> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.opendemocracy.net/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Networking Democracy - General discussion thread - URL: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/networking-democracy-general-discussion-thread/ - Published: 2008-03-18T17:03:24.000Z - Updated: 2019-02-14T22:44:05.000Z - Author: openDemocracy Supporters - Tags: #en, #Migrated, #Import 2026-04-09 18:59 **Opening Statements** - [**The rationale**](https://www.opendemocracy.net/networking-democracy/michael-wills-anthony-barnett-exchange) **\- Michael Wills and Anthony Barnett** - [**The "National Conversation" Conversation**](https://www.opendemocracy.net/networking-democracy/national-conversation-conversation) **\- Tony Curzon Price** - [**Values and Virtual Debates**](https://www.opendemocracy.net/networking-democracy/values-and-virtual-debates) **\- Bill Thompson** - [**Online Engagement in a National Debate**](https://www.opendemocracy.net/networking-democracy/online-engagement-in-a-national-debate) **\- Steve Clift** - [**Building Online Participation into a National Citizens Summit**](https://www.opendemocracy.net/networking-democracy/building-online-participation-into-a-national-citizens-summit) **\- Suw Charman** **Discussion threads** - [**Networking Democracy** ](https://www.opendemocracy.net/networking-democracy/networking-democracy)**(43 responses)** - [**Ensuring Security** ](https://www.opendemocracy.net/networking-democracy/ensuring-security)**(5 responses)**[](https://www.opendemocracy.net/networking-democracy/ensuring-security) - [**Asking Difficult Questions** ](https://www.opendemocracy.net/networking-democracy/asking-difficult-questions)**(3 responses)** - [**How do online and offline interact?**](https://www.opendemocracy.net/networking-democracy/online-offline-interact) **(3 responses)** - [**Building Participation**](https://www.opendemocracy.net/networking-democracy/building-participation) **(7 responses)** - [**Final thoughts**](https://www.opendemocracy.net/networking-democracy/final-thoughts) **(7 responses)** \--------------------------------- ## **General discussion** This is the archive of the main general discussion thread which started the conversation. **\----------------------------------------------------------------** **Anthony Barnett** Following Jon’s instructions, at this early stage we are all discussing all the issues. One aim is to identify if there are particular threads we should debate. Presumably these will on issues where we have disagreement. Reading the four introductory contributions (and noting that only Suw kept to her 1,000 words remit!) my thinking has already been influenced in ways I’d not expected. It seems to me that already there is some important agreement. First and second, any successful web-based ‘national conversation’ will be quite expensive and needs dedicated human moderation. The web makes possible an extensive degree of participation never before conceivable. The cost of this per person may be tiny as well. But the total cost will be high because good human moderation and summarising is going to be essential. Are we all agreed on this? Does a national conversation need a great blast of costly publicity and television to drive people to it - and make credible, as Steve Clift argues; or is Bill Thompson right that we should leave this to the web’s own viral ways – but if so how long will this take? This is an interesting question I’d not thought about. There seems to be agreement that for any widespread input of the kind the Minister is would like local and smaller conversations are needed. Tony Curzon Prince takes these as the starting point as well as making the ability to host them a possible qualification for being chosen as a ‘Citizens Summit’ participant. Suw Charman makes a strong pitch for the inclusion of individual blogs as a vehicle for active representation. This strikes me a very important area for discussion. There seems to be a difference of view over Wikis. Bill is opposed and Suw likes the idea of using them. I think that pure wikis work when there already is a consensus. Thus on Wikipedia the rule is ‘no opinions’. Wikis cannot work if there is a disagreement, even if the hoped aim is consensus. As there are bound to be areas of clear disagreement in any significant national debate wikis are only of use for one group or side in the argument to clarify its joint view. Steve Clift poses the question of real names. I agree with him. We intend to ask people to give us their full real (or ‘government’) name, the town or country they are living in, and their citizenship, when this discussion goes public. All based on trust. But I think this is essential for a debate between citizens about their political future. Of course, if there is a reason for privacy this can be shared with the moderator and anonymity can be provided. **From: Fergusao** **Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 06:53:36 -0800 (PST)** **Local: Wed, Feb 13 2008 2:53 pm** **Subject: Re: Networking Democracy** To pick up on the points in Anthony's summary... 1\. It’s going to cost money – every aspect of it. The only way to get the best price is to run a competitive tender. It won’t be buttons, but it will be a considerably lower cost that talking to 10s and 100s of thousands of people offline. 2\. Agreed moderation and summarising are going to be essential, in some form or another. 3\. Marketing of this opportunity will be crucial, particularly if it is decided to target the general public. You have to get it in front of people, get over their initial scepticism (and cynicism) and then get them to put it in their diary. The BBC wants to promote citizenship – it’s been said before, call them out on that statement and get them involved in this. Instead of ‘Test the Nation’, let’s have ‘Debate the Nation’. 4\. There cannot be a ‘one website to rule them all’ approach here. There will need to be a corporate site (made up of perhaps a set of microsites), a set of partnerships (probably with the media) and then there will be all the ‘civic commons’ sites (the blogs, the forums, Twitter, Facebook yada yada yada). Different courses, for different horses. I think some people in this group can help on the ‘corporate site’, others on how best to engage with civil society; where we might be lacking is on how to strike up partnerships. 5\. Wikis could be useful but only for a particular stakeholder group. Just like a Facebook application is going to be the best bet for other people. Yet again one website alone will not do the job, nor will one format of consultation or deliberation. This needs proper user- profiling and design. 6\. The success of this exercise will rest on the creativity and commitment of the MoJ over the course of the exercise. They will get as much out as they put in. There’s a graph to be drawn here  7\. In a deliberation like this, I’d welcome open, authentic registration but that should be at the point of registration. From registration onwards it should be up to the individual to share what they want. And leading on from that, data protection is not an area for debate – a call to the information Commissioner will keep you right. **From: Suw** **Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 13:45:44 -0800 (PST)** **Local: Wed, Feb 13 2008 9:45 pm** **Subject: Re: Networking Democracy** \> First and second, any successful web-based 'national conversation' \> will be quite expensive and needs dedicated human moderation. The web \> makes possible an extensive degree of participation never before \> conceivable. The cost of this per person may be tiny as well. But the \> total cost will be high because good human moderation and summarising \> is going to be essential. Are we all agreed on this? Yes, it is going to cost. Participation - not just moderation - from an official team is going to be essential. Shoving out a consultation document and hoping people will comment on it will not be enough. It will be essential to have key players involved online, as well as a team of facilitators, who do more than just decide if somone's comment is abusive, but who will play an active part in the conversation, facilitating it, but not unduely influencing it. Online conversation can go two ways - you can have a fabulous, constructive, interesting and positive conversation, or you can have a pit of vipers where the contributions consist of rude, ill-considered and nasty bickering. There are examples of both online, and the key is always author participation. In blogs where the author is actively involved in the conversation, makes judgements over when people are over-stepping the line, and takes appropriate (but not excessive) action when people act poorly, the conversation is always of a better quality. The blog Making Light is an excellent example of a high- traffic blog that has very civil discussion. Comment is Free is the polar opposite - on the whole authors are not involve in the resultant discussions, which tend towards being unpleasant, rude and unconstructive. (Although there are sometimes civil discussion they are rare.) Making Light: http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/ -- it's worth noting that Teresa Nielsen Hayden is a particularly skilled facilitator, and it would certainly be worth inviting her to join this discussion if possible. Comment is Free: http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ A question I want to ask at this stage is, what do we mean by "national conversation". What sort of levels of participation is expected? What is realistic? In my experience with the Open Rights Group, amongst many other online communities which I have either partipated in or started, very few people will actually engage with such a discussion. What is a realistic target to aim for? And what would happen if people didn't engage? It's very easy to overestimate how many people are both interested and willing to spend time feeding into a process that they may be sceptical will achieve anything. \> Does a national conversation need a great blast of costly publicity \> and television to drive people to it - and make credible, as Steve \> Clift argues; or is Bill Thompson right that we should leave this to \> the web's own viral ways - but if so how long will this take? This is \> an interesting question I'd not thought about. I'm deeply suspicious of the idea that a big media blast would be helpful. The media has a tendency to bleed the nuance out of complex discussions, and our ideal outcome is that we hear many and varied voices, with different points of view, potentially bringing up unthought of ideas and issues. I would worry that turning this into a big media stunt would alienate the very people we want to partipate, and turn it into a circus instead. A good online discussion takes time to evolve, but it can be assisted by carefully and conscientiously identifying and approaching existing online and offline communities and inviting them to get involved. I'd be happier to think of how we could organically grow the discussion, rather than attempt a media blast which gets a lot of people looking, and maybe leaving one-off comments, but not really investing in the conversation. Fewer people engaging fully would be better than lots of people tossing off ill-considered verbiage. YouTube is a perfect example of high-volume, low-quality commentary. \> There seems to be agreement that for any widespread input of the kind \> the Minister is would like local and smaller conversations are needed. Smaller conversations, definitely, and local in the sense both of geographically local, and community of interest local. Online, geography isn't quite so important; offline it is. We need to remember too that offline can feed into and bolster online, which can feed into and bolster offline. A really good strategy will create a virtuous circle, as people who meet online get together offline and that enhances their online relationships, so thinking about how offline can support out online strategy will be key. \> Tony Curzon Prince takes these as the starting point as well as making \> the ability to host them a possible qualification for being chosen as \> a 'Citizens Summit' participant. Suw Charman makes a strong pitch for \> the inclusion of individual blogs as a vehicle for active \> representation. This strikes me a very important area for discussion. People like to participate in different ways. Sometimes, they want to have someone else seed the discussion, and keep it on course, and that's what a blog is really good at. Forums are ok at letting people go off in any direction they want, which suits some but causes problems when you're trying to follow conversations and trends, and