Slideshare.net (beta)

Slide 1: Announcing Project Z Tim Bonnemann, Intellitics Web Monday Silicon Valley (Expo Edition) April 21, 2008 in San Francisco, CA

Slide 2: About Intellitics • Early-stage startup based in San José, CA (USA) • Experiments in Civic Sensemaking • Tim Bonnemann, founder and chief ideator • First product: Z

Slide 3: Key Terms (1/3): Dialogue • A process that allows people, usually in small groups, to share their perspectives and experiences with one another about difficult issues • Not about judging, weighing or making decisions, but about understanding and learning • Dispels stereotypes, builds trust and enables people to be open to perspectives that are very different from their own • Often requires skilled facilitation

Slide 4: Key Terms (2/3): Deliberation • Process closely related to dialogue, but emphasizes the use of logic and reasoning to make better decisions • Involves all parties and explores all options • Reveals assumptions for reevaluation • Assumes that many people hold pieces to a solution • Often requires skilled facilitation

Slide 5: Key Terms (3/3): Public Participation • The process by which an organization consults with interested or affected individuals, organizations, and government entities before making a decision • Two-way communication and collaborative problem solving with the goal of achieving better and more acceptable decisions • Prevents or minimizes disputes by creating a process for resolving issues before they become polarized • Often applies dialogue and deliberation processes

Slide 6: About Project Z • Friendly web application for problem solving and decision making in large groups • Helps people “figure things out” together • E-participation engine that brings dialogue and deliberation (DD) to the web • Alpha release due Spring 2008

Slide 7: Z ≠ Sexy (1/2) • No video-enabled mobile micro blogging • No social network for people under the age of 3 • No digital life stream aggregation • No hyper-viral Facebook app • No advertising 3.0 • No (single) social object

Slide 8: Z ≠ Sexy (2/2) • Not the X of Y • Not “built to flip” • TAM still TBD • Distribution model 1.0 • Feasibility unproven • Still not easily explained in one sentence

Slide 9: Commonly Used Tools for Online DD • Mailing lists • Discussion forums • Wikis and blogs • Chat • Stand-alone tools (e.g. argument mapping, debate, brainstorming, participatory budgeting) • High-end applications

Slide 10: Typical ODD Challenges • Weak process support • Poor signal-to-noise ratio • Limited scalability • Inefficient collaboration • Unrewarding user experience • Missing out on key web 2.0 learnings

Slide 11: Z Approach • People at the center (across product design, customer service, community) • Strong group process support • Flexible mix-and-match ODD toolkit • Porting DD patterns and best practices to the web • Allowing groups to harness participants’ sensemaking capabilities

Slide 12: Z Customer An organization which: a. Has a problem (e.g. a challenging and time-restrained issue or question, often involving tough trade-offs or general “messiness”) b. Wants to engage with constituents (e.g. in the issue resolution, problem solving, consensus building or decision making process)

Slide 13: Z Benefits • Broadens and deepens participation range (stand- alone, or in addition to face-to-face efforts) • Saves time • Saves resources • Delights constituents

Slide 14: Z Business • Initially, organizations would pay a simple hosting fee (e.g. per user per month) • Other potential sources of revenue: • Freemium model (free basic + paid premium tools & services) • Sponsoring, advertising • Consulting

Slide 15: Z Motivation • It may not be super sexy but… • It’s the right thing to do—to us, at least! • It feels good! • A lot has become possible on the web that wasn’t just a few years ago • Plus, we get to work with the wonderful people in the dialogue & deliberation and public participation community

Slide 16: Z Alpha Scope • User profile and friending • Groups, projects, teams • Basic linear process • Multi-ranked lists (e.g. ideas, resources, Q&A) • Small-group dialogue (Conversation Café) • Data browsing & context discovery • Continuous feedback gathering

Slide 17: Z Outlook • Release alpha version • Run pilot projects • Enlist partners (for research, distribution, field testing) • Grow team • Do a lot of homework • Get a little bit of funding

Slide 18: Sources • James L. Creighton, Ph.D.—What is Public Participation? http://www.creightonandcreighton.com/whatis.html • Sandra S. Hodge, Ph.D.—Deliberation and Your Community: How to Convene and Moderate Local Public Forums Using Deliberative Decision-Making (training manual) http://extension.missouri.edu/cd/pubdelib/trainmaterials/ deliberationmanual2.pdf • NCDD (Sandy Heierbacher)—What Are Dialogue & Deliberation? http://www.thataway.org/?page_id=713

Slide 19: Some Rights Reserved Except where noted, the contents of this presentation are licensed to the public under the Creative Commons Attribution- Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. The terms of this license are available at http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/

Slide 20: Thank you! http://www.intellitics.com http://twitter.com/intellitics info@intellitics.com