21st Century Town Meeting

AmericaSpeaks' 21st Century Town Meeting method creates engaging, meaningful opportunities for citizens to participate in public decision making. This unique process updates the traditional New England town meeting to address the needs of today's citizens, decision makers and democracy.

Resource Link: http://www.americaspeaks.org

Ascentum

Ascentum is a Canada-based professional services firm that combines a unique technology expertise with specialized management consulting services. Dialogue Circles is Ascentum's intermodal approach to consultation that aims to maximize the synergies between the traditional and online worlds of consultation and dialogue. Dialogue Circles provides clients with the flexibility to hold online or traditional consultation and dialogue. According to Ascentum, many of the most successful consultation and dialogue endeavors now involve a mix of online tools and traditional face-to-face approaches that complement one another.

Resource Link: http://www.ascentum.ca

ByDesign-eLab

byDesign-eLab was founded in 1997 in association with the McLuhan Program at the University of Toronto as an informal think tank and testing ground engaged in research, education and product development focused on new media and policy. The eLab is now a private organization dedicated to realizing significant public interest projects. As such, eLab researches and engages in "humane participant design" of accessible public spaces online to ensure that the economic and social benefits of digital media can be shared through mutual exchange of vital information and resources among networked communities of geography, interest and practice.

Resource Link: http://www.bydesign-elab.net

Capitol Advantage

Capitol Advantage is the nation's pioneer and premier provider of online and off-line grassroots solutions for corporations, nonprofit groups, associations, educational institutions and other organizations. Capitol Advantage affiliated companies, under the leadership of Robert Hansan, have a 20-year track record of helping citizens make their voices heard - from the school house to the White House, from Main Street to Wall Street.

Resource Link: http://www.capitoladvantage.com

Caucus Systems Inc.

Caucus Systems is a leading provider of online collaborative environments for global 1000 companies. Caucus Systems creates online collaborative environments that integrate data sources with structured conversations for action, allowing people to work together online as they do face-to-face - by discussing shared information to reach actionable decisions. Group Jazz is part of the Caucus Consortium, supporting the work of groups that meet face-to-face, online, or both.

Resource Link: http://www.caucus.com

Citizenspace

This site provides citizens an opportunity to learn more about how British democracy works, as well as take part in online consultations on a range of policy matters. Developed under the UKOnline initiative of the British government.

Resource Link: http://www.citizenspace.co.uk/index_html

CitizenSpeak

CitizenSpeak is a free email advocacy service for grassroots organizations. Inspired by MoveOn email campaigns, CitizenSpeak provides the same e-advocacy capability at the community level in English and Spanish. CitizenSpeak campaigns are easy to set-up and only require a web-browser and basic web-surfing skills to use. CitizenSpeak launched in 2007 in conjunction with Mobile Active, RingTones08.com - a free site that lets people create and share ringtones about the 2008 election.

Resource Link: http://www.citizenspeak.org

City Scan

City Scan works with residents in urban areas to identify, prioritize and resolve neighborhood problems. City Scan has been working with neighborhood groups in four Connecticut cities to identify problems that city government can fix -- abandoned cars, vacant buildings, potholes, graffiti, and litter. We train youth or adult volunteers to use handheld computers, digital cameras, and GIS mapping software to inventory these street-level conditions.

Resource Link: http://www.city-scan.com

Comment Connection

Comment Connection is a subscription service customized for public participation professionals and the challenges they face in collecting, analyzing and reporting public comment. Comments can be tracked from multiple projects and multiple project phases.

Congress.org

Congress.org, a free public service of Capitol Advantage (a non-partisan company that specializes in facilitating civic participation), is a 'one-stop-shop' where people can identify their Congressional representatives; research Congressional voting records; learn about the issues of the day; and send email directly to Congress. Constituents can even opt to have their email message hand-delivered to their Representative or Senator's office on Capitol Hill--all without ever leaving their computer. During election time, Congress.org provides constituents tools for learning about candidates and makes registering to vote a snap.

