This weekend on Need To Know Anya Kamenetz and 8 other thinkers discussed their big ideas for how to fix America in a segment aptly called "How To Fix America"
Some of the topics that were interesting to me included
- Opening the conversation around race such that talking about race is not considered racist.
- Changing the public welfare system to guarantee more public service jobs while throttling back handouts.
- Opening data and the wealth of government information to allow for a more informed and distributed self governed society.
Anya, discussed SeeClickFix as the focal point of her segment as a great example of increasing participation by opening data and increasing access points. She sites SCF because, "Most importantly your neighbors can see what your concerns are, which aggregates your voice in a very powerful way and it connects directly to government so it does not go unnoticed."
Its exciting to see authors like Anya bringing the transformation of local community's and their governments to the near front of popular culture on national networks like PBS. The only way we can help every community help itself is if they "Know."
Check out the segment on Need To Know and Anya's article on the open government movement in Fast Company this month.