Developing Community Voice
By John Sanger
Most good conversations occur between individuals that have some level of equality between them. They are generally one-to-one or one-to-few. As more people enter the conversation, you reach a place where there is a power imbalance i.e., there is a leader or a group at the podium that controls the conversation flow, the quality drops rapidly. If the conversation is an open forum with many individuals participating, it is possible to get a flavor for the problems being discussed, but rarely does it build a consensus for the group to resolve the issue.
If you think about how the community interacts with the public and private sectors, you quickly realize it is not a fair process. The community is represented by individual citizens. The public sector has state and federal legislature structures, agency structures, and county and local systems. The private sector has holding companies, boards of directors, and divisions, each with their own structures. Regardless of the issue or format, the results are the same. It is never possible to:
define the problem,
examine alternative solutions,
evaluate these solutions based upon community values and then
select the solution, identify the implementers, and identify a process that holds them accountable for specified results.
This classic planning process when done openly and honestly, works well, but when the data collection is suspect, the selection criteria appear to be biased, and implementation is viewed as not being integrative or collaborative. The public reacts poorly. When public participation is most often sought as a reaction to the plan, participation drops. This is not a good model despite its almost universal use. Unfortunately, today the public has lost faith with most of our institutions.
When it comes to public policy, as discussed in John Sanger’s book, Slaying the Status Quo, there are numerous opportunities for the individual to engage. Unfortunately none of them are effective because they all maintain the individual fighting as an individual. The structure of public hearings, town halls etc. promote the individual’s ability to comment but it is always a single voice against an authority figure. Most individuals in these meetings do not get to speak at all. Polls are but a snapshot in time and are not designed to support a dialogue; social media is no better.
There is an alternative.
The e-Consensus Forum, an online software application, offers a strategic alternative. First, each online Forum session is based upon five critically important and unique attributes:
Anonymous- because each input is captured without identifying who submitted it, participants are free to express their true beliefs rather than maintaining their organization’s “party line”.
Inclusive- whether an onsite or remote session, the leader can monitor who has contributed and encourage those that have not.
Democratic- one participant, one vote.
Focused- Rather than having a meeting dominated by the most vocal or powerful individuals, the group votes to determine the next steps. It is the value of the ideas not the strength of the personalities that is important that drives the process.
Documented- every word and every vote are recorded for later review and analysis.
Secondly, the Forum consists of a series of Sessions designed to resolve an issue.
The first session begins with an open question to identify which aspect of the issue is most important.
A series of open-ended questions are asked.
These are reviewed and votes are taken to determine a priority.
Subsequent sessions ask about strategies, tactics, responsibilities, etc.
The process generally requires seven sessions to adopt a plan of implementation that resolves their top issue.
Other Forums may be convened to address secondary issues at any time.
This process ensures that every individual’s ideas are shared and considered. The voting process demonstrates what the majority of participants consider to be most important. Even individuals whose ideas do not win can be satisfied that they were heard, so they do not have to feel left out. And unlike focus groups, all of the minutiae is captured rather than lost in the table summation process. These critically important concepts are then available in the forum’s record for later review and perhaps another forum.
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Our next essay will be “Evolution of the Smart Region Concept” which will describe the robust Smart Region encompassing Distributed Cities in a rich integrated solution bridging the urban-rural divide.