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Jump back to the town commons for a minute. Imagine a vibrant social jumble filling the square, drawing everyone in with its buzz, diversity and wonder. There is the bazaar with small producers and craftspeople hawking their wares. In the buildings surrounding the square, there are the shops, restaurants and offices. Beside the marketplace, there is a small park filled with kids from the local soccer league kicking the ball around. There are also people debating and pamphleteering around the public lectern. And underlying it all is the town square itself — owned in common and maintained by the town government.
The town commons weaves together commerce, civic participation and community building. As in the rest of society, we need all of these pieces to make the Internet whole. In some regards, we already have them. We have the bazaar and the businesses lining the square. We’ve certainly no lack of recreational activities. And you may even find someone up on the lectern if the issue is something like cyberfreedom or privacy. But that’s it. The more general public and civic parts of the Internet town square are missing.
Luckily, this is starting to change. Smart governments and non-profits are starting to see that commonspace was made for them. If your job is to serve the public, why not sieze a technology that lends itself to the common good? And if your role is to encourage democracy and accountability, who better to join forces with than the collective mind of commonspace? Clearly, the Internet lends itself to civic pursuits.
The Tortoise and the Hare
Government pursuit of the public commons online is much like efforts of the hare in the old fable: going fast, but getting nowhere.
The civic world was there at the start of the Internet race. Non-profits were on the scene quickly thereafter, starting up global computer networks like the Association for Progressive Communications by the mid-1980s and using online communities to organize for events like the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. But despite this early start, both the government and non-profit worlds have dragged along like the tortoise.
Part of the problem is that traditional non-profit organizations and governments are by-and-large conservative animals. They tend to be averse to risk and are rigid adherents to their own notions. Plans are made in advance and then processed to the point of blandness. And we all know what happens to control freaks in commonspace.
Governments are especially susceptible to this disease. There has been plenty of rhetoric about open government and improved customer service in government. But this is more often than not just wishful talk (or cynicism, take your pick). There are few jurisdictions where you can even register for your driver’s license online, to say nothing of connecting with your elected officials. In a 1999 G8 publication on democracy and online services, the Government of Canada’s main webmaster reflects on how most bureaucrats respond to the Int