4 Responses to “Seven Observations about Public Engagement”

  1. Ashley Trim

    This is a grat set of observations! I completely agree with the expectation of engagement outlined in point one, and would just add that it is further complicated by the fact that we are still functioning in representative democracy and particularly when reaching out to diverse voices, our residents face genuine constraints on their time and energy. It requires a particular commitment to engagement to provide broad opportunities for people to be involved, while acknowledging the legitimate decision that people sometimes make not to involve – at least not to involve at every opportunity. Some issues matter more to particular groups than others, some people bring particular knowledge or expertise to the table. But just because the whole community doesn’t show up to a particular well-designed effort doesn’t mean they are apathetic.

    I think this is where the closing the loop (observaton #5) is so important. People need to know about opportunities to be involved and when they do get involved need to know how their feedback is utilized. This leads to a culture of empowerement in every way, including when to be involved, and when to opt out.

    Reply
    • Rick Morse

      Thanks for the positive reinforcement Ashley! I think the question of inclusion and representativeness versus acknowledging that not everyone can, wants to, or even should be involved on every issue, is a key one, with few easy answers. The question of who needs to be engaged for a particular situation is not entirely straightforward. I’d love to see posts here on CELE sometime about innovative practice around this.

      Reply
  2. Larry Schooler

    Really nice and perceptive post, Rick. My curiosity is around levels of government beyond local, even to include regional (like metropolitan planning organizations, or MPOs, whom I’m seeing do some interesting engagement work), county (less so), and state/federal. What, I wonder, will it take for some of what we’re seeing in local government to make its way elsewhere.

    I also think that we’re still seeing more thought put into the techniques applied to a particular engagement “episode” (i.e., a unique meeting format, a new tech tool, etc.) and less thought put into process design and what the public will “get” from their participation. That takes more time for organizations to accept but is as if not more critical to success in this arena, in my experience.

    Reply
    • Rick Morse

      Yes Larry, I think that is what I was trying to get at, in part at least, with #5. Ideally engagement (at any level of government) is a series of feedback loops, but all too often it is only thought of as “input” and ends there. I’d love to see examples of processes designed to be more like feedback loops, arrows going in both directions, iteratively, along the lines of what you are suggesting.

      Reply

Join the Conversation

If you are having problems with commenting please let us know here by creating a ticket.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *