Civic participation, gamification and open government

 

On Saturday, my volunteering experience at “Community budget priority setting” event San Jose, CA was amazing. It was an eye opener. It just demonstrated that with interesting game a great civic participation can be ensured.

To promote open governance and residents budget preparation exercise, San Jose city is organizing a series of events. In this series, yesterday’s evet was first one. All residents of San Jose city, 12 years and older were invited to participate in game where they can allocate money ($64 M) to thirty items for “Neighborhood Services (Aesthetics, Beautification, Anti-Blight)” budget head.

The game was pretty straight forward. In Parkside Hall tables were arranged to accommodate eight hundred residents.  On each round table, there were ten seats. First two seats were for volunteers - facilitator & observer and remaining eight seats were for participants. Each table had $64 M which will be evenly distributed among residents. Each resident was provided list of items under consideration, its impact (benefits), and FY15-16 budgeted amount. In this list high ticket items were listed first. The allocated time for the game was approx. 90 minutes. During this duration, each resident has to fund items of her choice – fully or partially. She also needs to persuade other residents to fund items of her choice. Residents can choose to defund any item or increase the allocation assuming more money will bring more benefits.

Facilitator job was to maintain the money allocation across residents and items. Since residents supposed to change allocation as they discuss more about various items, so he was provided be recoding sheet, pencil, eraser and calculator.

Obliviously, observer ‘s job was to observe how discussion is progressing, which item is consuming more time, what type of discussion is taking place, etc. He was also provided an observation sheet to record his observations.

Apart from listed thirty items, residents can add two more items (per table) to the list and allocate the money. But total money on the table remain same - $64M.

The engagement level was fantastic.

The next phase will be online version of the same game. I am waiting to experience one more burst of constructive civic engagement and power of gamification in open government.