Announcing Project ZTim Bonnemann, IntelliticsWeb Monday Silicon Valley (Expo Edition)April 21, 2008 in San Francisco, CA

About Intellitics

• Early-stage startup based in San José, CA (USA)

• Experiments in Civic Sensemaking

• Tim Bonnemann, founder and chief ideator

• First product: Z

Key Terms (1/3):Dialogue• A process that allows people, usually in small

groups, to share their perspectives and experiences with one another about difficult issues

• Not about judging, weighing or making decisions, but about understanding and learning

• Dispels stereotypes, builds trust and enables people to be open to perspectives that are very different from their own

• Often requires skilled facilitation

Key Terms (2/3):Deliberation• Process closely related to dialogue, but emphasizes

the use of logic and reasoning to make better decisions

• Involves all parties and explores all options

• Reveals assumptions for reevaluation

• Assumes that many people hold pieces to a solution

• Often requires skilled facilitation

Key Terms (3/3):Public Participation• The process by which an organization consults with

interested or affected individuals, organizations, and government entities before making a decision

• Two-way communication and collaborative problem solving with the goal of achieving better and more acceptable decisions

• Prevents or minimizes disputes by creating a process for resolving issues before they become polarized

• Often applies dialogue and deliberation processes

About Project Z

• Friendly web application for problem solving and decision making in large groups

• Helps people “figure things out” together

• E-participation engine that brings dialogue and deliberation (DD) to the web

• Alpha release due Spring 2008

Z ≠ Sexy (1/2)

• No video-enabled mobile micro blogging

• No social network for people under the age of 3

• No digital life stream aggregation

• No hyper-viral Facebook app

• No advertising 3.0

• No (single) social object

Z ≠ Sexy (2/2)

• Not the X of Y

• Not “built to flip”

• TAM still TBD

• Distribution model 1.0

• Feasibility unproven

• Still not easily explained in one sentence

Commonly Used Toolsfor Online DD• Mailing lists

• Discussion forums

• Wikis and blogs

• Chat

• Stand-alone tools (e.g. argument mapping, debate, brainstorming, participatory budgeting)

• High-end applications

Typical ODD Challenges

• Weak process support

• Poor signal-to-noise ratio

• Limited scalability

• Inefficient collaboration

• Unrewarding user experience

• Missing out on key web 2.0 learnings

Z Approach

• People at the center (across product design, customer service, community)

• Strong group process support

• Flexible mix-and-match ODD toolkit

• Porting DD patterns and best practices to the web

• Allowing groups to harness participants’ sensemaking capabilities

Z Customer

An organization which:

a. Has a problem (e.g. a challenging and time-restrained issue or question, often involving tough trade-offs or general “messiness”)

b. Wants to engage with constituents (e.g. in the issue resolution, problem solving, consensus building or decision making process)

Z Benefits

• Broadens and deepens participation range (stand-alone, or in addition to face-to-face efforts)

• Saves time

• Saves resources

• Delights constituents

Z Business

• Initially, organizations would pay a simple hosting fee (e.g. per user per month)

• Other potential sources of revenue:

• Freemium model (free basic + paid premium tools & services)

• Sponsoring, advertising

• Consulting

Z Motivation

• It may not be super sexy but…

• It’s the right thing to do—to us, at least!

• It feels good!

• A lot has become possible on the web that wasn’t just a few years ago

• Plus, we get to work with the wonderful people in the dialogue & deliberation and public participation community

Z Alpha Scope

• User profile and friending

• Groups, projects, teams

• Basic linear process

• Multi-ranked lists (e.g. ideas, resources, Q&A)

• Small-group dialogue (Conversation Café)

• Data browsing & context discovery

• Continuous feedback gathering

Z Outlook

• Release alpha version

• Run pilot projects

• Enlist partners (for research, distribution, field testing)

• Grow team

• Do a lot of homework

• Get a little bit of funding

Sources

• James L. Creighton, Ph.D.—What is Public Participation?http://www.creightonandcreighton.com/whatis.html

• Sandra S. Hodge, Ph.D.—Deliberation and Your Community: How to Convene and Moderate Local Public Forums Using Deliberative Decision-Making (training manual)http://extension.missouri.edu/cd/pubdelib/trainmaterials/deliberationmanual2.pdf

• NCDD (Sandy Heierbacher)—What Are Dialogue & Deliberation?http://www.thataway.org/?page_id=713

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Thank you!http://www.intellitics.comhttp://twitter.com/intelliticsinfo@intellitics.com