Social networking and community engagement technology made easy

Jennifer Hewett, the national affairs correspondent for The Australian has published an article referencing the social networking and community engagement technology we’ve deployed in conjucntion with the  C&C Group for the Australian Labor Party.

For us, the objective is straight forward:  to facilitate deeper community engagement through the delivery of powerful communication tools. We believe in the power of communities and we aim to add value to them by making communication with, and among, all their members easier.

Here’s an extract from the article:

“The party websites are no longer the static one-way affairs of the past with both sides claiming they have been able to make more sophisticated use of the internet and social networking.

Underneath the usual display of blogs and news and TV ads on the Labor website, for example, is a heading saying “Connect with Labor”. One section invites people to connect with Gillard by following her on Twitter or becoming a fan on Facebook.

Another section encourages people to talk online to groups of people with similar interests. Another invites people to join the site’s think tank and share and discuss their ideas. The most popular are commented on and voted on by other users. These new features look modest but are designed to be the key to unlocking the involvement of a much broader community and using their ideas, friendships and, of course, donations to generate new momentum for Labor.

Called Campaign iQ, the platform is the joint effort of a fast growing social networking firm, Community Engine, and the Campaigns and Communications Group, which is working with Labor on developing voter communication tools.

ALP national secretary Karl Bitar says this is “not about social gimmicks but about genuine engagement and lowering the barriers to participation in the Labor Party and the labour movement”.

Naturally, the way the Labor government has operated over the past three years would lead many voters to be cynical about just what constitutes genuine engagement.

If Kevin Rudd was dumped for not talking to his cabinet colleagues, the idea that talking about ideas on a Labor website would have any influence on policy seems a stretch.

And Gillard’s proposal for a citizens’ assembly to discuss climate change is such a political stunt that it taints the concept of encouraging broader community engagement in politics.

The offerings on the Labor site are modestly predictable. Groups formed include the Labor Women’s network, Young Labor and the National Health and Hospital Supporters network.

New ideas include calls for a cadet nursing program, better public dental care and action on green jobs. Hardly new.

But none of that discourages people such as Brandon Saul, the creative mind behind Community Engine, and Piers Hogarth-Scott, its managing director, who see the future in much grander terms.

Community Engine has done similar work on websites for groups ranging from the ACTU to Events NSW to Tourism Tasmania to the Mortgage Finance Association to National Parks and Wildlife. They see these websites as a tool that will influence politicians, parties and voters beyond the election. “We wanted to provide the opportunity for people to connect and collaborate with a political party in a transparent manner,” says Hogarth-Scott. “It puts the party at the centre of the conversation.”

None of these conversations is censored, but comments that involve racial or gender vilification are taken down. In cyber language, it’s called being moderated. At Labor headquarters, the responses are organised by “community managers”.

“Generally it’s the community who does the moderating,” Hogarth-Scott says.

“The broader community will jump online if someone is attacking something and others think it is unreasonable.”

Saul calls it a perpetual, if fragmented, town hall meeting. “Politicians and the community are still coming to grips with this,” he says.

“For me, it’s a turning point for civic input, a democratisation of politics in terms of dealing with the sentiments of large numbers of people and encouraging people to participate in the debate. It is what social media can add to the political forums.

“The comment of a friend or a peer is also more likely to resonate with me than a press release. It provides authenticity.”

Talk like this is likely to make many party hardheads shudder. But a NSW state Labor MP and now minister, Paul McLeay, used the community engine platform last year to determine the allocation of $300,000 of public funds for community building projects by tallying up votes from members of his electorate.

All those groups that wanted a share of the funding had to submit proposals online and convince people it was worth voting for.

“It was magnificent,” McLeay says. “Instead of the usual suspects turning up and having to convince me, a whole range of different groups had the chance to go out and convince their friends and neighbours. It really captured people’s imagination. And it demonstrated that people can be trusted to deal with issues like this and taxpayer funds.”

This version of citizens’ democracy will alarm those politicians and voters who see it as MPs’ role to make such decisions. And given the political proclivity for spin, Australia may yet see a distorted federal version.

What about a citizens’ assembly online, for example, to debate the approach to asylum-seekers? Voting on which infrastructure projects deserve funding? Or what next year’s immigration level should be?

It wouldn’t be the traditional way of exercising political authority, or of acting in the national interest. But technology is now driving much of the political debate, no matter how superficial, in ways that wouldn’t have seemed comprehensible a decade ago.

Michael Allen, the managing director of the Campaigns and Communications group, became aware of Community Engine’s work last year. His partner is Bruce Hawker from Hawker Communications, who is a Labor adviser.

Allen, who spent several years working on Democratic political campaigns in the US, says he was well aware of the importance of the digital space.

“Over the last eight years and particularly in the last two years politics and the new media have crossed a threshold,” he says.

“Technology is allowing us to really have a collaborative conversation and to throw up ideas and build a community around those ideas. The Labor Party approached us to take a step into the online world as part of a long-term strategy . . . Our lives are forever changing because of technology and politics is no different.”

posted by Piers Hogarth-Scott in the category Media Social Media Social networking
Tags: ALP, Australian Labor Party, Jennifer Hewett, The Australian