We recently saw a post on NCDD organizational member the Davenport Institute‘s Gov 2.0 Watch blog featuring a piece penned by Matt Leighninger – a long-time NCDD supporting member. Matt’s article asks the question “What would happen if the public could rate and review public engagement projects like it can restaurants and stores?” We encourage you to check out the article below or find the original Davenport post here.

A Yelp for Public Engagement?

Over at Tech President, Matt Leighninger discusses why just having public engagement options available isn’t enough – we also need a way for people to give feedback about how these processes are working.

What if your residents could “Yelp” your latest engagement process?  How would it rate?

Unfortunately, we have trouble separating productive from ineffective opportunities for civic engagement, in part because of the way we try to measure it. We focus almost entirely on assessing the impacts of discrete projects and tools, when we should also be giving citizens the chance to evaluate their civic environments. People now have the power to rate all kinds of products and services: if they had similar opportunities to rate their opportunities to participate in public life, democracy would improve.

You can read more here.

Roshan Bliss

An inclusiveness trainer and group process facilitator, Roshan Bliss serves as NCDD's Youth Engagement Coordinator and Blog Curator. Combining his belief that decisions are better when everyone is involved with his passion for empowering young people, his work focuses on increasing the involvement of youth and students in public conversations.

Tags: civic infrastructure, online & hi-tech, public participation

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