![[pdp_20241202.png|500]] The desired output of the Open Civic Innovation Framework is an ongoing practice focused on addressing the real needs of communities through self-organizing and self-governing strategies. Additionally, by sharing our approaches to meeting those needs using a protocol pattern language, we are able to generate modular open source templates that can be shared, modified, and forked by communities around the world to meet their own challenges. A protocol pattern language is a methodology for interrelating the core dimensions of self-organizing processes. This approach encourages designers to shift their thinking towards participatory mechanisms and design outputs that allow other communities to easily swap out individual components of a design to better meet their own local needs. Another core innovation offered within the OpenCivics Innovation Framework is a meta-protocol for composing civic systems. By aligning and interlinking the diverse contributions crafted by civic innovators worldwide, open-protocol-based methodologies establish a continuous feedback loop of learning and empowerment. These decentralized, self-organizing processes enable communities to contribute actively to open protocol libraries, bolstering the capacity of practitioners and broadening access to knowledge. While the foundational design principles of the OpenCivics Innovation Framework are tailored for civic innovators developing protocols, curricula and accessible technological tools are designed to engage the broader public, empowering individuals to take part in civic stewardship and support their communities. ## How to Practice The practice of open civic innovation is powerfully simple and straight forward. All processes begin by the sensing of a real need which leads to alignment with others to cohere around shared maps and definitions of the challenge and opportunity landscape. As we align, a pluralistic set of possible paths are identified as we look to the work of other community groups and come to better understand our own context. We can then coordinate around these possible paths, forming non-rivalrous relationships with others approaching related challenges by sharing knowledge and information. This leads to direct collaboration on specific instances of self-organizing initiatives to iterate and prototype solutions. Resources can now pour into these initiatives to grow and mature what is working while continuously refining through feedback. At the end of this cycle, we share our process and outputs with the commons to support our global community as they address their own challenges. ## Participatory Activities ![[Participatory Activities]]