We've reached the alpha stage of the design interface of Call to Action, a platform that will allow community groups to design and host phone-based services. I wrote last year about why enabling community groups and individuals to design these services is important, and about the New Day New Standard project that inspired us to build Call to Action.

Right now Call to Action is a front-end design tool that allows you to visualize a voice tree via a drag and drop interface. I'd love you all to play around with it and tell us how we can improve it.

Media Lab Conversations: Susan Crawford
March 28, 2013 #MLTalks

Susan Crawford was at the Media Lab today to talk about her new book Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the New Gilded Age. She is a highly-respected lawyer and professor and has taught at Cardozo Law School, University of Michigan, Yale, and now Harvard Law School. She was on Obama's transition team reviewing the FCC, and a special advisor to Obama Administration on Innovation and Tech policy. She is also a former board member of ICANN and founder of OneWebDay.

The live webcast of Susan's talk with Ethan Zuckerman andy Andy Lippman will be published here soon. The following is a liveblog of the Q&A session by Molly and Erhardt. 

Q&A

Photo: Brian McGrory, editor of The Boston Globe, and Ethan Zuckerman at the Center for Civic Media, 03/21/13

This is a liveblog by Catherine, Erhardt and Rodrigo and may contain errors and typos. Feel to correct typos, add useful links and references. You can watch a live-prezi of the talk by Willow Brugh at the bottom of the article.

Ethan Zuckerman starts his introduction of Brian by describing the Center's partnership with the Globe, and explains that the Globe is undergoing a transition in editorial, ownership and strategy.

This week I spoke on a panel at SXSW Interactive on civic crowdfunding, titled "Can crowdfunding save local government budgets (SXSW 2013)?" Here's a liveblog of the talk, by Helena Puig Larrauri and Leah Jones.

Panelists: Eric Engelman - advisor for Mayor of San Diego
Story Bellows - co-director of Mayor’s office of new urban mechanics in Philadelphia
Rodrigo Davies - researcher at MIT and advisor for Spacehive
Jordan Raynor - Co-founder of @citizinvestor

"Our job is to get government used to the idea of failing."

Nigel Jacobs' New Urban Mechanics team at Boston's City Hall has piloted several successful projects since its launch in 2010, from video game-inspired citizen engagement platforms to mobile apps to report potholes. But according to Jacob, one of the most important contributions the team is making to civic innovation is not building great apps and services, but in giving government officials the space to get things wrong.