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The New Haven Project: 100 Common Visions in 100 Days

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Submitted by Andre Yap on 2010, July 21 - 9:19am

Web 2.0 jargon calls it crowdsourcing; economists have always referred to it as laissez-faire; lately in CT we've been calling it Our Social Web. In New Haven yesterday, in the hyperlocal arena that intersects city hall, civic involvement, business interest, nonprofit advocacy, and social media and technologies - Our Social Web struck again.

When we convened our taskforce Tuesday, July 21 at 930 am, we had 3 goals:
  • Identify a common vision initiative for the task force to work on;
  • Identify stakeholders that should be involved in the task force;
  • Establish a timeline and outcomes for the taskforce.

When we walked out of Meeting Room 2 at City Hall, it was 11 am sharp, as scheduled. No surprises, we got it done:

Our common vision campaign is to create an open platform that's equal parts technology and community that allows (a) common vision projects to be initiated; (b) related stakeholders to raise their hands and connect with each other at the level of each initiative; and (c) to find 100 such initiatives in the next 100 days.

How to get it done? That's what meeting #2 is about. #1 was brainstorming and consensus. #2 is implementation: What needs to be done? Who's doing what? By when? Join us again next week - Tuesday, July 27, 930 am at New Haven City Hall.

How are we so confident we're going down the right path? Because we've been here before. Efficient markets will be hard-pressed to do any better. Our social web has gotten things done in days that takes months, years: GoogleHaven in 14 days; Social Web Week CT in 40 days; a tipping point and landmark taskforce that's equal parts grassroots and Mayor's office, all in 100 days. And now we have the next 100 to look forward to.

P.S. In the process we are reinventing the task force. We're saying it's not for us to say what the various task force projects and who the stakeholders should be. Instead, betting on our highly evolved technologies and communities, we're creating the open platform by which the right projects and stakeholders can come up and stay up, come together and stay together.

Just like GoogleHaven, just like swCT. Mark it: the untaksforce was born and bred in New Haven, CT. (Read Aldon Hynes for more on Untaskforce)