Post in 15. Moderating or facilitation discussions

2005 Dec 09 17:26 UTC

At 4:02 AM +1300 12/10/05, Andrew Acland wrote:
>This means anticipating all the possible types of responses - e.g.
>observations, complaints, ideas, recommendations, warnings,
>information etc - and having a plan for dealing with them.  This
>should be done at the outset as part of the design process.

At 4:17 AM +1300 12/10/05, James Paton wrote:
>In response to Andrew, is there a danger that the process can become
>over processed and that the experimental nature of a
>discussion/debate may raise issues/reponses that you may simply not
>know what to do with.

I think that Andrew's points are good ones, if you are designing and
implementing a consultation process. That is, if government is
setting up a time limited process to get input on a specific proposal
or issue.

Bringing us back to the purpose of this workshop - Issues Forums and
E-panels, I'd like to remind folks that Issues Forums are not
consultations. An Issues Forum is an ongoing process that takes place
over years, on topics that cannot be anticipated at launch
(determined by participants - on the fly), with no particular
(specific) policy objective.

The purpose of an Issues Forum is to create a place where citizens
can communicate with each other as well as elected officials on a
variety of topics. With an Issues Forum, we don't necessarily 'deal
with' or 'process' contributions, we simply create a forum where
citizens can put their ideas and opinions and we make sure that there
are community leaders and elected officials there to listen. BUT, we
don't promise any kind of response or reaction. Its up to the
individuals and their ideas to get the attention of elected
officials, the media, or each other.

One of the characteristics of managing an Issues Forum, is that your
forum manager and steering committee must be prepared to deal with
the unexpected. You can't anticipate everything in advance, although
it is helpful to prepare for some things which you can reasonably
expect to encounter.

For me, the beauty of Issues Forum is that they are really shaped by
the participants and government officials who choose (sometimes after
encouragement) to participate. Like any other community, any Issues
Forum is subject to the particular participants and personalities
that choose to "show up." Over time, we believe that Issues Forums
make it much easier to "show up," but without an organized outreach
effort - Issues Forums do run the risk (as does most any process) of
being dominated by the "usual suspects."

Best wishes,

Tim Erickson
E-Democracy.Org