…and, finally, a big thank you to the AASL’s Best List task force, to everyone who nominated us and, most importantly, to the Debategraph community for all your support and inspiration.

Cross-posted at: Open to Persuasion

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Filed under Argument map, Collaboration, Collective Intelligence, Critical Thinking, Debate Map, Debategraph, Education, Open Education, Visualisation. Tagged AAL, AASL, American Association of School Librarians, American Library Association, Award-winning, Classroom, Collaboration, Creative Commons, Creativity, Curriculum, Debate, Debategraph, Dialogue, Education, Educators, innovation, Maps, Mindmaps, Parents, Site Awards, Students, Visualization, Website

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Mapping the Amsterdam Declaration

Posted by David on 25 May 2010, 2:50 pm

The World Congress on Information Technology 2010, which began in Amsterdam earlier today, brings together over 2,000 leading figures from industry, government, and academia from over 90 countries to address the global challenges of economic, environmental and social development.

The speakers include: Paul Otellini(Intel), Stephen Elop (Microsoft), Pierre Hessler (Capgemini) , Michael Fries (Liberty Global), Neelie Kroes (Commissioner Digital Agenda European Commission), Martin Lees (Secretary-General Club of Rome), Francisco Ros Perán (Secretary of State for Telecommunications, Spain), Tony Clement (Canadian Minister of Industry), Datuk Seri Ongkili (Federal Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Malaysia), Kumar Parakala (KPMG), Peter Sondergaard (Gartner), Virginia Rometty (IBM), Sachin Pilot (Ministry of Communications and Technology, India), Maria van der Hoeven (Minister of Economic Affairs, Netherlands), Sylvia Roelofs (ICT-Office), and William Kennard (US Ambassador to the European Union).

The conference is building towards the Amsterdam Declaration, which calls on all participants to pursue ambitious goals for the use of information technology in addressing economic growth, greenhouse gasses, the quality of life, and ensuring the global impact of these benefits.

All organisations supporting the Declaration of Amsterdam are asked undertake at least one major project in the spirit of the Declaration, and to report back on its progress and achievements at WCIT 2012 in Montreal.

As part of this process, Debategraph is working with the conference to map the Amsterdam projects and their relationships to the overarching goals – with the work-in-progress covering around 60 projects from around the world shown below:

You can follow the proceedings of the conference across the next three days live here and on Twitter via the hashtag: #WCIT2010.

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Filed under Climate Change, Collaboration, Collaborative Democracy, Collective Intelligence, Debategraph, E-democracy, European Commission, Global Warming, Governance, Government 2.0, Microsoft, Open Government, Politics, Public Policy, Visualisation, eGovernment. Tagged Amsterdam Declaration, Capgemini, change management, Club of Rome, economic growth, environment, EU, Gartner, globalisation, IBM, ICT, Information, Intel, Microsoft, Open Government, technology, WCIT, WCIT2010

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Dissecting the Conservative – Liberal Democrat Coalition Agreement

Posted by David on 15 May 2010, 7:30 pm

As part of The Independent’s visual mapping of the election and its aftermath, we have broken down the Conservative – Liberal Democrat Coalition Agreement into an interactive visual graph that lets you comment on and rate each of the proposals.

By surfacing their shared agenda for the next Parliament explicitly in this way, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have given the electorate an unusually swift and detailed opportunity to give feedback on the proposals they have drawn together in our name.

Both parties have also indicated the desire to open public policy deliberation to wider public input online during the coming parliament; so it’s a timely opportunity as well to consider to what degree—under the intense pressure they faced and in a closed rather than an open process—the party negotiating teams were able to find an agreement close to a mutual optimum.

As well as rating and commenting, you can use the interactive graph to add arguments for and against the Coalition proposals and to suggest alternative ideas that might have been missed.

So, in the new spirit of collaboration, what do you make of the agreement?

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Filed under Collaboration, Debate Map, Debategraph, Downing Street, Government 2.0, Open Government, Politics, Public Policy, The Independent, Visualisation. Tagged Collaboration, Conservatives, Debategraph, Election, Gov20, Government, Lib Dems, Liberal Democrats, Media, Newspaper, Open Government, OpenGov, policy, Politics. Coalition, The Independent, UK, Visualization

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CNN, Amanpour and Debategraph

Posted by David on 23 September 2009, 5:18 pm

As you may have spotted already, the collaboration between Amanpour and Debategraph launched on CNN last night, with Christiane’s new live global program featuring interviews with the Secretary General of Nato and the Prime Minister of Spain.

