Table Talk Podcast

With a real desire to enrich their engagement, Coventry City Council wanted to move on from black-box Survey feedback to a more open way of communicating with their community. They wanted something which allowed a multimedia approach to inform the public with useful documents, photos, and videos. Let’s Talk Coventry became their convenient location where all of their consultations and engagement could live.

When discussing Coventry’s project around a new rough sleeping policy, “We have built up a wonderful Q&A where the general public have been asking us tough and searching questions, as well they should. What we have been able to do with that is demonstrate good faith and a willingness to do what we can by answering them in a public way and that is one of the best things I love about the Q&A tool.” James Sampson-Foster, Analyst Engagement Insight Team, Coventry City Council, “The feedback we have received from the public is fantastic. People are reading our strategies that we put up … And they are reading them line by line. They are giving us intelligent, well-considered feedback.”

What we’ll cover:

-Managing risk and finding the opportunity within
-How moderation in online engagement opens the door to more meaningful feedback
-Homelessness and scarcity of housing
-Engagement Platform vs. Social Media
-Introducing online engagement to your organization and community
-Internal Buy-In

“It’s the role of government to do what we cannot or should not do alone.” – Nick Kittle, Cartegraph.

Casey Earp, Bang the Table, and Nick Kittle, Cartegraph, discuss the 5 tenets of High Performance Government and the most efficient and effective ways organizations can positively impact their community. The concept of High Performance Government is the commitment that we make to continue to better ourselves as a government to the people we serve.

The 5 tenets of High Performance Government:

1. Building Effective and Innovative Teams
2. Building Efficient Processes
3. Creating Measurable, Actionable Results
4. Doing this all in a way that is clear and accountable to our residents
5. Engaging our Community

“We feel that these 5 tenets are the things that allow governments to really elevate and deliver services to citizens in the best way possible.” – Nick Kittle, Cartegraph.

What we’ll discuss:

• Building a culture of transparency
• Establishing Pilot Programs
• Productivity & Time Management
• Rethinking how we are committing our resources
• Closing the loop
• When to engage
• Successful implementation post-training
• Embedding community engagement into organizational culture
• Tips for growing your database and audience
• How to make a difference as an individual

Want to learn more about high performance government? Join this free workshop on September 11, 2019.

When the City of Marion wanted to gather ideas from their community, the first suggestion was a survey. However, because EngagementHQ can collect participant information (name, suburb, etc) when the resident signs up, it made more sense and provided more meaningful feedback for the City to use the Ideation tool in this instance as they were gathering ideas around one topic. Once they begin gathering ideas, they can then talk to the particpant(s) and expand on the idea, making the process much more efficient than a broad question and answer survey.

“EngagementHQ has really helped us at the end of a project to close the loop and provide feedback to those that have been involved. Once you close a project you can still update the page.” – Andrew Coulson, City of Marion

As organisations become more sophisticated, we are seeing more of a staged approach to engagement within their communities, providing more opportunity for “Early Engagement.” In this podcast, we will take a deeper dive into the various stages of engagement that can ultimately give you more actionable feedback along your project’s journey.

In this podcast, we discuss how to:

• Identify the purpose and define your method
• Work with Project Management teams
• The different stages of engagement
• Time your engagement
• Gain organizational buy-in
• Do comment analysis tagging (and why it’s important)
• Close the feedback loop
• Select the appropriate tool for your engagement
• Incorporate the IAP2 Spectrum into your plan and present to the community

“At the end, the biggest learning was that they [the community] just wanted to know what happened to the information they provided and how the decision was made after they were engaged… people feeling valued and heard.” – Patrice Pearson, City of Marion.

How does Community Engagement compare across US and UK markets and what can they learn from each other?

Bang the Table Engagement Practice Leads, Amanda Nagl USA, and Jonathan Bradley UK, dive into the similarities and differences the United States and United Kingdom markets experience when it comes to community engagement practices and results. One has laws protecting the fairness and execution of proper engagement across the country while the other creates policy at a localized level.

Tune into this podcast to hear what practices work in varying areas across the world and take away new best practice techniques for your community.

Young Americans have the most to gain or lose when it comes to the fiscal decisions being made today in Congress. America’s debt is around $22 trillion and climbing. This unprecedented debt level threatens the economy young people will inherit, their future earning power, and the vital public and private investments that are key to building a future full of opportunity.

Tune into this podcast with Hilary Allen, Up to Us Spokesperson, to hear how she and the Up to Us program are educating and engaging college students on campuses across the US.

An important part of engagement is closing the loop of communication which speaks to the transparency and trust that it creates with your audience. With their Talking Power Newsletter integration, SA Power Networks is able to close the loop and inform the workshop participants and reference group members when post workshop reports have been added to the Talking Power platform.

