Skype meeting notes 4/27/18, Blaser, Milner, Serrano
Mission of The Lakeside Commons (working title)
Lake Chapala area Mexicans and Expats can fix U.S. Immigration law by updating the NewGov Foundation’s IP portfolio and GEOvoter API 2.0, to be developed by WizeLine.com, Guadalajara. When completed, the tools can be branded and offered as a powerful onboarding workflow, especially for new members.
The pre-meeting writeup, The Lakeside Commons, describes methods for Democrats Abroad to offer members instant prestige based on their disproportionately high influence over specific issues:
“Good news! Your voting address in Somerville, NJ gives you a LOT of power to help Stephen Colbert and John Oliver in their battle to save the Internet, so you’re kind of a big deal: Less than 1% of Americans have the power you have to save the Internet from big cable companies. Certify now as a Verified Voter, a free upgrade. Just click-to-Tweet so everybody knows how much you matter.”
NewGov Foundation <=> Democrats Abroad Relationship via the GEOvoter API.
- Democrats Abroad: Perfect “Alpha” client to describe its ideal app & infrastructure.
- WizeLine is a motivated, world-class outsourcing firm, 75 minutes from Lakeside.
- Democrats Abroad’s voter data can credential its members as Verified Constituents.
Materials discussed
Clay Shirky, TED, 2012: How the Internet will (one day) transform government
NewGov insight: Code developers and lawmakers do the same work: draft, negotiate, edit and manipulate blocks of arcane text which, when committed to a code base, have specific effects on the culture and economy. Developers use Git and lawmakers use 18th century methods based on 15th century technology.
VoterCircle.com + the GEOvoter API can process the jurisdictions of the friends of each Democrats Abroad member, based on her Gmail contacts (with permission).
The GEOvoter API
- Leverages GitHub legislator data at United States/Congress Legislators.
- Has methods & taxonomies for constituents to lobby Congressional Committees.
- Those granular methods focus on the 3-5 swing votes on every Committee.
Miguel Serrano’s initial assessment of the GEOvoter API
Escapable Logic 