10 ways to keep online dialogue on topic
.18.11 | No Comments »
November 18th, 2005 by Alex
I’ve spent the past two days at a Ohio State for a conference on Building Democracy Through Online Citizen Deliberation, which has been a terrifically productive gathering. One session consisted of an interesting conversation about how to structure online deliberation in a way that promotes civil dialogue. We agreed that one key challenge was simply keeping online conversation on topic, and got most of the way towards a list of 10 ways to keep online dialogue on topic.
I thought others might find this list useful, so I’ve written it up and finished it off.
- Keep your goal visible. Write a clear statement of the goal of your discussion, and place it on your discussion board or chat window so that it will remain visible to all participants for the duration of your dialogue.
- Keep your rules visible. Write a succinct list of rules (”no flaming”, “maximum 2 mins per comment”, etc.) and keep them visible on your discussion board or chat window.
- Use moderation effectively — and sparingly. An effective moderator can help keep conversation on track by limiting off-topic conversation, but will be most effective if she is sparing in her interventions.
- Open a parking lot. Face-to-face facilitators sometimes create a “parking lot” — a space to write down comments or ideas that are off-topic, but still need to be acknowledged or documented. A virtual parking lot (perhaps a separate web page or discussion thread) can play an analogous role in housing comments that don’t quite fit the main disscussion.
- Create an alternative channel for free-form input. If your discussion is the only opportunity for participants to have their say, they will be highly motivated to bring a wide range of ideas, interests and views to the table — even if some of these comments are outside the scope of your discussion. By providing an alternative channel (like a suggestion box or feedback form) for input, you give participants a way of voicing comments that don’t fit into your dialogue process, and increase the odds that your discussion will stay on track.
- Offer outside spaces for outside discussion. Your participants are likely to want an opportunity to discuss the issues that they are dropping into your suggestion box or parking lot. Creating an “off topic” forum or e-mail list — a place to discuss all the odds and ends that don’t fit into your main discussion — can help keep your dialogue focussed.
- Try and try again. An iterative approach to dialogue — that is, multiple phases of conversation, each with a clear goal, start, and and end point — is more likely to maintain focus. Each phase of the dialogue can have its own distinct focus, and you can either narrow or broaden the scope of each phase in response to what you learned in the previous phase. So while the discussion will narrow or widen over time, each phase of the conversation will have clear goals and a clear and sustainable focus.
- Be a role model. If you’re moderating a discussion, you have to be more restrained about injecting off-topic comments or anecdotes than any of the other participants. That doesn’t mean suppressing your personality — the occasional joke can be a great ice-breaker — but pick your digressions wisely, and keep them short. The more focused you can be, the more focused your discussion will be.
- Reframe off-topic comments. Rather than pointing your finger and dismissing a comment as off-topic, try to reframe it so that it leads the group back into your main discussion. Even if you have to get creative: “Well it’s interesting you mention Madonna’s new single, because of course THE Madonna is a huge figure in the Catholic church, and the Catholic church has been a big influence on anti-poverty policy. Does anyone else have thoughts about how community groups can help address poverty?”
- Redefine “on topic”. The most innovative solutions to a policy problem or dialogue dilemma often fall outside the pre-defined alternatives on the table, or the pre-defined scope of the conversation itself. When keeping conversation “on topic” it’s helpful to take the broadest possible perspective on what your topic really is, so you don’t lose any of these “outside the box” gems. And don’t discount the value of the occasional joke or personal anecdote, either — by building social relationships and trust among participants, these off-topic conversations can make your on-topic conversation that much more effective.
Coding for deliberation
.17.8 | No Comments »
August 17th, 2005 by Alex
One of my favourite organizations working on dialogue and deliberation challenges is the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation (NCDD). They’ve done a great job of building community among people doing civic engagement, dialogue and deliberation work, and are the inspriation for the upcoming Canadian C2D2 conference.
Now NCDD is expanding its extensive web site and is looking for someone to do some PHP and MySQL Web development work. More details for you to peruse and forward to your favourite coders:
The specific project is called the “Learning Exchange.” This is essentially a redesign and expansion of a significant portion of the content available through our main website (www.thataway.org, see the resources section).
The specific goals of the project are:
1. To provide a vast amount of information in an organized manner
2. To make specific information easier for users to find, both through browsing and through basic searches
3. To add a sophisticated ”needs-based” searching interface
4. To create an administrative interface that enables quick and easy management of the site’s contentPlease look over our RFP at http://www.thataway.org/misc/ncdd_rfp.pdf to learn more.
Become an online engagement pro
.20.7 | 1 Comment »
July 20th, 2005 by Alex
This fall I’m teaching two e-engagement programs through Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. One of the programs is a TeleForum (a series of conference calls) so it’s accessible to participants anywhere in the world.
Please let your colleagues and friends know about this chance to learn about online engagement and dialogue:
Do you need to build relationships with new stakeholder groups? Are you managing complex issues and relationships with limited resources? Is information management and information sharing crucial to your stakeholder engagement work?
Online tools can help you manage all of these stakeholder engagement challenges. Engagement leaders have recognized that tools like online discussions, resource libraries and surveys can increase the reach and effectiveness of almost any stakeholder engagement program.
Beginning in September 2005, the Collaborative Learning & Innovation program at Simon Fraser University is offering two opportunities to learn more about the values, tools and approaches that drive successful online stakeholder engagement.
The Online Stakeholder Engagement Teleforum (http://www.sfu.ca/cscd/cli/online_engagement_teleforum.htm) is a series of six monthly conference calls for engagement practitioners. These monthly discussions will focus on collaborative knowledge-building among participants in order to create a learning community that is useful to the work of its members. Participants will develop the field knowledge and analytic framework to assess e-engagement options and to plan for effective online engagement with key stakeholders. The first session will be held on September 14; calls will be held from 10 am – noon PST, and international participation is welcomed.
