Water into wine?

[Peggy Holman]

Don,

Is the document already written?  If not, invite the public into the
development of it.  That is what we did with the Wa States Arts
Commission -- a series of 20 OS meetings around the state to engage people
in the "issues and opportunities for arts and culture in Wa state and our
communities".  One important decision we made was to focus on arts in the
state not the arts commission in framing the work.  This was a chance for
people to talk about the arts not about a government agency that supports
the arts.  And they did!

Even if you already have a document to which you wish people to react, I
suggest focusing on the subject people care about and not the organization
was a critical decision we made that worked.

As a coda to this, the arts commission staff has been working for the last
several months using the proceedings from all the meetings to create a plan
to go to the governor.  Half a million dollars of new money is riding on it.
The commission put a draft on their web site and sent the link to everyone
who had participated for comment.  The response has been EXTREMELY positive.
Enormous trust has been built through this process.

If you've already got a document that you must work with, my thought is to
do something similar to our last state-wide open space.  Start the morning
with about an hour for people to read and reflect on the document.  Perhaps
decorate the room with working papers or other visual input that will give
people some context for how the document was created.  Cover the room with
any information you wish people to absorb outside the plan itself.  Then do
an open space with an appropriate question:  "the future of our community"
or "how do we make this plan real?"

Peggy Holman

----- Original Message -----
From: "Don Ferretti" <dferrett at placer.ca.gov>
To: <OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU>
Sent: Tuesday, May 16, 2000 10:19 AM
Subject: Water into wine?


> I'm working on a local government planning project that requires a public
review of the planning document to get community input.  Everyone is
expecting the same old process of presenting the plan then having people
come to a podium or something and blah blah blah.  I don't want to do that.
>
> There must be a way to use OS here. Has anyone used OS this way  to
transform an otherwise mundane bureaucratic input process into something
more.  Something where people from the general community are learning and at
the same time providing input to those who must make final decisions.
>
> Don