pull out key information. Mailing lists are good for spontaneous discussion, but for too big of a community they becomes unwiedly. It's horses for courses, but when the tools are being chosen it should be in full understanding of their strengths and weaknesses. \> There seems to be a difference of view over Wikis. Bill is opposed and \> Suw likes the idea of using them. I think that pure wikis work when \> there already is a consensus. Thus on Wikipedia the rule is 'no \> opinions'. Wikis cannot work if there is a disagreement, even if the \> hoped aim is consensus. As there are bound to be areas of clear \> disagreement in any significant national debate wikis are only of use \> for one group or side in the argument to clarify its joint view. WIkis can be amazingly useful tools, but they need the right environment and the right focus. An unfocused wiki is a disaster, as Bill rightly points out. Just look at the LA Times "Wikitorial" project which was a total and utter wash-out. In small and focused communities, with a common goal, a wiki can be incredibly useful. But having a wiki for the sake of it is asking for trouble. \> Steve Clift poses the question of real names. I agree with him. We \> intend to ask people to give us their full real (or 'government') \> name, the town or country they are living in, and their citizenship, \> when this discussion goes public. All based on trust. But I think this \> is essential for a debate between citizens about their political \> future. Of course, if there is a reason for privacy this can be shared \> with the moderator and anonymity can be provided. We shouldn't get too hung up on real names. Asking for too much information from participants may put off people we really want to hear from. What is more important that real names is the concept of identity and reputation. If people feel that they have an identity, that they have a reputation to uphold, they will act more responsibily than if they do not. Real names are a red herring - it's too easy to make up a name that sounds real, and forcing people to somehow verify their identity opens a can of worms that will significantly decrease participation. Real names without the aggregation of contributions and a sense of 'ownership' over those contributions, and without the social risk associated with public collation of your words, are no better than pseudonyms. But more than anything, keeping things civil and constructive is down to how well the community is nurtured by the facilitators. As a friend of mine, Tom Steinberg, once said, if you build a boxing ring, people will fight. If you create a community space where there are facilitators who work hard to keep things constructive - and note, this does not mean quashing dissent, but keeping things polite and civil - then the conversation will blossom. Suw **From: Michele Smyth** **Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 17:15:22 -0800 (PST)** **Local: Thurs, Feb 14 2008 1:15 am** **Subject: Re: Networking Democracy** Like Ross, I am happy to be involved ... My main area of work involves an action research project exploring the appropriation of technologies for the purposes of engaging young people in participatory activities, such as public consultation. This work is being conducted with a strong focus on user led development. To date, I have used a number of tools & methods in practice, all of which on a small scale. I have read the submissions so far with great interest and would like to raise a couple of points... . If I can contribute anything to this discussion it is likely to focus on participation from a user perspective. Managing a process on a National scale presents significant challenges but I think it is important not to sacrifice openness, inclusivity and transparency in the process design. All too often, the desire to maintain managability of the process; at best, seems to take priority over what is relevant and meaningful for those taking part, and at worst, dictates who will or won't take part. I like Stephen Clift's "three pronged evolutionary approach" ... The initial activity of developing a survey widget should have the potential to harness the webs viral promotional capacity as suggested by Bill... But I still think there should be a full on campaign to promote the event. If the intention is to reach the wider public inclusively then every available channel needs to be used. I found Tony Curzon Price's reference to the Davos video conversation interesting... http://groups.google.co.uk/group/networking-democracy/web/the-nationa... Granted... the conversational equivalent of everyone talking at once! However, video technology on the web has been used to demonstrate collective consensus in a richer more engaging way than voting ever could, see: www.thebigask.com I am a big fan of videowalls as an emerging participation medium, they are engaging in that people do talk about them, they do have the viral effect. Apart from this they can be designed to receive video submissions via mobile phone, therefore increasing accessibility Imagine if every candidate in an election had a video wall and votes were counted by the number of videos posted....voters would post a video to their chosen candidates videowall saying why they got their vote.... Would the man hours be be found to view that footage Tony? I would think so. It would certainly be interesting to see if having the opportunity to verbalise your sentiments would have any effect on voter turnout. Finally, I would like to stress the importance of finding ways to connect the issue in question to peoples everyday lives.. Why should they participate? What's at stake? What difference will it make if they do or don't take part..to them...to anyone? In relation to connecting people to the issue, questions emerge about how information should best be presented; The use of language - complex language and jargon needs to be broken down into lay terms and clear easy to digest explanation offered. BBC4 recently screened a programme on the creation of the tabloid newspaper... The first tabloid came about as a result of the inaccesibility of the press at that time and I can see a parallel between this and how government issue information to the public nowadays, for example consultation documents. If we truly wish to reach the wider public we need to address this problem. In my experience, reducing what are often complex multidimensional issues into 'digestable chunks' without losing the integrity is no easy task, especially when additional explanation is often required. Roles such as moderators & facilitators have already been mentioned as essentials, I would like to add communications expertise. I would also recommend that the development of information resources is continuously reviewed by an advisory panel drawn from the general public. **From: davidwilcox** **Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 02:46:25 -0800 (PST)** **Local: Thurs, Feb 14 2008 10:46 am** **Subject: Re: Networking Democracy** I'm writing from a background of community and public engagement consultancy (mainly 80s and 90s) and social tech/media over the past 10 years. It's left me with deep scepticism about many engagement processes mixed with a deepening commitment to transparency, openness, and giving citizens, participants, consumers not just more of a voice but a few more tools to make a difference. That's where social media is interesting. Lots of stuff about this at http://www.designingforcivilsociety.org \- e.g. http://www.designingforcivilsociety.org/2006/06/relationshipbas.html (already wanting to embed links, images, slides here) Warning - some slight provocations coming ...:-) My general thoughts, with application to this process, kinda chiming in with Bill's Principles, Process, Presentation. I would say Context, Purpose, Stance, Procedures, People - then Methods. Sorry it's a bit conceptual, but I think agreeing a framework is important before we get to methods. Just as public meetings are the last thing you want in face to face engagement (after lots of other things and maybe not at all), so it is in my view with blogs, wikis etc (though I love them all). In all depends upon .... Context, which is hugely important. What experience have people had before, who is mounting the exercise, what are other people saying? So, first challenge: encouraging people to think this isn't just another PR stunt. I think a Government-promoted exercise around a British Statement of Values could meet with deep cynicism. A big online exercise is therefore high risk, because most people don't think in terms of Statements of Values, so know from the outset it is THEM talking among themselves again. Clarity about purpose. What's this all for? What's the input to the summit, and the output from the summit? I really don't think we can talk about the "best way to do this" with looking at the process end- to-end. Big mistake, in my view, to design online and offline separately. Stance. What degree of control are the promoters offering (the old ladder of participation thing). Will anyone in Government listen to what people say? Will they be part of the conversation? If so, at what stage? I don't believe engagement works unless it is collaborative - that is, all key parties commit to listen, respond, deliver, within terms agreed at the start. That doesn't mean Government has to listen to the loudest voices - just be explicit at the start about what is on offer. Procedures and style. Who is going to design the process of engagement from online through summit and beyond? How transparent is that going to be? Will our discussion here be listened to? Others have contributed a lot here already, but the issues that jump out to me are: \* What's the real question here ... and can it be put in terms people understand? Is it about feeling British, wanting to be British, recognising Britishness? Why is Government asking the question? How would other people put it? \* What's the style? Formal - informal, conversational, textual, visual, fun .... What is going to be "allowed"? \* Centralised - distributed? Our place or yours? People ... are very different in the way they like to communicate. Online is tough for most people, particularly if mainly textual. Methods ... can, in my view, only be chosen in the light of the above. Oh dear, this has tuned into a bit of a rant. There are probably explanations in various places about the purpose of the Statement of Values, how the Summit will be run and so on ... and if so I think they need to be at the core of this conversation. Otherwise it's all a bit Alice in Wonderland: "One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. Which road do I take? she asked. Where do you want to go? was his response. I don't know, Alice answered. Then, said the cat, it doesn't matter." PS: I am hopeful about the Governance of Britain agenda http://www.designingforcivilsociety.org/2007/10/no-election-so-.html ... provided we keep asking why before how **From: Andy Williamson** **Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 09:28:48 -0800 (PST)** **Local: Thurs, Feb 14 2008 5:28 pm** **Subject: Re: Networking Democracy** G'day everyone... if you don't me, I'm the new Director of eDemocracy at the Hansard Society, before that I've been a researcher and consultant based in New Zealand and an advisor to the NZ government on their Digital Strategy, amongst others (more at www.andywilliamson.com). Google insists on not sending me emails from this group despite my efforts to persuade it otherwise. So it's all pull rather than push for me for now! And therein lies a point worth considering but which I think might have been missed so far: we all work in different ways and have our own preferred style of engagement with on and offline media (my inherent mix of being busy and fundamentally lazy means I'm less likely to check a website than read an email in front of me). I've seen some good ideas so far and on the whole I'm in agreement with what I've read but I also don't want to locked into a conversation about technology a) versus technology b)... more into what might be effective digital channels to support and enhance real-world channels for engagement. My assumption is not that we are designing an online process so much as we are trying to come up with a way that will tie the digital into the every day, offline processes that surround it. The reality of the a debate on 'Britishness' is that it will be a predominantly offline affair. How then can the online tools contribute in a qualitatively positive way? This is both an opportunity to add a different perspective - online can engage different people differently - and at the same time to demonstrate that online deliberation is effective (or otherwise) to a wider audience. Care, therefore, is needed in ensuring that any deliberative framework is realistic, achievable and manageable. This leads me into other thoughts on cost, scope and capability to deliver but these are touched on elsewhere so I won't repeat. Andy Williamson Director - eDemocracy Programme, Hansard **From: "David R. Newman"** **Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 18:36:32 +0000** **Local: Thurs, Feb 14 2008 6:36 pm** **Subject: Re: \[Networking Democracy\] Re: Networking Democracy** I disagree with one of Andy's assumptions. \> This is a contribution from Andy Williamson \> The reality of the \> a debate on 'Britishness' is that it will be a predominantly offline \> affair. Ideas and feelings about Britishness or Irishness are not something you get by asking simple questions. But you can find out something about these complex feelings and attitudes by asking people to tell you \*stories\* about what it means to them to be British (and Scottish and a Highlander, ...). When The Wheel asked us to help them find out what Irish people understood by active citizenship (as opposed to being selfish Celtic Tigers), we helped them build a story-collecting web site (http://wheel.e-consultation.org/). They could submit their stories by web forms, e-mail, text messages or leaving voice mail recordings. But it wasn't the technology that was important. It was the emphasis on collecting stories, in which people revealed some of their tacit knowledge through their stories of what it was like to be a volunteer, to do some work for their church, to look after a sick relative, and so on. \-- Dr. David R. Newman, Queen's University Management School, Belfast **From: "David R. Newman"** **Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 19:25:41 +0000** **Local: Thurs, Feb 14 2008 7:25 pm** **Subject: Re: Networking Democracy** anthony.barn...