If they can do it…
The New Zealand Police department recently created a wiki that their constituents could edit and help form an upcoming bill.
"The Police Act Review has maintained an open process throughout, and wiki technology offers a novel way for people to have a say in the law-drafting process as well. This may well be one of the first pieces of legislation ever developed in New Zealand with the aid of such an online tool … "
What a phenomenal idea! All of the presidential candidates are using social media now, but this brings a entirely new opportunity for democracy. Writing a new bill is overly complex, time consuming, and expensive. Sounds suspiciously like developing a new product at a credit union!
It seems to me that, as a cooperative, CU’s would be the perfect place to perfect Web 2.0 collaborative tools with our membership. We’ve heard talk of Amazon style reviews on CU product pages. Some are dipping their toes in blogging. Other’s don’t even have web pages. But what would happen if you opened up a wiki or a Dell IdeaStorm-esce extension on your site? Would your members respond? Would only the vocal majority show up? Horror of all horrors, would they just demand better rates and lower fees?
I love the Dell IdeaStorm! We have an idea submission system at our Credit Union but it’s not as “visible” or functional as the one at Dell. It really speaks well to the concept of transparency. I’m hoping to build something that incorporates some of the IdeaStorm functionality after we rebuild our intranet using SharePoint sometime next year.
[...] it so far. Surprise, surprise, everyone wants Linux pre-installed. I mentioned it in a post on my personal blog last year referencing IdeaStorm and New Zealand using a wiki to let their [...]