What’s Next for Online Engagement?

What if… online engagement became an integral part of civic life, promoting access for residents historically excluded from typical in-person meetings?

As states begin to ease stay-at-home orders, how quickly will communities return to holding in-person public meetings? Will organizations that never before held online meetings embrace the newly realized benefits of virtual engagement, or will virtual meetings become a blip on the history radar as things quickly return to business as usual? Online engagement has been crucial during the COVID-19 pandemic, but what if it becomes an integral part of civic life, promoting access for residents historically excluded from typical in-person meetings?

Virtual meetings are not a panacea for authentic and effective civic engagement. Organizations cannot simply layer technology on top of existing structural inequities and expect better outcomes. Staff must do the hard work of examining their processes and policies to ensure they are not unintentionally deepening the divide or making a problem worse. A Zoom meeting or project website cannot magically repair relationships or solve long-standing trust issues in a community. Instead, online tools are part of a bigger toolbox that community leaders can draw from to expand representation and participation.

Rather than simply replicating a physical meeting, a virtual meeting is an opportunity to restructure how public meetings are done. A virtual meeting can be used to rebalance power dynamics that happen in traditional in-person meetings and make them not only more equitable but more legally compliant. For example, picture a controversial public hearing where a densely packed chamber full of people in opposition to a proposal, which may meet all legal requirements for approval, clearly sway the elected officials in another direction. Of course, this is not how public hearings are supposed to work, but evidence shows time and again this is how many public hearings actually work.

Ideally, public hearings are a display of representative government in action, where elected officials make decisions based on objective criteria. Realistically, many public hearings are treated as mini elections. People can show support or opposition by mere physical presence at an in-person meeting... something that a virtual meeting eliminates. No longer intimidated by a crowd of angry people, does this free up elected officials to make better decisions? Or does it infringe on freedom of speech and right to assemble? At the very least, it goes against long-standing traditions deeply ingrained in American culture. A surprising number of people still want to come to a physical meeting, have their opportunity to speak for 3 minutes, or just show their support/opposition simply by being there. There may be ways to replicate this experience in a virtual setting, but the question of whether we should replicate this remains.

Luckily we do not need to completely overhaul time-honored meeting methods in order to continue using online tools to make the process more inclusive and accessible. If going 100% virtual is neither feasible nor desired, then an organization can do a blended approach that enables people to choose to attend in person or online.

Konveio provides a convenient way for people to provide input either during a meeting or after it has ended. The City and County of Denver used Konveio to create a digital workshop for their East Central Neighborhood Planning Initiative. They uploaded a video of the presentation that was given at an in-person workshop so those who weren’t able to attend could see what they missed. They also uploaded the same posterboards used at the workshop, which website visitors were able to comment on directly, just as they would be able to in-person.

READ OUR DENVER DIGITAL WORKSHOP CASE STUDY

We have seen throughout the many projects Konveio has provided content engagement tools for that the quality of feedback tends to be higher online. This is because people can take their time understanding the material and formulating well-thought-out responses. This is especially true when they are asked for specific feedback rather than open-ended questions.

Click below to watch a short demo and learn more about how Konveio can help you blend in-person and online engagement.

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