The Online Stakeholder Engagement Workshop (http://www.sfu.ca/cscd/cli/online_workshop.htm) will be held on October 17 in Vancouver, Canada. This one-day workshop will provide an intensive introduction to online engagement work, emphasizing online engagement as a catalyst for increasing the depth and value of public involvement work. Participants will get hands-on experience with a range of online engagement tools, and will develop their own perspective on the opportunities for online participation through discussion and group exercises.
Both the Teleforum and the in-person workshop will be co-taught be Alexandra Samuel and Ann Svendsen. For further information please visit the CLI web site at http://www.sfu.ca/cscd/cli/executive_programs.htm, or e-mail Alexandra (alex_at_alexandrasamuel_dot_com) or Ann (svendsen_at_sfu_dot_ca).
Tag blogging @ tagsonomy.com
.3.6 | 1 Comment »
June 3rd, 2005 by Alex
As of today I’m moving some of my tag-related musings to You’re It, a blog on tagging that includes such venerable folksonomists as Jon Lebkowsky, Clay Shirky and Dave Weinberger. Rob hopes that this new outlet means that I’ll finally stop talking about tagging in bed.
My self-introduction on You’re It touches on my recent work around “found” engagement: channeling the spontaneous political conversations that occur in the blogosphere and other online forums into structured policy-making processes. I believe tagging could help connect activism and engagement in ways that make public participation more reflexive and widespread.
e-Engagement Tools That Fit
.30.5 | 1 Comment »
May 30th, 2005 by Alex
Organizations have tremendous cultural variations that need to be considered when designing an e-engagement plan or selecting e-engagement tools. E-engagement will be most successful when it’s based on tools that fit with the way an organization approaches technology and with the way it approaches engagement. Since organizations may approach internal (employee) engagement differently from stakeholder or public engagement it’s worth looking at a matrix for each area of engagement work.
I’ve created a draft matrix to help inform these choices. I’d be delighted to get feedback on whether the matrix is helpful, or thoughts on which tools should be added (or moved) within the matrix. See image below, or download a PDF version.
Online engagement: strength in numbers
.15.4 | Comments Off
April 15th, 2005 by Alex
The Canadian Policy Research Network has released a new paper called “Democracy — Updating the Owner’s Manual” by Mary Pat MacKinnon, the Director of CPRN’s Public Involvement Network.
The paper provides a very useful introduction to citizen engagement, informed by CPRN’s own extensive experience in engaging over 2,000 Canadians in public dialogue. Mary Pat suggests four reasons that citizen engagement matters:
- To safeguard democracy
- To support democracy with informed, engaged citizens
- To improve policy outcomes
- To nurture democracy for future generations
And among the challenge that Mary Pat identifies for citizen engagement practitioners, she asks:
How do we scale up to institutionalize democratic participation at all levels of government, within public service and parliaments? How do we capture the full effects of public involvement – how do we improve our ability to evaluate and communicate results to the public?
This is just the challenge that online engagement is uniquely able to address. Face-to-face engagement imposes enormous informational, personal and financial demands. Would-be participants have to keep informed about a range of issues and events if they want to be ready when the consultation wagon comes through town. They have to juggle scheduling pressures, geographic barriers, and inhibitions about speaking up in a room full of strangers. And the cost of organizing a series of town hall meetings requires a significant resource commitment.
Online engagement and online support for face-to-face engagement can address some of these challenges by transcending many of the informational, personal and financial obstacles to large-scale participation. Many countries – Canada included – offer consultation portals that list current requests for input and links to relevant background information. Online discussions give people the opportunity to participate whenever and wherever is most convenient for them, and makes it easier to speak up. Most crucially, online consultations can engage a much wider range and larger number of participants than would otherwise be logistically or financially feasible.
But to realize that potential, we need to push beyond the resource-intensive focus on professionally moderated small-group discussions. That’s the model that still dominates the online consultation field, even though it imposes many of the same barriers and costs that limit face-to-face engagement. If we reduce every engagement process to 50-person moderated groups, we’re never going to break through the glass ceiling that counts 1,000 people as massive participation.
And what’s at stake is far more than numbers. If we agree with Mary Pat that “a well functioning democracy requires a well informed and engaged citizenry,” then we need to think about the tipping point at which a sprinkling of consultation participants starts to foster a broader culture of engagement and participation. Face-to-face engagement is a crucial part of developing that culture, but I suspect that only online engagement is capable of getting us to the numbers that will turn citizen participation into a pervasive, enriching and habitual part of public decision-making.
Pew Internet & American Life Project
.4.4 | Comments Off
April 4th, 2005 by Alex
Michael Cornfield of the Pew Internet & American Life Project notes an important new consultation on Internet campaigning:
The Federal Election Commission opens public comment for sixty days on Monday, April 4 regarding its plan to renovate the online space for national politics.
The FEC’s proposals include provisions addressing online advertising and blogging, both major forces in the 2004 race.
On advertising, the Commission asks:
should ‘‘general public political advertising’’ include Internet advertisements where the advertising space is provided in exchange for something of value other than a monetary payment, for example through an exchange of comparable advertising?
On blogging, the Commission notes that existing finance regulations already require campaigns to disclose payments made to bloggers in exchange for coverage.
The Commission does not therefore propose to change the disclaimer regulation in 11 CFR 110.11(a) to require bloggers to disclose payments from a candidate, a campaign, or a political committee. The Commission seeks comment on this approach. Could or should bloggers be required to disclose such payments? Could or should a blogger be required to disclose payments only if the blogger expressly advocates the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate or solicits a contribution?