A couple friends of mine started this movement and I’m very intrigued. These people hold weight and follow through well, so I can see some positive things coming our way from One Spark.

One Spark is a faction of innovators focused on encouraging idea generation and disruptive thinking in Jacksonville, FL. Learn more about One Spark at beonespark.com.

If you want to learn, One Spark will hosting a very informal Q&A on Wednesday, June 1st from 6:30pm – 7:30pm in the atrium at 5 West Forsyth Street. Stay tuned to the movement on Twitter and Facebook.

Be One Spark Teaser

Last night the Sulzbacher released a sweet little web app that allows people to sign a digital petition and leave a 140 character message for all to read. Developed by Hampton Catlin, the petition app is an easy way to show your support for the Sulzbacher.

Sign the petition at http://action.sulzbachercenter.org

The second step the petition shows how many people have signed it (I was #54) and allows you to send a pre-written message to all city council members or your friends. See below:

As a supporter of the Sulzbacher Center, I see first hand how the critical services that they provide change the lives of homeless men, women and children. The city funding cuts that are being proposed will result in a significant reduction in services that will impact our entire community. Feeding people who are hungry and housing families is simply too important to consider cutting. Please vote to keep the Sulzbacher Center’s funding intact, even if property taxes are not increased.

This is a great example of a non-profit using, what I assume is the Twitter API in an innovative way.

This past week, JCCI released its study of the city’s financial condition and the picture is bleak. Administration after administration funded grand developments via long-term financing. As a result, the city is in a position where future borrowings may jeopardize the city’s bond ratings. Additionally, the city faces shrinking revenues as property values have plummeted. Further complicating issues, the city’s three pension plans are now drastically underfunded.

Before suggesting steps that might be taken to remedy the city’s financial woes; however, JCCI suggested an effort to regain public trust. That trust has vanished in the wake of open government scandals, no-bid contracts and FBI raids.

Two of JCCI’s suggestions involve participation of the community at large, both in developing a community vision and in setting budget priorities. A frequent complaint heard in Jacksonville is voters feel no connection to their City Council Member, much less the Mayor or other constitutionally elected officials.

While some City Council members are faithful in holding town hall meetings, they seem to be the exception. In many cases, meetings are held at inconvenient locations and times that are hardly accommodating for working individuals or families with young children (or political bloggers -Ed).

No Jacksonville City Council members, indeed no local government agencies, have made serious attempts to harness the amazing powers of the web to engage their constituents. Barack Obama may have held an online town hall meeting, but the concept remains foreign to Jacksonville despite the free services of such programs as Cover It Live. In fact, Urban Jacksonville’s recent hosting of a live transit chat roundtable was really a “first of its kind” in connecting bloggers and citizens with a local official in a live online format. (The forum, incidentally, didn’t cost a dime.)

While Mayor Peyton has established a Facebook presence, he’s unique in soliciting public input via that medium. With the exception of Councilwoman Glorious Johnson, who occasionally engages in political discussion on Facebook, no other local officials are attempting to solicit public input in that manner. No locally elected officials maintain a blog that seeks public input.

Which brings us to the ultimate question—how do we change that? What would you like to see? If you could suggest a communication medium to your district council person, what would you suggest? Would you like online chats? A blog? A YouTube channel? Informal Sunday afternoon question and answer sessions at a public library where constituents can drop by to offer input?

Let’s hear it, Jacksonville.

Abel Harding writes about politics and the superiority of Florida Gator Football at JaxPoliticsOnline.com. Check out The Ghost of Shipyards Past, a 3-part series that will run on consecutive Sundays from JaxPoliticsOnline.com. You can follow Abel on Twitter @jaxpolitics

Cliqset is a two-man development team in San Marco that has made some big news in national tech news, yet remains practically undiscovered by local media.

Cliqset, founded by Darren Bounds and Charlie Cauthen, is taking a shot at combining all of your user data that’s sure to be smeared in a hundred places across the internet.

It’s like this – if you have a profile and lots of friends on NotFacebook.com, and NotFacebook is using Cliqset profile info, and then you create a username on ILoveBurritos.com, your user data can come with you, keeping any existing friends, updates and profile info with you. Cool. Super cool.

I have no doubt that Cliqset has the vision and talent to pull this off, but any one familiar with the web knows that Google and OpenID are racing towards the same thing. What will keep Cliqset ahead of the game? One thing I think will help – their open API. At this point, anyone can take the heart of Cliqset, modify it any way they want and plug it into the user data of their own site.

In fact, Cliqset just announced a $30k developers challenge, ripe with big money prizes (I’m talking $5,000 and $10,000 chunks). If you think you have what it takes to develop some nifty Cliqset API wizardry, head over to the contest page.

A few ways to keep with the guys at Cliqset: the official Twitter feed, Darren’s personal twitter (almost 10k followers, I’m jealous) and the official blog.