Resource Link: http://www.congress.org

Consultation Manager

Consultation Manager is a sophisticated yet user-friendly web-based stakeholder management system that assists professionals to stay on top of their consultation projects. Designed independent of any single consultation technique or process, it easily achieves rapid adoption even though organizations' consultation processes may change.

Resource Link: http://www.ConsultationManager.com

ConsultPlace.com

ConsultPlace is the result of an agreement between the Queensland (Australia) Government Department of Communities and Alfresco Design Pty Ltd. It is an online tool aimed at facilitating web-based consultations between organisations and their stakeholders. Organisation administrators list the issues they want to consult about online and stakeholders then post feedback from their own computers.

Resource Link: http://www.alfresco.com.au/products-consultplace-online-community-engagement-software.html

CoVision and Council

CoVision supports process consultants and executives with methods, tools and capacity to affect change through increased collaboration. Over 14 years and 3,000 meetings, CoVision has provided large groups (and small) with a simple and effective 'fast-feedback' capability.

Resource Link: http://www.covision.com

Darzin Software

Two things make Darzin stand out from other public participation software tools: (1) Quality of analysis ?– Darzin combines qualitative, quantitative and spatial analysis in a highly user-friendly interface and (2) Integration ?– Darzin intergates data from all sources, including surveys and meetings, so you build better understanding of your stakeholders and their interests. Darzin also seamlessly integrates with your exisitng software making work easier/less complex.

Resource Link: http://www.Darzin.com

Debatepedia

Debatepedia is the new free wiki encyclopedia of arguments and debates. As a "wiki," it enables anyone to easily present and organize the unique arguments made by third-party sources (ie. by scholars, experts, leaders,...) on both sides of a debate. By providing an innovative "logic tree" debate methodology, it enables you to organize debates in the most understandable way. Debatepedia is quickly becoming an indispensable resource for uncovering all the unique arguments in important public debates and for developing a complete and rational position.

Resource Link: http://debatepedia.com

DEMO-net

The overarching objective of DEMO-net is to strengthen scientific, technological and social research excellence in eParticipation by integrating the research capacities of individuals and organisations spread across Europe. The intention is to advance the way research is carried out in Europe with respect to quality, efficiency, innovation and impact to overcome the currently fragmented approach to eParticipation in this important European research area. With this overall objective, the network will provide a major contribution to the strategic goals set by the European Council.

Resource Link: http://www.demo-net.org

Democracy in Cyberspace Initiative

The Democracy in Cyberspace Initiative of the Information Society Project (ISP) at Yale Law School seeks to promote democracy by developing best practices technologies and models to strengthen democracy both online and off. In particular, they want to catalyze the development of technologies and processes that move beyond the thin 'patron-client' model of government where government is a procurer of goods and purveyor of services, to focus on participatory and deliberative forms of strong democratic life. They are interested in realizing technology's potential to improve civic life and help citizens take an active and informed role in their own governance.

Resource Link: http://islandia.law.yale.edu/isp/strongdem/overview.html

DEMOS [Delphi Mediation Online System]

DEMOS (Delphi Online Mediation System) is a complex application available on Wornex's WorldDirector platform that provides an environment that assists the management of discussions and decision making through the web, especially when involving a large population (e.g., a community using the web to debate about city issues) or small groups of experts.

Resource Link: http://www.wornex.com/content/view/16/83/

Dialogue by Design Ltd

Dialogue by Design is a UK-based specialist company established in 1999 to manage dialogue and consultation over the Internet. Their unique technology enables them to receive, process, analyze and report on hundreds or even thousands of detailed responses within days.

Resource Link: http://www.dialoguebydesign.com

Do Tank and the Democracy Design Workshop

The Do Tank strives to strengthen the ability of groups to solve problems, make decisions, resolve conflict and govern themselves by designing software and legal code to promote collaboration. Tools alone cannot create a culture of strong groups. Hence Do Tank projects address the role of legal and political institutions, social and business practices and the visual and graphical technologies -- what we term the "social code" -- that may allow groups, not only to foster community, but to take action.

Resource Link: http://dotank.nyls.edu/