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Mapping Weak Signals

Inspired by: FP7 » Open for Questions – Crowdsourcing at the White House

version: 1 / created: 2010-08-09
id: #957 / version id: #957
mode: VIEW

Originally submitted by: Vanessa Watkins
List of all contributors by versions (mouse over)
Last changed by: Vanessa Watkins
WI-WE status:
submitted unpublished

Source of inspiration

European Commission Framework Programme for RTD (FP7)

Theme/activity of inspiration

Theme 8 - Socio-economic Sciences and the Humanities

Sub-theme/area of inspiration

Blue Sky Research on emerging issues and other research economies

Optional reference/s to FP7 project/s

Use the following format: Project Acronym (Project Reference No.). Use commas if more than one project is associated to this Wild Card, for example: ALFA-BIRD (213266), SAFAR (213374), LAPCAT-II (211485)
Source: INFU (225229) - http://www.innovation-futures.org/ http://www.crowdsourcing.com/

Signal's headline

(max. 9 words)
Open for Questions – Crowdsourcing at the White House

Signal's description

(approx. 150 words)
Please describe the Weak Signal (approx. 150 words)
President Obama was looking for new ways to open up the White House to the American people, in order to get different perspectives from all over the country and enable people to participate. For this purpose, the White House implemented an interactive crowdsourcing platform called Open for questions. Every American was able to submit questions about the economy and what the government was doing to get the economy back on track. Other participants were able to vote on the questions and at the end of the project questions concerning the same issue were compiled and answered by president Obama.

Keywords

crowdsourcing, participation, open information society, governance, innovation

Signal's first apperance

2005-now

Signal's potential evolution

It could lead to...
issue type of issue/development potential impact on society timeframe for the issue to become at least 50% probable
#1 Change in current social innovation patterns new/emerging
 		beneficial
 		now-2015

Importance

please specify
please select
Level 2: important for a particular world region All regions with internet access

Key driving forces of this signal

Please use these boxes to provide up to 2 drivers of HIGH importance. Click on HELP to see examples:
Driver 1 Driver 2
Social A growing share of people is characterised by a disenchanted attitude towards politics and a loss of confidence into the political system. A more open and transparent form of politics, such as these forms of interactive dialogues between actors of the political system and themselves might recapture the unenthusiastic citizens and fascinate them for political issues. In addition, more and more people are accustomed to interact via social applications and to jointly discuss on several topics of interest in blogs, wikis or online communities. All together these so called “digital natives” might increasingly demand for interactive solutions implemented by the governments, which enable them to participate in and influence several political decisions.
Technological/Scientific Through the internet, in particular the development of social applications and interactive elements of the Web 2.0, a fundamental change of communication and interaction patterns has taken place recently. These changes also affect the information policy of governments and politicians, as it took place in Obama´s election campaign, which was strongly based on virtual media support
Economic The application of crowdsourcing platforms is already considered to be an efficient means to co-develop product innovations with customers in the private sector. Governments are increasingly adopting this method for the political sector in order to gain insight into citizens´ problems and needs and engage them in political decision making.
Political As already mentioned above the closeness to citizens is a key factor to gain confidence in the political system and increase public support. The Open for Questions campaign (listening to the citizens´ opinions) might have served as a valuable example on how to foster citizens´ confidence and might lead to a further and permanent implementation of such online tools in the political area.

Major risks & opportunities associated to the signal

Please choose the most appropriate timeframe option(s) to which you would like to provide inputs.
Risks Opportunities
before 2015 The main problem might be citizens´ laziness to participate in these kinds of interactive campaigns. Although such activities are increasingly demanded, people often tend to refuse to participate even though the matters affect their lives. Thus, as occurred in the Open for Questions campaign, only a small share of people with the same radical opinion on one topic (in this case concerning the forces of drug reform) uses the platform as a lobbying instrument, leading to a sample, which does not represent the prevailing opinion in the public.

Potential stakeholders' actions

short-term actions
(now-2015) 		longer-term
(after 2015)
Policy actors (at the international, European and national levels) As remarked by Jeff Howe in his blog Crowdsourcing.com, the conception of the campaign involved some failures. The main one relates to the general conception of Idea Management as a process, which involves listening to the crowd as well as participation. In Obama´s the campaign was only used as a listening device, a virtual engagement of the government did not take place. Another failure was the lack of implementing a comment function, enabling participants to comment on questions posted by others.

Signal's relevance for European Grand Challenges

where? please justify:
particularly relevant Europe world
Governance and trust in democracy

Signal's relevance for thematic research areas

please justify:
particularly relevant
ICT - Information & communication technologies

Research-friendly strategies potentially improving understanding of the signal

For further information about 'research-friendly strategies' click here
please justify:
particularly relevant
Strengthening the actors in the research-friendly ecology
(i.e. Research funding organisations, universities, businesses, Research and Technology Organisations, Researchers and Citizens)

Signal's relevance for future R&D and STI policies

Note: RTD = research and technology development; STI = science, technology and innovation
This Weak Signal might indicate a change in current (social) innovation patterns, concerning how political decisions are being made by governments and how the public is being informed about these. With more interactive features, open platforms might strengthen democracy and simultaneously lead to an effective development of social innovations. The advantage is that individual and community problems are expressed to the government directly by the affected citizens. Additionally these citizens can be engaged to participate in the process of developing solutions to solve these problems.