Rising academic super-star Beth Simone Noveck has a blog. The Cairns Blog is tied to the very interesting-sounding Cairns Project:
The Cairns Project builds civic software to promote problem solving and decisionmaking through the application of participatory, and collaborative solutions. Decisions made by and with the input of those groups affected by the decisions represent a more legitimate way of governing, working and living. This is democracy, not as a form of politics, but as a way of life.
The first goal of the Cairns Project is to build open-source, web-based knowledge management software to promote participatory practices. The Cairns software allows those who work in groups to upload, index and map information about their own projects and to search easily for information about those of others.
It also helps match those “doing democracy” to those studying and documenting participative practices across multiple domains.
The Cairns Project offers a high impact visual interface for users to describe their own work rather than relying on third-parties to do so. The success of the Project therefore depends on as many people contributing to it as possible.
The Cairns Project provides a mechanism for “translating” collaborative and participative practices so that people in civic, governmental, business and other worlds can learn from each other’s experiences.
The Cairns Project is not simply designed to study groups but to promote participatory work. It is both a tool for idea exchange and a place for engagement among members of this community of interest worldwide.
