Bang the Table is a fast growing business offering online community engagement services to clients in both Government and Private Sectors.  We are the market leaders in Australia and have worked with over 140 clients.

We are seeking an Business Development/Account Manager to play a leading role in the future growth of our business in State and Federal Government and the private sector.

The ideal person will be able to identify opportunities, build relationships and continue to look after and support clients.  You will need to be a self-starter and be able to operate within a dispersed team drawing on the support of colleagues when required.

This is not a role for someone who likes to close a deal and move on fast.  The success of our business is built on relationships, great service and trust.  However, to succeed you will need to be motivated by results and be tenacious, innovative and determined in achieving those results.

To succeed in this role you should ‘get’ community engagement and the value it can offer our clients.  Even more important is that you can be genuinely passionate about our core goal as a business – bringing more of the community into active discussions about the issues that affect their lives.

You will need fantastic interpersonal skills (be someone who loves people and who people love in return).  You will need to be a confident presenter and to be able to think on your feet in front of high level audiences.

You will need to be able to network effectively and ideally you will have an existing network in a sector relevant to our business.

The rewards are endless. You get to work from home, but there would be travel involved on a regular basis. You get to be part of a diverse supportive team (currently 20 people) that is passionate about our business and what we achieve for the community.  We also find time to have fun along the way.  An attractive salary package is on offer with an excellent bonus structure.

The successful candidate will be based in or near either Canberra or Sydney but will be prepared to travel interstate on a regular basis.

Please contact matt@bangthetable.com for further information.

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Web accessibility – What does it all mean?

Misconception: Web accessibility is about disability.
No, Web accessibility is about universality.

It’s about making something that can be used by as many people as possible: different environments, different devices, elderly, different cultural backgrounds, non-English speakers, impaired abilities.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 2009, 18.5% of Australians had a reported disability, 8% of males had problems seeing colour, 15% of Australians were from a non-English speaking background and over 46% of Australian adults had low literacy skills.

We need to make our websites easy to use for everyone. The hearing impaired, those with limited mobility, those with reading difficulties and anyone using handheld devices.

Why? By making your content more accessible more people in more locations can read your information and they will understand it more easily. After all, you want everyone to get your message, right?

Accessibility is also a legal requirement.

Misconception: Web accessibility is not my problem.
No, Web accessibility is everyone’s responsibility.

We’re all in this together. What you do makes a difference. So what do people need?

People need content that is easy to read, works on different devices, is easy to navigate, has good design and colour contrast, images and graphs that are described well, has video captions or transcriptions and has documents and attachments in a format that can be used by everyone everywhere.

So how do you do it?

Think about your audience: Who are you writing for? Who is actually going to read it? What do they need to know?

Structure your content: Is your content in Microsoft Word? Have you used the templates and styles provided? Are your heading styles in the correct order?

Check your language level: Is it short and simple? Is there a plain language summary for any policy or legislation?

Think about alternative options: Are there text descriptions for your images? Do you have data tables for your graphs? Have you provided transcripts for your videos?

Do a quick check: Use the Word Accessibility Checker and correct things as you go.

Remember what you do at the start makes it easier at the end and your content gets published faster. Follow our guides and make it a habit. It’s all about your audience and meeting their needs.

Misconception: Web accessibility is hard.
No, Web accessibility is easy.

To learn more about accessibility, visit STAFFnet.

Statistics sourced from The Australian Bureau of Statistics — Disability Australia, 2009. 2006 Census of Population and Housing. Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey Summary Results, Australia, 2006

1. How does the moderation work?
2. Can’t we moderate comments before they go live on the site?
3. What’s to stop someone from having more than one username?
4. How do you manage the risk of the consultation process being ambushed by organised minorities?
5. Is the site Accessible to those with a visual disability?
6. How do we access reports?
7. Can we see the details of the participants in the forum?
8. Our organisation has just invested in our website’s capacity to host interactive forums etc and there are questions of why would we pay for someone to do this when we will shortly have the same technological capacity.
9. What will the URL be?
10. Who will have access to upload/modify content. Assuming the permission set will NOT come from our CMS.
11. Does the CMS access use standard internet ports (TCP80/443) or will exceptions in the firewall be required for CMS authors?
12. Submissions – what email address will these be sent to?
13. What email address will bulk emails be generated from?
14. For an open consultation can participants be restricted to only people from within an area?
15. Is it possible to have a seamless interface between online surveys and discussion forums?
16. During the three month lifecycle of a forum can the questions be changed or added to?

Q1. How does the forum moderation work?

You can find a detailed description of our moderation process on this website.

The short answer is that at Bang the Table, we use BOTH technology and real human beings to ensure the forum discussions stay safe and on topic.

In addition to automated spam and black-listed word filters, at lease one of our moderators reads EACH AND EVERY comment that is made on one of our hosted forums.

We guarantee to moderate all comments within two hours, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In practice we generally review all comments within far less than one hour. We can do this because we have a global team of trusted and experienced moderators, aggregation software to allow us to gather comments from all of our sites to one place, and a mobile enabled moderator portal. We have people in six time zones: the east coast of Australia; Wellington, New Zealand; Vancouver, Canada; Montreal, Canada; Zurich, Switzerland; and the United Kingdom.

When we remove a comment from a site it is replaced with a statement from the moderator explaining the rationale for the removal of the comment. The participant is automatically notified by email about the removal of the comment and the rationale for its removal. They are invited to contact the moderator directly to challenge the decision if they feel so entitled.

We have noticed that the vast majority of participants in our consultations are very constructive and do not require any moderation. The comments we do remove generally fall into one of three categories; 1) duplicates – people occasionally leave the same comment in a number of different discussion topics, or even within different parts of a single discussion topic; 2) disrespectful or hectoring – it is perhaps unsurprising that participants occasionally get a little carried away in the heat of the moment; and, 3) identifying members of the public or professional staff from the consulting organisation without their permission.

We have NEVER had to remove any comments that could be considered “high impact”. We believe that this is because community users are aware that the site is being independently and consistently monitored and moderated.

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Q2. Can’t we moderate comments before they go live on the site?

There are two answers to this question.

The first answer is that you can pre-moderate the Guestbook if you are particularly concerns about the nature of the content that it is likely to attract. We generally advise against this, but the option is there. It is one of the main reasons we created the Guestbook.

The second answer is that can’t pre-moderate the Forums for a few very good reasons.

First, it is incredibly frustrating for community members not to see their comments go live in real time. The service proposition is therefore much stronger using post-comment moderation.  It takes a lot for some people to leave comments.  We work hard to make the site user friendly and intuitive for people who are not technically minded.  If those people leave a comment and it doesn’t appear it can be a negative experience for them and they are unlikely to return.

If the comments were to be “pre-moderated” then the forum wouldn’t be a “forum”, it would be a list of comments. There would be very little or no opportunity for interaction between the participants.  This is because in the gap between you posting the comment and it appearing the conversation will most likely have moved on.

Experience has demonstrated to us that post-moderation is more than adequate from a “risk management” perspective. While the moderation rules are broad enough to capture a range of poor behaviours, we generally remove comments for a just a few reasons, 1) double posting, 2) hectoring, 3) mild bad language. We have never seen any particularly bad postings that could be considered “high risk”. We have now managed well over 500 consultations including some very ‘hot’ issues and have found our moderation system to be more than adequate.