@opendemocracy.net wrote: \> There seems to be a difference of view over Wikis. Bill is opposed and \> Suw likes the idea of using them. I think that pure wikis work when \> there already is a consensus. Thus on Wikipedia the rule is ‘no \> opinions’. Wikis cannot work if there is a disagreement, even if the \> hoped aim is consensus. It is possible to design collaborative writing tools that allow people to co-author reports even in the face of severe disagreement. Aldo de Moor got environmentalists and loggers to co-author a report on forestry policy for British Columbia. The point was to get each group to write their position on an issue, then make the report show clearly the differences, rather than trying to gloss over the differences in a shallow compromise. Again, the technology (www.grass-arena.net) is less important than the mediation process, and how it handles conflict and consensus discovery. Working in Northern Ireland, I explicitly use mediation models in designing e-participation processes, drawing on the experiments in democracy that have invented in response to the necessity of the troubles. The general principles include: 1\. Start with open discussion of what the issues are, and what people's needs are. Stop them talking about solutions or options too early, until they have a least a basic understanding of their differences. People don't trust their opponents, but they can at least begin to understand their needs. 2\. When you start exploring problems, and suggesting solutions, try to get lots of them. Don't get hung up on the first two suggestions. 3\. The deliberation should be in a space that supports all voices equally (not discriminating), and encourages reflection on and synthesis of ideas. So we can improve the solutions and suggestions before being forced to choose. 4\. In public debate (particularly where there is disagreement), we aren't going to get everyone to agree (let alone agree with what the Permanent Secretary wants them to do). So there has to be some process to choose between alternative options. If we arrive at this stage with 6 to 12 options, we can use consensus voting systems to find what people will settle for if they cannot get their first choice. 5\. All of this needs to feed into action. If there is not a guaranteed audience, and no guarantee of direct or indirect influence on decisions and/or policies, then the participants have been wasting their time. Which means next time they won't bother. \-- Dr. David R. Newman, Queen's University Management School, Belfast **From: Steven Clift ** **Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 12:40:58 -0800 (PST)** **Local: Thurs, Feb 14 2008 8:40 pm** **Subject: Re: Networking Democracy** I suggested in phase 2 of my article a directory website for lots of different sites hosting various forms of time-limited online engagement: http://groups.google.co.uk/group/networking-democracy/web/online-enga... A further thought with this distributed model, would be allowing anyone who can gather 25(?) centrally registered participants - for either an online engagement or an in-person Meetup style gather to receive 200 GBP for outreach/involvement costs. They would only receive this token reimbursement for material technology/promotional/ in-person food costs upon submitting an online survey form that summarizes the agreed and deliberated opinions of the group they gathered. I'd frame the discussion with a no more than four page discussion and question guide for use in all the gathering. The small incentive makes it possible for lots of small gatherings and online formats. Central registration and dramatic warnings tied to the submission about fraudulent submissions. The \*well designed\* survey would both force groups to deliberate and agree on what to submit as a group and be more easily quantifiable. In the end, the main value generated may be the civic education experience of thousands of participants across Britain. Steven Clift E-Democracy.Org **From: "Suw Charman"** **Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 22:52:07 +0000** **Local: Thurs, Feb 14 2008 10:52 pm** **Subject: Re: Networking Democracy** On Thu, Feb 14, 2008 at 1:15 AM, Michele Smyth wrote: If I can contribute anything to this \> discussion it is likely to focus on participation from a user \> perspective. Which is a really valuable perspective, and one it's very easy to forget. \> Managing a process on a National scale presents significant challenges \> but I think it is important not to sacrifice openness, inclusivity and \> transparency in the process design. All too often, the desire to \> maintain managability of the process; at best, seems to take priority \> over what is relevant and meaningful for those taking part, and at \> worst, dictates who will or won't take part. I couldn't agree more. It's very easy to make decisions based on what makes life easier for the people running the project, but which make life harder for those participating. Asking for lots of information when people register for a site, for example. \> I like Stephen Clift's "three pronged evolutionary approach" ... The \> initial activity of developing a survey widget I'm very wary of online surveys. It's very difficult to put together an online survey that is actually meaningful, particular as regards self-selecting populations and ill-worded questions. What would a survey accomplish? What methodology would ensure it returned statistically significant results, rather than PR hype? \> I am a big fan of videowalls as an emerging participation medium, they \> are engaging in that people do talk about them, they do have the viral \> effect. Apart from this they can be designed to receive video \> submissions via mobile phone, therefore increasing accessibility The best example of this that I have seen is Seesmic.com, currently in closed alpha but developing nicely. Its a site for video conversation, and it's far more social than, say, YouTube or other video hosting sites. One examples of a Seesmic conversation can be found by following these links, in order, top to bottom: http://seesmic.com/v/M8emzPxU53 - i post a question http://seesmic.com/v/RqtnA10NH1 - first reply http://seesmic.com/v/KPYUOtPNuf - second reply... And it went on, with 17 responses in the discussion. One of the most interesting things about Seesmic is that the video quality is pretty low, but where this might be seen as a negative, it's actually a very strong positive. People - especially women - prefer it that the definition is quite low, because this means that they can get away with not looking their best when they make a recording. This might sound like silliness, but it's actually important, because it lowers the psychological barriers to adoption. This is an important lesson. When official bodies of any desciption think of video, they think of high production standards, the sort of highly polished and professional work that the BBC produces. When your average Jo thinks of video, she thinks of images captured on a digital camera or mobile phone. Having production standards set too high can actually alienate viewers, putting you into a broadcast mode, and them into a passive audience mode. This doesn't encourage participation, but stifles it. Seesmic forces low production values, with the result that participation is very high. Sadly it's still in alpha, and whilst I have some invitation codes, they're on my Mac computer, which is in London, whilst I am on a PC down in Dorset! I'm sure Bill knows Loic Le Meur and can get some if need be. However, my broader point is that we have to be careful not to fall into the trap that many companies do, of thinking that online particpation - and social media in particular - is easy. It's not - it's a whole different culture and it's very easy to misstep and get it wrong. I see a lot of companies who start blogs thinking they know what they are doing, only to find that it is much harder to write a good blog than it seems. \> Finally, I would like to stress the importance of finding ways to \> connect the issue in question to peoples everyday lives.. Why should \> they participate? What's at stake? What difference will it make if \> they do or don't take part..to them...to anyone? I completely agree with this too. People have to care about an issue before they'll bother to engage with discussions, and if it seems like some vague and distant proposition that will have no material effect on their lives, they won't get involved. \> In relation to connecting people to the issue, questions emerge about \> how information should best be presented; \> The use of language - complex language and jargon needs to be broken \> down into lay terms and clear easy to digest explanation offered. Yes, clear - but not condescending - English is a must. In my \> experience, reducing what are often complex multidimensional issues \> into 'digestable chunks' without losing the integrity is no easy task, \> especially when additional explanation is often required. Being clear, but not dumbing down. It's difficult to present nuanced issues in such a way as they are understandable without being reduced to meaningless 30 second soundbites, but this is where social media comes to the fore again - it's much easier to present many angles on the same issue on a blog than it is in a video or TV show. And as long as the writing is clear, people can get to grips with some quite complex ideas. As Dan Gillmor says, the 'people formerly known as the audience' are collectively smarter than any group of experts, because they have between them an amazing depth of knowledge of many different subjects. So long as the writing is free of jargon, readers will be quite happy to delve into the nuances. Suw **From: "Suw Charman"** **Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 23:06:25 +0000** **Local: Thurs, Feb 14 2008 11:06 pm** **Subject: Re: \[Networking Democracy\] Re: Networking Democracy** Hi David, Some very good points, and well worth raising them. Sorry it's a bit \> conceptual, but I think agreeing a framework is important before we \> get to methods. I think it's good to examine this from a variety of different angles, and conceptual is just as important as practical. I do feel that without a strong strategy underpinning the engagement efforts, it will just end up a bit of a hodge-podge with no real direction. So I'm all for examinig the underlying principles and concepts. \> Context, which is hugely important. What experience have people had \> before, who is mounting the exercise, what are other people saying? \> So, first challenge: encouraging people to think this isn't just \> another PR stunt. I think this really important. The opportunities for government to truly engage with the citizenry are vast, and I see this as a potentially ground-breaking pilot project, but it has to have substance to