Digital Civic Engagement: Are City Planning Officials Talking to Anyone New?

A PhillyTechWeek event.

Over the past year, the Philadelphia City Planning Commission has jumped headlong into amulti-media approach to civic engagement. City Planning launched a blog, stepped up their Facebook and Twitter games and through the Office of New Urban Mechanics developed a text message-based response tool with Code for America, and collaborated with Engagement Game Lab to launch a West Philly-centric, on-line game for Philadelpia2035.

As Planners make sense of the thousands of additional interactions, they're eager to report out their findings and ask some tough questions of the civic- and tech-minded communities:

• Is engagement moving beyond the self-selecting and the (always welcome) planning nerds?
• Are on-line games and Textizen bridging the digital divide?
• What more could City Planning and other City agencies to make more effective use of text msg polls, gamification and social media tools, and get greater response rates?

Staff from Philadelphia Department of Licenses and Inspections (L&I) will join City Planning in this discussion and touch on engagement issues with the tech community itself.  How does the City get high-value datasets used by the public and its own departments?

Speakers:

• Clint Randall, Phila City Planning Commission
• Mark Wheeler, Phila City Planning Commission
• Stacey Mosley, Phila Department of Licenses and Inspections

Partners:

• Code for America
• Engagement Game Lab
• Mayor's Office of New Urban Mechanics