Awareness that the sites are independently and constantly moderated seems to maintain a reasonable level of behaviour among the vast majority of users.

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Q3. What’s to stop someone from having more than one username?

All new users have to agree to the site terms and conditions which specify that you can’t have more than one account and can’t purport to represent someone else. If we think this is happening then we will contact the account holder directly and, if necessary, cancel their account and block access to the site altogether. We use a number of techniques to identify multiple logins and, though there is no foolproof way, of preventing them from occurring. Those who try and cheat are usually pretty easy to spot. I can only think of a handful of cases in nearly five years of operations when this has happened. And it was VERY easy to spot.

The ultimate protection is in the way you interpret results.  This is not e-democracy it is e-participation.  If 4 people say one thing and 5 say another you are not going to necessarily go with the majority.  Our forums allow the community to all have a say and they bring out new ideas.  If you interpret the results in that way it really doesn’t matter if someone manages to say the same thing under 2 user names.

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Q4. How do you manage the risk of the consultation process being ambushed by organised minorities?

The first thing to say is that, in nearly five years of operation, we have NEVER seen any evidence of this kind of behaviour on a grand scale.

The second thing to note is that in reality an ambush is much more likely when using off-line engagement methods.  It is a regular occurrence for a small group writing letters to the papers and attending public meetings to claim to represent the community and to get away with that claim.  Online engagement makes it very difficult for small groups to do this, especially if you are effective in getting the word out about your consultation.  If 10 people are the only people talking and another 1000 visit you consultation site, you can confidently say you are dealing with a minority group that has concerns.

Our reporting is designed to help you interpret the depth of community feeling on an issue.

If by ambush you mean a group in the community telling their friends and all getting online – that is exactly what we want to happen.  Let me give you some examples of ambushes.

Firstly we ran a consultation for the Ashfield Council Management Plan, in Sydney’s inner west.  They got lots of responses from people wanting a new water polo facility.  They didn’t assume that this meant their entire population were water polo enthusiasts.  They didn’t feel under enormous pressure to build a pool immediately and they didn’t feel under attack.  They were pleased that these people had had an opportunity to express their views and were glad that some of them also addressed other issues while they were visiting the forum.

A similar thing happened when Orange Council, in the central west of NSW, asked their community about what to do with Federal Stimulus money.  A large number of respondents wanted a conservatorium of music. Council took this on board, but did not feel pressured to rush out and build a conservatorium.

The reason these Councils did not feel pressure is because of the way they were using and interpreting the results.

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Q5. Is the site Accessible to those with a visual disability?

Yes, the software framework received a AA rating against the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.  We had the software audited by Vision Australia and adopted their recommendations for ongoing development standards. We are also instituting a regular review process to ensure our continuous development program always complies with future standards.

Government sites need to comply and there have been successful legal actions against sites that do not comply in the past.

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Q6. How do we access reports?

The reports can be accessed by the client or project administrator of your site at any time by simply clicking on ‘activity report’ next to the project title. They are provided in both a quantitative and qualitative format, can be read onscreen, and can be downloaded in Excel or PDF format.  This means that archiving and record keeping requirements can be easily met.

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Q7. Can we see the details of the participants in the forum?

Yes. You have access to the registration details (with the exception of the IP address) and ongoing activity by participants.

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Q8. Our organisation has just invested in our website’s capacity to host interactive forums etc and there are questions of why would we pay for someone to do this when we will shortly have the same technological capacity.

We think there are a two very good reasons to use a third party service like Bang the Table in preference to an internally managed forum:

a. Functional

Unlike all generic CMS products the EngagementHQ platform has been developed specifically to support the community engagement process.

Unlike out-of-the-box CMS products, EngagementHQ integrates six feedback tools:

1. Forums
2. Surveys
3. Guestbooks
4. Live Q and A
5. Forms
6. Quick Polls

The forums are designed to be much easier and more intuitive to use than generic forums which tend to assume a high level of technical competency. They are also surrounded by rich information opportunities (video, images, text, quick polls). These can actually be embedded in the forums so that the community has every opportunity to “educate” itself (at its complete discretion) prior to joining the conversation.

Also unlike out-of-the-box CMS products, EngagementHQ integrates has integrated reporting and analysis tools.

1. Quantitative reports
2. Comment tagging
3. Demographic reports

Generic CMS products do NOT include any reporting features – these are essential in a  government context where FoI is so critical, and where data interpretation is all important in the policy development process.

b. Service

Also unlike generic CMS products Bang the Table is a specialist provider of online community engagement services.

The EngagementHQ and BudgetAllocator products are delivered as “service software” which include independent moderation (see above) as well as strategic, analytical and day-to-day technical support. We provide our clients with general advice about which projects are suited to an online environment, the options for collateral material to support the project engagement objectives, the most effective form for forum questions, the “story” behind the participation numbers so that you can communicate this to your senior management and decision makers.

We also provide initial training and then work-hours telephone and email support for staff to use the software. We provide full technical management of the sites, so that if anything goes wrong you only have to make one call. We provide your community with service support if they have problems negotiating the software.

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Q9. What will the URL be?

The URL is very flexible.

• Port Macquarie Hasting Council has called their site, “Port Macquaire Hastings Council Listening” with the URL www.pmhclistening.com.au
• Swan City Council has chosen www.swancommunity.com.au
• Rockingham Council has chosen www.talkbackrockingham.net.au
• You could choose to promote the URL http://yoursay.organisation.state.gov.au and we could redirect this to a URL of your choice, for example www.yoursite.net.au

We generally prefer to register and manage the URL for you so that if anything goes wrong you only have to make one call to get things fixed. There is no additional charge for this service.

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Q10. Who will have access to upload/modify content. Assuming the permission set will NOT come from our CMS.

The content management protocols can be set by you, but by way of example, Swan City have a pretty good setup. They have two people with “Master Editing” rights to any of Council’s projects using the “Client” administrator rights, while each project has a project officer with “Project” administrator editing rights. This avoids having to load the IT department with anything to do with the content management processes.

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Q11. Does the CMS access use standard internet ports (TCP80/443) or will exceptions in the firewall be required for CMS authors?

No exceptions will be required.

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Q12. Submissions – what email address will these be sent to?

The submissions can be sent by the public to any email address(es) you identify during the set up process. I would generally recommend a project specific email address but this could be a standard email address for all incoming correspondence if this is required to meet your organisation’s correspondence management processes. The critical thing is that the submissions are all captured on the site reporting database as well as by your organisation’s systems. This means nothing gets lost.

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Q13. What email address will bulk emails be generated from?

We send our bulk emails from the site database to the users so these will not affect your internal systems at all. Users will receive all correspondence from admin@bangthetable.com.

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Q14. For an open consultation can participants be restricted to only people from within an area?

It is not possible to restrict a consultation to a particular country or State.

However, we have seen very little evidence of people outside the immediate area of the consultation wanting to comment on issues that do not directly concern them.  We do recommend that you ask for participant’s location as part of the registration process and you could certainly sort results at the end of the process to exclude those who are from outside the area.

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Q15. Is it possible to have a seamless interface between online surveys and discussion forums?

Yes.

It is quite common for our clients to run surveys and forums side by side on a single issue in order to collect both qualitative and quantitative data.

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Q16. During the lifecycle of a forum can the questions be changed or added to?

