2024

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The review of activities in 2024 documents in detail the progress of each month's movements and projects. The following points stand out in particular

Key Results

Polis new UI development

Voting functions and real-time reflection have been implemented, and preparations are underway to migrate from the staging environment to the production environment.

It is noteworthy that user feedback has been collected and UI improvements have been made.

Digital Democracy Related Activities

The introduction of "Talk to the City" and the "AI PubCom" experiment contributed to government and social issues.

Broad listening "diagrams" were noticed and widely recognized.

Extension of external event participation and discussion

Strengthened ties with external communities by deepening discussions and knowledge through "Social Hack Day" and other activities related to Unexplored Junior.

AI Application and Knowledge Management

Efficiency practices using Claude and GPT. Evolution of mechanisms to reconstruct weekly notes and summaries with AI to gain new insights.

Major Issues

Delay in information sharing

Progress sharing and documentation among teams tends to take a back seat.

Rhythm Management

Busyness and poor health tend to disrupt the rhythm of life, and continuous improvement is necessary.

Prioritize multiple tasks

With so many projects going on in parallel, it is difficult to determine which one should be prioritized.

Future Actions

Optimized task and schedule management

Visualize and share project progress using Scrapbox and Kanban boards.

Reinforcement of look-back mechanism

Combining weekly logs and AI summaries to streamline reflection and idea extraction.

Expanding community partnerships

Actively publicize and share activities while reflecting feedback received at the event.

Building on the experience of 2024, this was a year in which the groundwork was laid for further deepening digital democracy and AI utilization. It is meaningful to use this review as a basis for planning activities for 2025.

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In the following, we look back at the major developments in 2024 and try to summarize how the events and themes of each period have been connected. We have compiled a quick overview of each month to give you a rough idea of the overall picture of 2024 by connecting the monthly summaries together.

January-February: Groundwork for multiple projects and external collaboration

Plurality's Japanese translation and subtitling work and AI applications

Started using GPT and Claude to streamline translation and summarization.

English-Japanese localization is in full swing, including support for Glen Weyl's visit to Japan and panel discussion summaries.

Active participation in community activities

Participate in the Funera Conference, Social Hack Day, Programming Symposium, and other events to further the discussion of new technologies and democracy updates.

Operation of a weekly diary and physical condition

While I make an effort to keep a weekly journal frequently, there are phases when I am too busy or ill to maintain a good rhythm.

The habit of getting ideas and refreshing oneself while switching on and off, such as leg-opening stretches and board game sessions, continues.

March: Acceleration of external negotiations and trial of new tools

PluralityBook's Publication Negotiations

Concentrate on correspondence with publishers and finalize contract terms.

Expectations for global expansion are growing, and the translation and editing process is being prepared.

Verification of new tools such as Gov4Git and pMAGI

They actually tried to build an environment, but faced errors and operational barriers.

Share failure logs within the community and seek solutions.

Unexplored Conference 2024 related activities

Stimulated discussion on topics such as business applications of Generative AI/LLM and Quadratic Voting.

Weekends are also a place to get new ideas while refreshing yourself at the Murder Mystery Society and other events.

April-May: Project in full swing and "turbulent late May"

Progress of PluralityAssistant and AI utilization projects

Political participation models for small communities and operations that let AI do the summarizing are in progress.

Continued to share know-how through community collaboration (unexplored junior and study groups) while also materializing publication negotiations.

Operation without vacations even during Golden Week

The workload will be heavy due to a combination of unexplored junior interviews, feedback, and Plurality study sessions.

Utilize AI and fractal summarization to get through the massive data processing.

Late May 2024, a turbulent time: the opportunity to join the Yasuno team

It started with a contact from Mr. Yasuno (running for Governor of Tokyo) who read the Japanese translation of the Plurality book.

He responded to large-scale natural text visualization in TalktotheCity (TTTC, Scatter, etc.) to support the use of data in election campaigns and manifesto formation.

That diagram of broad listening" was born and later used in many fields.

June-July: election-related at once busy, broad listening and democracy-related

Tokyo Governor's Election and TTTC Turbo

Launched TTTC Turbo (Broad Listening Technology) on June 27 and spent the beginning of July researching and writing articles on national and international cases.

Broad listening back on the election campaign and analyzing more than 20,000 AI pubic comments are quickly gaining application.

Broad Listening Environment Development and Trial and Error

The Python environment running Scatter causes many troubles, while the browser-based Turbo is easy to use but difficult to identify the cause of errors, and other technical hurdles are being fought.

