The document discusses the potential of online tools to enhance public participation and civic engagement, highlighting both the opportunities and challenges involved. It provides examples of various projects that utilize technology for community building and public input, while underscoring the importance of having the right mix of people, processes, and tools. Additionally, it emphasizes the need for careful consideration of web-specific issues such as accessibility, privacy, and data security.

1. Online Public Participation
Tim Bonnemann
Founder and CEO
Intellitics, Inc.

2. Key Take-Aways
• Technology and the internet provide a
lot of opportunity for broadening and
deepening civic engagement, specifically
public participation
• You can do this!
• Please do this (and let us know how it
went)

3. Does Online Make Sense?
Opportunities Challenges
• Bridge limitations of • Digital divide
time and space
• No replacement for
• Ability to scale face-to-face
• Participants as • Uncivil behavior
resources
• Very resource-
• Cost savings intensive and
expensive

4. Project Examples
• Public information and community building
on Facebook
• Community asset mapping with Google Maps
and Drupal
• Participatory budgeting with IdeaScale
• Civic contest (crowdsourcing) around
redistricting in Ohio using ArcGIS

5. Public Information &
Community Building
Type Social Media
Year 2009 — current
Context Urban planning in
Portland, OR
Goals Inform, community
building
Technology Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/pdxplan

6. Community Asset Mapping
Type Collaborative
mapping
Year 2009
Context Development of
after-school
program
Goals Assess, Discover,
Inform
Technology Google Maps,
Drupal
http://biloxiyouthassets.org

7. Participatory Budgeting
Type Crowdstorming
Year 2010
Context Seattle city budget
2011/2012
Goals Consult
Technology IdeaScale
http://seattlecitycouncil.ideascale.com

8. Civic Contests &
Crowdsourcing
Type Civic contest,
mapping,
crowdsourcing
Year 2009
Context Redistricting in the
state of Ohio
Goals Capacity building,
awareness, consult
Technology ArcGIS
http://www.sos.state.oh.us/sos/redistricting.aspx

9. The Tool Landscape
• There are hundreds of tools (generic,
specialized, custom)
• Often multi-purpose, broadly applicable. Not
always easy to clearly match tools to processes
or desired outcomes
• Online participation and the tools involved
often require a broad skill set (technology,
social media, community management, online
facilitation, editing etc.)

10. Some Web-Specific
Considerations
• Accessibility • Moderation
• Data security • Archiving
• Identity • Legal
• Privacy & • Mobile
publicness
• Tool support
• Intellectual
property

11. Design Principles &
Success Factors
• Know your objectives, audience, resources
• Apply good process (e.g. IAP2 framework)
• Find the right combination of people, process
and tools
• Be transparent about commitments, set
realistic expectations
• Consider web-specific issues (e.g. privacy,
security, identity)

12. Resources
• Intellitics Blog
http://www.intellitics.com/blog
• ParticipateDB
http://participatedb.com
• NCDD 2010 Resource Guide on Public Engagement
http://www.ncdd.org/files/NCDD2010_Resource_Guide.pdf
• Promising Practices in Online Engagement
http://www.publicagenda.org/pages/promising-practices-in-online-
engagement
• Social Media Club
http://socialmediaclub.org

14. Thank You!
http://www.intellitics.com
Follow @intellitics on Twitter…

15. 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/
v1.0 2010/11/05