back itself up, not just be some token postings on YouTube or a half-baked blog. \> Clarity about purpose. What's this all for? What's the input to the \> summit, and the output from the summit? I really don't think we can \> talk about the "best way to do this" with looking at the process end- \> to-end. Big mistake, in my view, to design online and offline \> separately. Specially as they can feed into each other really well. \> Stance. What degree of control are the promoters offering (the old \> ladder of participation thing). Will anyone in Government listen to \> what people say? Will they be part of the conversation? If so, at what \> stage? I don't believe engagement works unless it is collaborative - \> that is, all key parties commit to listen, respond, deliver, within \> terms agreed at the start. That doesn't mean Government has to listen \> to the loudest voices - just be explicit at the start about what is on \> offer. Yes, they have to be clear from the start how much involvement Government is having, but they also have to be willing to get involved to some extent, otherwise the whole thing will be a big waste of time. This goes back to what I was saying about authors getting involved in the comment threads on their blogs - if they are not involved, comments tend to turn petty and vitriolic. So I don't think there's really an option here - if no one from Government is involved, we might as well not bother at all. \> \* What's the style? Formal - informal, conversational, textual, \> visual, fun .... What is going to be "allowed"? I think it has to be as informal as possible, and allow as much as possible. Few people will engage with a formal consultation process, so this has to be a very informal, conversational process. \> \* Centralised - distributed? Our place or yours? Both. There's a lot that can be done with tags and aggregation - encouraging people to write on their own blogs/website will give them a sense of ownership over what they write (and they are more likely to write on their own site than someone else's), and then the use of a tag will allow for the commentary to be centrally aggregated, providing an overview of the conversation. \> People ... are very different in the way they like to communicate. \> Online is tough for most people, particularly if mainly textual. Yeah, this is why video conversations (as opposed to broadcasts) are so interesting. Seeing someone talking gives you a whole bunch of visual cues that are missing from text and audio, and that allows people very quickly to start to empathise with the person talking, and thus want to respond. You very quickly get a sense of getting to know someone when you converse in video. This does, however, bring with it a real risk if the person or people from Government don't buy into the whole online consultation process completely, as they'll quickly show themselves up. \> Methods ... can, in my view, only be chosen in the light of the above. The technology is relatively simple, it's the people that are tricky. And important. If we don't have a group of people from government willing to engage fully with the online community, who are willing to learn new skills - both technical and cultural, and who are happy to talk to people one-on-one, online, then this whole project becomes very, very difficult. Equally, a group of facilitators, hired to nurture the conversation, must have the right skills, experience, and personality, as the conversation will hinge on their abilities. Without the right people, the whole thing will fail. The right tech is also important, but nowhere near as important as getting the right people. Suw \-- **From: "Suw Charman"** **Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 23:15:14 +0000** **Local: Thurs, Feb 14 2008 11:15 pm** **Subject: Re: \[Networking Democracy\] Re: Networking Democracy** On Thu, Feb 14, 2008 at 6:36 PM, David R. Newman wrote: \> Ideas and feelings about Britishness or Irishness are not something you \> get by asking simple questions. But you can find out something about \> these complex feelings and attitudes by asking people to tell you \> \*stories\* about what it means to them to be British (and Scottish and a \> Highlander, ...). Oh yes, another really good point!! People don't necessarily analyse their feelings and opinions in such a way as they can clearly articulate them as an answer to a survey or a question. Surveys, in particular, tend to force people to make artificial choices when their real position is more complex than the options on offer. Storytelling is a key way of getting to the bottom of how people really view things, and it can often surface thoughts, ideas, and emotions that won't emerge any other way. This also brings up the issue of how multilingual this would be. As a Welsh speaker, I would expect this whole project to have a Welsh language component - if it doesn't it may well be rejected by Welsh speakers as being not about Britishness, but about Englishness. So how does this project bring in Scots Gaelic speakers, or Hindi, or Polish speakers? Equally, how it relates to rural communities is also important. There's a risk that such a consultation can turn into something London-centric, or urban-centric, ignoring those not within a stone's throw of Whitehall. Suw \-- **From: "Tony Curzon Price, OD"** **Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 15:40:27 -0800 (PST)** **Local: Thurs, Feb 14 2008 11:40 pm** **Subject: Re: Networking Democracy** I agree with a great deal of the commentary so far. But I do want to re-iterate the scale problem. If this "national" conversation does not attract HUGE participation, it will be considered a failure. Therefore, the notion of having government people engaging 1-on-1 with groups seems unlikely. Imagine the convention this feeds into has to be in the autumn. Imagine (optimistically) it takes 3 months to get the online conversation going. That means 3 months of conversation. If one government employee can track 100 posts - video, text, whatever - in 1 day, and if the conversation is successful only if 5 million people participate, that suggests a staff of almost 1,000 for 3 months, and up and running very soon. It doesn't sound possible to me. I think the scale problem forces the conversation to be decentralised, or not to be at all. I like Steven's idea of reimbursing convening costs - that is a way of giving a strong signal that government cares about it happening without requiring a huge staff to do it. It also offers the possibility that conveners will put some structure to the conversation-reporting. I also entirely agree with the general worries expressed over the goals of the project. Will there be anyone - let alone 5 million - sufficiently devoid of cynicism to participate in a genuine way? Tony **From: "Suw Charman"** **Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 08:22:18 +0000** **Local: Fri, Feb 15 2008 8:22 am** **Subject: Re: \[Networking Democracy\] Re: Networking Democracy** On Thu, Feb 14, 2008 at 11:40 PM, Tony Curzon Price, OD wrote: \> I agree with a great deal of the commentary so far. \> But I do want to re-iterate the scale problem. If this "national" \> conversation does not attract HUGE participation, it will be \> considered a failure. Therefore, the notion of having government \> people engaging 1-on-1 with groups seems unlikely. The government can't respond 1-on-1 with everyone, no, but they must respond publicly to some people. I think that most people realise that if you have a really, really big conversation going on, or even lots and lots of little ones, that only a few people will get to talk to someone from government. But despite that, their presence will be very important in establishing this as \*not a PR stunt\*. Imagine the \> convention this feeds into has to be in the autumn. Imagine \> (optimistically) it takes 3 months to get the online conversation \> going. That means 3 months of conversation. If one government employee \> can track 100 posts - video, text, whatever - in 1 day, and if the \> conversation is successful only if 5 million people participate, that \> suggests a staff of almost 1,000 for 3 months, and up and running very \> soon. It doesn't sound possible to me. Well, I think neither is possible, and that is (or should be) ok. 5 million people are not going to take part. I'd stake a hefty bet that 1 million people are not going to take part either. Responding to government consultations is and will always be a minority sport and we have to think realistically about numbers. I'm not sure what order of magnitude those numbers will take, but if we need 5 million, or even 1 million, to be a success, we should think about redefining success or not doing it in the first place. Numbers that large seem to me to be building failure into the fabric of the project. We shouldn't be lead astray by the 1.7 million people who signed the road pricing petition \- firstly that's a simple act of signing a petition, and secondly that was a highly contentious issue that has a direct effect on people's lives and wallets. We also have to remmber that a concept of thumb (it's not precise enough to be a rule) is the 1:9:90 ratio - 90% of participants will be lurkers, who watch from the sidelines and participate passively; 9% will be moderately involved, perhaps rating a comment, reporting abuse, or taking other low-overhead actions; 1% will actively participate. This is a ratio that holds very roughly true for most big public websites, although the actual numbers fluctuate, with '1' being anywhere in single digits, or very small fractions. So even if 1 million people visit the site, 900,000 will lurk, 100,000 may participate very slightly, and 10,000 will actually do something. Still very large numbers, but with the appropriate use of tags, RSS, aggregators, etc., a smallish team could keep on top of that. It's possible to scan 500+ blogs in a day if you're spending all your time doing it, and people won't post every day. And you can get through many more comments per day, as they are usually shorter. But the judicious application of technology can make the task much easier, not just by allowing facilitators to cover a lot of content each day, but also by allowing the community to help in that task, by rating comments on any central site 'abusive' or 'important', for example, and by getting them to use tools like Delicious to bookmark key URLs, with the most popular ones rising to the top. So scale in terms of dealing with the amount of content and still making it feel like someone in government is taking an active interest is not a problem. Getting 5m people to engage is. \> I think the scale problem forces the conversation to be decentralised, \> or not to be at all. Yes, absolutely, for more reasons than just scale. People will write on their own blogs in preference to someone else's website, and all of that activity needs to be brought together in an aggregating site. It's human nature to want to host your own bit of the conversation, and therefore it's inevitable that the conversation will decentralise all by itself. this means that planning for a decentralised conversation is essential. RIght, ok, that really is my last email for two weeks...!! \-- **From: David Wilcox** **Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 10:39:36 +0000** **Local: Fri, Feb 15 2008 10:39 am** **Subject: Re: \[Networking Democracy\] Re: Networking Democracy** Suw really nails it for me - whatever the issues of purpose etc: \> If we don't have a group of people from government willing to engage \> fully with the online community, who are willing to learn new skills - \> both technical and cultural, and who are happy to talk to people \> one-on-one, online, then this whole project becomes very, very \> difficult. Equally, a group of facilitators, hired to nurture the \> conversation, must have the right skills, experience, and personality, \> as the conversation will hinge on their abilities. Without the right \> people, the whole thing will fail. The right tech is also important, \> but nowhere near as important as getting the right people. You can't have a conversation if the other people aren't in the room. Or is government thinking the Minister will launch with some PR-honed phrases, go back to business as usual, and then pop-back to see what we have been saying to each other? it isn't easy, but I think it is possible with facilitation, filtering and other techniques that Suw has outlined elsewhere. I equally believe that you can't design an engagement process without the client being part of the conversation. You can hire a speech- writing adviser, but not really a conversation-adviser. It would be a great help to have some MoJ people involved here - I've