IAP2 Australasia Wordsmith Competition

I am very excited to be the winner of the recent IAP2 Australasia Wordsmith Competition. The Wordsmith competition asked members to come up with the best definition of an engagement practitioner using everyday language. My winning entry was: “An engagement practitioner helps individuals, groups, organisations and decision makers with different interests to talk, listen, learn,…

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Three keys to a great deliberative community engagement process

Deliberative engagement is an approach to community engagement that is becoming increasingly popular. For this we can largely thank academics like as well as the positive experiences of participants. Some recent recognition for exemplary projects by the IAP2 might also have something to do with it Having designed and facilitated over 30 deliberative panels (think…

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Maximising the benefits of community engagement

I recently spoke to Australia’s National Local Government Newspaper regarding Community Engagement. You can read more about the details below regarding how to maximise the benefits of community engagement. There are, certainly, challenges for engaging communities effectively. The rewards for getting it right may be more than you imagine. For local government it is much…

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What is fashionable with community engagement?

A blog about Citizens’ Juries, Co-design and Collective Impact With the more frequent use of citizens’ juries, and deliberation in general, it can be tempting to think such processes as the pinnacle of community engagement. I really, really enjoy designing and facilitating citizens’ juries, and have been promoting them since 1998. They not only demonstrate…

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If citizens’ juries are the answer, what is the question?

It’s been so long since I blogged. I can’t recall a busier time as a consultant. Mostly, this has to do with the surge of interest in deliberative engagement processes, such as citizens’ juries. I’ve blogged about this before, but now I’m going to attempt to write to organisations, executives and politicians about what they…

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It takes courage to build trust

You may recall from the British series ‘Yes, Minister’, Sir Humphrey would use the term ‘courageous’ as code for ‘politically stupid’ – usually having the effect of dissuading the Minister to follow his stated intentions. It provided great comedy as well as demonstrating a powerful technique of influencing someone who is risk averse. However, I…

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Aiming for average in 2015 – my new year’s resolution

It is customary, of course, at this time to reflect on the year that is nearly over, and to set some goals for the year approaching. Idon’t have my website established as yet so thought I would publish this blog on LinkedIn – my ponderings of the year past and the one that looms. 2014…

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