Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Town Halls, Living Rooms and Social Media

This week Professor Dr Jim Fishkin from the Center for Deliberative Democracy at Stanford University published an opinion piece in the New York Times shedding some light on ways to ensure a range of voices are heard in the public domain. Jim is also a member of IAP2's Journal Advisory Board and creator of Deliberative Polling. This method will be showcased in two films at this year's international conference - one set in Europe and the other Australia.

Today, Associate Professor Dr Lyn Carson from University of Sydney had an opinion piece published in the Canberra Times generating discussion on how home is where the action is - people can log on to make their contribution from the comfort of their living room. The place of social media in dialogue and discourse is proving to be an interesting challenge for democracies like the USA where Town Hall meetings are being captured by specific interest groups and for countries like China where 'home churches' are growing at a pace.

Carson is a member of the International Board of IAP2 and will also have an article in the next edition of the International Journal of Public Participation which will be on line in the next week.

What does this all mean for public participation, online tools, deliberation vs crowd sourcing? These and other interesting discussions vital for the future of public participation will be happenning at this year's IAP2 conference in San Diego - don't leave the debate to others -come and share your experience, knowledge and wisdom. If you feel you need to top up on your knowledge and skills in this area there are many workshops in this field on offer at the conference as well. See you there!

Monday, August 17, 2009

Australasia - Punching above its Weight

This week the Australasian Affiliate tipped over to 600 members and with that became the largest single grouping within IAP2 at this time. They are holding their conference in Fremantle Western Australia in October and the program is available at www.iap2.org.au

The Australasian Affiliate have members from coast to coast and regularly gather in the capital cities of each State across the nation. Last week in Adelaide members gathered to learn more about communication and marketing in public engagement and the week before in Melbourne on climate change. Coming up soon in New Zealand members will be learning from Stacey Barr about measuring meaningful engagement after the standing room only webinar that was held last month.

Australasian members were also on hand assisting in the crafting and gave its support (and a city name) to the Brisbane Declaration on Community Engagement back in 2005 and still influencing decision-makers.

Australasian members will be presenting at this year's International Conference in San Diego as well - check out the program at www.iap2.org and see who is going to be there.

Congratulations to everyone in IAP2 Australasia!

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Clip from Peter Sandman

There is a lot of interest in the issues around public participation, emotion and outrage management. The pre-conference training in San Diego is filling up and if you are interested in taking this program please book before August 14th. Here is a taste of some of the issues that will be canvassed, explored and developed