Summary from themes at the National Assembly 2010 on the Constitution
Posted on 02. Feb, 2011 by Management in Blog
Here you find a summary of the 8 themes from the National Assembly on the Constitution. This assembly was organized and facilitated by Agora for the Parlament of Iceland in November 2010.
The assembly process gave us the following 8 themes:
National Assembly Methodologies in Icelandic
Posted on 22. Nov, 2010 by Management in Blog
Agora was responsible for a 1.000 member National Assembly on a new Constitution for Iceland in November 2010 for the Icelandic Parliament.
Following the Assembly, Agora has published many of the documents that covers the methodology and the facilitation framework.
This documentation is available in Icelandic for anyone interested from the following page:
It’s all just an evolution: Assembly by Agora
Posted on 18. Oct, 2010 by Management in Blog
The following picture shows the summer 2010 r&d on the basics in the UI design of the Assembly product by Agora.
Assembly by Agora
Watch this blog for more evolutionary design or r&d.
Rebooting Iceland – SXSW panel on crowdsourcing
Posted on 24. Aug, 2010 by Gommit in Blog
We incorporated Agora inspired by recent events in Iceland. Your nation has recently been through an amazing whirlpool of economic turmoil, political shift and a major change in how we communicate.
I can imagine that your average global citizen thinks of us as 300.000 lunatics living on an active volcano in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. Which would not be too far from the truth actually. But the thing is, we have stories to share.
Iceland is a vibrant test bed for new technology and social innovation. Social media is shaping our daily lives and we’re about to crowdsource a new constitution.
Every year, alpha geeks on this planet gather in Austin for an amazing event called South by SouthWest. We feel compelled to go there , tell our story and gather feedback for the next sprint in our national development roadmap.
You can help us realize our dream by supporting our panel suggestion. You need to register first and we know it’s a lot to ask, but it would mean the world to us.
You get extra karma points for recommending this to a friend 
Allowing the outside world to tell you what you are doing wrong
Posted on 20. Jul, 2010 by Gommit in Blog
This is a quote from a recent refreshing Harvard Business Review interview where Howard Schultz explains the Starbucks turnaround. Using social media and crowdsourcing has been a key factor in how Starbucks is listening and engaging with their customers.
Their idea crowdsourcing site My Starbucks Idea was one of the first site of it’s kind adopted by a fortune 500 company as a real effort in listening to customers. It is also obvious that it has full support from management as it’s still going strong. Ideas are being worked on and information about implementation status actively fed back to the community.
I’d like to thank Howard personally as I use this site in all my presentations and demos where I need to explain the potential of crowdsourcing to management. Thank you for making my job easy
Here is the chapter from the interview that caught my eye:
How, exactly, do you reach out?
The dipper well was a lesson. We assembled a group of very smart people who understand the world I just described and live it every day. And we created not a tool kit but a new way of behaving, of being proactive and creating ways in which we could connect the dots through a landscape of multiple digital media and social media channels and could become a relevant, trusted source rather than a promoter of a product or ideas. With help, we set up a website to seek ideas from customers. There was great resistance inside to allowing the outside world to tell us what we are doing wrong. But the openness led to a different mentality. We weren’t myopic about who we were and how we were going to go to market. We became more open and vulnerable, listened to people, and as a result started creating a new methodology, a new language, and new tools and tactics that enabled us to become best of class. We’re the number one brand on Facebook.
What does that get you?
It means that 7 million people are very interested in what we are doing and what we have to say. It has changed our go-to-market strategy—how we communicate, unveil, and innovate, and ultimately how we arrive in the marketplace. The success of the things we have done this year is directly linked to the fact that the cost of customer acquisition and communicating to the outside world is significantly lower for us than it is for people who are spending money on traditional advertising or haven’t got this right. The feedback loop is making us better because of the insight we are gaining from that audience. We never were a traditional advertiser, and our marketing dollars were typically spent in the store, because our baristas and word of mouth built that brand. While that’s still the case today, social media now give us another way to connect to customers.
Crowdsourced vision for the Pharmaceutical Society of Iceland
Posted on 07. Jul, 2010 by Gommit in Blog
Last May we helped organize an assembly for the Pharmaceutical Society of Iceland.
This week we launched their assembly site where the ideas are being worked on by members but visible to the general public in the spirit of open innovation.
This was the first time we made a link from the meeting to the web where participants favorite ideas are linked to them on the site when they log in for the first time. Check it out.
Driving Sustainability, we do it
Posted on 28. Jun, 2010 by Gommit in Blog
Aside from crowdsourcing the question to life, the universe and everything, we have this side project of making Iceland better by any means possible.
When Pétur from DrivingSustainability.org told us about his vision and conference in September, we where all over it. The aim is to make our capital 100% sustainable when it comes to fueling our transport systems and we want to help make that a reality.
So we’re donating a few hours for setting up an instance where the agenda and ideas leading up to the conference will be crowdsourced.
Watch this space.
Crowdsourcing and it’s impact on Icelandic politics
Posted on 18. Jun, 2010 by Gommit in Blog
I’m giving a talk tomorrow for a group of foreign students at a course titled Creative campaigning an innovative activism.
It’s a bunch of screen grabs from the interwebs and some insight into how the grassroots and online communities are shaping the future of our country.
Checkit!
Crowdsourcing
View more presentations from gommit.
Agora and Attentus, a match made in heaven
Posted on 09. Jun, 2010 by Gommit in Blog
Today we signed our first partnership agreement.
Attentus is a leading human resources consultancy here in Iceland and we have been working together since our first deployment for Tal.
Our paths cross as Attentus provides services around HR, vision planning, value definition and training. Their plan is to use our technology and approach as an integral part of their corporate services. In our initial conversations it was clear that Attentus grasped the potential of social intranets and crowdsourcing solutions within companies for defining a vision and shape HR development.
We look forward to working with Árný, Inga and Ingunn on future projects.
A new office, we haz it
Posted on 04. Jun, 2010 by Gommit in Blog
After weeks of renovation, painting and cleaning, we moved into our new office space. Whoot whoot!
The house was built around 1900 for a Danish aristocrat and is oozing with character.
It’s going to take a few days to settle in properly. We have plenty of internet but no coffee. Speaking off, if you know someone at Kaffitár, Te og Kaffi or K. Karlsson, we’re looking for a monster espresso machine. Cause as you know, internet and coffee makes the geek go whrooom.
The plan is to use the open space as a hot desk facility for like minded geeks looking for a shelter for a day or two. If you are traveling to Iceland and need a desk for the day with fast wifi and strong coffee, Næpan will be the place to go.
This is us on Foursquare – just snagged the mayor badge from Guðjón
If you are in the area, drop by and bother us…