Archive for the 'Research' Category

What is public participation?

Published by Tim on March 24, 2008 in About, Dictionary and Research. 0 Comments

Following a recent IAP2 Northern California chapter meeting, I came across this definition of public participation:

What is Public Participation?

Public participation is the process by which an organization consults with interested or affected individuals, organizations, and government entities before making a decision. Public participation is two-way communication and collaborative problem solving with the goal of achieving better and more acceptable decisions. Public participation prevents or minimizes disputes by creating a process for resolving issues before they become polarized. Other terms sometimes used are “public involvement,” “community involvement,” or “stakeholder involvement.”

We are currently working on our first product, a web-based software application for problem solving and decision making in large groups. To some degree, what we have in mind is a public participation engine (at least for those parts of an engagement project that can feasibly be run online).

Tools for Participation: June 26-29, 2008 in Berkeley, CA

Published by Tim on February 17, 2008 in Events and Research. 0 Comments

Interesting conference coming up right in our backyard: Tools for Participation

At the dawn of the 21st century humankind faces challenges of profound proportions. The ability of people around the world to discuss, work, make decisions, and take action collaboratively is one of the most important capabilities for addressing these challenges.

Researchers, scholars, activists, advocates, artists, educators, technologists, designers, students, policy-makers, entrepreneurs, journalists and citizens are rising to these challenges in many ways, including, devising new communication technologies that build on the opportunities afforded by the Internet and other new (as well as old) media. The interactions between technological and social systems are of special and central importance in this area.

DIAC-08 combines CPSR’s 11th DIAC symposium with the third Conference on Online Deliberation. The joint conference is intended to provide a platform and a forum for highlighting socio-technological opportunities, challenges, and pitfalls in the area of community and civic action. Technology enhanced community action ranges from informal communities of practice to democratic governance of formal organizations to large social movements.

We are especially interested in technology development that is already being tested or fielded. We are also interested in theoretical and other intellectual work that helps build understanding and support for future efforts. In addition to exploring social technology, we must at the same time understand and advance the social context of technology, including its design, access, use, policy and evaluation, as well as intellectual frameworks and perspectives that inform technological as well as social innovation including requirements, case studies, critique and self-reflection, and infrastructures for future work.

Our areas of focus include but are not limited to: deliberative and collaborative systems, e-democracy and e-participation, mobilization and organization, negotiation, consultation, sustainability, community support systems, open source models, human rights, ecological awareness, conflict resolution, justice, transparency systems, media and civic journalism, media literacy, power research, citizen science, economic development and opportunity, peace and reconciliation, infrastructure development, policy, education, community networks, research and development for civil society, social software, virtual communities and civic intelligence.

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Intellitics will be there.

Embracing research

Published by Tim on November 28, 2007 in Research and Resources. 1 Comment

From the November 26 issue of the Deliberative Democracy eBulletin (a must-read resource for us, click here to get to their archive and email subscription):

1 | Four Years of DDC Research and Practice
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Matt Leighninger writes about a draft discussion report, “Where is Democracy Headed? Four years of DDC research and practice” which is now available on the DDC wiki. In the report, Peter Levine and Lars Hasselblad Torres have described the findings, publications, and other products of the 2003 and 2005 Researcher and Practitioner meetings, and incorporated those ideas in an insightful essay on the future of deliberative democracy. They make twelve key observations on the state of the field and suggest seven critical steps for moving forward.

To read the draft and provide feedback visit: http://wiki.deliberative-democracy.net/index.php/Summary_Report

You can find Matt’s full blog post (and follow the discussion) here: Four years of DDC research and practice

Under “Ideas for Moving Forward”, the report lists a number of proposed areas for future research. The last paragraph is especially interesting with regard to what Intellitics does:

19. Give deeper attention to online methods

Since the Airlie House meeting in 2002, the DDC has deliberately included practitioners and proponents of online deliberation. However, the bulk of research has been devoted to face-to-face processes, and several interviewees wondered if there might still be a bias against technology. Polletta said, “I really think online is really important. We operate with this idea that face to face is the ideal form. All the research seems to suggest that you should generate your theories of deliberation based on what happens in face to face deliberation. Online is seen as a ‘peculiar’ form. ” However, face-to-face methods are more expensive and in some respects harder to implement.

At Intelltics, we want to contribute to this exciting field of work as much as we can. A few guidelines come to mind that we will try to follow:

  • Plan ahead — Design and build with research in mind (instead of it being a mere afterthought).
  • Provide access — Be available and open to outside research.
  • Share — Make any findings available to the dialogue and deliberation community or the public.

So, if you are a researcher and would like help us bring online dialogue and deliberation to the next level, let’s talk!

How to listen online?

Published by Tim on November 26, 2007 in Dialogue and Research. 2 Comments

It came up in the last post, and it is something we’ve been thinking about quite a bit: How to listen online?

Listening in real life is sometimes hard enough. It may require skilled facilitation. Oftentimes, we’re not trained to listen well. It is much easier to talk than to listen, and listen carefully.

Online, however, listening seems to become that much harder. Many of the cues we are used to in real life are missing: for example sound, tone of voice, facial expressions etc. — even silence.

So, if listening is essential to leading meaningful dialogue and the same holds true for online dialogue, then the 1,000,000 dollar question is:

How to listen online?

Over the coming weeks, I plan to share some of our findings here in this blog. If you have resources to share or questions you want to see addressed, please comment.