Could we 'kickstart' local government?
I'm fascinated by the crowd-funding platform - kickstarter.com. It lets people pitch new products/services then ask the public to provide a micro-investment. The projects on kickstarter range from theatrical productions to new mobile devices, with a common tendency for would-be device manufacturers to ask interested members of the public to pre-order their products.
The great thing about kickstarter is that it has created a very efficient market for innovation, you come up with an idea, you present it and if people like it they will invest. It's an efficient allocation of resources, allowing entrepreneurs to minimise investment in potential duds and investors to spread the cost of getting a new product off the ground amongst the 'crowd'.
But could we replicate this principle for local government? Imagine your local council posting its own ideas and those of local citizens on an open forum where the community could vote up more desirable projects or even offer to fund especially interesting and desirable projects out of their own pockets. With the transparency and choice offered by a crowd funding platform we may see people more willing to contribute to local projects. Local authorities could potentially offer citizens a rebate of council taxes to invest in 'crowd-selected' projects. After all why wouldn't citizens be able to make a collective, informed decision about what they'd like to invest in locally? Kickstarter and other online platforms have show the power the crowd when it has the right technology to harness those efforts. As a citizen I sincerely hope governments start paying more attention to these technologies and make some serious efforts to incorporate them into governance.
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