A webinar for ELGL

1. MANAGING COMMUNITY OUTRAGE
USING ONLINE TOOLS
Matt Crozier – CEO Bang the Table
@mattcrozier

2. Is it really
community
outrage?
• A handful of people in your
community being outraged is
not community outrage.
• Are those 10 angry people at
your meeting the only ones
who care?
• A well publicised online
engagement can tell you this.
• Look for high engagement
rates as a sign of community
outrage

3. Understand
the outrage
• Make sure you really
understand the anger
• Is it just this issue or a
culmination of things?
• Ask for stories to get to
the heart of it
• Protecting the Snowies
http://www.bangthetable.c
om/blog/protecting-the-
mount-kosciuszko-np-2/

4. Spend some
time
explaining
why
• It sounds obvious but is often
forgotten
• There’s a reason you’re
upsetting these people
• Explain your motivations as
clearly as possible
• Use multi media – interview key
people on video.
• Don’t expect the community to
decipher a long technical PDF

5. Let them
vent
• Sometimes people need
to get it out of their
systems
• Online and F2F
engagement can be used
together to let people vent
online before they get in
the room
• This can save your face to
face event from a rocky
start

6. Don’t let them go
to social media
for answers
• For most people social
media is an echo chamber
– not many follow those
with opposing views.
• Social media is likely to
magnify and amplify
outrage.
• You need a calm, fact
based space to answer
questions, explain and
help people to understand
the views of others

7. Make room for
other voices
• A sad truth is you are
more likely to hear from
opposition than
supporters
• Create a space where all
voices are welcome
• Publicize the opportunity
and use outreach to get
broad involvement
• Use anonymity to protect
non-conforming opinions.

8. It’s hard to
troll a map or
ideas board!
• If you are worried about
trolls choose tools that are
less vulnerable
– Ideas walls
– Mapping
– Surveys
– Polls
– Stories (no comments)
– Guestbook
– Q&A
• Moderated discussion
forums for debate or
venting

9. Honesty and
transparency
pay
• If you are informing them
be upfront – answer
questions and keep them
informed.
• Don’t pretend to empower
when you have no
intention of doing so
• Don’t ask for ideas when
you want them to discuss
yours

10. Manage to
ensure your
community
feels
empowered
• Ideally your community is used to
being engaged online
• If you’ve been doing this a while
you’ll have a broad cross section of
your community easy to reach and
ready to engage
• Don’t wait for the big project to get
started.
• Build community capacity as early
as possible so you are ready to
manage outrage when it comes.
• Regular engagement can change
opinions of government and avoid
outrage.

11. This shouldn’t scare leaders.
Negative comments shouldn’t scare leaders.
The ability to allow citizens to feel one with their government shouldn’t scare
leaders.
Engaging citizens allows local governments to foster collaborative conversations and
create new innovative ways for citizens to get involved. Social media, its
advancements, and other digital platforms have provided Roanoke the opportunity to
communicate “with” citizens instead of “to” them.
These days, that’s what it’s all about, that’s what’s expected.
Timothy Martin, Office of Citizen Engagement City of Roanoake

12. Bang the Table USA
www.BangtheTable.com
@mattcrozier
matt@bangthetable.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewcrozier