Politicopia started 7 years ago in a hayfield. Because I wanted to change the fact that people-related-to-me often outnumbered people-not-related-to-me at town meetings, I invited my constituents to join me in a hayfield for hot-air balloon rides and donuts. The outcome was that my kids got a lot of rides and ate themselves sick on all the donuts. Something really did have to change. The hot-air balloon pilot was my brother-in-law, Josh Stanley. Josh, now a doctoral student in new media at Columbia, set up a website for me. After that, he introduced me to blogs and helped get SteveU.com running. Recently, we developed some ideas for an open government site, and he suggested I talk with our mutual friend Phil Windley, BYU computer science professor and Utah's former CIO. Late last year, I shared our ideas with Phil. He just smiled, as I talked. Little did I know that I was standing on ground zero of Extreme Democracy. Phil said that his friend Britt Blaser was building a program, ORGware, that would do the things we had envisioned and more. I' m not sure what to say about Britt, founder of the Open Resource Group. But, back when fire technology was a new thing, if Britt's ancestors weren't the first to capture fire, I bet they were the ones who rounded up someone with chairs, someone with skewers, someone with meat, and someone with tasty beverages. As soon as on-line networking matches Britt's off-line skills, the world will be a different place. More on Britt and ORGware in a minute. Josh, Phil, Britt and I decided we might be onto something. To get things going, Ross Mayfield agreed to help us set up a Socialtext wiki. One morning, Britt called to give me the cell phone number for Doc Searls and to tell me that Doc was driving from Park City to Las Vegas. Doc Searls is a bit of a legend. He's the co-author and keeper of the flame for a book called The Cluetrain Manifesto that explains why it is so important to have the ability to connect with each other directly, instead of waiting for permission from the middlemen. I flagged Doc off the highway, and we had a conversation that left me spinning and terrifically excited about the possibilities of the Internet and politics. I started plugging into those possibilities, when Micah Sifry (Sunlight Foundation) joined the conversation. Or I probably should say, when I jumped into the conversation on open government that Micah and my new friends already had going on. One week into the experiment, Politicopia was working. Citizens were participating and being heard. Legislators were talking to me about things they've read on Politicopia. Because of input I received, I changed a position I've held for years. In just one week, citizens were using Politicopia to shape the debate. As a matter of fact, a reporter emailed me, to ask why Politicopia wasn't linking to her article. That has never happened in the two-plus years I've been blogging. Right now, Politicopia is a wiki. The site functions as a tool for collaboratively accumulating and presenting information. That could be useful, since information is one of the two elements of political power. The other element of political power is organization. When I think of the ORGware web platform that Britt and the Open Resource Group are developing, I get goosebumps. It will empower groups to organize like never before. But my goal is to take whatever Politicopia has become and fold it into the added capabilities that ORGware will provide. But, for now, I want to thank any and all who have given Politicopia a boost or simply a read. Democracy will be revolutionized in the next decade by the Internet. If the community pushes Politicopia in the right direction, it might have a place in that revolution and might help people grab the information and organization they need to take control of their government, like we've wanted to do since, well, probably since we captured fire. | 
