Weblog
Oct 16, 03:21 pm: Participation requires more than tools
David Wilcox at Designing for Civil Society has a terrific post up called Participation as culture not tools … though new ones help. it’s a reminder that checking off the item that reads “Did I use tools that allow people to participate” does not actually guarantee either participation or a feeling of inclusion. Participation, David writes, is about changing the culture. His first two points are worth quoting in full:
- Successful participation is more about developing a culture, than using a set of tools. That applies to democracy, workplace collaboration, citizen engagement in public programmes, user-involvement in product and service design, and anything where doing things together is important.
- The main barriers to effective participation lie both in personal attitudes and institutions, and mainly revolve around desires for power and control. The institutional barriers are embedded in hierarchical systems, the personal ones in beliefs that we only succeed by competing. Changing these and getting things done is doubly challenging.
And that change to institutions and to our own perceptions of how we interact with those around us are tough. We are used to sitting back and yelling at the TV or the speaker or the newspaper. We are becoming used to writing out our side of things on a weblog. We aren’t used to building things together. So, on both levels, the level of an institutions or society building the platform for participation and of people participating with it, using it, changing it and, eventually, taking charge of tools — be they technological tools or conversations — that help define the ways that we can influence, change and come together. On both those levels, it’s hard work.
tagged: participation,, civicengagement,, web2.0,, change,, net2
