“Children and young people imagine Diagonal Avenue”

The web participatory i.de.a. Diagonal that we commenting announces an exhibition that opened the last 21th in Sala Ciutat on the participatory process that has been done in 23 schools in the city, for your students think about how they would like to outside the avenue remodelled, under the name “Infants i joves imaginem la Diagonal” (Children and young people imagine the Diagonal).

The exhibition, limited, almost minimalist in my view, but whose visit recommend (a quarter of an hour is sufficient), because some curiosity can be found, shown in some murals the main ideas that children and young people transmitted on the new avenue, to pass, then to an area where they can be observed in more detail the proposals, composed, if I remember evil, by 96 cards where participants have pasted figures representing the uses that they would like to be given to the track on a plane for a couple of streets of the Diagonal Avenue. A video without sound of less than five minutes tries to explain how developed the meetings in schools.

Of course, with a proper use of the possibilities of the Internet, it would not be necessary to them outside explaining all this: it would be reproduced in the official web site of the participatory process. Furthermore from the brief that i have linked, in another, i.de.a. Diagonal summarizes the meeting that the Major of Barcelona City Council had with some of the participants in a municipal hall: nothing more. Even in the news section of the municipal general web site there are more information on the web participatory: a vídeo presents the act of students with the Major and a dossier of press provides the main ideas common exposed by the students. These documents might also be accessible from i.de.a. Diagonal, as it could be the 96 cardboards resulting from the debates and the murals of exposure. A tool very didactics, but more difficult to show by issues of right to self-image, and more in the case of minors, would be expose videos with the discussions that took place in the classroom where it is really all we could hear the views of those who, as the Major says in his meeting with the authors, will be the future users of the new Diagonal Avenue you want to press ahead.

Holidays during the european elections

I read in newspapers that the participatory process has been halted until after the European elections of June 7 to avoid mixing apples and pears. It seems that participating in the decision on the reform of the Diagonal Avenue and, simultaneity, European campaign could be inopportune, at least according to the spanish electoral law.

Agree that we are pioneering a process (the Diagonal, not European) and recommended to go with common sense and do not care can be given away before, but the subconscious makes me cry: wrong!

Wrong, because the next stage of the Diagonal Avenue participatory process, once the information is generally the views of citizens. According to the electoral law in the campaign period, candidates can only talk?

Wrong, because it loses an opportunity to inform, with practice, that the possibility of speaking personally about an issue, has nothing to do with an election campaign.

Wrong, because precautions could include sharing the bulletins announced participation, which at this point, with the lack of detail regarding the reform of the Diagonal, could basically be blank to allow citizens to write, so little message policy should contain.

Wrong, because the coincidence of an election campaign with a dynamic process of participation could help the citizen to appreciate the differences between the platforms of choice and social help to define what is most comfortable.

Wrong, because if what I see so far is on the web " "i.de.a. Diagonal", a how many electoral messages are there?

And worse, because if people can speak freely on the dangers campaign messages must be "institutional" in the participatory process ... And this means that institutions can not control the content of their messages?

Well, while we wait to June 8.

Nile's Blog: Barcelona wins international e-Government 2.0

Nile's Blog: Barcelona wins international e-Government 2.0

Congratulations on this award. I think it reinforces, among other things, the consultation process for the reform of the Diagonal Avenue. It is worth thinking about it a little depth.

And what can we decide?

It is well known that the referendum questions offer a considerable range of possibilities to guide the voter in accordance with the results you want. But it is early to speak of question them to do and now we have no clue, beyond, perhaps, of a possible questionnaire very limited: choice a), choice b), as suggest the organizers of the consultation: and go when we have more data.

The problem arises precisely in the absence of non-option, as is clear from the comments of the press and the "i.de.a. Diagonal" I've linked to other entries. Diagonal Avenue is integrally remodeling, yes or yes, to that and Trambaix Trambesòs are, yes or yes, and do they have to move, yes or yes, on the outside and can not be run by underground. Or not, post a question ...

I attended the second of the briefings that have been developed on Saturdays from 10 to 14 hours in Barcelona. It should be scheduled briefings for four hours on Saturday mornings, I do not know to what extent it is a good start to encourage citizen participation, but once there, all the speakers worthwhile heard: and I regret not going recommended care who I asked. But no horse to do battle this issue, because the web "i.de.a. Diagonal" plans (and I hope to refresh concepts) hung sessions (I hope also that the questions from the floor), for now page states that it is collecting the material. And as the foundation of this blog is the use of ICT in processes of social choice, I was fine.

Well, what I was going. At that meeting, a lady, a neighbor of the Diagonal Avenue (now I doubt if the first to speak), stating his preference for that instead of nobody knows how much money you invest in a new Pharaonic work (if I remember correctly the term was not theirs but appeared in other forms of) the project could focus on an adaptation of the current Diagonal Avenue, as we know, the more passable, and devote the remainder going to other needs of the city. There were other opinions coincide among attendees.

But it seems that this is not in the projections of the planners of the consultation process and I think the possibility should be assessed; allow, ultimately, with the money that probably will cost the drafting of projects and improving the road with rest of what is expected to spend, meet other needs.

I would not say whether I am in favor of or against one or other option or if you prefer spending the cobblestones are inlaid artwork recognized. What I think is worth it, what made people think, extend the possibilities of Elections. Oh...! Think someone a consultation to decide what is done, another to decide how it's done ... Oh, that's the grace of ICT, as we shall see.

