Slides for panel discussion at PACE conference in Peoria, AZ.

1. The Role of Social Media
in Public Participation
Tim Bonnemann
Founder and CEO
Intellitics, Inc.

2. Agenda
• Terms and definitions
• Commonly expressed opportunities and
challenges for online participation
• 5 recent project examples
• Web-specific considerations
• Summary

3. Civic Engagement
Individual and collective actions designed to identify and
address issues of public concern:
• Civic (e.g. regular volunteering, membership in groups
or associations, fundraising for charities, community
problem solving, public participation)
• Electoral (e.g. regular voting, campaign contributions,
volunteering for candidate or political organizations)
• Political Voice (e.g. contacting officials, contacting the
media, protesting, petitioning, boycotting, canvassing)

4. Public Participation
• Any process that involves the public in
problem solving or decision making and
uses public input to make decisions.
• Involves interested or affected individuals,
organizations, and government entities
• Two-way communication and collaborative
problem solving with the goal of achieving
better and more acceptable decisions.

5. Social Media
• A set of technologies and channels that
enables the creation and exchange of user-
generated content
• Involves “the people formerly known as the
audience”1
• Shift from broadcast (one-to-many) to
conversation mode (many-to-many)
1Jay Rosen, NYU

6. Why Use Online?
Opportunities Challenges
• Widen reach (bridge • Digital divide
distances in space,
time) • No replacement for
face-to-face
• Ability to scale
• Uncivil behavior
• Ability to harness
• Very resource-
participants as
resources intensive and
expensive
• Cost savings

7. 5 Recent Project Examples
• Portland Plan (Portland, OR)
http://www.facebook.com/pdxplan
• Community Asset Mapping (Biloxi, MS)
http://biloxiyouthassets.org
• My Idea 4 California (California)
http://twitter.com/Schwarzenegger/status/2095070677
• Seattle City Budget 2011-2012 (Seattle, WA)
http://seattlecitycouncil.ideascale.com
• Thames Tunnel online consultation (London, United Kingdom)
http://www.thamestunnelconsultation.co.uk

9. Screenshot

11. Screenshot

12. Screenshot

13. Thames Tunnel Objectives
• Identify the organisations and individuals
who could be affected by the scheme.
• Inform these people about the proposals.
• Listen to their views.
• Respond positively and where possible make
adjustments and changes to our proposals to
balance the project needs with the concerns
of those potentially affected.

14. Quality Online Participation
• Requires good process (e.g. IAP2
framework)
• Requires the right combination of people,
process and technology
• Requires a broad skill set (technology,
social media, community management,
online facilitation etc.)

15. !"#$%&'#()*+,'#-./+,+0-/+12'304,/.(5
!
To provide the public To obtain public To work directly with To partner with the To place final
with balanced and feedback on analysis, the public throughout public in each aspect decision-making
objective information alternatives and/or the process to ensure of the decision in the hands of
to assist them in decisions. that public concerns including the the public.
!"#$$%&"'()*+(,)-.(,/"011.2-,)-.("3.+"456/-2"4,+)-2-7,)-.(
understanding the and aspirations are development of
problem, alternatives, consistently alternatives and the
opportunities and/or understood and identification of the
solutions. considered. preferred solution.
We will keep you We will keep you We will work with We will look to you for We will implement
informed. informed, listen to and you to ensure that advice and innovation what you decide.
acknowledge concerns your concerns and in formulating
and aspirations, and aspirations are directly solutions and
provide feedback on reflected in the incorporate your advice
how public input alternatives developed and recommendations
influenced the and provide feedback into the decisions to
decision. on how public input the maximum extent
influenced the possible.
decision.
!" sheets
Fact !"
Public comment !"
Workshops !"
Citizen advisory !"
Citizen juries
!" sites
Web !"
Focus groups !"
Deliberative polling Committees !"
Ballots
!"
Open houses !"
Surveys !"
Consensus-building !"
Delegated decision
!"
Public meetings !"
Participatory
decision-making !"#$$$%#$$&

16. Some Web-Specific
Considerations
• Accessibility • Moderation
• Data security • Archiving
• Identity • Mobile
• Privacy & • Tool support
publicness
• Intellectual
property

17. Key Take-Aways
• Social media provides a lot of opportunity
for broadening and deepening civic
engagement, specifically public participation
• Know your objectives, audience and
resources and apply good process
• Simple tools can go a long way, more
advanced tools won’t save a broken process!
• Start small, iterate, share what you learn!

18. Resources
• Intellitics Blog
http://www.intellitics.com/blog
• ParticipateDB
http://participatedb.com
• NCDD 2010 Resource Guide on Public Engagement
http://www.ncdd.org/files/NCDD2010_Resource_Guide.pdf
• Promising Practices in Online Engagement
http://www.publicagenda.org/pages/promising-practices-in-online-
engagement
• Social Media Club
http://socialmediaclub.org

20. Thank You!
http://www.intellitics.com
Follow @intellitics on Twitter…

21. Some Rights Reserved
Except where noted, the contents of this presentation are
licensed to the public under the Creative Commons Attribution-
Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. The terms
of this license are available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
by-nc-sa/3.0/us/
v1.1 2010/11/04