Public and community engagement, involvement and participation is what we are doing as consultants. It is also what we help others do most effectively. We work with teams, companies and agencies on reaching consensus through public participation and collaboration. We usually find ourselves bridging divides by creating spaces where people are willing to participate to build solutions. Community engagement builds consensus. And below you have some of the best of the news and tips that we have found about how to engage communities. Or what happens when you do not. The latest news handpicked by our public sector consultants, all wrapped up with a sometimes snarky – yet always informed – perspective. Enjoy!
If you answered ‘an old white guy’ you win … congratulations! The following data shows that the preponderance of public participants tend to be white, older, male and there to protect their status quo. Big surprise? Probably not. Is that most effective and useful? Probably not. Determining who really ...
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We in the public involvement biz like to pat ourselves on the back about what a good job we do, but it’s healthy to take an objectively critical step back and look at the broader state of the field, and the state of the field described in the following article ...
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Your mission and the work that you do is complex and full of detail. It may not be that complex to you because you’re the expert, but for most of us it’s a struggle to figure out. If you expect people to trust you, they need to understand you and ...
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I just spent a couple of days with a group of very smart Midwest State agency people coaching their engineers to speak less like engineers when they’re speaking to people who aren’t engineers. A couple of my partners recently helped a Federal agency with a major public meeting that I ...
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In the craft of successfully engaging people in solving problem or resolving issues, asking for help from those people helps you considerably. Doing this is hard on the egos of CEOs and managers in public service, but it’s great for your projects. Just ask them....
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A constantly changing normal is the new normal. When you think about it, you realize that time changes all of us and makes the previously odd or out of place common and more acceptable. Consider fashion, music, or attitudes about right, wrong, fairness or honesty. Change happens, ...
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| Public involvement is a practice that’s pretty simple in concept and complex in successful execution – after all, we’re dealing with people. So, when I ran across the following that does a nice job of explaining it, I had to pass it on to you. |
The two biggest public challenges that clients and students tell us they face is that (1) they don’t know how to get people involved, except for (2) the ones that do, come to meetings and hearings mad. They’re right, and here’s the empirical evidence....
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Even if you don’t feel this way yourself, the evidence is pretty clear that we’re generally in a lousy mood in this country. The result is a lack of overall civic trust that shows in the numbers; like only 41 percent of people trusting organized religion – and that’s even ...
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