This article
on innovation research captures a critical truth about public participation: if we don’t create a clear structure for people to think within, their thinking won’t be worth very much.
Here’s an easy demonstration of that point (but no peeking ahead!)
1. Set a timer for 30 seconds. In those 30 seconds, think of as many uses for a brick as you can. Jot them down as you think of them.
2. Set the timer for 30 seconds again. Now think of as many uses for a brick in the kitchen as you can (if you don’t hang out much in the kitchen, substitute the garage). Again, write down what you come up with.
3. Compare the two lists. Which one had more answers? Which one had more creative –or more useful answers?
For most people, it’s both easier to come up with ideas when you are thinking about a specific context, and the ideas that you come up with in context have more potential for use than the ones that were created generically. If it didn’t work this way for you, try it on your co-workers or family members and see what you get (you know you’re the special one, of course!)
Our conventional way of doing public participation in this country tends to fall at one end of the freedom/constraint spectrum or the other. We either present people with a pre-determined, pre-endorsed plan (or a couple to make it look more like a choice), or we just throw open the microphone and say “what do you think?” I don’t know why we’re surprised when we get protest, or most likely apathy, in the first case, and crazy or irrelevant feedback in the second. With too much structure, we are squelching their ability to make the constructive improvements that they know they could if they just got the chance. With too little structure, we are throwing people on their own resources, which on certain issues might not be very deep or loaded with unconstructive, unquestioned assumptions. We stick them with a feedback method that requires them to operate by the seat of the pants about something they probably don’t know that much about. No wonder we get crazy, off-target and useless.
If you’re just doing public involvement because your boss or a regulation says you’re supposed to, you might as well stop reading. Sorry to have wasted your time. If you believe, at least somewhere in your guts, that your community’s public participation should build something, should help make the future of your community better, then listen: We have got to learn to do this better. We have to find the right balance of openness and structure, of inviting feedback and keeping people on track, of getting people as deeply and constructively involved as they can be instead of settling for a lousy experience on both sides of the table. If the only people who are benefitting from public involvement are the list-checker-offers and those who came to hear their own voice resound, then we are wasting our limited time and our more limited money. Period.
None of this has to be the case, and it’s not just a matter of happy kum-bah-yahing. We will plan and develop better communities if we can access the whole spectrum of good ideas, not just the few that we might figure out on our own. But to get that, we have to not only open the process, but we have to lead it, and leading means creating the structure in which good ideas can come to the top. Successful businesses, such as P&G and Merck and Google, are already doing this. And what we are doing in communities is far more complicated than building apps or making Crest. We in communities have to open our eyes and learn how to do that, too.
An example is here in Louisville, the local board of health is hosting a forum on a massive heath care system merger. A number of issues come to mind including the even distribution of services across the community, location of specialized services, the influence of the Catholic based company. The questin becomes what is the Board searching for and what if any power does the body have to effect change? It is difficult for any member of the public at large to judge the worthiness in participating in such an event.
Point being, how to elevate and encourage public discourse/
Yes, we all agree with you. Public participation is critical. We need good examples please!
The International City/County Management Association has some good examples of citizen engagement in the Knowledge Network. Check it out at http://icma.org/kn
We had exactly the type of experience described as conventional in trying to pass clean water regulations, so we tabled that effort and initiated a more interactive, educational approach (see http://www.loudoun.gov/controls/speerio/resources/RenderContent.aspx?data=1d12c780c46944f69aa3808ae8ae0a10&tabid=312&fmpath=%2fBusiness+Meeting+Packets for the detailed approach). Unfortunately, my Supervisor did not win re-election in November, so the project’s future is somewhat uncertain. However, the initial response from stakeholders was very positive (see http://www.loudoun.gov/controls/speerio/resources/RenderContent.aspx?data=15aeb8b79fd2480bb511a0214fec05fb&tabid=312&fmpath=%2fBusiness+Meeting+Packets ).