It goes without saying that I feel any better than its absence, and I applaud the initiative in general and ICT in particular, but let me put to you will explain my thoughts.

Who can vote ... owners or users?

Before talking more specifically of the "i.de.a. Diagonal" link in the summary what you will see, there are at least two issues unrelated to the use of new technologies and also be raised in a traditional ballot box referendum and ballot. The two spent this and the next entry.

We go now to think about who may vote. The approach adopted is that they can vote every 16 years older than Barcelona registered. I am talking about memory at this point in the first of the two cases that mention, but if I remember correctly, a political party, Convergència i Unió, representatives suggested a minimum period of registration to be placed in a year as an important voice of another political party, Partido Popular, has reflected on the immigrant vote. I will not go into any of these two issues. The left in case anyone is encouraged ...

There is a fresh take, for me most importantly, the owners can vote, but not users, while users, if they are not owners, are excluded.

Owners (a term I do not like and which gladly pick any best offer) I understand the census, more than anything else to distinguish them (hence I do not like the proposal) from another group: the users of the Diagonal Avenue. We agreed that I can be registered in Barcelona and the Diagonal tread once a month or a year or five years ... while non-registered using the Diagonal every day, because you have to go through it to go to work or, more significant still, working in her or his environment. And like someone has family living in the avenue and every Sunday moves to "rice" with her.

I see no clear choice as surely as I look from an economist. Given these consumers, users, who can not comment on how it will be (well, we'll see if this is really possible) who frequent the place. And for those who work so it would not be difficult to determine the electoral roll, the contract of employment or discharge of tax or the lease of the premises where the business is established could right "to register" for the occasion. After all, since March 16 that has begun the process "i.de.a. Diagonal" until April next year there is time to manage this census.

Would be more difficult for the family who will make the rice with the grandparents, but perfection does not exist.

I believe that the user can establish at least should be able to comment on what you use.

ICT

There are many definitions of information technology and communication that can be found mainly in terms of field of study we need to define them. For example, see how Jorge Enrique Granados Diaz offers four, in less than half a page. Personally, for broad and adequate to the purpose of these lines, I stay with Stephen Haag, Maeve Cummings and Donald J. MaCubbrey referenced in the article, because it is simple, understandable and includes all those elements that are ultimately used to incorporate our existence:

"The information technology component of any computer-based tool that people use to work with information, support information and processing the information needs of an organization. Under this definition they include ICT within personal computers, Internet, mobile phones, digital assistants and all those people like devices. "

Surely somewhere else we will find that "an organization" has been replaced by "people" that our purpose is what interests us. The tool par excellence of this whole Internet was not very peaceful purposes, but has become a channel for information and basic communication in the developed world and is widely used on a personal level. Those who practice what we are here, so it should not expand on the subject.

A brief history of the Internet offers us, among others, Janet Abbate in Inventing the Internet. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1999, while Andreu Baró Veà us with the prospect of one of the leading players in its development.

But for now Let the idea that when we talk about ICT here, we refer to the Internet, basically, but we will see, with mobile, PDA's and Digital Terrestrial Television, as mechanisms for the generation, transmission and reception of information.

Try to see if this serves to facilitate social choice mechanisms, focusing on which I believe is the largest of which have been implemented in this country, although still in its infancy: the broadcast media in the transformation process of Diagonal Avenue of Barcelona, but that just speaks from the perspective of ICT-based procedure. In principle, generators and receivers of information should be fed back their positions by providing information on a two-way.

Why blog?

I'm doing the final work of Official Master in the Knowlegde and Information Society on the possibilities of information technology and communication which I prefer to qualify "expression of individual preferences" rather than, laconically, "politics."

I am convinced that the means to break the traditional space-time barriers in human communication that we can put the Internet, mobile telephony and the emerging digital terrestrial television may be used in collective decision-making processes, as are in the world of work, economic and, in the broadest sense, cultural.

My work aims to show these possibilities, without forgetting, however, that its implementation required a determination is active, beyond words, those that regulate the processes of collective decision, the political representatives we have chosen in some way.

In this context, the Barcelona City Council has begun the process described on the website to which I referred in the show: "i.de.a. Diagonal”.

It is, in my opinion, the most ambitious undertaken by a Spanish government for the use of ICT in a decision process: ambitious in a double sense, the population involved (in principle all citizens registered in Barcelona) and their "effectiveness" as it is not any pilot or trial, but an actual process of choice.

But personally I have left (there are some in the light of comments in the press) that some issues beyond the specific object of the consultation is worth commenting on.

Today, more than two months since the launch of the official website of the participatory process is lacking a fluid input from citizens. It is true that only has completed the first phase of the process, the "i", and general information on the process itself and the reform of the Diagonal Avenue, and then created a period of receiving input from citizens but there are thoughts which, as I will (and hopefully, I would like to go) husking, could pre-process and that will be demonstrating along the same.

But first, some considerations are needed "technological" prior.

Presentation

I would like this blog is an area of thinking on the process of citizen participation called "i.de.a Diagonal" launched by the Barcelona City Council on the reform of the Diagonal Avenue in Barcelona due to the union of two lines of trolley named Trambaix (west of the city) and Trambesòs (east of the city). Diagonal Avenue is one of the most importants axes of Barcelona.

It is not so much a contrast of views on as it should (or not) be the Diagonal, although anyone who wants to respond to are welcome, but the participatory process itself, how we vote, how votes are , who voted ...

I start with some very general thoughts.