Forwarding the Conversation

I want to start by thanking all of those who provided their feedback by either posting on the comments section or sent me an e-mail individually. This process has been both incredibly valuable and humbling. So – I would like to thank each of you again for supporting this journey.

I’ve taken the last few weeks off from posting and really thinking too much about anything in particular because I needed to clear my head. I felt like things were beginning to get all jumbled up and I really just needed some time away fom everything. Now, I am back and would like to use this first post of the New Year to synthesize what I’ve heard, answer a few questions, and then ask some more questions. If you need to be refreshed about the original idea click here.

Below are some of the most common question/ideas/themes:

1. Logistics:
   1. How will all of the information be compiled? Who will compile all of the information?
   2. Who will write the summaries of the legislation? How will they go about doing this in an objective way? Is it even possible to do this in an objective way?
   3. Will ALL legislation really be included? If so, how will people be aware of the context of the local legislation: meaning, how will people know how State Constitutions/Regulations impacted the local legislation?
2. Design:
   1. Who is the target audience? 
   2. Who are potential partners? What are the key relationships?
   3. Beyond the target audience – who can potentially benefit?
   4. How will the scaling process work?
   5. How is this site going to make money?
   6. How will the organization be structured?

So these are the big themes/associated questions that I’ve seen so far (if I am leaving off anything big please let me know). 

I do have some answers and even more questions – I will start with the answers.

Answers

I don’t believe I can break up the answers into bullets because everything is interrelated. I want to start by saying that I believe that the site should start with a small pilot project. This project would focus on a specific state and a specific issue within that state. Right now I am thinking the state will be California and the issue will be the Environment and the Green Economy. There is a lot going on in California now, especially with respect to Green Jobs – I’ve also seen that there may be some traction here. 

With regard to who will be compiling this information – I am looking to create a relationship with the organization housed in the California Assembly that is responsible for drafting legislation and ensuring that it works with all exisiting law. The hope is that they would provide a resource to get the database started. With regards to localities we would start with the 5 major population centers and would add their respective counties at a later date. At this moment there are sites out there that do provide access to all federal legislation, and the hope is to create a partnership that somehow works with one of these sites to make all federal legislation easily accessible. 

Right now I think that the target audiences for the pilot will be students, researchers, and anyone who needs access to policy. Ultimately, what I would like to do is use this information – in the scaling process – is add another state that is doing interesting things on the issue of the Environment and Green Economy and then begin to recruit state legislators to join the site. The purpose of their joining will be to trade best-practices, legislative ideas, etc. 

At this point this is as far as I’ve gotten. I again invite any questions, comments, concerns, etc. Below you will find some of the outstanding questions that I’ve not yet answered.

Questions

1. Beyond the target audience – who can potentially benefit?
2. How will the scaling process work?
3. How is this site going to make money?
4. How will the organization be structured?
5. How does the policy analysis part work? Does this become an open-source component of the site? 

Thanks so much for your support so far!