Community Consultation Web 2.0 style

We've done a lot of work in e-government, e-democracy and e-citizenship in recent years, but one of the areas which excites us most is the use of the web for community consultation.  While government is only now beginning, the implications of Web 2.0 are already upon us.  We've seen how Web 2.0 in practice worked in federal election campaigning, so we thought we'd take a quick look at some of the trends that will push government further towards the Web 2.0 model in the coming years.

I was reminded of the community consultation model while voting in the recent election.  I was approached by a campaigner for Unchain St Kilda who was against the St Kilda Triangle site development.  Many of the concerns that the campaigning organisation had raised I would not have been aware of unless a person was there to spell them out to me.  It was a local issue, which was suprising, as although local issues should be the primary focus these sorts of local issues were at a different level of decision making and of no concern to my vote.  Others may have acted and participated in the consultation and objection process.  My point though is that I took an increased interest in the development and this was only through direct social interaction, or in other words direct marketing.  In fact, the City of Port Phillip recently attributed changes to the development proposal to the effectiveness of the group's Web 2.0 style campaign which featured YouTube videos of local celebrities like Dave Hughes, Renee Geyer and Frank Thring.

Some may be reminded about the Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy, where as Mr Dent's house was due to be demolished to make way for a bypass, he was told that the plans have been local planning office for the last nine months "on display", in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet, stuck in a disused lavatory, with a sign on the door reading “Beware of the Leopard”.  Some governments confuse consulting with counselling.  It seemed to sum up to me the antiquated approach that some government bodies take to consultation when when former premier Bracks said during a press release about the desalination plant being approved, "We announced it yesterday and we're consulting now".  While the decision may have seemed straight forward, the protracted delays in commencement of the project highlight of this approach, and as we've seen on these occasions, it can make people very angry.  The web means that there are no excuses in putting community consultation and engagement first.

One of the most recent e-consultation work that we have been involved in is the City of Boroondara's online consultations.  The Boroondara site was the first council site in Victoria to feature a dedicated consultations section on the homepage, and it is still one of the few to do so.  Port Phillip led the way early in 2006, with a series of online consultations, now the City of Melbourne takes online consultations very seriously and even publishes many of the results on its website.  Though the first phase of the City of Boroondara's citizen engagement model simply involved what Port Phillip were already doing plus a bit more.  Using simple online feedback forms and surveys, a consultation calendar and putting the links in a section of the homepage showed the residents of the area that the council was serious about gathering feedback.  At the time, the Camberwell railway station re-development was a big issue, and the e-consultation largely centred around it.  As a result, the council has been able to defuse a tricky heritage situation and achieve a proposal which has been well received by residents.

E-consultation keeps constituents happy which in turn keeps councils and government departments out of hot water.

Contrasting this, there is often a view that too much consultation hampers effective government.  Well Web 2.0 actually does the opposite.  You can't ever make everyone happy.  However the community consultation 2.0 approach does enable speedy resolution of issues by democratically gathering a consensus of public opinion with minimal effort.

So it is interesting to see the first efforts emerge of government in practice engaging communities using Web 2.0, using social networking tools like blogs, MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, RSS content syndication and the likes. 

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