The Foresight Engine for Christchurch

After the long series of destructive earthquakes in Christchurch (to see how destructive, this great visualisation lets you pan across your computer screen - and as you pan, the image changes from before the earthquakes to after) searching for the best way to re-build.
Consultation is always a loaded idea - with whom does one consult? For how long? And differences of opinion are inevitable - how does one move forward when consultation has brought differences to the fore?
From the many discussions I have heard, it seems clear the Christchurch people are scared an impasse could arise and the destroyed inner city is immobilised in a consultation deadlock. At the same time, of course, people are certain they do not want to feel unheard or uninvoled in the decision making.
The solution is in social media and gaming. Many of the organizational delays in the consultation process melt away in the instantaneous, high speed and responsive platforms. There is also a transparency that is not built in to the more old-school consultation platforms. Of course, those who are not-so-digital are excluded from this process, but arguably those whose lives are fluid and mobile were somewhat excluded from the traditional civic body consultation process, too.
Share an Idea is a tweet inspired forum - submit a 140 character idea on what you want in Christchurch and the most frequently tweeted ideas rise to the top of the new council plan. The ideas could be submitted via email or on post-it notes as well, to include non-twitterers.
Gamification, using Jane McGonigal's Foresight Engine, (together with Magnetic South) has just been used to sort ideas. The best ideas get 'played' more frequently, rising to the top of the scoreboard. The advantage of this approach over Share an Idea is that unusual, creative plans can rise to the top even if they are so innovative that they would have been a numerically small contirbution to Share an Idea. Following this radio interview with Roger Dennis, unfortunately interest was so great the server in Silicon Valley that was hosting this crashed, so as I post this there is not much to see!
But the future of consultation is here, and it is good to see the positive ideas at Share an Idea.