Plan for Success: An Intro to Open and Sustainable Community Engagement

PLAN FOR SUCCESS:
AN INTRO TO SUSTAINABLE
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
IN OPEN DATA
@elle_mccann
Laurenellen McCann, Director New America DC

@elle_mccann
WHAT IS
“ENGAGEMENT”?

@elle_mccann
WHAT IS
“ENGAGEMENT”?
● Our work engages voters.
● Our project engages communities.
● Our tools engage neighborhoods.

@elle_mccann
WHAT IS
“ENGAGEMENT”?
!?!?

@elle_mccann
WHAT IS
“ENGAGEMENT”?
!?!?
“We do a thing AT a vague group of people.”

@elle_mccann
One more time with
feeling….

@elle_mccann
WHAT IS
ENGAGEMENT?

@elle_mccann
ENGAGEMENT = the ongoing act
of making connections between
people to each other and to a
topic.

@elle_mccann
ENGAGEMENT IS NOT
PASSIVE, BUT ACTIVE.

@elle_mccann
ENGAGEMENT IS NOT
PASSIVE, BUT ACTIVE.
ENGAGEMENT IS ABOUT
RELATIONSHIPS.

@elle_mccann
● RECIPROCAL & PROACTIVE
OUTREACH AND CONTACT
● SHARED INTERESTS
● PROXIMITY
● SHARED VALUES
SECRET McCANN FAMILY RECIPE
FOR HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS

@elle_mccann
● RECIPROCAL & PROACTIVE
OUTREACH AND CONTACT
● SHARED INTERESTS
● PROXIMITY
● SHARED VALUES
SECRET McCANN FAMILY RECIPE
FOR HUMAN RELATIONSHIPSPSYCH 101!

@elle_mccann
ENGAGEMENT IS
MULTIDIRECTIONAL, NOT
UNIDIRECTIONAL.

@elle_mccann
IF WE’RE GOING TO PLAN FOR
SUCCESS, WE NEED TO
CONCRETELY DEFINE...

@elle_mccann
IF WE’RE GOING TO PLAN FOR
SUCCESS, WE NEED TO
CONCRETELY DEFINE...
1. WHAT ACTIONS AND CONNECTIONS (VERB)
2. WHO WE ARE TRYING TO ENGAGE (NOUN)

1. Creators (24%) who produce content, upload videos, write blogs
2. Critics (37%) who submit reviews, rate content, and comment on
social media sites
3. Collectors (21%) who organize links and aggregate content for
personal or social consumption
4. Joiners (51%) who maintain accounts on social networking sites like
Facebook and LinkedIn
5. Spectators (73%) who read blogs, watch YouTube videos, visit socia
sites
6. Inactives (18%) who don’t visit social sites
Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies, Forrester Research

How people engage and whether they engage has to do with how
openly or narrowly you, as a creator, structure opportunities for
engagement.
When it comes to data, if you only value certain forms of engagement that
favor your “creators” (developers, data providers, etc), you constrict the
potential for other kinds of participants to feel substantially included enough
to dabble in different roles—and you affect the size and diversity of your
participant pool.
@elle_mccann

Just a few of the many roles people play when it
comes to (open) data:
Developer Researcher Visualizer
Teacher Reporter Artist
Quality Analyst Advocate Critic
Provider Enthusiast Creator
Archivist Collector Inactive
Legal Advisor Translator
@elle_mccann

INCENTIVE
INTEREST
INVITATION
IDENTITY
@elle_mccann

@elle_mccann
TAKE-HOME SKILL:
STAKEHOLDER MAPPING
A fundamental tool for building a functional,
inclusive engagement plan.

