What if the federal government were to award some amount of money (say $10 or $25 million) annually to the best social programs proposed through a public wiki website? With money clearly dedicated, a well-designed website, and thought-out rules and criteria for evaluation, I think the wiki would attract lots of attention and effort.

One of Obama’s change messages is that solutions have to come from the bottom up. He wants the general public to be more involved in government and points to the internet as a means. The wiki format would be a good way to deliver. With billions doled out to corporations and public works stimulus, this could provide politically powerful balance and unique impact.

This ‘bottom up’ approach could tap valuable resources, avoid rigidity in communication and role-assignment, and encourage productive engagement.

(1) People actually involved know what the problems are and have local knowledge of what can really help, whereas top-down decision-makers have comparatively limited access.

(2) The wiki format would organize iterative communication that, depending on how it is managed, could propel nuanced schools of thought regarding a wide variety of problems concurrently.

(3) The broad population could represent and assume a fuller spectrum of personalities/objectives and roles. Top-down decision-makers and their representatives are more constrained by reputation and time.

(4) People would be better able to contribute to government in personally meaningful ways. There would be a populist bridge from opinions/knowledge to action, and more could find themselves in actual program roles matched to their creativity and capability.

(5) This kind of possibility and interactivity would help displace apathy and associated habits (e.g. TV-watching).

To my mind, this would help the administration actualize a promise, create a culture of community organizing, and provide results at a good price. And I think the website itself would be a fascinating crucible, storage bank of ideas, and historical record – emergently and dynamically representing our identities, needs, and aspirations.

(For comparison, consider Netflix's choice to turn their movie recommendation project into a public competition. They were struggling to improve their accuracy in predicting what movies people would like based on the ones they’d already rated, so they offered a $1 million prize to the first outside group that could achieve the desired result for them. Many have taken up the challenge and some are nearing success. It provides a fun problem and learning opportunity that has value for people aside from the possibility of winning the prize. It is a case of two parties each having one-half of a pair of scissors. Netflix has the money, the data, and the business, but they don’t have the resources to figure it out in-house. The people have the enthusiasm, the knowledge, and the time, but they didn’t have sufficient forum or connectedness to the problem. The competition activates value on both sides.)

-- GregOrr - 02 Mar 2009

Hi, Greg. I think this is a fascinating idea, and a particularly powerful form of bottom-up construction that would incorporate and enable voices traditionally left out of conversations about social change. I think, though, that it would be important to also consider the wiki format's limitations. While almost everyone has access to a computer these days and knows how to perform basic functions on the Internet, there are still people in communities who would not be able to take advantage of this technology. Whether it's because some people can't read or do not have the time after work to read or contribute to online conversations, the wiki approach may not be as truly bottom-up as many of us would like. At "worst" but certainly still valuable, it would be a middle-up approach (if that makes any sense).

-- JosephLu - 02 Mar 2009