I quite often talk about there being two basic motivations for taking public consultation/citizen interaction processes online, namely accessibility and aspiration – respectively, the need to ensure participation is available through all major communication channels (like the internet), and the desire to see the unique possibilities of the internet brought to bear on decision-making processes.
There was a bit more chat on a similar theme in a reply we sent to someone the other day so I thought I might as well reproduce it here…
1) accessibility: even without proactive promotion/outreach work, there’s definitely something to be said for ensuring that public
interactions can take place online as well as face-to-face/postal survey/telephone survey/other traditional methods. Just for myself, I know I’m highly unlikely to, for example, take part in a consultation unless I can do it online, easily and in my own time. There’s often a lot of worries about excluding, stereotypically, older people by putting too much emphasis on web stuff (because they’re not used to working that way) but I think just as many people will be excluded if they have to send back a form in the post, or take a call in the middle of the day (because they’re not used to working that way). This is the rationale for a lot of councils using things like Opinion Suite (http://www.opinionsuite.com/); they feel there’s a duty to offer an online ‘way in’ to all public participation.This mirroring of offline processes online perhaps applies a little less to something like the Dialogue App, just because it’s quite a specific type of conversation/exercise, which probably doesn’t take place offline as often as, say, a straightforward survey. I do think, though, it could be a useful thing to run alongside something like a public consultation event or workshop – if people can’t get along to the meeting on the day, they can still be a part of the conversation online.
2) Aspiration: alternatively, there’s the idea that the more crowd-sourcing/ideas-generation side of things can produce valuable results without having to worry about whether a sample of the local population is being accurately represented, or that voices from all interest groups are being heard. If the exercise is framed more as finding new ideas or discovering innovative approaches, rather than trying to understand a group’s preference about a number of pre-determined options, then it doesn’t matter so much where they come from. There will always be a place for sense-checking decisions, or democratically safe-guarding against bad choices, or course-correcting as plans unfold, but I think there’s also a lot more scope for opening out the stage of coming up with options to choose between in the first place – and a good idea can come from anywhere.