If you missed lat night’s episode, it’s available via Podcast here.

Debategraph’s working with Amanpour’s production team and viewers to create debate maps around the interviews and global issues addressed in the programs – and to provide a forum for non-linear, interactive and cumulative debate to complement the program’s thought-provoking analysis and interviews with the global leaders confronting those issues.

Christiane’s aims for the program “to offer multiple perspectives… and serve as the hub for a global community of inquiring minds, hungry for a more daring perspective and a strong, clear, thoughtful take on international stories” emphasize the resonance between our mutual approaches and the reason why Peter and I are delighted to be collaborating with Amanpour’s New York based production team.

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“I want this show to stir the global conscience. I have witnessed so much that it’s time to start making real sense of it all”

The program airs on Monday to Thursday at 2100 CET, with a round-up of the best of the week on Fridays on CNN International and Sundays on CNN in the United States – and tonight’s show features interviews with Tony Blair, Terje Roed-Larsen (UN Middle East Envoy), Dan Meridor (Israeli Intelligence Minister), and Saeb Erakat (Chief Palestinian Negotiator).

In conjunction with the launch of program, Peter and I have released a new interface for Debategraph (which will also feature in the forthcoming WAVE climate change project for the European Commission). More on both later — but for now here’s a quick video introduction to the new Debategraph Stream interface:

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Filed under Argument map, CNN Amanpour, Collaborative Democracy, Collective Intelligence, Critical Thinking, Debate, Debate Map, Debategraph, Education, Media, Middle East, Politics, Public Policy, Tony Blair, United Nations, Visualisation, WAVE-Debate, Web 2.0. Tagged Afghanistan, Amanpour, Argument map, Christiane Amanpour, Climate Change, CNN, collaborative intelligence, Collective Intelligence, Conflict Resolution, Dan Meridor, Debate Map, Debategraph, Dialogue Map, Global politics, Media, Middle East, Nato, Saeb Erakat, Secretary General of Nato, Terje Roed-Larsen, Tony Blair, TV, WAVE-Debate

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Collaborative Democracy in the White House

Posted by David on 23 June 2009, 12:09 am

If you have been following the White House’s groundbreaking Open Government Initiative over the past few weeks, you’ll be aware already that Debategraph has been mapping the proposals emerging from the Open Government Brainstorming sessions on Participation, Transparency and Collaboration.

The Open Government Initiative moved into the third, and most significant, Drafting phase today—and we’re delighted to note that the White House’s Open Government team has entrusted this vital phase to our favourite wiki team at MixedInk (who, if you haven’t discovered them yet, offer a truly innovative and powerful approach to the task of collaborative writing, which is ready to be applied in multiple contexts).

The initial Open Government Brainstorming and Discussion phases have been stimulating and generative, but the real collaborative work, the real collaborative responsibility, and the real collaborative opportunity lie in the next phase of synthesis.

So get writing!

…and, to help you on your way, here’s the combined Debategraph of the redacted proposals from the three brainstorming sessions:

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Filed under Barack Obama, Collaboration, Collaborative Democracy, Collective Intelligence, Consultation, Creative Commons, Critical Thinking, Debate Map, Debategraph, Debatemapper, Deliberation, E-democracy, Government 2.0, Open Government, Politics, Public Policy, Visualisation, Web 2.0, White House, eGovernment. Tagged #eups20, Barack Obama, Beth Simone Noveck, Brainstorming, Collaboration, Collaborative Democracy, Collaborative writing, Debategraph, Gov20, Mind map, MixedInk, OGov, Open Gov, Open Government, Open Government Initiative, Participation, Transparency, United States, Visual Policy Mapping, Visualization, Vivek Kundra, White House, Whtie House, Wiki

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Mapping the Core Principles for Public Engagement

Posted by David on 22 June 2009, 8:59 pm

One of the many delights of April’s eDemocracyCamp in Washington, was the chance to meet Sandy Heierbacher, Director and Co-founder of the inspiring National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation.