@elle_mccann
TAKE-HOME SKILL:
STAKEHOLDER MAPPING
A TOOL FOR
● IDENTIFYING THE ORGANIZATIONS AND INDIVIDUALS
YOU NEED TO CONNECT WITH TO BUILD GENUINE
RELATIONSHIPS AROUND (OPEN) DATA

@elle_mccann
TAKE-HOME SKILL:
STAKEHOLDER MAPPING
A TOOL FOR
● HIGHLIGHTING WHO IS ALREADY ENGAGED

@elle_mccann
TAKE-HOME SKILL:
STAKEHOLDER MAPPING
A TOOL FOR
● HIGHLIGHTING WHO IS ALREADY ENGAGED
● DETERMINING WHICH RELATIONSHIPS TO BEGIN TO
DEVELOP FIRST (AKA YOUR SUPER TEAM)

LET’S GET TO WORK!
@elle_mccann

*ACTIVITY TIME*
Get to know your group! Please share….
➔ Your name
➔ Your city (or where you’re coming from)
➔ A project you’re working on that you want
to generate more public engagement with
@elle_mccann

*ACTIVITY TIME*
➔ Pick one project from your group
➔ Freeform list who’s involved in making the
project happen now
➔ Individuals’ names
➔ Organizations
➔ Departments
➔ Agencies
➔ Whatever
@elle_mccann

*ACTIVITY TIME*
➔ Add to your list: who is this project for?
@elle_mccann

*ACTIVITY TIME*
➔ Who is this project REALLY for? Add names/orgs/people
who…
➔ have direct lived or work experience related to your project
➔ have a stake in the outcomes of your work
➔ are already working on this issue
➔ are working on or involved in overlapping or intersecting issues
➔ will be affected by the work you do (explain diff between having a
stake (teachers) and being affected by (students))
@elle_mccann

You can’t be everything
to everyone.
@elle_mccann

Step 3: Identify
potential relationships
@elle_mccann

Potential relationships
● PARTNERS (orgs and individuals that can help boost the signal of your work,
get you access to resources and people’s attention through either simple
affiliation or activity)
● COLLABORATORS (orgs and individuals that will play more active, hands-on
roles throughout the development process and after, in evaluation and
iteration)
● CONNECTORS (orgs and individuals that will help you evaluate your list of
stakeholders, bring the right folks to the table, and help spread the work or
help you gather resources through communications and outreach at different
points in the process)
● TESTERS (orgs and individuals who can guide, gutcheck, prioritize, and help
evolve the work)@elle_mccann

● Who do I have direct connections to on this list?
● Who are the obvious leaders (orgs and individuals)?
● Who is it hard for me to see that I might have missed?
● Who has influence (power, money, press attention) in this work already—and who
doesn't but should?
● How diverse is this list? (Think about age, geographic representation, race, gender,
class…)
● What does it mean to prioritize one organization’s involvement over another?
● Who can help me bring these people together?
Step 4: Reflection & Iteration
@elle_mccann

Step 4: Reflection & Iteration*
*Extra points for asking for help!
● Who do I have direct connections to on this list?
● Who are the obvious leaders (orgs and individuals)?
● Who is it hard for me to see that I might have missed?
● Who has influence (power, money, press attention) in this work already—and who
doesn't but should?
● How diverse is this list? (Think about age, geographic representation, race, gender,
class…)
● What does it mean to prioritize one organization’s involvement over another?
● Who can help me bring these people together?
@elle_mccann

➔ Meeting partners and other constituents where they are.
(public festivals are underutilized engagement & education infrastructure)
➔ Building reciprocal relationships
(show up for others as you would have them show up for you)
➔ Creating a diverse chain of activities
(for the love of g-d don’t just do hackathons; remember to focus on
“who”!)
Gear outreach activities to….
@elle_mccann <3 Sustainable Engagement 201

OUR GOAL ISN’T TO ENGAGE ONLY THOSE
WHO KNOW ABOUT OPEN DATA OR CALL
OPEN DATA “OPEN DATA”.
OUR GOAL IS TO BUILD MUTUALLY
BENEFICIAL RELATIONSHIPS THAT ACTIVELY
CELEBRATE AND VALUE PUBLIC
KNOWLEDGE.
@elle_mccann

@elle_mccann mccannl@newamerica.org buildwith.org
ENGAGE!
You don’t have to invent a new way of relating to people for open data.
You have to plug into how and where they are already relating and

Plan for Success: An Intro to Open and Sustainable Community Engagement

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