Yes you can certainly add questions to a site during a consultation.  You can also add other content to pages such as the library, FAQs, videos etc any time.  We strongly encourage this.  The more active you are the better result you are likely to get from the consultation.  You can also change the supporting content after the consultation has been archived allowing you to give the community feedback on the results.  The email function allows you to inform all participants of changes you make.

You cannot change questions that people have already answered, we believe that would undermine the credibility of the process.  If you ask people their views on one issue and then change the question it can misrepresent their answers so it is always best to ask a new question rather than change an old one.  We do not limit the number of questions in a forum so there are no cost implications.

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There is much more to a successful online consultation than having a pretty website. Yes, a site needs to look smart and deliver the goods design-wise, but with the main objective being to rally community participation it’s crucial that you deliver a site based on sound methodology and highly engaging content.

1. Visceral, concrete discussion topics
2. Good bone structure
3. Pithy copy – Call your community to action
4. Surveys & Polls – Gather swift opinion
5. Video – Deliver an icebreaker
6. Photographs – Create a powerful visual pull
7. Documents- Provide rich, satisfying content
8. Key Dates – Step out the consultation process
9. Visual Aids – Double your relationship building efforts
10. FAQS – Map out the site territory
11. Discussion questions – Invite your community to join the circle

Of course, there is no single element of a site that will galvanise community opinion.  It is fair to say however, that sites that have a built-in, bona-fide “care factor” carry a far higher success rate than those that don’t.

It’s common sense really, and it goes to the heart of any human relationship.  Simply put, if you demonstrate respect for your community by putting some thought, effort and creativity into your site, they will thank you; not through words but through the action of getting more engaged in the conversation.

Before we start, it’s worth considering the various objectives of a successful online community or stakeholder engagement site:

The end objective is in the main, to listen to the genuine opinion of a broad community base. To achieve this, there are a number of objectives that slot into each area:

• The tone of a site should be one that is refreshing, friendly, professional and enthusiastic. This will set the best environment to creating the kind of relationship that will engender community participation.
• The content of the site should provide text and visual aids that s clarifies the issues and motivates participation.  This may require some outside of the box thinking and thoughtful consideration.
• The structure of the site should position key information at top and keep the page content short, sharp and to the point. Keep in mind that people will be opening the site on computers, each displaying various amounts of “screen area”.
• The design of the site should be professional and easy to navigate.  Ensure that uniformity of font type and size are key considerations.

1. Visceral, concrete discussion topics

The best sites connect with their target communities by using concrete, emotionally engaging issues that people can get their teeth into and their heads around.  A draft management plan in its raw form is not likely to stir community emotion, not even in the most engaged citizen.  To cater to the community’s interest, reach into the plan’s specifics.  Tease them out, reshape them and season them so that they can be easily digested by a broad audience.

This first analysis of your project will help you to develop the structure, tone and content of your site.

1. Are you consulting on an issue that is both emotional and tangible? If not, can the content of the consultation be reframed to be both emotional and tangible?
2. If your consultation concerns an issue that is less than concrete – for example a Vision Statement –have you adjusted your expectations regarding the level of community interest and site activity?
3. Have you managed to translate dry content into interesting, relevant content?

2. Good bone structure

The screen area that your site visitor first opens lands on is prime digital real estate.

A user will in fact, focus 80% to 90% of their attention on the information that is displayed when they first arrive – too much scrolling and the visitor loses focus.

1. Have you drafted a plan for the kinds of content you would like to load onto site?
2. Have you prioritised the content?  Are your most important items at the top of the screen?
3. Have you considered screen area on other computers?  Open the site on a laptop. Where does the content sit?

3. Pithy copy – Call your community to action

Introducing your site to visitors is like greeting people at the door of an event.  People will want to be greeted warmly, be told what they can expect inside and understand what opportunities they will have when they enter.

Set yourself a limit of 200 words to achieve a crisp, articulate introduction that’s free from techno babble and government jargon.  But while professionalism is important to maintain, don’t be afraid to express interest and zeal.  The best way to generate enthusiasm is, of course, to be enthusiastic yourself.  This will also go a long way to help alleviate a site visitor from feeling uneasy or intimidated.

Along similar lines, good design considers the needs of the user.  You do have some control over this, especially in terms of how you set and use your text.

Text that is laid out using a consistent font type and size makes a site not only visually more appealing, but easier to take in and navigate around. Resist the temptation to highlight random words using italics, bold, underline, colour, large fonts in strange and mysterious ways; it is unprofessional, distracting and a poor substitute for clean crisp layout and copy.

The better site examples do not rely on bold or italics to emphasize their point, instead using vibrant, meaningful copy and clear structure to engage their audiences.

1. Is your title a clear “call to action”
2. Does your copy outline why the consultation input is important to your organisation?
3. Does your copy state why the consultation matters to the reader?
4. Does your introduction state how the reader’s input will be used?

4. Surveys & Polls – Gather swift opinion

Using a pointed and precise survey within your online engagement site can harvest community opinion swiftly.  The most effective are used as thoughtful communication exercises that canvass questions that will also be of interest to the community. People are more likely to answer your questions if they can see a direct personal benefit; they want to provide their opinion rather than a long list of personal information.

Consider that at least 30% of your questions should pose issues or subjects that will feed back some kind of benefit to the community.

1. Is your survey short? A one question poll is best; any more than eight questions and you will have lost your audience
2. Will the questions you’ve posed feed into the broader engagement process?
3. Have you asked questions that consider community needs rather than your needs?

5. Video – Deliver an icebreaker

Adding a locally made video to your site can act as an “icebreaker”, opening a window onto the issue at hand and giving the community an opportunity to eyeball your organisation.

A video adds movement and visual dimension and delivers accessibility to those who won’t read the documents.

You don’t need to be the next Tarrantino or Hitchcock for it to be engaging.  In fact, people tend to like video that has a “built in the back shed” feel to it, and has been created using amateur or even mobile phone based equipment.

But give it a twist.  Take the mayor for a coffee and ask him or her questions at the local cafe.  Interview a few locals in the street and tape their responses.  Again, it doesn’t need to be “high art”, but making it less formal and even a little fun can do wonders for audience uptake.

For some great examples of how video has been used as a community engagement resource and tips on how to create a great video visit our blog. www.corporate.bangthetable.com/blog

You can also use the site to invite video submissions from your community.  This can be especially useful in terms of place making exercises.  Why not stir the pot of community imagination and offer a prize to the video that best encapsulates the message?  A local art identity could judge the entries.

1. Have you created a video that is less than 3 minutes in length?  With such a tight time frame you will both stay on track and on target.
2. Have you posted a posting a transcript of the video in the library on the site to comply with best practice accessibility?
3. Have you made a simple, cheap and effective video using a PowerPoint presentation?  Just load up the content and create a voice over using the programs software.

6. Photographs – Create a powerful visual pull

A well chosen photo can dramatically alter how a visitor will relate to your site.

70 – 80% of humans are primarily visually disposed.  This means that supplementing your introductory text with a well chosen photo or illustration that visually tells the story will speak to a large percentage of your community.

1. Are your photographs directly relevant to the project?
2. Have you considered how your photographic images related to organisational branding?
3. Have you considered the sizing of your photographs?  Are they pushing other content off the screen?

7. Documents- Provide rich, satisfying content

A well stocked library is like a well stocked pantry; rich in all kinds of content that pleases the information requirements for all kinds of visitors.  With this analogy in mind, who will be coming to dinner?