done some work with the department and know they are well up with the issues. Would it help to have another thread that doesn't become part of the published output of this discussion? By the way, here's a cautionary tale on what happens if you let someone pick up your (alleged) conversations for you. Please spread the word:-) http://tinyurl.com/2hgjkh David **From: Ella** **Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 04:27:39 -0800 (PST)** **Local: Sun, Feb 17 2008 12:27 pm** **Subject: Re: Networking Democracy** Hi, Sorry, I'm arriving a bit late. I want to draw out a few themes. I tried to number them, but they are entwined, so I'll try to separate them into different messages. One of the problems that Steven has taken up and tackled head on is scale. Well done, Steven. I think it was cool to start looking into this someone where else and bring such a detailed plan to the table. However, in the conversations about scale, Steven hasn't really been able to say what the consultation would be about and this is the other sticking point. A complicated subject -amorphous and difficult to scope. So I'm going to talk about that. I know we're not supposed to get into the subject too much, but I'm going to have to touch on it a bit. In order to make a manageable conversation, it has to be well-scoped with appropriate information provided. Not over rigidly defined or policed, but with a good understanding of why it's taken place and some of the themes likely to come up. As a first stage, the people instigating the conversation should have a clear and agreed idea of what it is about and what they hope to get out of it and this should be made public. This would help them to decide their budget -which must also (sooner or later) be public. I would suggest that if the instigators cannot agree on a public statement of what the conversation is about and a budget (perhaps initially private, but one they will need to justify extensively) then they should not proceed. I do not think we can overestimate the importance of transparency in e- democracy. This includes transparency of process (people, technology, money) and relies on clarity of purpose. \-Ella Reply Reply to author Forward Rate this post: Text for clearing space **From: Ella** **Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 04:35:03 -0800 (PST)** **Local: Sun, Feb 17 2008 12:35 pm** **Subject: Re: Networking Democracy** Hi, Pilot version to define topics and identify problems. I suggest that the government undertakes an initial small and private version of the conversation in order to see whether they can gather appropriate questions and supporting information and to see what kind of problems arise. I'm thinking of something focusing on the content of information here, rather than the technology, but it would have technical implications too. This wouldn't need to involve a lot of people, but it would need to involve various people -not least people from the devolved countries who will have related reactions to the topic! \-Ella **From: Ella** **Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 04:39:33 -0800 (PST)** **Local: Sun, Feb 17 2008 12:39 pm** **Subject: Re: Networking Democracy** Split the subject My next suggestion directly concerns the subject -sorry, but I think this point needs to be made. The subject is too big and contentious. I would suggest that an initial conversation looks at 2 questions 1 - Do we need a British Statement of Values? 2 - What would it be used for? Otherwise, these 2 questions will swamp the conversation. \-Ella **From: Ella** **Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 04:53:00 -0800 (PST)** **Subject: Re: Networking Democracy** I'd also like to weigh in on the question of whether the conversation should be centred (e.g. on a government-sponsored forum/website) or distributed (e.g. some events on the BBC, some discussions held by local communities, some multimedia enterprises aimed at specific segments of the population). I'm saying "distributed". In my experience, different people like to interact in very different ways -whether that's through watching and commenting on videos or reading and commenting on white papers. Some people actually like a bit of a battle and some like to use text speak and emoticons. By using the range of communities and tools available, a really wide variety of people could be involved. Of course the downside to this is working out how to put their input together into a usable format (and deciding how to archive the distributed community conversations). However, working out a method for this, would really be a useful contribution to public life in the UK. This might also help with the difficult question of "Who's role is it to talk about values?" or a question which seems to me to be included in David Newman's post about story telling at the Wheel "How do we normally explore our values?". \-Ella **From: Anthony Barnett** **Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 06:49:00 -0800 (PST)** **Subject: Re: Networking Democracy** Hi everyone, I am writing this from Athens where there is a snow blizzard. We live in exceptional times! I just want to address two issues in an interesting discussion: the aims of the Summit and the involvement of people from the Ministry of Justice. The first summed here in this last point from Ella: \> This might also help with the difficult question of "Who's role is it to talk about values?" or from David Wilcos: "There are probably explanations in various places about the purpose of the Statement of Values, how the Summit will be run and so on ... and if so I think they need to be at the core of this conversation. Otherwise it's all a bit Alice in Wonderland." Or from Tony: "I also entirely agree with the general worries expressed over the goals of the project. Will there be anyone - let alone 5 million - sufficiently devoid of cynicism to participate in a genuine way?...... Responding to government consultations is and will always be a minority sport and we have to think realistically about numbers. It is not our brief to talk about the purpose of the proposed Summit. That is a different ball game. But it has one feature that it is important to take on board. It is not a consultation. The aim - as I understand it (emphasis) - is for a gathering of citizens to come to a decision on whether there should be something, what form it should be, and how it should be used. This something could be 'electoral reform', or a referendum on Europe. In other words, the concept is that a set of decisions are taken which then, this being the UK, go to Parliament for ratification. The question the Minister has asked us to debate is what kind of role or input could the internet deliver to strengthen such a process. So in answer to David, we don't need to know more about how they intend to run the Summit. We are not planning its web support we are providing a deliberation on the key issues any such plan would need to take on board. This is where the questions the Minister put in his original email come in: capture, aggregation, examples. Already I think we are doing good work on these. SECOND: The issue of Justice engagement. As we can all, the Minister has already taken a close interest! David Wilcox again: "I equally believe that you can't design an engagement process without the client being part of the conversation. You can hire a speech- writing adviser, but not really a conversation- adviser. It would be a great help to have some MoJ people involved here - I've done some work with the department and know they are well up with the issues. Would it help to have another thread that doesn't become part of the published output of this discussion?" Asd we can see, they are involved. I think that the points of principle made are useful. However, I don't want us to start a private discussion, it would be against the character of this project. Hope to be back in London!! **From: Michael Wills** **Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 07:38:52 -0800 (PST)** **Local: Sun, Feb 17 2008 3:38 pm** **Subject: Re: Networking Democracy** At least one of you may be surprised to see me here, but here I am - and, for better or worse, I will return from time to time. I am very grateful to everyone taking part and I am sure this is going to make a serious contribution to what is going to be an innovative (for government) approach to consultation. It has its risks - and we've already identified some (of capture by unrepresentative, sectional interests, of how best to feed all the contributions into the policy making process) - and others may well emerge. What's happening here will, I hope, help us to mitigate these risks and make the most of the potential benefits. I'm not sure what 'credible sources' Ross Ferguson consulted about my views, but I'm certainly not looking for a 'consensus over one option' \- what I'm looking for is views and suggestions about how best we can minimise the risks and maximise the benefits, one view would be fine, more would be better - and if anyone wants to know what my views on anything are - here I am to ask. Already I can see the value of this enterprise - we hadn't really focused on what David Newman has identified as the value of stories and he make a compelling case and we will now feed this much more vigorously into our approach. The points Tony Curzon Price makes about the limits to a national conversation are well-taken and this is fundamental - I look forward to seeing this discussion taken forward. David Wilcox is absolutely right that why comes before how - it drives it - we have tried to set out the why in various formats and I'll keep trying to do so - but if anyone wants any clarification on any part of this, please let me know and I'll do my best Michael **From: "D. R. Newman" <** **Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 19:44:40 +0000** **Local: Sun, Feb 17 2008 7:44 pm** **Subject: Re: \[Networking Democracy\] Re: Networking Democracy** Subtitle: Britishness and identity Here I want to take up a why and what issue. It has implications for the how (which I will put in separate messages). If there is to be any output on British values, we need to work out ways of understanding both Britishness and values. The Britishness relates to self-perceptions of identity. Identity is not a simple issue: in fact the street where I work in Belfast is full of sociologists, political scientists and educationalists beavering away at understanding identity (and diversity). It is one of the core issues studied at the Institute of Governance here and the UN Institute for Conflict Resolution in "Stroke City" (Derry/Londonderry). So I asked one of the political scientists, John Barry, when I ran in to him on Saturday. He agreed that we need a process capable of coping with the subtleties of multiple identities and allegiances. He also mentioned a large-scale study of identity (using questionnaires) done at Glasgow University. I will try and track it down. In the meantime, I will apply my less expert understanding of indentity to process design. I would recommend that the Dept. of Justice gets together a group of people with expertise in identity, and in social values, to advise on the content of face-to-face and on-line dialogues. They may overlap with this group, but there are lots of people working on identity and reconciliation who know nothing about e-participation. \-- Dr. David R. Newman, Queen's University Belfast, School of Management and Economics, BELFAST **From: "D. R. Newman"** **Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 19:55:42 +0000** **Local: Sun, Feb 17 2008 7:55 pm** **Subject: Re: \[Networking Democracy\] Re: Networking Democracy** Subtitle: values This is my second post on the why and what, more than how. I have been trying, over the last couple of years to collect and synthesise values. It is difficult, but not impossible. The values I have been seeking out are those by which practitioners and researchers judge e-participation events. What makes one e-deliberation better than another? That is, of course, a much simpler issue than a statement of British values. I got into that when Michael Murray and Honor Fagan found a great disparity between the values and goals of consulters and consultees. Then when we turned to the academic literature, we found seven disciplines which each ignored types of data, and used values that contradicted other groups (e.g. deliberative democracy vs. public administration efficiency). So at a number of international conferences, I have been running electronic brainstorming sessions (using WebIQ) asking people to list as many features they can think of that make one consultation better than another. Then I asked them to rate and classify these