Designing for Civil Society

Relationship-based engagement ... obviously

I've been writing for some time about how people - not methods, structures and procedures - are the basis for successful partnerships and participation. However, it took a seminar on collaboration software last week to jolt me into thinking more seriously about relationship-based engagement.
I've concluded that this term, which may seem tautologous (as in self-evident), could help us think about what's working, and what's not, in the field.
The seminar was organised by Inovem, where the team who originally developed Smartgroups have now created an impressive suite of email and web-based tools for information, communication and collaboration. Part of the day focussed on case studies within organisations, and part on wider public engagement projects.
My role was to kick-off with a keynote putting e-participation into the wider context of the theory and practice of engagement ... and I found it really difficult to write. I dumped the first effort- written for the seminar pack - in favour of a second effort here (both pdfs). The real insights - as usual - came from listening to other people at the event. Anyway, here's an explanation of my route to relationship-based engagement as a potentially useful term. Click the slide images to expand.

In my first draft I focussed on the need to think about the purpose of any participation or collaboration, the people involved, and only then about process - the stages and methods. Context and culture is also crucial. Drew Mackie and I have used that model - adapted from one by Ann Holmes - in the Engagement Game, which helps people plan engagement processes and choose appropriate methods. These may be polls, surveys, face-to-face workshops - or online forums and panels. I went on to say that engagement is not just about methods, but relationships. In order to develop these we need to shift from formal ways of communicating and put greater emphasis on conversations and stories in order to build trust.

For the second draft I improved on this (I think) with a slide making much more explicit the proposal that engagement fundamentally depends on relationships and trust. As I said in the notes:

It is people who engage - or don’t. The foundation of any type of engagement is trust, which comes from developing a good relationship with the other party. We believe in trusted sources of information; we will listen and respond to options if we believe they are put forward in good faith; and we will only collaborate if we have confidence that the other party will deliver on their promises.

In addition, we need to think about engagement in terms of networks, rather than just one-to-one or one-to-many relationship between power-holders and participants, or core groups and wider stakeholders. 

We need to map these networks in order to understand them, create an open culture, identify and support connectors. We can then start to think about the range of tools - online and off - that are appropriate. We should become sensitive to the fact that some of them are essentially top-down and controlled by agencies who are broadcasting to us, or inviting us to contribute to options develop on their terms.

Other tools, created by intermediaries, aim to develop trusted spaces. The more recent tools for blogging, podcasting and publishing video provide the means for people to develop their personal voices.

At present a lot of e-participation and e-democracy projects developed by public agencies are based on officially-controlled sites. It's a bit like saying "please come to our public meeting, or respond to the survey that our interviewers are carrying out". Nothing wrong with that, provided (going to my first slide above) there is a clear purpose for engagement and the agency have taken trouble in understanding who may be involved and what their interests and communication preferences may be. 
This top-down engagement probably won't work, however, if the context is uncongenial. Maybe the agency hasn't listened and delivered in the past, for example. If public agencies don't create compelling reasons for people to engage, in places they can trust, I think people will increasingly use personal media for campaigning and influence and create their own places.
I'm not sure my presentation got these ideas across well at the seminar. I don't really like doing keynotes at the start of an event, particularly when it is about engagement and interaction. I would much rather join in conversations. I suppose one advantage is that it does force you to try and create some sort of narrative that may be the basis for later exchanges (comment welcome on this item of course).
I certainly gained some insights from the other presentations, all available here. There were impressive stories about how Inovem's software is being used for partnerships, consultation, and team working. I didn't get a fee for the presentation, so feel free to say I'm impressed by the way that the systems map on to the theory and practice of engagement as developed in recent years. There's a good article here about the work of Bath and North East Somerset Council, one of those presenting.
But here comes the slight rub. As I was leaving the event I fell into conversation with another participation practitioner who does a mix of face-to-face workshops and online engagement. He said something like this...

There was a lot in the presentations about the tools and systems, but precious little about the processes of building relationships. There's a real danger that as the technology gets better it will start to define participation methodology ... missing out the people. And it won't work.

This remark really brought to the fore some of the concerns I had felt during the event. Many speakers had made reference to people and cultural issues being crucial, but amidst all the Powerpoint we didn't have a chance to explore those. That needs conversations and anecdotes rather than bullet points. What we got was a lot about tools-based engagement ... hardly surprising, I suppose, because that's what Inovem is selling.
I suspect that the excellent case studies we heard were successful precisely because the organisations involved were attuned to the relationship issues, and could created trusted environments into which to bring good tools. That won't be the case in all circumstances, where the first methods to be used should be aimed at building trust and relationships. How to do that is something I'll continue to explore. At least I feel I've got a  working title.
Previously: Web 2.0, participation and e-democracy

Community leaders, or representation?

