Covid – The Democracy Kitchen

(This is a reprint of a blog post contributed to PublicInput.com)

PublicInput had the pleasure of joining other public engagement tech companies on a virtual panel at the 2021 IAP2 North America Conference. Sharing our experiences, insights and predictions surrounding virtual public engagement with our colleagues and practitioners is always an enjoyable and productive experience.

Dr. Kristin Williams with PublicInput, joined Aaron Bernard of Spatial Media, Ward Ferguson of Jambo and Joseph Thornley, of 76Engage. Aaron’s Spatial Media colleague, Rohan Aurora, moderated the panel that addressed three questions concerning the impact of the pandemic on public engagement, adapting new technologies to existing engagement practices, and future predictions.

Below is a summary of the exchange that ensued.

Question #1 – The Pandemic:

What were the impacts and trends that emerged in engagement?

This was a retrospective question to explore lessons learned. A general observation from the panelists addressed how unprepared technologically and procedurally many public institutions were to respond when conventional, in-person engagement and deliberations were halted. However, everyone acknowledged and credited local governing bodies for their quick actions and creativity, along with a seasoned group of public engagement practitioners to respond and adapt to the dire circumstances and the need for continuity of our public institutions.

Panelists noted the presence of new government staff who not only attended the virtual public meetings (VPMs) but were also running them on behalf of their organizations: the CIO or IT department. Their chief role was to ensure virtual meetings would be convened with as little disruption as possible.

The panelists cited their own experience working with customers and feedback from public engagement practitioners about the challenges to integrating technology platforms in their proceedings, however, there is general acceptance of their benefits for using virtual public meetings in the future and interest in blending them with in-person deliberations currently and to continue after the pandemic subsides. These views were also noted in a study by Engaging Local Government Leaders (ELGL) and others that found support to continue the use of virtual meetings and mirrors the thoughts of PublicInput.

Data collected over the past 18 months demonstrate VPMs are having a positive impact on public engagement. And with the resurgence of the COVID Delta variant governments are not in a hurry to cast aside their role in governing and democracy. VPMs provide a sustainable option for increasing public participation and offer jurisdictions an effective input and feedback tool to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion in their deliberations.

Providing a “win-win-win-win” scenario benefiting public engagement practitioners, governing bodies, govtech solution providers, and residents, the panelists were optimistic about wider adoption and a bright future for VPMs.

Question #2 – Adaptation:

What are people doing today that could be improved with tech?

The moderator asked panelists to share advice with the attendees from what they have learned and are seeing in virtual public engagement practices. Panelists suggested that 2020 was a tumultuous year for public participation due to the pandemic, the social injustice protests surrounding police reforms and a divisive, polarized presidential election followed.

“We are at a pivotal point in the relationship between the government and constituents,” noted Dr. Williams. There was mutual agreement that trust in government and trust in society had suffered and one way to help rebuild trust was through greater transparency, inclusive participation and accountability. And solutions to address those challenges will have to come through greater use of technology to encourage and facilitate greater collaboration between government and residents.

Panelists also discussed the benefits and potential liabilities for governments using social networks as public engagement platforms versus the government’s own and managed engagement platform. There was some disagreement on this topic between PublicInput’s Williams and Jambo’s Thornley. Thornley argued against their use as it provides private social networks with free data from the public. Williams suggested there were some roles for social networks in public engagement as communication and information providers. Both panelists agreed to continue the conversation beyond the IAP2 session as this is an important, unresolved topic surrounding data ownership, security, and privacy.

Question #3 – The Future:

What does the future look like for engagement and technology?

The moderator suggested the panelists address this hypothetical question by identifying social and technological trends that have and could impact the future of public engagement. As an example, the moderator asked how tech support might foster or potentially present challenges to engagement practices.

There was total agreement among the panelists that a new era of public engagement and representative democracy is emerging thanks in part to a changing culture and enabling technologies. This includes new models for how governance and public engagement are administered and how to use media tools to rebuild public governance.

The panelists returned to the experiences of local governments during the pandemic and the use of VPMs and their potential to be at the center of public participation. This discussion included trending topics in public engagement around growing interest in blended, or hybrid models of public engagement that combine conventional, in-person methods with virtual models.

Panelists suggested as the new technologies become more ubiquitous and more user-friendly, the heavy emphasis on CIOs and IT will fade with the administration of these platforms directed by staff who traditionally played a role in public engagement.