Each of the stakeholder groups that you’ve mapped out in your planning process will invariably hold different interests.  This space is where you can serve information that will satisfy and provide them with what they need to make the best decision that they can.

Large reports can also be chunked into specifics that make it easier for your community to navigate through.  For some this may be demographically based, for others it may be segmented geographically, for others it may be issues or amenities oriented.

Equally, if you have a lengthy management plan or something similar, why not give it some community heft by translating into an uncomplicated PowerPoint presentation replete with interesting pictures and straightforward explanations.

Your community will appreciate your effort (even if they don’t say so).

1. Have you broken larger documents down into bite sized chunks?
2. Have you loaded your site with as much information as you can get your hands on?
3. Have you linked any documents that are referred to elsewhere in the site for ease of use?

8. Key Dates – Step out the consultation process

Displaying the opening and closing of your online consultation, plus the offline events, gives people a timeframe to work within and a context for how their online input will feed into the overall community engagement strategy.

1. Have you advertised the opening and closing of your consultation?
2. Have you advertised the dates of your other offline engagement events?
3. Have you considered adding in project milestone dates?

9. Visual Aids – Double your relationship building efforts

A richly supplied video and picture library encourages visitor participation by delivering the “physicality” of the site, aspects that include gestures, eye contact and “voice”.  In simple terms, it makes your ideas and thoughts “visible”.

A visual aid library can help stimulate discussion by enlivening the tone.  Clear pictures multiply your audience’s level of understanding and can reinforce your objectives, clarify points and create excitement.

Studies by educational researchers suggest that approximately 83% of human learning occurs visually, and the remaining 17% through the other senses – 11% through hearing, 3.5% through smell, 1% through taste, and 1.5% through touch.

Researchers tell us that we remember 10 percent of what we read, 20 percent of what we hear, and 50 percent of what we both see and hear.

Poorly selected or inadequately executed visual aids will distract from your key messages.

1. Have you restrained yourself from loading visual aids that don’t inform the process further?
2. Have you loaded photos and videos that are locally made and help to inform the project –  graphs to support numerical information, maps, and design alternatives?
3. Have you thought outside of the box and loaded up cartoons, animations or otherwise to help stimulate discussion?

10. FAQS – Map out the site territory

In our experience the FAQs are one of the least viewed areas on a site.  People want to develop their opinions using their own research.  We do know that most people will download documents and watch the site videos long before they read your tailored project FAQs.

With this in mind, consider using the FAQ function as an opportunity to guide people through the use of the site.   Questions you might answer might be:

1. Will we find out the results of the engagement and if so, when?
2. Who is in charge of moderation and what are the rules?
3. How do I keep my identity private?

11. Discussion questions – Invite your community to join the circle

This is when your consultation opens out to the community domain.

The online visitors have been warmly welcomed to the online space, they have been handed a map to guide them through (the introduction and FAQs), browsed the content to help develop their opinions (document library), been visually engaged and stimulated (video and photos), and know when the final opportunity to have their say will be and where (Key Dates).

If the site has done its job visitors will feel primed to answer the questions that you’ve posed.

Now is not the time to damage that relationship by asking your community to comment on the generalities of a plan that is hundreds of pages in length.  Your visitors will leave in droves, feeling bemused and unsatisfied.  So instead, ask questions that are interesting to them and make sense to you.

Deciding what these questions are may require a two stepped process (at least).  First, by boiling a large document down to its bares bones to identify the key areas of community interest and secondly by prising the interest areas open to see how they relate to people on a day to day basis.  Your job is to identify the impacts of your proposals on your stakeholders, not to bury the impacts in a voluminous and turgid tome. This process will leave you with the key ingredients that can then make up a series of relevant questions.

Using this process, write out as many questions as you possibly can think of, then prioritise and create a shortlist of between three and six

1. Have you identified the key areas of interest of your community?
2. Have you repurposed the questions so that they are directly relevant to your community’s interests?
3. Will their input be valuable to your final or living document?

Successful promotion can make or break your online consultation

Letting people know about the opportunity to get involved in your project is critical to the success of any community engagement process. Online community engagement is no different from traditional methods in this respect.

Here are 20 ideas to get you started. If you have any others, please tell us so that we can grow this list.

All things being equal, more than 90% of your consultation “traffic” will come from three sources:

1. Via a link from your corporate website
2. Via direct URL
3. Via an organic Google search

An important note: This may vary if you have access to a good quality database for direct marketing; hence the value in building your online community over time.

With this in mind, the six more important strategies you can adopt are:

1. A GREAT BIG link on your corporate website homepage

You need to convince your web manager that community engagement is a core function of your organisation and that your online consultation hub deserves a chance to shine. This will NOT happen if the the link to your online consultation is buried five pages deep on your corporate website. You need a very clear one click link; whether via a banner advertisement or from the main navigation bar.

2. A memorable web address

You have lots of choices when it comes to picking a URL for your consultation hub and/or specific consultation. Our advice, keep it short, pithy and plain English. Avoid acronyms. Avoid made-up words. Avoid using the long form name of the project.

Generally our advice is to build recognition of the consultation hub URL through time by repeatedly promoting it, rather than project specific URLs. This way your stakeholders will be exposed to the breadth of projects you are consulting about.

If a project is particularly high profile and strategically important to the organisation, you can always purchase a project specific URL and redirect it to the project site on your consultation portal.

Once you’ve got your URL sorted..

• Make sure it is prominently displayed on all of your project collateral

• Hand out flyers at your public meetings, open-house days, kiosks etc.

• Hand out leaflets or postcards with it prominently displayed at public events and popular gathering points; in the mall, at railway stations, clubs, pubs, libraries, corner shops

3. Use the traditional media

• Distribute a traditional media release with a snappy headline to your local media outlets, e.g. “Council wants you to Bang the Table about…..”

• Write an opinion piece for the local newspaper – chances are that they are desperate for content.

• Get on the local radio and talk the issue up… remember to mention the URL.

• If you are in a regional area and the issue is big enough, get on regional TV – WIN, Capital, NBN – and talk up the project.

4. Direct Marketing

• For Councils, put a note in with your next rates notice or other mail outs

• Direct email your entire staff to let them know about the project – make the URL prominent – and ask them to pass on the email to their friends and family

• Direct email relevant local community organisations as above

5. Network Marketing

• Ask local libraries, cyber cafes and other places where people access the web to display signage and/or instructions for joining the consultation

• Talk to local schools who, for some issues, may be interested in assisting pupils to participate

• List your consultation on active local Facebook pages and other social networking sites

6. Social Media & Online Marketing

• Targeted Facebook advertisements

• Google “Adwords”

• Banner advertisements on relevant websites

• Create a Twitter #hashtag for the project and use a place name #hashtag for location based issues

• Targeted Linkedin advertisments (for more professionally oriented consultations)

Cover

Greek academics, Assistant Professor Yannis Charalabidis and Sotirios Koussouris, have teamed up to edit a new compilation of papers on e-participation and e-governance, Empowering Open and Collaborative Governance: Technologies and Methods for Online Citizen Engagement in Public Policy Making.

Ann Macintosh, Professor of Digital Governance, at the University of Leeds notes in the fist of two forewords that:

This book provides a comprehensive account of the use of digital media and supporting methods to facilitate participatory democracy, thereby forming a valuable reference for those engaged in researching eParticipation.

