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September 24, 2014      5:14 PM

Visco and Enriquez: Online engagement changing the landscape of Texas politics

Redefining the ways in which we communicate about public policy development, Glasshouse Policy introduces ‘Texan-sourced’ public policy think tank

The grassroots forces that unseated Republican incumbents during this year’s primary elections didn’t start at kitchen tables - they started online.

Communicating online is inexpensive, there are few barriers to entry, and the tools that help us identify and speak to our preferred audiences are startlingly precise.  Texans get it, and they are using online engagement tools to dramatically impact Texas politics.  

We already know the immense value of online engagement for electoral politics, but are there opportunities to harness the intellectual capital of Texans communicating online for the public policy making process?

We know there are.

Glasshouse Policy is Texas’ first, fully collaborative and crowd-sourced think tank. Our not-for-profit online platform invites Texans to post policy-related ideas and comments. Those ideas and comments will then be ranked by other Texans through an “up-vote” system.

For example, Glasshouse Policy is currently hosting a discussion on fire prevention and fire control at glasshousepolicy.org.  If a fire expert from Texas A&M is stationed at a remote facility in Big Bend, it might not be convenient for her to travel 10 hours to attend a committee hearing to share her expertise.  At Glasshouse Policy, that fire expert can go online, share her ideas, and help us rank other Texans’ fire-related policy ideas.  

Francisco Enriquez and Thomas Visco are the co-founders of Glasshouse Policy. Their complete column can be found in today’s R&D Department.

By Thomas Visco and Francisco Enriquez