Online engagement can break through the noise of factional interest groups and into the heart of communities, writes Matt Crozier.
Community engagement can be challenging. I sometimes see public servants recoil in horror at the suggestion that they should be aiming to get more people involved in their community engagement processes.
“Why would we want to hear from more of them?”, while usually unspoken, is etched across their faces.
I can understand this reaction – 15 years in the government sector being battered around by one interest group or another (or doing the battering) gave me a healthy cynicism of what traditional engagement processes achieve.
These processes are often deeply flawed. Not because they are not entered into with the best of intentions, nor due to lack of skilled facilitation or process design. They are flawed because they are entirely dependent upon people turning up, and we are all far too busy to turn up to anything that we are not already angry about or afraid of.
This means that for most of government, what passes for community engagement has become a painful exercise of holding discussions with the usual suspects and various lobby groups.
Getting more people involved should be an end in itself because these ‘other’ people will be more moderate, more considered and will give you a much better understanding of whether the usual suspects actually represent the community as they undoubtedly claim.
The opportunity to engage the community online represents a leap forward in the tools available to government to get more people involved. MORE>>
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