We have survived through the use of Google Colab and external services to enhance data visualization.

Organizing documents after the election is over

Tried to reflect on the Gubernatorial race in KPT format and write an article on the results of Plurality and Minority voting and other outcomes, but the tasks piled up.

The policy is to keep records as much as possible while updating the weekly journal irregularly.

August-September: Rush to develop new UI and participate in events and challenge the rhythm of life

Polis new UI development in full swing

Demonstration of voting function implementation and real-time results reflection in a staging environment.

Collect feedback from users at events such as Social Hack Day to improve usability.

Busy camps, business trips, and reading

A series of moves and events including X Meetup, Cybozu Lab Youth Camp, and Unexplored Junior AWS Tour.

Continued to read Buddhism-related and Wittgensteinian literature as an opportunity to rethink "consistency and purpose management.

Rhythm of Life and Physical Condition Issues

Health warning signs such as wisdom teeth extraction, disturbed sleep rhythms, and weight gain become apparent.

In between all the events, he is busy developing and learning while repeatedly making self-adjustments.

October-December: Polis new UI enters its climax, task management in progress at the end of the year

Stabilize Polis new UI voting functionality and improve data update process

Preparations to move from staging to production environment are progressing, but "a system that allows even administrators to easily update data" and documentation are lagging behind.

New requests are being raised more and more through event participation and user demonstrations, making it difficult to assign priorities.

Lack of internal and external sharing of information

Due to the hectic year-end schedule, information sharing and documentation could not keep up, making it difficult to see "what was done and when.

While utilizing the weekly journal and AI summaries, the end of the year came with difficulties in balancing multiple projects.

Task management and feedback prioritization for the future

We want to solidify the data update process by the end of the year, but we have more events and personal commitments, and we are noticeably short on resources.

Progress should be shared through internal study sessions and online presentations, and consensus should be reestablished on the creation of a framework for 2025.

Synthesis and Prospects to 2025

Acceleration of multiple projects and "democratic update

2024 was a year of significant progress in the development and use of digital democracy-related tools such as "Broad Listening," "Polis New UI," and "Talk to the City. Through the Tokyo Metropolitan Governor's Election and various events, we steadily accumulated results through trial and error in the field.

Expansion of community activities and external collaboration

The number of opportunities to get feedback from a wide range of communities, such as Unexplored Junior, Social Hack Day, and Cybozu Lab Youth Camp, has increased, creating a virtuous cycle of idea refinement. On the other hand, the number of events we participate in has increased too much, and there is a risk of neglecting health management and document maintenance.

AI Application and the Importance of Organizing Information

Translation, summarization, and visualization using GPT and Claude have become well established and have played a major role in projects dealing with large amounts of data. On the other hand, the rules of operation for what version to use at what point in time and where to keep the results have not yet been fully established, and the scattering of information and confusion over priorities remain issues.

Challenges: management process, documentation, physical condition

Management processes and documentation

Data updating and manualization tended to take a backseat, and the problem of "other members not being able to use the functions that are available" became apparent.

Physical condition and rhythm of life

Busy schedules have led to an increase in health concerns such as tooth extractions, lack of sleep, and weight gain. Need to create more time in the schedule, including mental health care.

Proposals and ideas for 2025

Development & Documentation "Pair Goals

Implement rules such as minimum manual maintenance and internal sharing at the same time as implementing new functions, and run development and documentation as a set.

Prioritization of feedback and visualization of roadmap

Clearly organize the requests that come out of event participation and user demos according to urgency and impact, and visualize the roadmap using Scrapbox and Kanban tools.

Strengthening task/physical condition management system

Ensure that off-time is interspersed between development sprints in conjunction with the calendar and weekly log system. Regularly check health & review activity levels and adjust to avoid exceeding limits.

Automated AI summarization and reconstruction pipeline

Build a pipeline of weekly logs and community event logs over a period of time and have AI summarize them on a regular basis. Make it easier to pull up ideas and insights that tend to get buried.

connecting

It can be said that 2024 was a year in which the practice and development of digital democracy tools advanced at a rapid pace, and the seeds of "social implementation" grew through the Tokyo Metropolitan Governor's election and multiple community activities. On the other hand, the rapid pace of development meant that the "humble infrastructure" of information organization and health management could not keep up.

As we move toward 2025, we will be able to achieve more stable and sustainable activities by systematically rotating documentation, task management, and health management while maintaining a balance between "development, events, and looking back. We hope you will take this look back into account to further enhance your projects in the coming year and beyond.

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