“Looking after around 860,000 customers across the state, we needed a way to touch those people and connect with them, and this provided us with an opportunity to do so.” – Jessica Vonthehoff, Manager Stakeholder Engagement & Communications, SA Power Networks

SA Power Networks set up a series of reference groups and specialist groups focused on different areas of planning. The creation of a private page for these groups, including unique logins, allowed them to engage more deeply and add value to their interactions. A few of these specialised groups included;

-Solar battery technology integrations
-Arborists managing vegetation around power lines
-Business group

How is Talking Power managing stakeholder expectations and response time in our “instant-gratification” focused world? How did the IAP2 Spectrum help them adapt and manage expectations around influence and engagement? How did they select the most effective tools for their project needs and time limitations?

Tune into this podcast to find out how Talking Power’s audience feels about the engagement process, progress, and successes SA Power Networks have undertaken.

Stéphanie Beaureguard, Practice Lead at Bang the Table, and Nicole Melanson, Manager, Communications and Bilingual Services at the City of Moncton, sit down to discuss how a digital engagement platform has made public participation across a multilingual community a seamless endeavor.

Let’s Chat Moncton set out to launch new public participation initiatives in 2019 with a number of strategic objectives;

-Facilitation of public conversations across a multilingual community.
-Build awareness around municipal issues.
-Enhance civic engagement in a more focused way in a safe and respected space.
-Access and analyze data for more in-depth information for City decision-makers.
-Supplement open house events
-Offer alternate options for public attendance and input on their own time
-Package projects and information in a more visually interesting way.

“EngagementHQ made gathering data much easier for us but also much more cohesive.. these are things that we definitely were not able to do before.” – Nicole Melanson, Manager, Communications and Bilingual Services at the City of Moncton.

Find out how Let’s Chat Moncton is internally streamlining project information gathering while communicating clearly to a multilingual public.

Stéphanie Beaureguard, Practice Lead at Bang the Table, and Geoff Wilson, Director of Community Engagement and Health Board Support at Nova Scotia Health Authority, come together to discuss how patient and public engagement in the health sector can be transformed by offering a dedicated portal for digital engagement.

This episode examines the Nova Scotia Health Authority’s engagement site Engage4Health, which launched in 2015, and discusses their evolving strategy and experience with patient engagement over the years. In Engage4Health’s first year, they engaged with roughly 1,000 people in 42 face-to-face meetings and received over 9,000 contacts of informed and engaged visitors in their online portal.

“It was really crucial that the engagement team had the ability to create, shape and respond to online interactions without needing to be dependent on our IT department for support. I think the ease of use of EngagementHQ, [and ability to] get the project up and running really quickly, was a key factor in our decision to use this particular platform.” – Geoff Wilson, Director of Community Engagement and Health Board Support at Nova Scotia Health Authority.

Tune in to learn more about developing an online engagement strategy in the health sector.

Getting your community engaged in your online platform can seem daunting, but with a few simple process guidelines, the participation process begins to flow seamlessly. Amanda Nagl, US Practice Lead at Bang the Table, and Sandrine Thibault, Director at Town Planning and Urban Design Collaborative, apply these commandments directly to planning practice for better-designed projects and a more informed community who provides usable feedback.

1. Don’t use jargon.
2. Provide options for visual feedback—images and videos.
3. Capture the past lest it halt your project and the project after that.
4. Use a variety of tools; chosen for solid, defensible reasons.
5. Use mapping tools for spatial sake and spatial sake alone.
6. Phase the project in a meaningful way; honor the phases before it.
7. Work in bite-size, digestible chunks.
8. Collect demographic data along with project feedback.
9. Use social media wisely.
10. Always close the feedback loop.

The Golden Rule of Engagement… Listen to the podcast to find out!

Dan Popping, Engagement Manager with Bang the Table, explores the importance of having an overarching Engagement Framework for your organisation alongside Jane Pole-Bell from the City of Mandurah in Western Australia.

But what is an Engagement Framework and how can it help gain momentum and support my organisation’s public participation efforts?

In this podcast, we dive into the five key components of an Engagement Framework:

1. Governance
2. Capability and Support
3. Process
4. A Central Portal
5. Continuous Improvement

“Our framework and strategy follow the IAP2 process, so we have leveraged the framework that already exists and the best practice already out there,” Jane Pole-Bell, Corporate Communications Manager, City of Mandurah.

With the start of their downtown planning project, the City of Kamloops decided it was time to invest in more strategic communications and engagement. By offering residents the opportunity to learn and participate in online discussions, surveys, and forums, Kamloops was able to educate the community and allow equal participation for residents who could not attend a face-to-face council meeting.

Tune into this Podcast to hear how the City of Kamloops promotes and manages Let’s Talk Kamloops, how they determine what projects they put online, and how they gained internal participation and excitement in the program.