Finally, panelists cited the opportunity to increase and expand the use of virtual public engagement to opportunities beyond council meetings and public project feedback to tap into the knowledge of their residents for contributions to solutions for the many socio-economic challenges local governments and communities are facing.

(This article was originally posted as a guest blog for PublicInput during Sunshine Week 2021)

Every state has open government laws regarding requirements and policies for public records and public meetings. A year ago, during Sunshine Week 2020, most states enacted emergency orders to rescind those laws due to the COVID-19 pandemic. For state and local governments, in particular, agencies and personnel were faced with an unprecedented challenge to manage operations remotely including their public engagement.

Access to and management of public records and public meetings became a major challenge for the public sector as well as for the public. Bringing together public officials virtually had its own challenges –technical and procedural. However, when it came to ensuring the public would be able to participate in those meetings, chaos emerged.

Technology is supposed to create efficiencies for its users. However, in many cases, virtual public meetings required more staff than conventional public meetings and from agencies that typically do not play a major role in these meetings.

Digital transition and adoption by government have lagged behind the private sector. For two decades, that focus has been prioritized on government’s transactional relationships with the public, e.g., (taking and processing payments, documentation, information searches, and exchanges) and less on interactional relationships, i.e., public engagement, even though end-to-end solutions are available. And the pandemic exposed these shortcomings in a big way.

As the government scrambled to comply with their legal requirements to ensure public and press access to public meetings, we saw three models of virtual public meetings emerge:

Fail: Many jurisdictions wanted to forego all compliance with their open government laws regarding: records and meetings. And many decided not to make the effort if it wasn’t required, and if it was, performed the very basic response to meet the minimum requirements. Lacking the technology capabilities, the training, or just the initiative, the results were poor and unproductive leaving both the government bodies and the public with a lousy experience. Losing the public wasn’t the only consequence. Losing their trust at a critical time during a pandemic is something not easily regained.
Frankenstein: This model emerged from most governments that made efforts to comply with laws and procedures by piecing together multiple technology solutions to handle the tasks. Think about an orchestra: many instrument sections to perform one musical piece. As Miami’s CIO, Mike Sarasti said on Twitter after a March 25 commission meeting, they “used @zoom_us for in-meeting participants, then attendee view was sent out to usual @Granicus, Twitter, FB Feeds. @Qualtrics for Form-based feedback, voicemail via @Cisco setup, @WeTransfer for vid submission. Add a fair share of talented co-workers, & you’re good.” That’s a lot of government cooks in the kitchen. This model is proving unsustainable due to its inefficiency, expense, and unpredictability.
Future: This model represents those governments and agencies that realized and took advantage of end-to-end technology solutions specifically created to manage virtual public meetings/engagement and meet their legal and political responsibilities (like other GovTech solutions developed to handle different administrative responsibilities and requirements in other agencies). Benefits have included increased participation and inclusion, more manageable public input, greater efficiency and productivity, and trust.

One thing we have learned from successful virtual meetings over the last year is that given the opportunity to participate, the public will. However, the quality of the experience will determine whether they return.

Virtual meetings, when working, are being accepted by the public and by the public institutions convening them. Many public officials (especially elected ones) have expressed their desire to return to in-person meetings for that face-to-face experience. However, successful virtual public meetings have made an impressive impact as a way for governments to engage the public and vice versa.

An early concern in the pandemic was that due to the turmoil being created by virtual public meetings, once the virus subsided, governments would return exclusively to in-person meetings, missing the opportunity to create a new era of public engagement. However, that is not happening. New policies and laws are being changed or created to include the continuation of virtual public meetings that can complement or be held in lieu of in-person meetings.

In Boston, efforts are underway to make remote, virtual participation in public hearings and meetings a permanent fixture of city government. Legislation proposed in Nebraska will allow local governments to hold meetings via “virtual conferencing.” Similar efforts are being pushed in South Carolina and other states and local jurisdictions.

An engaged and informed public has economic and civic benefits, and virtual public meetings meet new communication and information needs and expectations of constituents.

The opportunity for governments will be how to structure their public participation to continue virtual public meetings and combine them with in-person meetings as they continue their transition in the digital age of public engagement and democratic practices.

Think of the virtual public meeting as the heart of citizen engagement.

Former Washington State representative Renee Radcliff Sinclair speaking about government transparency and trust said this week: “The COVID-19 pandemic has tested us all in ways we never imagined. And while its long-term societal impacts probably won’t be known for some time, in the short term it has substantially eroded our trust in our cornerstone institutions, including government… So, the question becomes, how do we build back that trust? By giving the public a front-row seat to its proceedings.”