She goes on to state that:

Public legitimisation and acceptance of decisions is a key part of good governance and, as such, eParticipation research has the potential to foster open and transparent decision processes.

Fundamentally, the research results are concerned with benefiting all stakeholders and bringing to bear relevant views and evidence to support workable policy development.

I couldn’t agree more!

David Osimo, Managing partner at Tech4i2 makes the following statement in the second of the two forewords:

Online engagement of citizens is certainly not a new theme: it has been on the research and policy agenda for more than a decade under the different names of eDemocracy, eParticipation, Online Engagement, and Online Deliberation. For many years it has been clear that the Internet would radically change democracy, and that citizens would take a more proactive role in politics. Underlying the discussion was the hidden assumption that eDemocracy would basically correspond to increased opportunities for self-determination and decision-making by citizens.

Yet the impact has been far less dramatic than expected. Governments still struggle to engage truly in policy-making with citizens, and when they do so they often fail to generate the expected degree of engagement. eDemocracy and eParticipation projects have largely remained confined to the experimentation level and have been deployed in only very few cases.

While I agree with David when he says that many Governments are still struggling to engage citizens in meaningful policy dialogues, as a practitioner working in the space, it’s perhaps not surprising that I do believe that there are some very good examples of where this is happening well. In my view it is a matter of a combination of good practice, good technology and the right preconditions (or context) to drive participation. Many of our clients have gone well beyond experimentation and implemented online community engagement as a integral part of their community engagement practices.

David goes on to note with concern that:

After 15 years of eParticipation we still cannot answer the very basic question of policy makers: how can I have a civilized and fruitful debate with millions of citizens?

I’m not entirely convinced that this is a valid question to be asking. In my experience over the past five years looking at many hundreds of only discussions, I would contend that the better quality, if you like the more “fruitful and civilised” debates (or dialogues), are more often than not between smaller groups of people with a deep understanding of the issues. This is in contrast to mass participation exercises through “ideation” style platforms that are designed to gather a lot of ideas but cannot hope to achieve well managed deep interogation of the complexity of public policy issues.

David and I also part ways when he states that:

The key determinants of eParticipation are social and psychological rather than technological.

I couldn’t disagree more. Why would I otherwise spend my days trying to design software that enables more people to get involved in higher quality e-participation processes. To dismiss the importance of the quality of the technology as an enabler or barrier to participation with the wave of a hand is akin to saying that it makes no difference to your experience whether you drive a 1974 Datsun 120Y from Sydney to Perth or a Bugatti. Yes, it is critical to understand the social and psychological contexts of the policy issues and the stakeholders in order to drive participation rates. But it is just as critical to ensure they have a good experience once they arrive at you consultation portal. In face to face engagement it is the equivalent of the difference between a well designed process and a free-for-all.

The book’s editors state in the preface:

This book aims to provide the latest research findings such as theoretical foundations, principles, methodologies, architectures, technical frameworks, cases and lessons learnt within the domain of open governance and on-line citizen engagement. This constitutes a new approach to addressing the issue of implementing open collaborative governance solutions and initiatives, providing both research and practical results. Unique characteristics that distinguish this book from existing titles are the systematic analysis of the domain, the all-around view of political, legal, technical and user-oriented aspects and the inclusion of reviews, case reports and evaluation of international initiatives.

The book is composed of 14 chapters, structured in 3 parts as follows.

Part I is entitled “Public Policy Debate Foundations”, and includes six chapters laying the foundations regarding processes and methods for scoping, planning, evaluating and transforming citizen engagement.

Part II is “Information and Communication Technologies for Citizens’ Participation” and includes five chapters with more practical approaches to designing and building collaborative governance infra- structures and citizens participation for businesses and administrations.

Part III on “Future Research Directions of Open, Collaborative ICT-Enabled Governance” consists of three chapters and presents a review of the current domain, providing constructive critique on the developments of the past, and laying out perspectives regarding the future challenges and research direction.

Naturally enough the case studies have a very strong EU focus, but if your an academic interested in the space or a senior practitioner or e-participation policy wonk, then it is worth a look.

Coverpage: Older Victorians Online

A survey by our Collingwood based friends and neighbours, Ellis Jones, in collaboration with COTA Victoria found that 86% of respondents over 55′s Victorians are active internet users. The results can be found in the research report, Older Victorians Online.

Head over the Ellis Jones website to download a copy of the report in its entirety.

This is a particularly useful study for people involved in the world on online community engagement because one of the more common questions we are hit with is “will older people get involved in online consultations?” The answer is a resounding “yes”.

The report was motivated by the desire to disprove the myth that older Australians are unwilling to go online. The authors note that the proportion of people aged 65 and over using the internet almost doubled between 2007 to 2011 (29.8% to 56.7%) while for those aged 50-64 it has grown from 66.1% to 84.4%. A quick check of reveals some 1.67 million Australians over 55 have a Facebook profile!

The research finding clearly demonstrate that older people are both willing and able to head online for a variety of reasons; to stay in touch with family and friends, to seek out government services, to communicate with their existing service providers, and most telling for me, to get involved in conversations.

There is a lot to learn from the report, and I do recommend downloading the full report, but a few key findings that jumped out for me are:

• The majority of people who aren’t using the internet site security concerns as their main barrier. Lack of knowledge is also a significant issue.
• Online banking and making travel arrangements are two of the main reasons older people are using the internet. Both technically complex tasks that clearly demonstrate proficiency with the technology.
• Older people are more than happy to leave comments and feedback online (64% of participants) and some 71% felt acknowledged as a result of leaving their comment.
• Some 40% of participants had Facebook profiles, with 20% using YouTube. Far less used either Twitter or Linkedin.
• They are mostly on Facebook to keep up with friends and family (just like everyone else), and from personal experience I would suggest to see pictures of the grandkids.
• Critically, those surveys said that having access to the internet made them feel more informed, more engaged and more empowered!
• And finally… they like the idea of governments engaging more online because it would help them to feel more informed and engaged.

Cover of "Sociability: Social Media for People with a Disability"

Importantly, in addition to providing a nice overview of the accessibility issues with Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, YouTube, Skype and various blogging platforms Sociability: Social Media for People with a Disability also includes practical tips and workarounds, developed in consultation with social media users who have a disability.

There’s a lot of useful content and it is well worth downloading the document and reading through in its entirety (just in case you missed the link the first time).

The report’s author, Dr Scott Hollier, a project manager at Media Access Australia includes a short section on the benefits of social media specifically for people with disabilities:

While the reasons for and potential benefits of creating, modifying, sharing and discussing things online are clear for the general public, for people with disabilities the benefits have the potential to be even more profound. The BBC Ouch! website recently discussed the impact of social media on people with disabilities.

The article, Social networking, the disabled view, and several comments highlight how social media not only provide an avenue for participation for people with disabilities but can often become an even more important means of communication due to some of the challenging social situations having a disability can provide.

Benefits discussed online include a vision impaired person using Twitter to communicate with friends instead of crowded social situations where eye contact is difficult, a person who is often sick using Facebook and blogging tools to keep people informed of her progress and using LinkedIn to improve employability options.

He concludes:

The common element between all of these scenarios is participation: regardless of whether social media is used for activism, entertainment or obtaining pizza discounts, it is vital that consumers with disabilities are able to participate in the benefits that social media can provide.