Working in a partnership of councils, Debbie Goodland, Community Engagement Manager at Greater Cambridgeshire Partnership, discusses the importance of giving each council the ability to track their consultation. EngagementHQ provides this function, as well as “making the process an interactive and enjoyable experience for the public,” Debbie notes.

With a primary focus on Transport Infrastructure, Tune into this podcast to hear how Cambridgeshire Partnership begins their Digital Engagement program with the use of the Places Tool for mapping and quickly realizes the opportunity and benefits of expanding their digital toolbox.

The City of Kingston’s new public engagement hub has elevated awareness in the community and seen 6,000 registered participants engaging in discussions around local projects and priorities.

Tune into this podcast and hear Debbi Miller, Manager of Communications and Public Engagement, revealing how a centralized engagement hub and consistency across internal and external strategies have helped City and community engage better.

The City of Fayetteville, AR recently launched their online community engagement site, Speak up Fayetteville. And they’ve found great success driving participation right out of the gate, seeing over 2,700 visitors to the site in the first 30 days.

So how did they do it?

Tune into this podcast as Linda Deberry, Communications Program Manager at the City of Fayetteville, reveals how a centralized engagement tool, a strategic overlapping of projects timed to cross-pollinate participation, and an ‘all-hands-on-deck’ internal approach contributed to its successful launch.

In this episode we talk with Community Engagement Advisor, Hayley Boyd from the Town of Victoria Park in Western Australia about how joining forces with their councillors has helped to doubled their online registrations, participation and engagement rates.

By signing a unique partnership agreement with their elected officials, Town of Victoria Park have been able to transform their councillors into engagement ambassadors and crucial information sharers. This unique approach has been designed to help clearly articulate the roles and responsibilities of councillors and engagement managers and seeks to drive a culture of engagement throughout their organisation.

As a result, Victoria Park has been proactive in enhancing their online and face-to-face engagement activities which has seen better engagement outcomes and more council endorsed projects.

Furthermore, they have taken a unique approach of allowing councillors a protected space on EngagementHQ, to better organise engagement activities, store, share and report back on council meetings and partake in discussions and forums prior to important meetings and events.

People everywhere are busy, and it’s no different in Parker, Colorado. As part of an initiative to increase the level of community engagement and participation in local issues, Parker officials sought to provide new and innovative ways for their residents to get involved and provide feedback. The town knew that to increase engagement they needed to think outside the box and offer tools that work for Parker’s growing community.

In Parker’s 2017 citizen survey, the town heard overwhelming resident support for the development of an online community engagement tool. Ninety percent of survey respondents said they were likely to engage in local issues if they could do so online, at a time that was convenient for their schedule.

This support, combined with Parker’s drive to increase engagement, led Town officials to create their new engagement portal, Let’s Talk Parker, using the EngagementHQ platform. With the goal of gaining ideas, feedback and community support, Parker launched some very creative projects, including Fact or Fiction, My Mainstreet, and even a mapping tool for the community to report traffic issues to the Police Department.

Tune in to this podcast to hear about Parker’s journey into online engagement, how Let’s Talk Parker is helping cultivate a more informed and engaged community, and the positive impact it’s having on town decisions and direction.

6-month progress update
After launching Let’s Talk Parker just 6 months ago, Town officials are excited to share results with their residents. To keep momentum and excitement growing, they’ve created a short promotional video.

Amanda Nagl

Engagement Manager,
Bang the Table

Dannette Robberson

Assistant to the Town Administrator

Find out how Brisbane South Primary Health Network utilised online engagement to developed a health needs assessment.

Learn about patient-centred care, how to engage with hard to reach stakeholder groups, and ways of using industry data sets and engagement input to develop a cohesive health plan.

To make sure you don’t miss out on the latest episode, subscribe to our podcast on iTunes.

Figuring out the best way to get residents involved and participating in local government has been a hot topic in cities across the country.

Matthew Crozier from Bang the Table has been doing engagement work around the world and came on GovLove to discuss best practices, how cities can do better and more.

Originally featured on Govlove – itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/124-c…00385253417&mt=2

Over the 8 years City of Casey has been a client of Bang the Table, they have expanded and evolved their online engagement strategy and use of tools.

The City of Casey went from using their EngagementHQ site Casey Conversations as a little more than a survey tool to using it as a hub for all of the city’s online engagement activities.

Hear about their journey to becoming an organisation committed to genuine community and stakeholder engagement and how they got everyone onboard.

Barwon Water, based in Geelong, one hour South West of Melbourne, is Victoria’s largest regional urban water corporation, and provides water and sewerage services across 8,100 square kilometres to more than 298,000 customers.

Hear about their approach to engaging communities on water pricing and sustainable water delivery.