EnCiv’s effort to make Undebates available to voters as “Candidate Conversations” on ballotpedia.org yielded a critical result: it showed that the tool can work at scale. More than 100,000 visitors saw the tool; thousands actually turned it on – and the tool held up, in the process passing a critical technical test.
While the November 2020 election isn’t technically “over,” the voters have spoken. The electoral wheels will continue to grind; legal challenges may throw some sand in the gears. But whatever transpires between now and January, the election is now in EnCiv’s rear-view mirror.
So what’s next for us? Already, we have numerous exciting possibilities already.
Product development. We aim in the coming months to add two new features to both Undeabates and our new Untownhall tool, which will enable representatives (and other government officials) to interact with citizens between elections: crowd-sourcing questions and question ranking. Together these will ensure that respondents – whether candidates or officials – are reacting to citizens’ , not media or government gatekeepers’ highest level priorities. Very significantly, they will also allow EnCiv to rapidly scale the use of these tools by offering “Do It Yourself” versions of them. Which brings us to the second answer to the question of what lies immediately ahead for EnCiv.
Market development. To build out from our past successes this spring with UCLA’s student government and this election cycle with Ballotpedia, we have begun to explore additional market opportunities, which we know to be vast. Among the sectors we are exploring as test cases:
- Government at all levels
- Trade associations
- Civic groups, a sector both vast and varied, ranging from neighborhood and housing associations to co-operatives, arts groups, and human welfare organizations
We will be adding to and elaborating this list with a view to identifying potential test cases over the next several weeks. If you have any ideas of your own, we’d love to hear about them!