features, to try and create value categories. It has been slow work, and doesn't produce as clear an answer as those, like David O'Donnell who start with a philosophy (Habermas) and derive norms from that. So not only is Britishness problematic, so are values. I'm not sure of the best way to get people to suggest and either choose or synthesise sets of values. I would approach this from the bottom up - ask people simple questions about what they value locally, then which of those values they share with their neighbours, then start looking for common values in a town, a country, a nation and the United Kingdom. But I may be wrong. \-- Dr. David R. Newman, Queen's University Belfast, School of Management and Economics, BELFAST **From: "D. R. Newman"** **Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 20:00:49 +0000** **Local: Sun, Feb 17 2008 8:00 pm** **Subject: Re: \[Networking Democracy\] Re: Networking Democracy** Ella made a point about the relationships between the subject and the scale. This is where I get stuck. I can think of lots of techniques that allow people to subtly explore issues of identity, Britishness and values, that don't scale well. And I can think of techniques that can be done on a vast scale on-line, but they gloss over the subtleties. The problem is bridging that gap. I will put examples of subject -> scale and scale -> subject in two further messages commenting on this one. \-- Dr. David R. Newman, Queen's University Belfast, School of Management and Economics, BELFAST **From: "D. R. Newman"** **Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 20:28:49 +0000** **Local: Sun, Feb 17 2008 8:28 pm** **Subject: Re: \[Networking Democracy\] Re: Networking Democracy** Subtitle: Subject -> scale When I think of techniques that allow groups of people to discuss or otherwise explore issues of identity and values, I can think of: 1\. The ideal is the South African or Canadian Indian meeting in which people keep on talking, for days and days, until they all agree. As they illustrate their points, bring in personal examples through stories, and politely listen and respond, they all come to a kind of mutual understanding - although not necessarily unanimity. Rather, it is a compromise everyone is willing to accept. 2\. Focus groups (especially with projective questions): which don't scale well, whether in one building or online, despite the EU project to build online focus groups. 3\. Citizens juries are usually only a dozen people, although the more expensive German planning circles involve 60. 4\. 21st Century Town meetings, as organised by America Speaks, have brought together 6000 people around tables of 10, each connected by computer to the other 600 tables, to discuss topics like what to do with the Twin Towers site. That scales reasonably well, but works better when everyone is discussing the issue at the same time (synchronously). 5\. Group Support Systems, like WebIQ or Zing (or even Dito), allow larger groups to generate ideas about a topic than can take part in a focus group. As the meetings use a process, rather than a topic agenda, they can be designed along the principles of ideal mediation/negotiation/problem-solving. But the largest I have run had 60 people. 6\. Over time, any discussion forum (e.g. www.sluggerotoole.com), mailing list or issues forums will cover a lot of issues, needs and attitudes: grounded in daily examples from news and local life. But it isn't so easy to get people to suddenly start discussing British values, either in one on-line space, or across the existing virtual habitats. It might, however, be possible to data mine these forums to pick up ideas and examples that might be used to stimulate focussed discussion (either online or face-to-face). Unlike some other posters, I do not think automated sorting and retrieval tools are useless. They can be used to assist human scorers and summarisers - first by identifying interesting patterns of common phrases to investigate, and then in CAQDAS tools to help them keep track of postings on keywords they select. One approach might be to set up something that allows deliberative and non-deliberative phases. E.g. 1\. Non-deliberative gathering of issues and needs 2\. Deliberative exploration of the issues (many in parallel) 3\. Non-deliberative collection of points from the discussions in 2, looking for agreements and disagreements. 4\. Competing groups write up positions and suggestions, based on 3. Deliberation within each interest group, not between them. 5\. A short phase of deliberation to clarify the positions in 4. 6\. A non-deliberative ranking of options, using a consensus voting system. \-- Dr. David R. Newman, Queen's University Belfast, School of Management and Economics, BELFAST **From: "D. R. Newman"** **Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 20:28:49 +0000** **Local: Sun, Feb 17 2008 8:28 pm** **Subject: Re: \[Networking Democracy\] Re: Networking Democracy** Subtitle: from scale -> subject I can think of a number of techniques that, online, can be used with large groups of people. How well can they be adapted to deal with the subtle subject of a statement of British values? 1\. Questionnaires. Online questionnaires can be done in the thousands. Pay iPoint or a similar market research company, and you can get thousands completed in a week. One problem is in designing the right questions, that effectively cover the full range of attitudes and values. However, we are not starting from scratch. There has been a lot of work on identity, diversity, national and local feelings, by sociologists, political scientists and lots of people involved in grassroots community development. So there are starting points for questionnaires that could give us an overview of attitudes and values on identity across the UK. 2\. Suggestion boxes. This may not be the right term, but I mean any system that lets us collect, on a massive scale, lots of ideas, views, opinions, suggestions, stories and so on. The Wheel e-consultation story-collecting site is one example among many. This need not just be limited to the internet. There could be call centres where people leave messages, SMS services that accept short messages, then reply with follow-up questions triggered by particular words (like Eliza), actual boxes in libraries, schools, and shopping centres (or even in pubs on pub quiz nights), VOIP voicemail boxes for free calls, write-in competitions in magazines. The trick here is to define the questions in a practical enough way to get relevant suggestions. It took several drafts before we managed to explain what The Wheel wanted on active citizenship. British values sounds harder to understand. 3\. Maps. Get people to put on an overlay to Google maps, the best and worst places in the country that they think typify Britishness. 4\. Text mining. There is a lot of online material already written about Britishness and values. Searching on "British values" at google.co.uk finds about 76000 pages. It would be interesting to find out what other phrases are often found in those pages. It is scaleable (Google do it), although technically you might need to use textual data mining tools from Autonomy or IBM - or even the expertise of the data miners and e-learning researchers at IBM Research in Dublin. \-- Dr. David R. Newman, Queen's University Belfast, School of Management and Economics, BELFAST **From: Anthony Barnett** **Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 04:04:08 -0800 (PST)** **Local: Mon, Feb 18 2008 12:04 pm** **Subject: Re: Networking Democracy** Well, I have been snowed in in Athens. Have to be brief. I don't think David could have read my previous post which may be a little cryptic. Our role is NOT to discuss how to make the Summit on a Statement of British Values work. Any such exercise would demand leadership from the Ministry. Our role is to deliberate on the best ways the internet can be used to assist any decision making national summit of citizens. This wisdom (or lack of it) will then be used by the Minister and his team at Justice to plan their Summit process. Please let me know if this distinction is not clear. To give an example that may help if it isn't. One point that has come out strongly is that IF the Ministry want to use the internet well in a national process THEN it will need to be lucid and clear about its goals. Good:this is an outcome. But this deliberation we are having is not about demanding that the Ministry is more clear now, with us, about its goals for this Summit. Another outcome I think is already clear. If the internet is to be used well and effectively in any such process, its role needs to be designed in from the outset - so that off-line and on-line contributions are both developed as part of an overall plan. What I think we need now are some examples of what has worked and what has not worked in large scale internet deliberation. thanks everyone, Anthony **From: Steven Clift** **Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 17:15:37 -0600** **Local: Mon, Feb 18 2008 11:15 pm** **Subject: Re: \[Networking Democracy\] Re: Networking Democracy** Since I am the relative outsider I did focus on the mechanics of engagement. Re-reading the Ministers letter, I do think it would be useful to clarify: 1\. Would the online engagement process go beyond the merits of whether to have or not have a British Statement of Values? The letter suggests that the in-person Citizen Summit would after merits, go into "what such a statement should contain and what it might be used for?" Assuming, "yes, have a statement," these two items are what I had in mind with my "evolution" outline - they seem to be the meaty question ripe for online dialogue. A "yes we should" or "no we shouldn't" doesn't lend itself to much more than "yes/no, comment" kind of online survey IMHO. 2\. What are the Governments numeric engagement goals for various forms of involvement? A. Number of e-mail newsletter subscribers. Stepping back the most important thing you can do now to give you the chance of trial and error engagement is to promise a regular e-mail newsletter (and assign the staff time required to make sure it goes out weekly or whatever frequent production time line you promise). People overestimate the likelihood of repeat site visitors, so this way if one form of online engagement flops you can quickly and easily bring people back to something different. B. Number of individuals who answer a quick poll or multi-question survey. C. Number of organisations submitting formal comments. Something like the E-Envoy's national E-Democracy policy consultation where scores of groups filed lengthy comments. It is hugely informative to see how groups, not just what unaffiliated, dis-intermediated individuals think. D. Number of people participating in an in-depth online deliberation. E. Etc. You get the idea ... if we had a sense of the range of the number of people the Government hoped to engage, that would certainly make it easier to provide more specific advice. Sincerely, Steven Clift E-Democracy.Org **From: Alice Casey** **Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 05:57:30 -0800 (PST)** **Local: Tues, Feb 19 2008 1:57 pm** **Subject: Re: Networking Democracy** Just some initial reflections - I enter this from a public participation standpoint. Anthony said: "What I think we need now are some examples of what has worked and what has not worked in large scale internet deliberation." \*\*\*So regarding past examples: There seems to be little going on in the way of truly mass-scale online deliberation - online participation that has happened to date seems to be more generally campaign-focused rather than deliberative. Am thinking of the soon-to-be closed BBC Action Network and the Howard Dean campaign as examples. I believe there are a number of offline and online models and lessons from can be taken, adapted and connected to produce something more deliberative. (For example the good deliberative work done previously using self-facilitation packs to arrange local discussion meetups. ) I think it is fairly pointless to narrow our vision to view 'the internet' as somehow being a deliberative tool in and of itself when considering a process run with public policy and government as the backdrop. I say this because questions of inclusivity, diversity and impartiality impact profoundly upon the legitimacy of any conclusions or points that come from the process. If we're talking about public policy deliberation then inclusion and impartiality are essential - I think therefore that we can't be too centralised and controlled in approach and we can't be confined to prioritising a single communication medium. We need to look at models which take a 360degree approach - an online process needs to be seen embedded in context of: A: individual participants' life and priorities - why would they get involved in this? B: the communications environment as a whole - how will we reach beyond 'the usual (webby) suspects'? The reasoning behind this is: 1) To make a nation deliberative policy-focused process (if that is what this is?) and its outcomes legitimate we need as many and as diverse a group of participants as possible - if it is run primarily or heavily weighted towards web/online the whole thing is undermined from the beginning- particularly if we're looking at a statement of 'British' values. 