Unfortunately, previous research into the accessibility of the most popular social media platforms has demonstrated how poorly accessibility issues are considered. Denis Boudreau’s research – slideshow embedded below – is scathing. Although it must be acknowledged that things are getting better.

While its somewhat remarkable that organisations with the insane budgets that the major social media platforms have to throw around aren’t taking accessibility more seriously, the really wonderful thing about this report is the inclusion of tips (or work-arounds) for overcoming many of the accessibility issues with these platforms. Here are just of few:

• Facely HD is an accessible mobile app for using Facebook on the iPhone or iPad.
• The Linkedin mobile app for “i” products is also very accessible.
• There are a number of accessible YouTube portals such as Accessible YouTube and Easy YouTube.
• Easy Chirp has created an accessible desktop version of Twitter.

The clear implications, particularly for government but also for NGOs wishing to engage their community online is that the major social media platforms cannot be relied upon as a natural communications channel. Unlike government agencies, there is no compulsion for privately held and operated platforms to conform to the WCAG guidelines. So while they may have the benefit of being “free”, they are unlikely to comply with human rights legislation or government policy. Hence the need for specialist community engagement solutions – whether developed in-house or sourced from third-party organisations like Bang the Table.

In summary then, it’s pretty clear that social media provides a potentially invaluable communications channel for people with disabilities. It’s just as clear that the major social media channels aren’t going to a lot of effort to facilitate uptake of that opportunity.

This is to be expected; they are, after all spaces for the contest of  wicked problems. The question is, how do we enable the former and limit the later?

One of my principal concerns as a community engagement practitioner when I moved into the world of online engagement was whether one could create the conditions for a constructive policy dialogue in the online environment. The big risk with any form of “gathering”, whether online or offline, is that ill will and dogmatism will lead to polarised positions and destructive bickering. It is generally the facilitators’ job to help create the conditions necessary for a respectful exchange; whether that exchange takes the form of collaborative dialogue or a competitive debate. In the online world this process is divided into twin rolls shared by the moderator and potentially, but unusually, a facilitator.

I should state upfront that I’m not a devotee of the school of thought that favours deliberative dialogue above all else. For me, rigorous public “debate” has a perfectly legitimate place in public policy development. Bad ideas are quickly dismissed and good ideas can be improved through exposure to criticism. The not insignificant caveat being that such debates must be conducted in a context where reasonably good will endures otherwise “learning” plays second fiddle to one-up-man-ship.

For me the idea of the creation of Habermas’ perfect speech space has always been a little like former Australian Prime Minister Chifley’s Light on the Hill. A very nice objective, but a rarely achieved reality… particularly in public policy discourse where the contest of ideas can be closely held and fierce.

I recently stumbled across another compelling argument for embracing the more, lets call it rambunctious, aspects of online debate. There is a school of thought that argues that the idea that eventually rational consensus on controversial issues is possible – a belief that underpins deliberative models of democracy – is a dangerous illusion. University of Canberra journalism and Communications lecturer, Jason Wilson, writing on the ABC’s THE DRUM website, notes that political philosopher Chantal Mouffe argues that the radical pluralism of modern societies means that liberal consensus can only be imposed. Rather than seeking it, we should institutionalise and channel inevitable conflict in a way that allows us to be adversaries, not enemies, and in a way that reverses the long process of political disengagement in Western democracies:

“Far from jeopardising democracy, agonistic confrontation is in fact its very condition of existence. Modern democracy’s specificity lies in the recognition and legitimation of conflict and the refusal to suppress it by imposing an authoritarian order.”

I have a theory that academics tend to box themselves into corners in the desire to demarcate intellectual territory. They can get quite passionate about their particular view of the world. I’ve seen academics nearly come to blows over economic theory! My point being that I suspect that both “sides” of this debate are probably wrong and probably right. There is room enough for both debate and dialogue within our world of online community engagement. It all depends on the nature of the issue, the context, and the participants.

So, after some four and a half years and many hundreds of consultations, I thought it was about time to sit back and reflect on what actually happens within an online forum. Do people engage in constructive dialogue, destructive bickering, something somewhere in-between, or perhaps a little bit of everything? And most importantly, can we do anything to facilitate more of the former and less of the later?

These are questions that matter to me for at least two reasons. Firstly, one of things we are always being asked by our clients is, does the community actually care about this issue? And the related question, is this issue hot or not? An analysis of the nature of the exchange within each forum space goes a long way to answering this question. A second, and important reason to me personally, is that I didn’t get into this business to encourage socially destructive bickering online that may or may not lead to socially destructive behaviors offline. Ideally, I want to see people exchanging ideas, thoughts, beliefs and knowledge; learning from each other, and coming up with better ideas. Naive perhaps. But I am ever the optimist.

Before I could begin the analysis I needed some sort of typology. My research method has, to the say the least, be loose! (This is a blogpost after all, not a research paper.) A quick look at the dictionary definitions of a group of words I associate with the forum space and a chat with Matt to make sure my thoughts weren’t completely insane. It turned out that while not insane, they were confused. So thanks go to Matt for helping to evolve the diagram below.

First up, a few definitions:

• Bicker – to engage in petulant or peevish argument
• Debate – a discussion, as of a public question in an assembly, involving opposing viewpoints
• Converse – to talk informally with another or others; exchange views, opinions
• Discuss – to consider or examine by argument, comment, etc
• Dialogue – an exchange of ideas or opinions on a particular issue, especially a political or religious issue, with a view to reaching an amicable agreement or settlement.
• Deliberate – to think carefully or attentively

It’s interesting that we tend to use many of these terms interchangeably and thoughtlessly. It seems from these definitions that while conversations don’t necessarily go anywhere at all, and discussion is a fairly broad almost all encompassing concept, the key difference between debate and dialogue is the intended direction of the outcome. The difference between dialogue and debate has been explained thoroughly elsewhere, but for me, the most critical difference is that dialogue is about reaching a mutually agreeable consensus based on the knowledge and needs of everyone present, whereas debate is about having ones viewpoint prevail. Respectful debate is okay. Disrespectful debate is not okay, it deteriorates into bickering and is potentially socially destructive. The difference between dialogue and “deliberative dialogue” is that it takes longer to reach agreement through a deliberative process because everyone thinks much harder about the problem at hand! This is a good thing because there is no premature leaping to solutions before the problem has been properly described and investigated.

I then mapped the six styles of exchange against two criteria. First, the degree of good will between the interlocutors, and second the degree of pragmatism they bring to consideration of potential solutions. With Matt’s help this evolved into a the venn diagram below. It’s clearly not “right” in any absolute sense. I can imagine a group of facilitators arguing (sorry, deliberating) for hours over what it should really look like. But it works for me, so I shall continue…

It may seem obvious, but the first thing I look for within the forum to get a sense of whether there is likely to be any real exchange taking place is the total number of comments. Anything over around 50 comments and there is reasonable potential for some sort of exchange, over 100 and its pretty much guaranteed.

The second thing I look for is whether there is any sort of exchange taking place between participants. It is not uncommon, particularly for low key projects – those with little emotional content, little impact or a very small audience – to see a long list of comments in the left hand margin of the forum. (Note that the forums are multi-threaded, which means that when people are responding to each other the comments step in from the left.) While there are no absolutes, relative to other forums where we see lots of exchange – people asking each other questions, disagreeing with or supporting each others’ arguments and ideas – these forums are more a less a series of monologues.

