"Five ways to use the web to hack democracy"

* WriteToThem

How many of you know your postcode?

I'm from mySociety, a charity which is using the web to make democracy easier, more usable.

It's good for a website to have a simple, direct action, which anyone can do.

This postcode box is the front page of our website WriteToThem, which makes it easy to write to your MP, or other elected reprepresentatives.

You can embed it into your own site, to encourage your users to lobby Government.



* TheyWorkForYou

On the subject of usability, sometimes you can be too good.

Over on one of our other websites, TheyWorkForYou, you can find out all about your MP, including how they voted in Parliament.

For example, the local MP where the ICA is...

But some MPs have found it a bit *too* easy for their constituents to find out how they voted.

Several MPs have try to complain that we've got it wrong, but we haven't, they were just hoping nobody would notice what they had done.



* FixMyStreet - photo of molten cheese

FixMyStreet is a website for publically reporting graffiti, fly tipping and broken paving stones to local councils.

“About a dozen boxes full of mozzarella cheese have been dumped opposite 3
rufford street.

if it warms up we could have nasty road topping problem (seriously there is a
lot of cheese)” - 



* PledgeBank - pyramid

A human pyramid of youngsters reaches out to grab a clay pot containing butter
    during celebrations to mark the Lord Krishna birth anniversary in Mumbai.

PledgeBank helps you do things you can't do alone.

I'll clean the local park BUT ONLY if 10 other people will help too.

PledgeBank started a library in India, a digital rights campaigning organisation in the UK, and got a piano tuned
in a London hospital.

What will you do with PledgeBank?



* Volunteering - Oxfam shop photo 

I started out as a volunteer, making an MP voting record website called Public Whip.
We have a volunteer translation manager, a volunteer google adwords wording tweaker.
Our most recent site (still secret, but mail for a sneak preview) was built entirely by a volunteer.

How do we build a larger culture of hacking the web to improve democracy?


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Ideas

"Five tools to hack democracy"

    FixMyStreet, PledgeBank, WriteToThem

    "Get a piano moved" 
    "Start a library in india"

    "Less is More"
    "URLs matter"
    "Shared Services Do Save Time"
    "Postcode boxes"
    "Ulterior motives"
    
    'More useful than your council'
    'Will fix government, for cash'
    'It's your street/council/representative, fix it'

    I do like "will fix government for cash", but if we go for one slide per
    site, then your final sentence for each slide can be:
    FMS: "It's your street: fix it!"
    WTT: "It's your council: fix it!"
    TWFY: "It's your government: fix it!"
    PB: "It's your community: fix it!"