Presentation on online engagement and the need for long-term public participation planning

1. A Conversation with Matt Leighninger:
Online Tools and Long-term Plans
for Engagement
IAP2 Australasia
October 11, 2012

2. The Deliberative Democracy Consortium

5. Slides available at:
www.slideshare.net/mattleighninger
Guides:
http://bit.ly/M1pvMp
http://bit.ly/iwjgqn

6. The big picture:
Two impacts of the Internet
1. Empowering individual citizens (web, email –
wrapped up in other changes)
2. Empowering citizen
groups (Facebook,
Twitter, other social
media)

7. First impact:
How have citizens* changed?
 More educated
 More skeptical – different
attitudes toward authority
 Have less time to spare
 Better able to find resources,
allies, information
* “citizens” = residents, people

8. Second impact allows for new forms of
engagement
 More sustained
 Larger, more diverse numbers of people
 Easier for ‘engagers’ – recruitment doesn’t
have to start from scratch
 More open to ideas from the ‘engaged’
 Need joint planning for engagement
infrastructure – not just tools

9. What is not changing
 Need for face-to-face relationships
 Need for an overall engagement plan
 Importance of partnering with other groups,
organizations, institutions

10. Questions or comments?

11. How much is the Internet changing
how you do P2?

12. Digital divides (plural)
 Overall, Internet access growing
 Different people use different hardware
 Different people
go to different
places on the
Internet
 Communities just
as complex online
as off

13. What online tools can do: Help
citizens gather data

14. What online tools can do: Help
people generate and rank ideas

15. What online tools can do: Help
people visualize options

16. What online
tools can do:
Help sustain
community
connections

17. Common mistakes
 Treating Internet as a one-way medium
 Not enough recruitment
 Transparency without proactive engagement
 Gathering ideas and not implementing them

18. Questions or comments?

19. What have your successes – and challenges
– been with online engagement?

20. Successes, limitations of
engagement so far
Successes: Making policy decisions, planning
Catalyzing citizen action
Building trust
Fostering new leadership
Challenges: Time-consuming (especially recruitment)
Unsustainable (usually not intended to be)
Meets goals of ‘engagers,’ not ‘engaged’
Doesn’t change the institutions
Limited impact on equity
Trust, relationships fade over time

21. 1. Sustain the benefits
2. Allow the ‘engaged’ to set the agenda
3. Better address inequities
4. Increase community attachment and economic
growth
5. Increase residents’ sense of legitimacy and
“public happiness”
Why plan for more sustainable
kinds of engagement?

23. Community engagement planners should consider
some key building blocks:

25. As always, recruitment is 90% of the work

26. Questions or comments?

27. Questions to consider
1. Does your community already have some
building blocks in place?
2. Are there other building blocks that might be
useful?
3. If you were to begin creating a long-term plan
for your community, who would you work
with?
4. What do you need to help you get started?

29. Resources
• www.participedia.net
• www.deliberative-democracy.net
• www.soulofthecommunity.org
• www.everydaydemocracy.org
• www.publicagenda.org
• www.kettering.org
• On Facebook: “Deliberative Democracy
Consortium” group page
• The Next Form of Democracy

30. Resources (continued)
• On YouTube: the DDC channel
• Using Online Tools to Engage – and Be
Engaged by – the Public at
http://bit.ly/iwjgqn
• Planning for Stronger Local Democracy at
bit.ly/M1pvMp – and other resources at
www.nlc.org