The Government's enthusiasm for double devolution, which Drew and I gamed recently with Kevin Harris, depends on more people being actively involved in community affairs. Kevin in  Community leaders, or representation? has a suitably sceptical take on the tendency to brand people who do good stuff as 'leaders'.

Here I am reading a draft report from a meeting about neighbourhood governance, and the phrase 'community leaders' stops me, the way it always does. I have difficulty with the frequent and unreflective use of this term - not, I hope, just because of some wishy-washy resistance to hierarchical cultures, but more because I'm unconvinced that calling for more 'community leaders' is a solution to anything.

Kevin adds:

I think most use of the label refers to activists who play a prominent role, often representing locally a community of interest, sometimes falling victim to accusations of 'usual suspects' or becoming manipulable media products. I'm more concerned right now with the chorus of calls for more of them. (Are we gonna have some kind of genetic programme here, get them all to breed so we have a stock for the future?)
Maybe just whistling for more community leaders won't work, because we'll still have a gulf between them and the rest of us. If our democracy lacks the key ingredients of engagement and participation, I'm not sure it makes sense to crash-course a new cadre of likelies.
Maybe we need to ensure far more widespread understanding of the notion of representation. We need to smooth over the gap between representation and apathy, between involvement and disinterest. We need to establish the habit of participation and an understanding of what it means to be represented by someone, and what it means to represent others.Update - Stephen Coleman has kindly drawn my attention to his 2005 ippr pamphlet called Direct representation: towards a conversational democracy, which to my shame I had missed. He argues that we need to move to a richer, more conversational form of representation.

I like Stephen Coleman's approach. However, I was swayed in the direction of cherishing our traditional elected councillors more by a fascinating evening and a few pints recently with Paul Evans, who blogs over at Never Trust a Hippy. Paul is passionate about the need to revive local democracy, and we discursed widely on ideas about capacity building for councillors (if community groups can have it, why can't they) and even "adopt a councillor."
It reminded me that Jamie Rose, head of MORI's Participation Unit, gave a very relevant presentation at the recent Bristol conference on activists and councils. She was saying, as I recall, that research shows that we all have different levels of commitment to different issues - and if you score more than five you count as active. Activity will depend on time of life and circumstance. That suggests to me that branding someone "activist" isn't very helpful. You can find the presentation somewhere in the conference webcast. I'll check if it is available elsewhere.

People + networks = collective intelligence?

George Por - who led a London collaboration cafe earlier in the year - has posted an item on his blog about how we can raise the collective intelligence of a group or network, and also the ability of the participants in six key areas: intention; reflection; competence; recorded memory; support; trust and social capital. I'm particularly excited because the model, and George's wisdom, is very relevant to the problems of partnerships I wrote about yesterday, and the challenges of developing networks. My title equation - People + networks = collective intelligence - doesn't do justice to George's item which he entitles What Is My Collective IQ? - Boosting CI from Within. But then, as some of the blog comments indicate, the ideas can be a little difficult to grasp. It's a bit chewy to take at one gulp, but that's no bad thing.
I'm so excited by the ideas that I know if I don't write something I'll feel frustrated all day, so I'm just doing a brief mention to further alert the blogosphere to the item, and then turning back to work I'm doing on network development, with sideways glances at George's item for inspiration. I'll then post more later. On refIection, I think that's in line with George's suggestion for collaborative learning exploration, so it's working already.

Partnership problems? Get to know the people involved

I hear continuing rumblings about the challenges inherent in the UK Government's Changeup programme, where the aim is to create infrastructure support for nonprofit organisations, involving a lot of collaborations at national, regional and local level. The Home Office Active Communities Directorate is insisting that each area of support - like governance, volunteering, technology - should have only one lead consortium in order to get funding. That's already caused difficulties with one of the support 'hubs', and there's been more general criticism  of the model. Suddenly partnership - and how to make it work - is becoming fashionable yet again.

Collaborating in middlespace

Lilia Efimova uses the term 'middlespace' to describe where bottom-up meets top down, informal meets formal learning, taking control of your life, and leadership as releasing the energy of others. I don't know if the term is new, but it triggers a lot of thoughts for me about how to get out of 'either-or' and into creative collaborations with people who may be starting from a different direction and want to find synergies. Lilia has helped create an excellent real space middlespace as convenor of Blogwalks including one recently in London. I'm tempted to pursue the idea further, but there's other stuff to do, and I know middlespace will be one of those ideas that sits in the back of my head giving a creative nudge now and again, so no need. Thanks Lilia.

