Booster Network
Building and guiding
multi-stakeholder groups
(to set an agenda for change)
Marco Colarossi
marco@thehubweb.net
for
“E.G.O.” Meeting
Pescara, April 27th 2007

A model “to enter the Control Room”

Organising & Reporting Meetings
The Booster staff wrote a report after each meeting
and sent it through our communication tools:
Personal contacts: calls, re-calls…
Mailing Lists: used to set meetings, send reports
after (to keep updated those who were absent), for
proposals, etc.
Website: where everyone can download and read the
reports
Blog: where we wrote our notes&news on the project.
Mostly for Booster staff, but open to everyone.
Calendar (Google): we set each goal/step and
deadline from the beginning and kept reminding it

Meetings Calendar
January 22nd: plenum
Groups meetings
February 26th: plenum
Groups meetings
March 26th: plenum with official presentation of
the non-profit organization & its festival

Principles
We defined the principles for the participated planning:
Work together
Open doors
Planning autonomy
Time control
Respect
Common format

Rules for participated planning
Paolo Verri (Torino Internazionale):
“People who sit down to think up something to do
together cannot afford to leave something unsaid,
something thanks to which they are a little
smarter than the others. Building a coalition
means discussing on a level playing field, each
participant must give up some of its authority
[...]
It is important to understand and explain who
each of the stakeholders who sit at the table is,
why he is there and what he expects, because if
that person does not get it, the coalition pact is
no longer valid, and he will leave the table.”

Examples
We started giving the group an example of
how a similar project worked in another
place:
Verona, Vrban project
www.vrban.it

The talk of the town
Booster gained soon a rather high visibility in
Pescara (“in a stagnant context, something
moving is highly visible”) and
this helped building a positive image about
the project (given to and by its regional
network): “what the hell is going on in
Pescara?”

The battle of ideas
It is certainly difficult for a big group to take
decisions, there are always a lot of
(sometimes diverging) ideas on the table,
but some of those “emerge” as stronger.
In this situation it was particularly useful
the suggestion by Paolo Verri (Torino
Internazionale): “Listen to all opinions,
then try to draw a synthesis and make a
step forward.”
(also in the report of the meeting?)

Problems of trust and acquaintance
Problems of trust in the project, in its
promoters, in the possibility of a
change… is a common dynamics in
development projects, especially when
new persons and organizations join later
the process&meetings.
Besides this it is important “to keep the door open” and
continue motivating and encouraging people that a
“different way of doing things is possible”.

Differences among organizations
Different behaviour and expectations between
organizations (important to understand why each one is there…)
For profit
Non-profit
Budget
Top-down
Bottom-up
the strength of ideas (at the beginning)
Vs
the hard reality of numbers (at the end)

Compatibility with the EU program
It is important that representatives of the
Development Partnership follow the process
constantly, to ensure that the decisions
taken by the Regional Network meet the
requirements of the program and are
compatible with possibilities and decisions
of the DP.

Communicate the results
Constantly communicate the results of
the work of each group, as clearly as
possible, to avoid confusion and
pessimism.
e.g. with a map or a scheme that visually represents the
actual situation and the following expected steps.
This helps the discussion to focus on specific
problems and move forward.

Leadership
For the group to work properly and
effectively, a recognized leader (that can
“draw a synthesis of the ideas” and
represent the group in front of the
institutions) should be found/emerge.
Until this does not happen the coordinators
should monitor the process and, if needed,
temporarily replace the leader to overcome
problems that are stopping it.

Make a pre-emptive move
Our suggestion is: do not wait for the
politicians to tell you what you can do and
obtain, but instead define a strong proposal
and build a large coalition that presents it.
This changes the (so often distorted)
equilibrium of power between public
administrators (especially in
underdeveloped areas) and private
individuals and organizations.

Participants in meeting

Participants in meeting

A model “to enter the Control Room”