networked engagement (draft)(april 2013)

Networked Engagement

Catherine Howe, Public-i

This is about social changeThis is not about the technology

What is the data telling us?

Consistent growth of Internet takeup Ref: OFCOM and ONS

Technology needs to be considered in the context of social change

Consistent growth of ‘social’ behaviours Ref: OFCOM and OXII

Digital exclusion is becoming social exclusion Ref: ONS, OXII, CLG

The relationship with the public is changing

We limit ourselves by simply considering changes to the way we communicate

There are new rules of engagement

Networked Digital

Open Agile

Relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement

Strong support for creating and sharing one’s creations with others

Some type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is passed along to novices

Participants believe that their contributions matter

Participants feel some degree of social connection with one another (at the least they care what other people think about what they have created)

Participatory culture or a network society?

Jenkins, Rheingold

Collaborating

ParticipatingSharing

Creating

Connecting

Some examples

http://www.fixmystreet.com

FixMyStreet is a simple plugin which allows user to report local problems and have them routed to the right public agency

Fix My Street

http://www.patientslikeme.com

PatientsLikeMe enables patients to record and share details of their treatment and disease management – crowdsourcing medical research

Patients like me

http://giffgaff.com

GiffGaff’s customers provide their own customer service – good advice and help is rewarded with phone minutes and free texts

GiffGaff

http://patchworkhq.com

Patchwork is redesigning the information flow around multi-agency clients in order to ensure that a networked approach to case management can be created

PatchworkHQ

http://www.couchsurfing.org

Instead of paying for a hotel couchsurfing creates a network of people willing to open up their homes and provide a bed (or sofa) for travellers

Couchsurfing

http://www.wewillgather.co.uk

Grew out of a spontaneous response to the riots in 2011 and #RiotCleanup

Based around the simple premise of helping people organise for specific community tasks

It worked once – can you work again?

We Will Gather

http://occupylondon.org.uk

No-one is in charge

Decisions are negotiated

Objectives are contested

They are highly networked and agile

Is this intelligence or community policing?

Occupy

Manufacturing is disrupted

Control becomes about ideas not about objects

Supply chain is shifted

New skills are needed

3D Printing

Augmented reality means that the data becomes the reality

How will the state interact with these formats?

What does this do to civic space?

How does this change live events?

Google Glass

Two engagement themes

It depends on connections and sharing rather than on roles or structures

It is highly responsive to need and opportunity

When online it can be highly agile as the environment is designed to support this

There are different forms of ties within networks – strong and weak – and these operate differently

You need to understand your own contribution to understand your relevance and potential influence

Networked Power

Networked power operates differently to hierarchical power

Community engagement theory and practice has moved away from top down

models, and best practice examines how you can pass power to communities

It takes an asset based approach to communities rather than the traditional

deficit model

It is a strong ‘fit’ with the participatory culture of the online world

It is an important tool in a time when we have to find ‘more for less’

Co-production

Co-production means involving all stakeholders in not only designing but delivering outcomes

How does this change the relationship between citizen and state?

Disintermediation and new forms of power

Political parties have less relevance

Local media is struggling to survive

There is no space for discretion

Your thinking will be done in public

Will we just communicate with the public or collaborate with them?

How will the boundaries get blurred?

There are different ways to imagine your relationship with the public

CommunicativeOpen and accessible but with little change to current decision making processes

Define this and you can create a new strategy

CollaborativeOpen to new ideas and agenda setting by the public

Co-productiveSharing decision making and looking at new models of delivery

What does community engagement look like if we assume that people are already online?

How do we manage to engage more on more limited resources? What are the new skills that are needed?

Should we consider communications and engagement to be converging?

How will this change your world?

What could community engagement look like?

What are we looking for?

Informal Civic Formal Civic

Informal Social Formal Democratic

Asset Based Community Development

Active Citizens

Community Activists

Willing Localists

Social Nodes

ABCD

Create a network of networks

Map the networks Look at online and offline connections

Connect the active citizens together and become part of their conversation

Adjust for representativeness

Understand how ‘democratic’ the network of networks is

Create a public spaceThis should be about participation not

surveillance

Network graph

Digital Civic Space

Use open spaces techniques in your face to face encounters – if you set the agenda its not a a public meeting

Use technology to take the offline – create and share content to get value from your events

Come prepared to listen

Open Spaces Meetings

Take online behaviours offline

Engagement or consultation around specific issues Relationship building with specific communities Demand management for more self-reliant communities

How can these approaches be used?

Where do you need a different relationship with the public?

What does the public realm look like online?

How will this change your world?

Catherine Howecatherine.howe@public-i.info

Thank you for your time