• New report from Harvard: From Government 2.0 to Society 2.0 http://bit.ly/vXNvi9 #Gov20 #demopart #publicengmt
• Retweet from @participatory: Civic Engagement and Disability: technology to advance the participation of people with disabilities http://bit.ly/uP4ct2 #demopart #edem
• New Ascentum Blog: Enaging on GooglePlus: How to start http://bit.ly/taA4S3 #publicengmt #epart #demopart
  
• Retweet from @participatory: Becoming Citizens: Youth E-engagement in Civic and Public Policy http://bit.ly/sALRQy #edem #opengov #demopart
• Interesting Blog: Measuring Online Community Engagement http://bit.ly/s0I9M8 #publicengmt #demopart

-Stephan Telka-

That’s why I volunteered to be part of a small team led by digital guru Mark Blevis (@MarkBlevis) that looked at how people were using Twitter on the night of Canada’s 2011 federal election.

In space provided by The Canadian Press (thanks @CdnPress_Ott!) we spent a fun evening together following the posts, unfolding events and the stream on Twitter related to the election.

We used a Canadian social media monitoring tool called Sysomos to find and follow the traffic.  Using a powerful and customized search, we were able to pinpoint and track posts that mentioned any one of over 100 keywords or criteria.  For a detailed analysis of results, I’d recommend visiting Mark’s ongoing research at http://www.markblevis.com.

Lots of traffic, but less dialogue

That night, I was excited to see the high level of interest, buzz and traffic about the election on Twitter.  At the end of the night, we measured a total of 90,150 election tweets, from 45,075 users.  There was a community of Twitter users across Canada, and beyond, sharing the same real-time experience of democracy in action.  There was genuine engagement in the process.

What I didn’t see as much of, however, was real dialogue.  By dialogue, I don’t just mean people talking to each other.  As practitioners have observed, dialogue is to “honestly expressing perspectives, clarifying viewpoints, and developing solutions. The goal of dialogue is to deepen understanding and judgment, and to think about ways to make a difference on an issue.”

Understandably, on election night, people were more focused on news and results than policy issues.  However, even during the campaign, though, the twitter traffic on #elxn41 seemed to be more partisan than “transpartisan” – people looking beyond party politics to engage in dialogue on bigger issues of public concern.

It will definitely be interesting to see how the Twitter community continues to evolve in the future and whether members can shift the interaction to facilitate more dialogic exchange.

Mark, Stephanie and Nygel: same place next time?

- Ellis Westwood -

The Vientiane Youth Leaders’ Forum gathered 42 youth from around the world to engage in dialogue. The Forum organizers, Mines Action Canada, invited me to design and facilitate the final session of the week. Working closely with others on the Ascentum team (Manon Abud and Mary Pat MacKinnon) as well as the conference organizers, I designed and facilitated a generative dialogue and planning session on the Annual Plan for the newly-formed “Youth to Youth Network”.  The intention is that this network will sustain Forum momentum and relationships into the future.

Designing and facilitating the session was no walk in the park. Challenges included extremely limited time (2 hours, for a session that would normally require 4-6 hours), varying levels of English language skills, and differing political, economic and cultural realities in each of the delegates’ home countries.

To try and overcome these challenges, I met delegates in smaller groups in the days leading up to the session to review the process, and answer any lingering questions. I also identified ‘champions’ – delegates passionate enough to adopt particular action items and could encourage others to join them to discuss them further during the dialogue. By employing a modified “Open Space” format, participants were able to identify and discuss actions that were most important to them. People could take part in English or by engaging with others who spoke a different language. Dialogue was supported by three multilingual facilitators who helped foster small group dialogue. Despite the challenges of a short event, participant delegates produced and prioritized a rich list of activities on which youth across the Network should focus over the coming year, including the development of an interactive and comprehensive online space for collaboration.

- Stephan Telka -

But, instead of just studying youth, Ascentum is part of an exciting community-level project to actively engage young people, as well as the rest of their communities, in dialogues and action about their confidence in learning and on how they want to make a difference in their neighbourhood, city, country or world.

The project is led by the Canadian Education Association, which has partnered with five Social Planning Councils, as well as Ascentum, to conduct a yearlong public engagement initiative pilot project in Ontario.  Each Social Planning Council involved is conducting its own face-to-face dialogues, tied together with a broader online process being designed by us.  The aim is to encourage dialogue, inspire action and collect data to inform education policy decisions.

We’re really excited to be involved and for the chance to work with both CEA and the Councils.  They both really “get” public participation and share Ascentum’s philosophy that it leads to more sustainable decisions.  The Association has been around since 1891 and works to foster national dialogue on education policy and how it can contribute to a better Canada.  Social Planning Councils are truly pioneers in public involvement.  Their missions are to create civic societies in their local communities, which they foster through capacity building, education, advocacy and engagement, and they have been experimenting in public involvement for many years.  The Social Planning Councils involved in the project are:

• Community Development Halton
• Social Planning Toronto
• Sudbury Social Planning Council
• Social Planning and Research Council of Hamilton
• Peterborough Social Planning Council

We are looking forward to working with and learning from them as the project unfolds!

We’ll keep you updated over the next few months with sneak peaks and news…

- Ellis Westwood -