2) People still get much of their information from traditional mass media outlets - we cannot afford to ignore this just because we spend much of our own time online and value the medium - its just not the case for many people. Yes, there is a trend towards convergence in general (As backed up by Ofcom's last comms.market report) but we're not there yet! We need realism- who is this process actually going to engage if it is predominantly online and is run in 2008/09? 3) People engage with web and trad media in many different ways - or sometimes not at all. It is therefore important to give people many 'ways in' then we'll get more types of people involved. Some of us are fully participating bloggers and creators of content, some of us are commenters and responders and some of us are casual participants - raters. Providing differing levels of engagement must be considered. (I believe this veers us away from a centralised fully controlled approach- bringing me onto my next point...) 4) Getting some sort of viral,networked and many-to-many model to work alongside a more centralised institutional approach is essential to upping numbers and engaging diverse groups. 5) People have less time and energy than ever to participate - no matter how it is framed. See HCHLV article in Involve's participationnation for comment. Therefore context and mass appeal is important - in people's lives this process is just a blip. How do we make something so engagign they feel drawn to join in? How do we achieve this motivation on a mass scale? Anyway - those are just some initial ideas to continue the discussion. I agree with previous post from Steven Clift that we need to have some definitions around range and number at this juncture. \------ ALSO AmericaSpeaks' Millions of voices amongst other publications is also worth a read regarding possible mass deliberative models. Large deliberative events that could be further upscaled with web and local meetups combined. http://www.americaspeaks.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Page.viewPage&pageI... Critical Mass - PARTICIPATION NATION - Article by Richard Wilson and myself writing on the subject of mass engagement in UK public policy context. See: http://www.involve.org.uk/participation\_nation Sinceslicedbread: Contest-style engagement on policy formulation: www.sinceslicedbread.com : This project reached a broad demographic by taking on a viral approach to marketing and offering a cash prize. Interesting concepts to consider including in any process? \------ **From: David Wilcox** **Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 15:09:49 +0000** **Local: Tues, Feb 19 2008 3:09 pm** **Subject: Re: \[Networking Democracy\] Re: Networking Democracy** Alice wrote \> There seems to be little going on in the way of truly mass-scale \> online deliberation - online participation that has happened to date \> seems to be more generally campaign-focused rather than deliberative. \> Am thinking of the soon-to-be closed BBC Action Network and the Howard \> Dean campaign as examples. and \> 2) People still get much of their information from traditional mass \> media outlets - we cannot afford to ignore this just because we spend \> much of our own time online and value the medium - its just not the \> case for many people. The BBC's post-Action Network plans may be relevant, together with those of regional media to support more citizen-generated content More here http://www.designingforcivilsociety.org/2008/02/bbc-plans-to-su.html and the idea of an event http://openrsa.blogspot.com/2008/02/rsa-event-proposal-how-should-bbc... Please excuse blatant blog-promotion:-) David **From: Fergusao** **Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 08:14:29 -0800 (PST)** **Local: Tues, Feb 19 2008 4:14 pm** **Subject: Re: Networking Democracy** Thanks Michael for taking the time to read my 'points of order' post and fleshing out the clarifications made by the facilitators. Some of those thoughts were based on the meeting I had with you in October last year and then keeping track of the Department's Governance of Britain team. I appreciate the direction provided on where to direct future questions about the department's plans for GoB. In terms of our progress... I've found the posts so far have made for good reading. Good to know where people are coming from. I know the plan was to identify some of the issues and then pick these out as discussion threads, so I was wondering where the facilitators think we are on that? When we get to the 'thread stage' how had you thought of structuring it? Will it be based on themes (such as 'centralised vs distributed') or on process (for example, planning, marketing, reporting etc.)? What is the thinking? Raising my hand, I'd prefer the process-based model, and would suggest that the 20 points on this list - www.digitaldialogues.org.uk/secondreport/sectionthree/processes \- might offer a guide. I direct the question to Anthony and Jon, but have posted it up here instead of emailing it in case any one else would like to pick up on it. **From: Elspeth Rainbow** **Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 08:26:53 -0800 (PST)** **Local: Tues, Feb 19 2008 4:26 pm** **Subject: Re: Networking Democracy** Hearing lots on 'objectives' and grateful to Anthony for the steers on the purpose of this discussion as opposed to the actual statement of values engagement. But if it helps we see the purpose of the initial activity \[the-yet-to-be-defined off and online work\] as exposing views, this might include a straight list of 'values' but also stories, picking up on David Newman's ideas, of how these play out, how values are exhibited in a British context. The conversations would cover four main points - whether to have BSV, what would they be, how used, what format. The synthesis of all this information, and so before that how we would construct the debate, are areas I would like to hear more of your ideas and suggestions on. That synthesis would then be presented to the summit for discussion. The Summit would be constructed to be representative (and using that in a non-statistical way) rather than self selecting which is an important aim for us. That's the purpose of the initial activity. I note the themes of scale - not just the issues/problems/feasibility even, of having a debate that can be also national, but the need to set our expectations and success criteria on the initial activity work \- how many is a conversation here? The suggestions on how we organise the conversations - lots of smaller conversations, who plays a part are areas where your input will again be useful. How can we make the chances of the debate really coming up with stuff that helps the summit with its task, as likely as possible? And the issue of thinking across the channels, rather than isolating online is something we will need to ensure. Thanks also for the really practical stuff - tools which exist, contacts to explore - which has been noted. Elspeth **From: David Wilcox** **Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 16:29:17 +0000** **Local: Tues, Feb 19 2008 4:29 pm** **Subject: Re: \[Networking Democracy\] Re: Networking Democracy** Just to be a teeny bit provocative, but maybe save a lot of time and effort ... I don't see how we can say much more that is specific to MoJ requirements without pinning down just what the online conversation is for, and then having that design conversation far more interactively with MoJ. That may not be possible at this stage, so how about concentrating on general guidance for online engagement. We could then map that on to the excellent model Ross points to. David **From: "David R. Newman"** **Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 18:07:59 +0000** **Local: Tues, Feb 19 2008 6:07 pm** **Subject: Re: \[Networking Democracy\] Re: Networking Democracy** anthony.barn...@opendemocracy.net wrote: \> Well, I have been snowed in in Athens. Have to be brief. I don't think \> David could have read my previous post which may be a little cryptic. I read it, but decided you were wrong. Or rather both right and wrong. And Habermas insists that in a democratic, communicative dialogue, anyone can raise any point at any time. It is right that there should be a separate group of people, with expertise on issues of identity, diversity and inclusion (plus some philosophers) to work through the issues relating to a British statement of values. Indeed, in another part of the thread I said: \> I would recommend that the Dept. of Justice gets together a group of \> people with expertise in identity, and in social values, to advise on \> the content of face-to-face and on-line dialogues. However, the nature of the subject discussed does have an effect on the dialogue. Make it too boring or legalistic, and it can put off ordinary members of the public (e.g. see the discussion forums on http://waterways.e-consultation.org/ or http://econsultation.ie/). If it engenders strong emotional responses, you can, on rare occasions, get heated discussions and flaming, in the way that the Internet All-Person Talks degenerated into arguments on 300-year old Irish history when the facilitators went on holiday. In my experience, boredom and lack of participation are more common than flaming when discussing serious issues. Such psychological factors need to be taken into account in the co-design of process and technology. If you design the content, process and technology separately, the results rarely work (as in the Waterways Ireland example above). Hence the need for simultaneous co-design. And as someone working in a part of the world where issues of national values can be life-threatening, I am a bit more sensitive to these issues than some people in Whitehall. Try singing "The Fields of Athenry" in a Rangers pub in Glasgow or the Ibrox bar on Castlereagh Road! The NI approach is expressing all attitudes, no matter how extreme, rather than sweeping them under the carpet (which is what people do back where I grew up, in Kent). Once feelings, attitudes and concrete needs are clear, then you can start to find consensus. Having said that, it is possible to say something about process and technology combinations that stand a chance of working on the topics Elspeth Rainbow mentions. It is harder to work out how to involve many diverse people in it, which is the point I was making in the grandparent post to this one. \-- Dr. David R. Newman, Queen's University Management School, Belfast **From: "David R. Newman"** **Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 18:22:45 +0000** **Local: Tues, Feb 19 2008 6:22 pm** **Subject: Re: \[Networking Democracy\] Re: Networking Democracy** David Wilcox wrote: \> how about concentrating on general guidance for online engagement. We \> could then map that on to the excellent model Ross points to. I'll just add in a few other perspectives to the model at http://www.digitaldialogues.org.uk/secondreport/sectionthree/processes and some of the documents on www.icele.org (such as the Bristol City Council guide to e-consultation). First, there is the idea of ideal democratic criteria for evaluating processes and outcomes in terms of: 1\. Voice (Can many diverse voices take part without being bullied by the more powerful ones?) 2\. Space (Is the on-line or off-line space one that promotes deliberation, problem solving and fair participation?) 3\. Audience (Is there are guaranteed audience for the process and its outcomes?) 