What we have implemented in creating a new platform for community engagement is a kind of ‘open forum’ system in which every post from a user or organisation is itself part of a forum thread. Our main premise is that people are engaging for personal or community advancement, so they want others to see wha they are saying. We provide a number of different ‘views’ and filters for them to discover new topics adn engage at the level they want to.

If they want to engage with a select group of people, they can create or join a public or private group, the main focus of which is a (traditional) forum, with threads only visible to members of the group.

We are quite keen to hear what others think of what we’ve created so please join us and share your views.

thanks for the response.

i agree with what you say about surveys. we used the results as general pointers and there are other sources of feedback that we use. we’ll be doing real live guerilla user testing – (c) paul canning (or was it jakob nielsen) – very shortly.

we were social media naive when we carried out the survey. if we were to ask the same question now, the choices would be very different (if we were to run such a survey). btw, we did try to explain RSS in words of one syllable.

the survey did, however, give useful pointers and feedback so far has been generally positive.

as for forums, yes we need to tap into existing ones (resources permitting) the same way we use social media, but i wouldn’t rule out running a council run forum for specific topics such as planning policy.

Pete

The other thing is just about treating surveys such as the one you carried out with a little caution. After all, simple choices can still mean different things to different people, and there is probably an issue around understanding – probably a majority of people still aren’t really sure what RSS is.

Indeed with a few of the choices on your list, it’s possible to see them in two very different ways: podcasts – the council running its own, or tapping into an existing one? Likewise with blogs, forums, etc etc.

however, when we (North Devon Council) did a survey two years ago (admittedly before social media became mainstream), we asked what kind of online interactions would respondants like to see:

1st – email
2nd – subscription newsletters
3rd – what’s on calendar
4th – webforms
5th – webcasts
6th – blogs
7th – RSS
8th – IM
9th – forums
10th – podcasts

my view, whatever methods you use, put the resource into them to keep them alive, active and engaging. if they become inactive, remove them.

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