Just returned from presenting the beta version of a new workshop called \u201cEngagement Lab\u201d to council staff in the Hunter region (thank you Hunter Councils<\/a>!).
\nIt’s about reinventing community consultation, an activity that\u00a0councils do frequently\u00a0– for practically every plan, service, strategy and piece of infrastructure\u00a0they are responsible for.
\nBut there\u2019s something wrong with the standard Community Engagement Template. It doesn\u2019t account for a radical split in community psychology between two different classes of proposals which put the intended participants in very\u00a0different head spaces.
\nEITHER they feel threatened and furious about an issue. In that case you don\u2019t have any problem getting their attention and they often turn up in droves just to vent about what a rotten council you are.
\nOR people are disconnected and bored about the issue. In that case motivation is low or non-existent and virtually NO ONE participates because the issue doesn’t engage them.
\nAnd, usually, it\u2019s an extreme of one of these cases.
\nIf you\u2019ve done something to make people angry, standard community engagement won\u2019t help you. Instead you (and your councilors and executives) need to get skilled up in Issues Management (Google anything by\u00a0Peter Sandman<\/a>).
\nOn the other hand, if you\u2019re continually talking to the same handful of usual suspects with time of their hands who enjoy this type of thing or have an axe to grind, then you need to innovate your practice.
\nSo, I thought, why not mash innovation training with community engagement training?
\nLike all first outings, I had a lot to learn.
\nFirst, there are a surprising number of innovations out there. I readily Googled up a fantastic slideshow of existing council innovations from Australian and overseas. Melbourne City Council\u2019s Yellow Caravan; Shire of Yarra Ranges Cultural Roadshow; Adelaide City\u2019s Parking Day; even little Singleton Council\u2019s cosy Wood Smoke Chat Room, not to mention increasing use of all sorts of online tools and social media.
\nThe single most impressive was Wyndham City\u2019s humbly-entitled Listening Post, which is in fact\u00a0a richly devised\u00a0pop-up council designed for \u2018listening\u2019 on many levels. Check their video<\/a>.
\nNext we chose some real life projects to work on and laid down a solid groundwork with three\u00a0rapid versions of IAP2-style planning tools.
\nThen came the main course: innovation! Which, of course, happens best when teams have innovation processes\u00a0ready to go in their back pockets.
\nThe rest the day was immersed in innovation processes. These were fun because joy and creativity are inseparable.
\nThe result was a wonderful collection\u00a0of\u00a0buzzworthy ways to make it simple, make it fun, go to where people are, make it a game, make it social, and add food.
\nWhat I was delighted by was how much staff enjoyed these practices and dived into the creative space. Even the knotty \u201cI only have 20 minutes at the end of an internal workshop to \u2018consult\u2019 with people\u201d had a creative solution (which involved Monopoly money).
\nSo that\u2019s the first vital skill: having innovation processes ready to go, and actually using them with one\u2019s team.
\nHere are some comments from participants in that first workshop:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has given me my spark back!”
\n“<\/em>Inspired and brimming with ideas.”
\n<\/em>“It not only helps be creative but legitimises being creative.”
\n<\/em>“Reminded me that fun and creativity go hand in hand.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So far so good. Then came an\u00a0uncomfortable surprise. There\u2019s a problem with innovation in pyramidal organisations: fear of being blocked by management. Participants told me (more or less) \u201cThis is cool, but how can I get it past management?\u201d
\nSo there\u2019s the second vital skill: navigating management.
\nOr, to put it differently: \u201cHow can management\u2019s fears be lowered so they\u2019ll feel comfortable placing bets on new ideas?\u201d So, interestingly, we are straight back to Changeology 101!
\nSo now the next iteration of Engagement Lab will pivot mid-afternoon into workshopping that question \u2013 which, essentially, involves anticipating management\u2019s specific fears, addressing them by design, and assembling a well conceived \u201cperfect pitch\u201d.
\nSo now I\u2019m post-beta and ready to for public launch. Here\u00a0are the details of the first\u00a0open\u00a0Engagement Lab<\/a><\/strong> workshops:
\n <\/p>\n

ENGAGEMENT LAB<\/a><\/strong>
\nMELBOURNE:<\/strong>\u00a07 July 2016
\nVenue:\u00a0<\/strong>Queen Victoria Womens Centre, 210 Lonsdale St, Melbourne
\nSYDNEY:\u00a0<\/strong>14 July 2016
\nVenue:\u00a0<\/strong>The Coal Loader Centre for Sustainability, 2 Balls Head Rd, Waverton
\nClick here<\/a>\u00a0for details.
\nBook a place<\/a>.
\nTo ask a question, email me\u00a0on:
\nworkshops@enablingchange.com.au<\/a>
\nor phone me\u00a0on 0414 674 676<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just returned from presenting the beta version of a new workshop called \u201cEngagement Lab\u201d to council staff in the Hunter region (thank you Hunter Councils!). It’s about reinventing community consultation, an activity that\u00a0councils do frequently\u00a0– for practically every plan, service, strategy and piece of infrastructure\u00a0they are responsible for. But there\u2019s something wrong with the standard […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-innovation-2","has-post-thumbnail","fallback-thumbnail"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pac6ss-hT","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enablingchange.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enablingchange.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enablingchange.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enablingchange.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enablingchange.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.enablingchange.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1109\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enablingchange.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enablingchange.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enablingchange.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}