4\. Influence (Is there some direct or indirect way for the process to influence decisions or policies that matter to the participants?) The Oireachtas e-consultation guaranteed 3 and 4, succeeded at 1, but partly failed at 2. Secondly, there is the idea of e-participation as kind of mediation or negotiation process (rather than bureaucratic collection of views). See http://www.qub.ac.uk/mgt/papers/prefer/latrobe.html for a short account of that (particularly http://www.qub.ac.uk/mgt/papers/prefer/mednproc.html). Thirdly, it is possible to consider the choice of technology and technique in terms of (a) what participants will engage with and (b) knowledge transfer - what kind of knowledge is meant to come out of the process. See http://www.e-consultation.org/guide/index.php/Technology\_classification \-- Dr. David R. Newman, Queen's University Management School, Belfast **From: Anthony Barnett** **Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 03:09:36 -0800 (PST)** **Local: Wed, Feb 20 2008 11:09 am** **Subject: Re: Networking Democracy** Michael Wills has given a speech with an overview of the whole Green paper process as he sees it and a discussion of the potential and dangers of the internet, which we have blogged over on OurKingdom http://ourkingdom.opendemocracy.net/2008/02/20/michael-wills-and-the-... I'll be putting up a post shortly about a column by Janet Daley of the Telegraph which will contrast it to the Minister's short speech. Anthony **From: Steven Clift** **Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 11:07:15 -0600** **Local: Wed, Feb 20 2008 5:07 pm** **Subject: Re: \[Networking Democracy\] Re: Networking Democracy** I've always believed that the intelligence is in the network, so prep my submission I started a couple of "generic" discussions in the "Online Consultation, Deliberation and E-Participation" online community that I host: http://groups.dowire.org/groups/consult (join us) We've had 42 posts on "Building consensus online": http://groups.dowire.org/r/topic/uRIMxHGd9vlEp5IZRP6yz And 6 on"Gathering input from one million people" online: http://groups.dowire.org/r/topic/3UpuSW1HlrJJA3MfxIYIao And many other topics, including sharing of an interesting tool call CivicEvolution: http://groups.dowire.org/groups/consult/messages/topics.html Cheers, Steve **From: davidwilcox** **Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 00:49:08 -0800 (PST)** **Local: Thurs, Feb 21 2008 8:49 am** **Subject: Re: Networking Democracy** Thanks Anthony, followed your blog item http://www.designingforcivilsociety.org/2008/02/government-plan.html I wonder if it is time to turn things around, and look at how to present our discussions helpfully to others? Maybe a simple wiki page(s), with some context/links from speeches, then taking the Digital Dialogues guidelines, David N's, Steven and other people's points? Our best effort to provide general guidelines, tools etc in the context we now have. There's brilliant stuff here, but difficult for anyone else to extract from discussions (excuse me if something like this is already planned:-) David **From: Fergusao** **Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 02:52:05 -0800 (PST)** **Local: Thurs, Feb 21 2008 10:52 am** **Subject: Re: Networking Democracy** With David there. **From: "Andy Williamson"** **Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 18:16:29 -0000** **Local: Wed, Feb 20 2008 6:16 pm** **Subject: RE: \[Networking Democracy\] Re: Networking Democracy** Hi all I've had the opportunity to sit back and peruse this thread a little over the last couple of days as I was laid up in bed, sick as the proverbial unwell dog and therefore not really able to respond! A macro comment is that I notice that this conversation itself has developed a tendency to question whether, how and what a conversation on 'british identity' might be. We're really supposed to be talking about \*how\* not \*what\*, but of course that is impossible because the elephant in the room (A British Elephant - I like that concept) is of course, as David N points out, that no one will ever agree on this. And nor should they. No community is homogenous and even as you drill down to the smallest of communities, time and time again you will be surprised by the different as much (or more than) the similarities. As a New Zealander I have experienced some of this in action in that 'National identity' is one of three key policy strands. For us it is also contentious but in different ways and for some different reasons. So that preamble brings me on to where my current thinking is going on this. I read some of the posts on Steven's thread and was disappointed - they are almost all technologically deterministic and this is not a technology problem. Identity goes to the core of our human identity and so it is not a case of applying technology to the problem. It is I believe a case of applying good process to creating a range of environments where people feel safe, supported and heard online realtime, asynchronous and offline. It is inevitable that whatever engagement tools are chosen, this debate will stir up friction, factions, argument and recriminations. How do we manage that so that it doesn't destroy the value of engagement? Or jeopardise future engagement opportunities. It is highly possible that the wrong toolset will let through the noise and obscure the signal. It's a truism that the consensus often emerges from the middle ground, yet it will be the extremes who shout loudest. And to a final point where I'll come back to the idea of consensus from paragraph 2\. I don't actually believe that it is possible to achieve consensus in this engagement. To do so would result in something so bland it will read like a Nike slogan. So surely this raises a key point with regard to the terms of reference for designing the engagement model? Best Andy **From: "David R. Newman"** **Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 18:58:57 +0000** **Local: Wed, Feb 27 2008 6:58 pm** **Subject: Re: \[Networking Democracy\] Re: Networking Democracy** Elspeth.Rain...@justice.gsi.gov.uk wrote: \> The synthesis of all this information, and so before that how we would \> construct the debate, are areas I would like to hear more of your \> ideas and suggestions on. I hope we will be picking up later on the problem of synthesising the information collected through any on-line process. The ideal of automated pre-classification (for human refinement) is sufficiently difficult it could be a research project submitted to the April call of the Framework 7 ICT call. However, academic researchers already use Computer Aided Qualitative Data Analysis Software to help them find common themes in lots of transcripts. These tools and mark-up techniques could be used to help a team of editors produce summary reports from extensive deliberations, as well as making all the material available for people to read. \-- Dr. David R. Newman, Queen's University Management School, Belfast **From: Ella** **Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 01:13:49 -0800 (PST)** **Local: Fri, Mar 7 2008 9:13 am** **Subject: Re: Networking Democracy** Hi, Last year I did a survey of e-participation initiatives to feed into a project I'm working on. Initiatives were chosen which shared characteristics of the proposed initiative. The research consisted of analysing the initiatives as case studies using a framework to bring out similarities across a range of factors -social, technical and historical. Some of the initiatives seem to be more successful than others (in terms of quality of discussion or quantity of contributions or both) and I identified a series of success factors. I realise that it jumps out of the discussion a little to put them here (I've been advised to plonk them in this old thread), but I think it's a good summary of what I know. Success Factors 1\. Shared agenda (a strong theme or well-defined objective) - Participants want to work together or are keen to work on the topic. Users may share a strong relationship with the topic or a geographic area. Users may share a relevant attribute -e.g. age. 2\. Defined schedule - A schedule that organises the discussion over a specific period of time. Often the themes of later discussions are influenced by the content/conclusions of earlier ones. The schedule may be defined by news/articles posted. A defined schedule gives participants a reason to return at a specific time. 3\. Carefully structured - The tool is carefully structured/tailored to support the objective. 4\. Strong (active) facilitation- Moderators take an active role in the discussion. Technology may be designed to support this (e.g. gives moderators powers to structure the discussion) 5\. Small groups (an alternative to active facilitation)- Participants are split into small "discussion groups" either throughout the process or for certain phases. (These can be a good alternative to strong facilitation, as long as the group are clear about the aims and structure of their discussion) 6\. Impetus to support good forum use - comprehensive netiquette policy/ advice, some sort of technical support for this, a content rating system 7\. Open source technology - More durable software (already de-bugged) allows more time to structure the initiative appropriately and focus on content 8\. Good publicity - Initiative can achieve the number of participants it needs to succeed. Note that only a small percentage of visitors will actively participate. 9\. Political support - The initiative has a relationship with government (or other powerful body) that implies its results will be acknowledges by and impact on government. They're from this document: Smith, E. and Macintosh, A. (2007); 'Existing E-Participation Practices with Relevance to WEB.DEP'; Internal report prepared for the WEB.DEP Consortium. http://itc.napier.ac.uk/ITC/Publications.asp#ID80 \-Ella **From: "Suw Charman-Anderson"** **Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 09:17:58 +0000** **Local: Fri, Mar 7 2008 9:17 am** **Subject: Re: \[Networking Democracy\] Re: Networking Democracy** On Fri, Mar 7, 2008 at 9:13 AM, Ella wrote: \> Hi, \> Last year I did a survey of e-participation initiatives to feed into \> a project I'm working on. Initiatives were chosen which shared \> characteristics of the proposed initiative. The research consisted of \> analysing the initiatives as case studies using a framework to bring \> out similarities across a range of factors -social, technical and \> historical. Some of the initiatives seem to be more successful than \> others (in terms of quality of discussion or quantity of contributions \> or both) and I identified a series of success factors. Hi Ella, I'm very curious to know what technologies were used in the initiatives you looked at. How many used social software (blogs, wikis, etc.)? How many used forums? How many used bespoke systems? Or other software? Thanks! Suw \-- **From: Ella** **Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 01:24:23 -0800 (PST)** **Local: Fri, Mar 7 2008 9:24 am** **Subject: Re: Networking Democracy** Hi, well, there were 29 case studies and every variety that you mentioed was covered. The info is inthe document and there's more detial in the annex which includes the full analysis. However - our server is under a lot of pressure just now (we're about to upgrade it) so, in the short term. I'll send you (Suw) the docs by email \-Ella \-------------------------------------- *Comment and discussion on Networking Democracy is taking place on OurKingdom -* [*click here*](http://ourkingdom.opendemocracy.net/2008/03/24/networking-democracy/?ref=opendemocracy.net#comments) *to join in.* \--------------------------------- **Opening Statements** - [**The rationale**](https://www.opendemocracy.net/networking-democracy/michael-wills-anthony-barnett-exchange) **\- Michael Wills and Anthony Barnett** - [**The "National Conversation" Conversation**](https://www.opendemocracy.net/networking-democracy/national-conversation-conversation) **\- Tony Curzon Price** - [**Values and Virtual Debates**](https://www.opendemocracy.net/networking-democracy/values-and-virtual-debates) **\- Bill Thompson** - [**Online Engagement in a National Debate**](https://www.opendemocracy.net/networking-democracy/online-engagement-in-a-national-debate) **\- Steve Clift** - [**Building Online Participation into a National Citizens Summit**](https://www.opendemocracy.net/networking-democracy/building-online-participation-into-a-national-citizens-summit) **\- Suw Charman** **Discussion threads** - [**Networking Democracy** ](https://www.opendemocracy.net/networking-democracy/networking-democracy)**(43 responses)** - [**Ensuring Security** ](https://www.opendemocracy.net/networking-democracy/ensuring-security)**(5 responses)**[](https://www.opendemocracy.net/networking-democracy/ensuring-security) - [**Asking Difficult Questions** ](https://www.opendemocracy.net/networking-democracy/asking-difficult-questions)**(3 responses)** - [**How do online and offline interact?**](https://www.opendemocracy.net/networking-democracy/online-offline-interact) **(3 responses)** - [**Building Participation**](https://www.opendemocracy.net/networking-democracy/building-participation) **(7 responses)** - [**Final thoughts**](https://www.opendemocracy.net/networking-democracy/final-thoughts) **(7 responses)** \---------------------------------