About a couple of weeks ago, the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation (NCDD) — in collaboration with a few other organizations in this field — launched the Public Engagement Principles project, an effort to craft a recommendation for the Obama administration as they work on the Open Government Directive. From the NCDD website:
Get involved in the Public Engagement Principles project, a collaborative effort to see if our broad field can present a united front to the Obama administration. We are starting by developing and describing a set of core principles or criteria for quality public engagement that are broad enough yet meaningful enough that we can all endorse. Help us get there!
Here’s how Sandy Heierbacher, NCDD’s director, introduced the project:
We are facing an unprecedented opportunity in the fields of public engagement, conflict resolution and collaboration. President Obama has demonstrated his commitment to participation, transparency and openness in his administration in numerous ways we’ve all taken note of
There are a number of established associations and organizations in the U.S. that unite professionals and promote the practice and principles of consensus, dialogue, participation, collaboration, conflict resolution and other means of achieving largely the same end.
We suspect that many of these groups will try to communicate with the administration about how to best move forward, but we are concerned about the fact that although most of us speak the same basic language to describe this work, we tend to use many different dialects. This could weaken each of our cases, and overwhelm members of the administration rather than support them.
Rather than each of us contacting the administration separately with mixed messages and various levels of success, we believe we could make a greater impact working together. Can we collaborate or unify to present a collective source of principles, practices, talent and resources that this administration and nation will need in the next four years?
The discussion forum has quickly become a treasure trove for anyone interested in making public engagement work. The list of over a dozen tried and tested sets of principles from around the world as well as the conversations about which pieces are generally applicable or how they should be framed in the context of a guideline or recommendation to the administration is a valuable asset in and by itself and I hope NCDD will preserve the results.
Here’s the latest revision of the public engagement principles:
CRITERIA FOR PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT
The following principles describe high quality public engagement in public conversation on public issues. While each is distinct, they overlap considerably and reinforce each other in practice. They serve both as ideals to pursue and as criteria for judging quality. Their proper use is to generate authentic engagement in public problem-solving, collective creativity, and social healing. They are not designed to promote partisan agendas.
- Preparation – Consciously plan, design, convene and arrange the engagement to serve its purpose and people.
- Inclusion – Incorporate diverse people and ideas to lay the groundwork for quality outcomes and democratic legitimacy.
- Collaboration – Support organizers, participants, and those engaged in follow-up to work well together for the common good.
- Learning – Help participants listen, explore and learn without predetermined outcomes — and evaluate events for lessons.
- Transparency – Promote openness and provide a public record of the people, resources, and events involved.
- Impact – Engage official and public attention and follow up — in context — so that each participatory effort actually makes a difference.
- Participatory Culture – Promote programs and institutions that sustain quality public engagement and advance democratic principles and competence.
Tom Atlee did a lot of the integration and synthesis work on this.
I want to start a conversation about how these principles can best be applied to online participation efforts and tools.
Related Posts
- May 6, 2009 by Tim:
Intellitics Endorses Core Principles for Public Engagement - February 20, 2009 by Tim:
Public Participation and the Open Government Directive - March 24, 2008 by Tim:
What is Public Participation?
Great Tim – I look forward to hearing what people are saying – together with other groups like NCDD and IAP2 – an informal briefing is being held with the Obama Administration on the directive – so all this discourse is food for all the conversations that are being had!
I am honored to be a part of this project. We need to add a principle related to the use of social media and other tech tools.
I’ve been thinking about that, too.
I am convinced that the web will play an ever increasing role in public participation or civic engagement projects. At the same time, though, each project is unique and will always require careful balancing between offline and online components. Some project may not benefit from online at all.
For the purpose of the current document, I’m wondering whether an additional principle dedicated to the use of online tools, social media etc. is warranted or whether that may be something we’d want to put into a separate recommendation.
The currently seven principles apply to both online and offline efforts alike, in my view.
Maybe a simple statement that the use of online is encouraged where appropriate and that the same principles apply is all we need.
Sign us up to help. I’m heading to Gov2.0Camp this week in DC – will be raising questions about how what we’ve learned/are learning about on-line/off-line policy-making and public engagement at the (formal) federal level translates into state, local, and community-based efforts. Does anyone have a good visual? I’d love to do a slide that compares policy1.0 (expert driven, engagement as one step in process) to policy2.0 (engagement all the time, against backdrop of highly networked, nonlinear process model). The other obvious challenge the online version raises is decision-making – even the Obama administration ran into a buzz saw there.
The final version of the Core Principles for Public Engagement Document is now available.