Promoting regeneration? First listen to your critic

Perhaps there's something about the traditional public lecture - and lecture hall - that brings out more of the speaker than the usual Powerpoint keynote. It's certainly difficult to find a hall to better the Great Room at the Royal Society of Arts in London, and at the end of this evening's lecture I felt I knew more about Jonathan Glancey than his subject The Re-generation Game. That's not necessarily a bad thing for inquisitive readers of The Guardian, where he is architecture and design editor, and may also be useful for any regeneration agencies interested in gaining Mr Glancey's attention. More on that later.

Trusting that "no more" moment

Simon Hoggart of The Guardian is my favourite diarist, and he provides further delight today with a piece headed "Vote Labour? Don't bet on it" The flavour is enhanced if you know that Simon is also the Parliamentary sketch writer for his paper, and has toiled for years in the corridors of politics. This isn't outsider sniping. Simon writes:

What's the point at which you decided you couldn't stand this lot any more? For many people Iraq was the tipping point - if not the war then the revelation of all that faked, tweaked and tarted up intelligence. For others it will have been something smaller: Bernie Ecclestone's million quid, or top-up fees, or Peter Mandelson.
I guess for me it's been the decision to loosen the laws on gambling, so that every one of our cash-strapped cities can now be bribed to accept a vast casino, designed to suck money from those who can't afford it and ship it back to the US or offshore havens.

Ten conversation starters on community tech

I think we may be at a turning point in how we design for the use of new technologies in local communities, non-profits, and communities of practice. Earlier thoughts here. Or it may be I'm just waking up to some changes that have been going on for a little while. Anyway, there nothing like doing a seminar presentation to provoke some head scratching and searching around the hard-drive for reusable Powerpoints. I'm contributing to an event at the University of Dundee, Scotland, on Thursday about international lessons on what works and what doesn't. Tempting though it is to do some recycling, the spirit of the times demands something different. Here's a preview of what I think I'll talk about - but it may change after my visit tomorrow to the community technology conference in Brighton, UK to run a game and any comments I get here. It's a fairly small group in Dundee, so I thought some slightly provocative conversation starters might be the way to go. This isn't tablets of stone personal philosphy, just some hunches and nudges. I'll add more after the events, including some links.

Location, location - or dislocation, disinterest?

Jack Schofield, writing about Smart Places in Guardian Online, suggests that 'intelligent environments' could be the next big thing. He offers a round up of experimental projects using smart phones and other devices to connect us with content 'attached' to buildings and street furniture. This won't be just tourist info, ads and menus from the restaurants you are passing, but - for example - current and historical story threads woven by the Urban Tapestries project in Bloomsbury, London. Technology could enrich your sense of place.
Jack's piece reminded me that Howard Rheingold, writing recently in The Feature, wondered Does Mobile Telephony Disconnect People from City Life?. NY Times art and architecture critic Paul Goldberger, bemoaned "Disconnected Urbanism" in a recent issue of Metropolis, and Howard mused "Who would dispute that the Montparnasse of even ten years ago is a different place today, in part because more and more of the boulevardiers are in SMS or MP3 land or talking to someone whose body is elsewhere? I'm not as convinced as Goldberger that this represents an unalloyed tragedy, an irreversible breakdown of civilized norms. Don't we change our norms all the time?"
As usual, I expect it will do one thing for some people, and another thing for other people... depending on personality type, communication preferences, enthusiasm for technology and so on. It's not just location, or device - but people, place, technology.

Blogging in organisations. Reminder - remember people.

Jonathan Briggs raises interesting questions about sharing knowledge in organisations through blogging. These cover issues of single or multiple authors, moderation, security, structure, style and other matters potentially crucial to success. One issue that I think deserves more attention is the differing skills, motivation, confidence and personalities of those who may be expected to blog. If we move towards more distributed knowledge management systems, then how people are prepared to share becomes important (again). Hoarders, connectors, catalysts, enthusers, facilitators are endless categorised and re-named in various theories of organisational development and team building - but I don't know of much work translating those wisdoms into the online world. (Link please from any kind readers). As I've written before, I think that these personal factors can be underestimated in enthusiasms for the role of social software.
Which brings me to my motivation for writing this, and a little self-reflection prompted by Will Davies' Friday afternoon provocation . Will muses on whether the blogosphere is fair, the power of 'alpha bloggers', and the balance of individualism and collectivism in the medium (I think).
Blogging Jonathan's item gives me the chance to raise the issue of people-centred design without too much effort. But does the fact that I'll be meeting him on Friday with Common Purpose staff influence me? Am I using this blog item to give a friendly wave after my rather tetchy piece about his speednetworking event? Certainly.