As an aside; a colleague once told me that a friend of his thought that a conversation is simply an opportunity for the exchange of two autobiographies. The “monologue” forum is a little like this. While the ideas, thoughts and feelings of the participants are completely valid and useful, there is not a lot of evidence of listening or learning going on. This is not necessarily a bad thing. It can be a good indication of community ambivalence about an issue.

The quick way to check for “exchange” is the ratio of primary comments to replies. For low key discussion this can approach 1:0. For highly contested issues – off-leash dog walking on public beaches, for example – we have seen the ratio of primary comments to replies approach one to five. That is, for every primary comment, on average there are five replies. In some cases a single exchange may be dozens of comments long.

The next metric I look at is the number of comments per participant and then the number of return visits. It’s quite possible for someone to leave a number of comments in a single visit. It’s more useful to know that they are returning to the forum again and again to respond to other participants – whether by refining, clarifying, reinforcing, extending or modifying their argument. The average number of comments per participant is asymptotic in the extreme. Lots of people leave very few comments (one or two), a reasonable number of people leave a handful of comments (up to ten), and a very small handful of extremely passionate people leave a bucket full of comments (anything over 20, and up to a couple of hundred). For more on this, see my presentation on the 90-9-1 principle.

Clearly if the average number of comments is very low, tending towards one; then the chance that any form of exchange is taking place is virtually zero. If the average number of comments is around three or four, then chances are that some sort of exchange is taking place. Note that this is not a hard and fast rule. It is quite possible that while the vast majority of people are happy to leave one comment on a topic, two or three people will have a ding-dong knock ‘em out debate (complete with bickering) about a subject because it is so close to home for them.

Again, if the average number of visits is close to one; then the chance of any form of exchange is virtually zero. If, however, the average number of visits is approaching three or four, then chances are that a reasonable exchange is taking place. Again, this is not a hard and fast rule, because a small group of devotees can throw the numbers out.

So, once we’ve established that there is a reasonable level of exchange taking place, how to assess whether it looks more like dialogue or more like debate? Tricky!

I’ve wracked my mind for an easy answer and can’t think of one. If anyone has any clues, I’d be very grateful for some direction.

My answer is qualitative and time consuming. You have to be prepared to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty. You have to actually read the comments. Let’s take an example.

Many moons ago we hosted a forum about the future of rail infrastructure into the Newcastle (Australia) CBD. It was the kind the issue with no right answer and certainly no simple answer. Although, perhaps inevitably there were two main “camps”. The tear it up camp; and the leave it right where it is camp. The forum received some 2,500 comments in two to three weeks. To say it was fractious is something of an understatement. A single discussion topic stretched to 681 comments. Many discussion threads within the topic were dozens of comments deep.

This is the first exchange on the topic “Do you feel that the rail line inhibits development of the City?”:

dipsy: Its a bit rich blaming the rail for the lack of development in the city. In most other cities in the world being near a rail station is an asset. Why should we be different? In the long term it just might be the city’s biggest asset.

billyaztec: Blind Freddy can see that the rail line has prevented the Newcastle City centre from thriving. Terminate the rail at either Broadmeadow or Wickham and re-name the terminal Newcastle. Bus the few passengers that want to get to the top of town from the new terminal. Perhaps even spend money on new rail links to other areas such as Nelson Bay, or at least Newcastle airport.

Gudplanin: Dear Blind Freddy, The reason that the Newcastle commercial centre hasn’t thrived has nothing to do with the rail line and everything to do with the growth of regional shopping centres. If you pull up the rail line, how are the workers and shoppers going to get to the revitalised CBD? If they are so few that you can bus them in, then it won’t be too vital.

Fairly clearly a debate. But a reasonably well mannered one. Everyone is making quite reasonable points that contribute to the knowledge base of everyone involved in the discussion.

And then there’s this much longer thread:

reggie: Most cities don’t have heavy rail servicing the shopping or recreational areas. e.g Sydney rail stops at central then you change to either underground light rail or bus to go shopping or to the harbour ect. I beleive a lot of the opposition to remove the rail line comes from people who live outside of Newcastle but on the rail line i.e Maitland etc.

Greg44: You are very very wrong. London stopped above ground heavy rail in 1830′s. Paris is the same. What we have is the equivalent of a heavy rail line running around Darling Harbour and The Rocks

NFlyer: And did you know that slightly more than 50% of London’s underground is above/on the ground? It’s only underground in the city areas. Greg44, you are wrong, as London has many above ground railways. And are now in the process of building what will be known as London Overground.

Greg44: Correct, but incorrect. London has above ground railways, but not in the centre of London. The London Overground that you refer to (which is mainly old lines rebadged) and the overground sections of the Underground are many miles out of town. Just like having above ground railways in Cardiff and calling it the centre of Newcastle. I stand by my statement. Having an overground railway in the Newcastle CBD is like putting an above ground railway along the side of the Thames or the Seine. Hardly something the masses would tolerate. Even less so when they discover it is to save less than 2000 people less than 5 minutes per day.

NFlyer:  When I said London has many above ground railways, I mean radiating from various terminals.

Greg44: All all of them are on the fringe of the city proper, like the proposed station at Wickham. They are not in Trafalger Square, Piccadilly Circus or Parliament Square. They certainly don’t cut the city off from the Thames or Hyde Park.

jrobbo: That’s not true Greg. Waterloo Station, as one example, is right on the bank of the Thames (or a block or so from it) and the bridge goes across the railway line. This is a pointless comparison anyway – the lines in London aren’t the only public transport to the area. Newcastle only has one railway to the city. It’s not the line that is blocking the development – it’s the buildings next to it. They can easily be demolished and development built over the top. Brisbane is doing this and it works well.

Greg44: Without getting bogged down in details, the point is that using the argument that “trains work in {insert name of a large well known city} so they should not be removed from Newcastle” is a cop out often used by those who don’t actually want to look at the facts. It ignores the massive differences in the layout, population, patronage, social benefits, etc etc.

jrobbo: True, but “the railway runs in the middle of the city, so let’s get rid of it” is also not a convincing argument for getting rid of it. I think the trend in building over railway lines for development is one the body deliberating on this needs to seriously consider. It’s a good win-win situation.

Still very much a debate. Certainly no sign of consensus building.  Still reasonably well mannered, but perhaps getting a bit stroppy as it gets bogged down in detail.

It’s actually quite cathartic to reread the thread after so many years. At the time I recall being quite stressed about whether the discussion was heading towards a free-for-all. We were watching it very closely for moderation issues. With a bit of time and space, while the debate is certainly robust, I don’t get any great sense of ill will between the participants. I could very easily imagine this being the first stage in a more deliberative process. A group process of sifting through the chaff in search of the wheat. I also get the sense that the participants quite enjoyed the exchange. All-in-all a very nice example of one of the lovely freedom of expression our democracy affords us.

Much later in the thread, three other participants have quite a different exchange:

smurf: This survey is really telling us all that this great City is ready for change, so why dont we have a big RALLY now at city hall to show our UNITY and get the message thru to Local ,State and Federal Governments, Newcastle wants to see this all go forward with their support NOW!!!!

snail: Or even more constructively, why not engage the Australian Institute of Architects (Newcastle has a branch) to hold a two day work-shop at honeysuckle worksheds about the planning of the CBD and the effects of removing the Heavy Rail line at the CBD. Local planners and architects could host it and it would be open to the public. What would go on is a ‘mock-up’ of ideas in the form of concept sketches and models for various options. Sort of like the 20/20 summit but for the CBD’s future. I know fourth year architecture students have done extensive forward thinking exercises and projects concering the Newcastle CBD. Professor Lehmann has had a leading hand in this. It is a valuable resource to be tapped into. The public could see ideas in motion and see them explored with findings. The work shop could be managed by dividing into teams to work on the various options on offer and present a scheme on the second day. Why not involve our best minds to work with interested everyday punters on this important matter of our future. Who knows, we could learn a bit more and perhaps clarify the direction of our future.

