What I’d like to see is some technology that parses qualitative data without a lot of the post event coding that makes it tedious (maybe like a souped-up word cloud? / but better). I’m hoping there will be just as much emphasis on qualitative outcomes as the quantitative ones down the road.

Thanks for your comments to my original post http://lovisawilliams.wordpress.com/2010/08/03/failure-is-not-an-option.

I agree with you. Once we realize failure is ok we can move on to how we do work. I do think allowing for more experimentation, iterative development and some controlled experiments would be a great way to go. We just have to get people to realize things don’t always work out as we would like and that’s ok.

Thanks for your comments! I always enjoy additional thinking on this topic.

-Lovisa

One related question I have pondered often is, “How can we be neutral advocates for a process when we haven’t designed it?”

More and more I hear that processes are specified up front in the RFP. In these instances they aren’t really drawing on our experience about what works best in engaging people, we are just worker bees.

Moreover, the pre-designed process may or may not comply with ethical guidelines for the profession. (And the question of which code of ethics should apply is an interesting one too.)

How do people handle this kind of situation?

This is how you achieve the integrity that quality public participation requires.

In the scenario you outline above, it sounds like the project sponsors weren’t acting in good faith.

Rob

I agree that, once you’ve identified your objectives, digging into the numbers can be very productive. For instance, Steve Clift has suggested that it’s useful to aim for having at least 10% of the households in the community join the particular forum. It’d be interesting to see whether forums that meet that threshold generally do better on the “story-based” measures I suggested. If so, then Steve’s “gut feel” would be validated.

I agree you need to start knowing your objectives and then align your metrics accordingly.

While it’s true that quantitative data is often not ultimately sufficient I think there’s a lot more that can be done by just slicing and dicing some of the basics you mention above:

A total membership of 128 may not be very insightful. But how many of these are active participants (e.g. have logged in and/or commented at least once over the past 30 days)?

How many are starting new topics? How many are just replying? What’s the comment distribution curve across all participants and how does it develop over time?

Etc.

I think the future of communication between citizens and governments is in ongoing, public, transparent discussions around every issue. Representatives can tap into these discussions for information about how they should vote when it is the right time in the legislative (meaning law-making) cycle, or participate in them more regularly if it is an issue that they are passionate about or that is particularly pertinent to their district.

Of course, Twitter is an ongoing public conversation about every issue right now. And GovLuv is a first attempt to enable representatives to use it to understand citizen sentiment and engage with them in a meaningful way.

Thanks for your thoughtful post about GovLuv and where it may be headed…