LittleSis has gotten two mentions in the UK press recently. First, a BBC News article mentions the possibility that a LittleSis for the UK might get funded by mySociety, a nonprofit that promotes civic tools. They’ve put out a call for proposals about sites to develop in the UK and LittleSis is in the running. The idea for a UK LittleSis will be pitted against other sites and users will vote to see which they think should be developed.
mySociety founder Tom Steinberg says:
“The next step will be on a different scale from what we have built before,” said Mr Steinberg, “something that might have an order of magnitude more impact or more users.”
There is currently no site like LittleSis in the UK. There are certainly plenty of powerful people to connect, so we’re excited about this possible partnership. More to come on how you can help us by voting.
We were also covered in an Irish Times article about the power of crowdsourcing to build content. Clay Johnson from Sunlight Foundation mentions us as part of a larger conversation about TransparencyCorps, a site that mobilizes citizen watchdogs to participate in government transparency projects.
Finally, our health care research is not going unnoticed. The National Journal’s Under the Influence recognized our partnership with the Huffington Post Investigative Unit in a recent post. We’ve now identified over 160 congressional staffers turned health care lobbyists. Kevin is quoted:
“I think this is a great opportunity for people following health care reform to develop a deeper understanding of how the legislation is being shaped and the role that big health care interests are playing,” said LittleSis co-found Kevin Connor.
NPR’s Marketplace blog recognized our health care lobbyist work, too.
How We Know Us developer Erich Morisse used our test API to create a fascinating graph of health care lobbyists that we featured in this blog post. Erich’s map was further linked on Mother Jones’ MOJO blog.
Our goal is to make that list reach 500, but we need your help to do it. Go to the project’s page to learn more.