You can describe a nations Constitution in multiple ways. The description I love the most is “The Nations Operating System” one (or even the BIOS). Simply because a constitution is the bases for everything else; it’s the fundamental principles on how the government and organization (applications) should work.

Constitutions are not written that often. It’s also not everyday that you get the chance to participate in writing one. My lovely home country, Iceland, is currently doing just that as a few places have mentioned;

• USA Today: Tech-savvy Iceland goes online for new constitution
• CNN: Iceland crowdsourcing its constitution
• Washington Post: Iceland crowdsources its next constitution
• Guardian: Mob rule: Iceland crowdsources its next constitution
• Read Write Web: Iceland Pursues a User-Generated Constitution
• ABC News: Tech-Savvy Iceland Online for New Constitution
• Mashable: Iceland crowdsources its constitution
• BigThink: Crowdsourcing Iceland’s new constitution
• AllTop: Iceland crowdsourcing constitution
• Engaget: In Iceland, constitutions are written on Facebook
• Mother Jones: Iceland Is Crowdsourcing Its Constitution
• ZDnet Iceland taps Facebook to rewrite its constitution
• Good: Iceland Is Crowdsourcing Its New Constitution
• TechDirt: Iceland (a.k.a. The Transparentest Place On Earth) Crowdsources Its New Constitution
• The Atlantice Wire: Iceland Is Crowdsourcing Its New Constitution
• SocialMedia Today: Iceland’s Crowdsourced Constitution - A Lesson in Open Source Marketing
• Slashdot: Iceland Taps Facebook To Rewrite Its Constitution

I’ve had the privilege to participate in the process, mostly on the tech side of things but also in the build-up, planning and a lot of viewing from the sideline. 

If your are wondering how to follow Iceland’s steps, look no further, Here is a simple step-by-step guide on how to build a new constitution from scratch.

Step #0 (1849)

Adopt a constitution from someone else. Icelanders copied the danish constitution, but used Find+Replace on “King” for “President”.

Step #1 (2004)

Convince yourself that you’ll become the financial capital of the world.

Step #2 (October 2008)

#fail

Step #3 (early 2009)

Rethink your ethos.

You’ll need a great communicator and visionary to lead the planning. We had Gudjon Mar Gudjonsson who along with the most prominent CEO’s and entrepreneurs of Iceland founded the Ministry of Ideas. In times of massive pessimism and whining, this group looked at the bright side and encouraged innovation, openness and even went as far as producing some large events (see next step)

Step #4 (14th of November 2009)

Produce a large-scale visioning event. Gather 1.500 people in one single room (a sports hall) and have them brainstorm about “the future values of Iceland and how to get there.”

UPDATE: In this 2009 assembly about 1,500 people participated in the meeting. The participants were divided into 162 groups, consisting of 9 people each. Of those about 1.200 where randomly selected to form a representative sample from the population of Iceland. The other 300 where hand picked people in power, politics, business and media; people who could really push the outcome further into action. 

Now this is a big task, we used about 500 volunteers in total, but don’t worry, we created a well documented methodology and a creative commons handbook. This process release on creativity and group spirit so it has to take place in the physical world. We used post-it’s and sharpies, had runners collect them and typists punch them into a database. Then we used text-mining analyse it in real-time and to group thoughts and ideas into similar theme. We came up with 9 themes.

Step #5 (6th of November 2010)

Repeat step #4 but now you should focus on “what should our constitution be about”. This created the National Assembly about our Constitution. 

UPDATE: In this 2010 assembly the sample was purely random, but also a bit more representative as the government paid for travel related expenses.

Step #6 (27th of November 2010)

Create a new “Constitutional Council” and call for a national vote, get a diverse group of people from all walks of life.

Step #7 (Februar - June 2011)

The first and most important think is to give the newly elected Constitutional Council freedom and independence. That way entrepreneurs and thought leaders like council member Vilhjalmur Thorsteinsson can change the work methods quite drastically. From formal governmental bureaucracy to eXtreme agile methods of iterating the constitution every week.

Also make sure to bring onboard a internet life form as the CTO. Ours is Finnur Magnusson, who is now connecting the whole Constitution writing process to Google Docs, Facebook, flickr, YouTube, Twitter and a Wiki.

Step #8 (17th of June 2011)

After the Constitutional Council has worked hard for a few months on re-engineering the constitutions. Call together a league of hackers to stress-test the constitution using text analysis, threat analysis and a cocktail of other analytical techniques. This document is the operating system of our community and as such, it must be bullet proof.

Step #9

(We’re working on it, will let you know)