Among many virtues, Sandy was one of the main enablers of the Public Engagement Principles (PEP) Project—launched in response to Barack Obama’s Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government—with the goal of articulating the fundamental components of quality public engagement (as understood by leading practitioners in the field).

The resulting seven principles—developed collaboratively by, among others, members of the NCDD, IAP2 and the Co-Intelligence Institute—have won widespread praise and endorsement, and as others have noted are applicable across many domains.

In conversation with Sandy at the eDemocracyCamp, we thought that it might be fun to create a representation of the principles as an interactive Debategraph, the result of which is shown below:

…and for anyone around in San Francisco this evening, tonight’s IAP2 Symposium on The Future of Public Participation—which features presentations from Moira Deslandes and Tim Bonnemann, and at which the principles will be discussed—is highly recommended.

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Filed under Collaboration, Collective Intelligence, Debate Map, Debategraph, Deliberation, E-democracy, Education, Government 2.0, Visualisation, Web 2.0, eGovernment. Tagged Barack Obama, Debategraph, Deliberation, Dialogue, eDemocracyCamp, Good Practice, IAP2, NCDD, Open Government, Politics, Public Engagement, San Francisco, San Francisco Bay Area, Society and Culture, Visualization, Washington

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Integrating Debategraph with SharePoint

Posted by David on 15 June 2009, 10:18 pm

When you are developing a web application one of the most delightful compliments anyone can pay you is to start building on your work. And when the person building is an expert in multiple fields including your own, your joy is complete.

So a huge thank you today to Paul Culmsee and his colleagues at Seven Sigma Business Solutions for building and releasing the free Seven Sigma Debategraph WebPart for SharePoint – which lets you embed live debate maps into SharePoint sites and tune the display to fit enterprise SharePoint portals.

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Paul, who has written a brilliant series of posts on the value of issue mapping to SharePoint projects, explains the underlying motivation for the web part:

“SharePoint is a terrific product for aggregating disparate information into a single integrated view. However it is oriented around linear, “list based” information, such as calendars, tasks, documents and the like. Argument visualisation tools like Debategraph do an excellent job of exposing the deep structure of complex problems or issues in a manner that makes argumentation and decision rationale accessible.

The Seven Sigma Debategraph web part for SharePoint provides a means to surface Debategraph argumentation maps within SharePoint. Through the release of this web part, Seven Sigma hopes to increase use of argumentation mapping techniques as a means to facilitate cohesive and productive discussions on complex issues.”

To illustrate the potential, and working with fellow SharePoint gurus Andrew Jolly and Ruven Gotz, Paul has created the Debategraph below on SharePoint Governance – which is also the default starting map when you install the web part:

If you are SharePoint user and would like to experiment with the web part, you can download it here – where Paul also provides short video guides on installing and using the web part.

…and if you would like to learn more about the background to the web part and our collaboration with Seven Sigma, read Paul’s characteristically insightful and engaging blog post here.

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Filed under Argument map, Collaboration, Collective Intelligence, Critical Thinking, Debate, Debate Map, Debategraph, Governance, Microsoft, SharePoint, Visualisation, Web 2.0. Tagged Blog, Debate Maps, Debategraph, Document Management, Governance, Issue Maps, Microsoft, Microsoft Office, Microsoft SharePoint, Products, Seven Sigma, SharePoint, SharePoint Governance, Visualization, Web application, Web part

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Crowdsourcing Public Services 2.0

Posted by David on 15 June 2009, 5:06 pm

In November 2009, the EU Ministerial declaration on eGovernment will be published at the Malmo conference.

Building on the Public Services 2.0 workshop in Brussels early this year, and at the initiative of David Osimo and Paul Johnston, we are teaming up other partners to crowdsource an Open Declaration on Public Services 2.0 to sit alongside November’s ministerial declaration.

Echoing the Open Government initiatives currently underway at the White House, the process is beginning with an open brainstorming session to identify and evaluate a range of ways in which EU governments can harness the emerging power of the web to transform European public services.

We would love you to participate in this process by adding your suggestions and voting for others here before 15th July.

More details, including the plans for the second collaborative phase and the subsequent public endorsement are available here.

