This document discusses how technology and social change are impacting engagement between citizens and the state. It notes the consistent growth of internet use and social behaviors online. It argues that the relationship with the public is changing and that new approaches like networked and collaborative engagement are needed. Examples of participatory online platforms and communities are provided that could inform more open, agile, and co-productive models of civic participation.

1. Networked Engagement
Catherine Howe, Public-i

2. This is about social change
This is not about the technology

3. What is the data telling us?
Technology needs to be considered in the context of social
change
Consistent growth of
Internet takeup
Ref: OFCOM and ONS
Consistent growth of
‘social’ behaviours
Ref: OFCOM and OXII
Digital exclusion is
becoming social Ref: ONS, OXII, CLG
exclusion

4. The relationship with the
public is changing

5. We limit ourselves by simply considering
changes to the way we communicate

6. There are new rules of engagement
Networked Digital
Open Agile

7. Participatory culture or a network society?
Jenkins, Rheingold
 Relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement
 Strong support for creating and sharing one’s creations with others
 Some type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most
experienced is passed along to novices
 Participants believe that their contributions matter
 Participants feel some degree of social connection with one another (at
the least they care what other people think about what they have created)

8. Collaborating
Sharing Connecting Participating
Creating

9. Some examples

10. Fix My Street
http://www.fixmystreet.com
FixMyStreet is a simple plugin
which allows user to report local
problems and have them routed
to the right public agency

11. Patients like me
http://www.patientslikeme.com
PatientsLikeMe enables
patients to record and share
details of their treatment and
disease management –
crowdsourcing medical
research

12. GiffGaff
http://giffgaff.com
GiffGaff’s customers
provide their own
customer service –
good advice and help is
rewarded with phone
minutes and free texts

13. PatchworkHQ
http://patchworkhq.com
Patchwork is redesigning the
information flow around multi-
agency clients in order to
ensure that a networked
approach to case
management can be created

14. Couchsurfing
http://www.couchsurfing.org
Instead of paying for a hotel
couchsurfing creates a network of
people willing to open up their
homes and provide a bed (or
sofa) for travellers

15. We Will Gather
http://www.wewillgather.co.uk
 Grew out of a spontaneous response
to the riots in 2011 and #RiotCleanup
 Based around the simple premise of
helping people organise for specific
community tasks
 It worked once – can you work
again?

16. Occupy
http://occupylondon.org.uk
 No-one is in charge
 Decisions are negotiated
 Objectives are contested
 They are highly networked and agile
 Is this intelligence or community
policing?

17. 3D Printing
Manufacturing is disrupted
 Control becomes about ideas not
about objects
Supply chain is shifted
 New skills are needed

18. Google Glass
Augmented reality means that the data
becomes the reality
 How will the state interact with these
formats?
 What does this do to civic space?
 How does this change live events?

19. Two engagement themes

20. Networked Power
Networked power operates differently to hierarchical power
 It depends on connections and sharing rather than on roles or structures
 It is highly responsive to need and opportunity
 When online it can be highly agile as the environment is designed to support this
 There are different forms of ties within networks – strong and weak – and these
operate differently
 You need to understand your own contribution to understand your relevance and
potential influence

21. Co-production
Co-production means involving all stakeholders in not only designing
but delivering outcomes
 Community engagement theory and practice has moved away from top down
models, and best practice examines how you can pass power to communities
 It takes an asset based approach to communities rather than the traditional
deficit model
 It is a strong ‘fit’ with the participatory culture of the online world
 It is an important tool in a time when we have to find ‘more for less’

22. How does this change the relationship
between citizen and state?

23. Disintermediation and new forms of power
Political parties have less Local media is struggling to
relevance survive
There is no space for Your thinking will be done
discretion in public

24. Will we just communicate with the
public or collaborate with them?

25. How will the boundaries
get blurred?

26. There are different ways to imagine your
relationship with the public
Define this and you can create a new strategy
Open and accessible but with little change to
Communicative
current decision making processes
Open to new ideas and agenda setting by the
Collaborative
public
Sharing decision making and looking at new
Co-productive
models of delivery

27. How will this change your world?
What could community engagement look like?
 What does community engagement look like if we assume that people are
already online?
 How do we manage to engage more on more limited resources?
 What are the new skills that are needed?
 Should we consider communications and engagement to be converging?

28. What are we looking for?
Informal Civic Formal Civic
Informal Social Formal Democratic

29. Asset Based Community Development
Active
Citizens
Willing ABCD Community
Localists Activists
Social
Nodes

30. Create a network of networks
Connect the active citizens together and become part of
their conversation
Map the networks Look at online and offline connections
Adjust for Understand how ‘democratic’ the network of
representativeness networks is
This should be about participation not
Create a public space
surveillance

31. Network graph

32. Digital Civic Space

33. Open Spaces Meetings
Take online behaviours offline
 Use open spaces techniques in your face to face encounters – if you set the
agenda its not a a public meeting
 Use technology to take the offline – create and share content to get value
from your events
 Come prepared to listen

34. How can these approaches be used?
Where do you need a different relationship with the public?
 Engagement or consultation around specific issues
 Relationship building with specific communities
 Demand management for more self-reliant communities

35. What does the public
realm look like online?

36. How will this change
your world?

37. Thank you for your time
Catherine Howe
catherine.howe@public-i.info