How should a city close a $635m budget gap?
No, seriously. Tell us.
That was more or less the thinking behind www.ChicagoBudget.org- our online home for budget resources and an IdeaScale crowd sourcing tool where people can share and vote on their ideas for Chicago to balance the books.
The site generated 2,588 ideas, 7,118 comments 62,000+ votes from 3150 users. Plus, the Mayor hosted two live town hall meetings that were live tweeted. Not only did the Mayor’s Office offer 100′s of replies, Mayor Ema
nuel himself called some of the ChicagoBudget.org’s top contributors. If we’re going to ask for input, it’s incumbent upon invest in the conversation
On the day of the Mayor’s budget announcement, it was important for us to offer updates on the public’s terms. Die-hard City Hall Watchers tuned into the live-stream of the speech. The twitterverse followed our live tweets of the speech. We put the whole speech on YouTube for the uber engaged public that missed the live-stream. And (my favorite), we created an info-graphic to offer an at-a-glance perspective of what the City is facing and how we’re going to move forward. And, there’s still more to come…