…and, in parallel with the formal process, I’ll be keeping an informal eye on the proposals as they develop via the debate map below:

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Filed under Collaboration, Collective Intelligence, Consultation, Debate Map, Debategraph, E-democracy, European Commission, Government 2.0, Public Policy, Web 2.0, eGovernment. Tagged #eups20, Brainstorming, E-Government, Europe, European Commission, Ministerial eGovernment Meeting, Open Government, Paul Johnston, Public Services, White House

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Mapping the Power of Information Taskforce Report

Posted by David on 8 April 2009, 3:31 pm

As a follow up to the Public Services 2.0 workshop in Brussels last month, and in keeping with the collaborative ethos and intention of the event, Richard Stirling, one of the Cabinet Office secretaries to the Power of Information Taskforce, asked me to receate the Taskforce’s landmark report in Debategraph.

The initial map (shown in the Debategraph Explorer view above) foregrounds the report’s recommendations—although the full text of the report is also included in the expanded text of the relevant elements on the map (which you can view by clicking on the Green + button above).

Once in this format, anyone can comment on, support or oppose, and rate the individual recommendations—and also begin to increase the granularity of the analysis by, for example, breaking out the arguments presented in the report in support of the recommendations by the Taskforce.

This Explorer view of the report (above) can also be shared and embedded on blogs and other websites using the following code:

As ever feedback about the work-in-progress, either directly on the map, or in the comments below, will be very welcome—and, in the meantime, for a quick insight into the way that the ideas articulated in the Power of Information Taskforce’s report are percolating in the US, check out Ellen Miller’s Sunlight Foundation blog.

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Filed under Collaboration, Collective Intelligence, Consultation, Debate Map, Debategraph, E-democracy, European Commission, Government 2.0, Politics, Public Policy, Visualisation, Web 2.0. Tagged #eups20, #poit, Collaboration, Debategraph, Map, Openness, Power of Information, Power of Information Taskforce, Public Policy, Public Services, Sunlight Foundation, Transparency, Visualization, Web 2.0

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Public Services 2.0

Posted by David on 8 April 2009, 2:54 pm

Thanks to David Osimo‘s pioneering energy and imagination (and the enabling support of FutureGov and Headshift), I was privileged to have the opportunity to outline some of the thinking behind Debategraph at the European Commission’s Public Services 2.0 workshop in Brussels last month.

As David described in the agenda for the workshop:

“Over the last 3 years, we have seen a dramatic rise in user driven, web 2.0 style initiatives in and around public sector service provision. Initiatives such as Patient Opinion, Farmsubsidy and Theyworkforyou all seek to challenge, disrupt and improve on traditional models of public service delivery from the outside, built on the web 2.0 principles of openness, transparency and sharing.

Against this background the workshop “aimed to bring together the best experiences from all over Europe” to: share experience and knowledge between the people running the web 2.0 initiatives; promote a surge of collaborative initiatives; and raise awareness and better understanding between government officials about why and how to promote web 2.0 in government.

The workshop was a great success across all these dimensions, and the slides and videos for all of the presentations are worth exploring in depth.

On a personal note, one of the joys of the event was the chance it afforded to meet people whose work I have long admired from a distance including James Munro, Lee Bryant, Anna Maybank, Dominic Campbell, Justin Kerr-Stevens, Emma Mulqueeny, Richard Stirling, Ivo Gormley – whose highly recommended film Us Now features Debategraph briefly and tantalisingly on screen at a key moment – and Søren Duus Østergaard.

In the aftermath of the workshop it has been delightful to see the same sense experimental adventure bubbling up elsewhere, and in the European context, the next collaborative step, emerging as spontaneous initiative from the workshop, is to imbue the European Commission’s imminent consultation on the i2020 strategy with more of the same spirit.

Of which more later.

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Filed under Debategraph, Deliberation, E-democracy, European Commission, Government 2.0, Politics, Public Policy, Video, Visualisation, Web 2.0. Tagged #eups20, Civil Service 2.0, Collective Intelligence, Consultation, Debategraph, Deliberation, DG INFSO, eParticipation, EU, European Commission, Government 2.0, i2010, i2020, Public Policy, Public Services 2.0, Us Now, WAVE, Web 2.0

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