Wishful Thinker: Well done snail, great idea. I agree there are plenty of people in Newcastle with the brains and interests to come up with ideas of beautifying our CBD rather than spend thousands of dollas going worldwide. But while we have a willing spender let’s waste no time (we see too often in Newcastle) and get behind GPT to make Newcastle a proud bustling city it once was.

snail: You are right. Too often we see what essentially needs to be done drowned in overcomplicated discussion and ‘reports’. Leadership is what is most needed here. Just thought a brief, open forum might be a way to formalise opinion and provide informed support for those making the decision in order to further justify decisions based on community consensus. This forum is going a long way in doing that though. Well done.

This is a wonderful exchange for a number of reasons. First, it is constructive is the purest sense of the word. The participants are building on each others’ thoughts. Second it is self-empowering. They are thinking about what they personally can do to move the issue forward. And third, most marvelously, they are talking about an giant “meetup”. The online space has provoked the possibility of an completely organic offline gathering. But it’s still not a dialogue.

To find a ready example of a true dialogue I turn much more recent and very different consultation. The Caring for Country Review for the Australian Commonwealth government. The following exchange takes place in response to the question: What is needed to support and improve the capacity of the community to help manage our natural resources?

Surely, as a lovely an example of constructive deliberative dialogue as you are likely to see anywhere. The obvious difference between the two examples is that the former is being discussed by impassioned members of the general public with different visions of the future, whereas the second is an exchange between a group of people with the same overriding objective. Under these circumstances the second group and quite naturally more inclined to want to listen to and learn from each other in order to build a consensus.

In summary then:

• Dialogue and debate are BOTH legitimate in a pluralistic democracy and are therefore both legitimate and useful (for a variety of reasons) in an online policy discussion.
• Emotionally contentious public policy discussions require careful and close moderation to prevent the inevitable debate degenerating into bickering.
• Debate is more common in the online environment than dialogue. This is not necessarily a bad thing and is principally a reflection of the dominant style of interaction in western society rather than a shortcoming of the online space.
• Dialogue is more common when the participants are of one view regarding the overarching objective of the discussion.
• Dialogue does not necessarily require facilitation. It can develop organically under the right circumstances.

There are just as many different forms of engagement.  I want to focus here on those situations where there is a defined subject to consult the community about and where the results will feed in to a policy or implementation outcome.  This sort of engagement is usually (though not always) distinct from the sort of ongoing “brand” community that often finds a home on Facebook.

Stepping back from the day-to-day business of offering a solution, I thought it might be helpful to set out a list of generic points that I strongly recommend as a minimum standard for any software platform being considered for an online community engagement project.

1.    A User Friendly Interface

The site should look welcoming and should be intuitive for non-technically minded people to use.

If you are using online engagement to draw more people to the discussion then minimize technical barriers.  This may mean not including some of the latest fandangled technology which might upset the tech heads in your team but that’s ok, you should be thinking of the general public not the tech savvy minority.

If I think your system is too simple that does not prevent me from participating; whereas if I think it is too confusing then you have lost me from the process.

Some people in your tech team may view the world in terms of features lists.  To them forums are forums and surveys are surveys.  Anyone who has interacted in a range of different surveys and forums online knows that this is far from the truth.  They all feel different.

Avoid being driven by feature lists; instead focus on how people will feel accessing your site.

2.    Make moderation and facilitation easy

Your online engagement project should be moderated and, ideally, facilitated to create an active, thoughtful and safe space.

There are a variety of options out there from independent moderation and community management services to self-moderated platforms.  The critical issue is the timeliness of the moderation process.

Whether you are pre- or post-comment moderating, it is important to limit the time gap between the comment being made by the participant and it being reviewed by the moderator. If you a pre-comment moderating, this is a service quality issue. If you are post-comment moderating, this is a risk management issue. For us, this means providing a 24/7 moderation service and mobile enable moderation software.

As a minimum the system you use should have an easy way for moderation to take place (whether by you or others) that ensures inappropriate comments can be found and removed even if they arrive late on a Saturday night.

You should plan for the contingency just in case you receive a lot of comments very quickly after launching your consultation. It is not uncommon for high profile projects with a larger audience to garner a couple of thousand comments within two weeks.

Can the system you are considering allow you to easily find the comment you are looking for without wading through all the content on the site?

3.    Reports that are meaningful for community engagement

Crispin has previously posted on this blog about the importance of using analytic reports that are designed for community engagement as opposed to a generic analytics package like Google Analytics, which is designed primarily for marketing websites.

There are some fundamentals in community engagement reporting, such as being able to track content from individual users, understanding the demographic profile of users and understanding the critical issues as they apply to the community which you just cannot achieve using a generic analytics package.

That is not to diminish the power of what Google Analytics can do.  We provide our clients with the capacity to use both our specialist reports and GA in recognition of this fact.

4.    Content Analysis

You are also going to need some way of sorting content.

If you are running a forum and get a several hundred comments from the community it is critical that the issues within each post are identified and that you can sort and sift content by issue and sentiment as well as by other factors.  We utilize tagging to achieve this; there may be other ways too.  But you need something.

In the old days when I did engagement in Government I was often required to shoe horn complex submissions into a one page matrix, we really need to be getting better than that now. As we invite more people into engagement processes using online tools we need to be much better equipped to listen and learn from their contributions.

If your sites are complex or long term it is also worth considering the ability to run both content analysis and analytical reporting across multiple projects so trends and recurring issues can also be identified.

5.    Software that is relevant to all stages of your project

I think it’s fair to say that the early years on online community engagement have been characterized by one dimensional tools that are switched on and off at different points in a process.  Be it a survey, wiki, forum, ideation or simulation tool these are activated and then cast away.

It is better if, as your project goes through different stages, there are interactive tools available to suit the temporal communications and decision-support objectives, thus ensuring that the community remains engaged throughout the process.

A few things you might consider include: providing information resources in the same space that the consultation takes place, having news updates available on the site, always providing the capacity to answer community questions, storing emails of participants and sending email updates, having access to a range of feedback tools to suit different stages of the project.  And don’t forget RSS feeds!

The same applies to organisations that want to maintain a permanent community feedback area encompassing many projects.

The more tools available the more flexibility you will have to meet the needs of the diverse range of activities in which your community may be interested.

6.    Both technical and strategic support

It is a given that you will need access to ‘in time zone’ technical support.  If you are using an external provider ask for a Service Level Agreement that guarantees response times when issues arise.  If you are tied to an in-house service ask for the same thing – it might be educational to see the response you get.

I believe it is also important to have access to strategic support.  By this I don’t mean a technician on a helpdesk or an IT Salesman.  Look for someone who is actually a community engagement practitioner who has direct experience of online community engagement and of getting good results from these tools but who also understands and has experience of face to face engagement processes because it will most likely be critical that your online and face to face engagement activities dovetail.