You can’t manage what you can’t measure. Community engagement and communication are no exception to this generally accepted management belief. But just because it’s possible to measure something, is the information gathered going to be of any real use? Will it be able to contribute to organisational success? Are we becoming too focused on capturing information just because it’s readily available, rather than because it allows us to learn if we’re getting closer to our goals?

Why is community engagement important? The answer to that question will be different for any organisation. For example a monopoly service provider, such as a council or a government agency, will see engagement quite differently to a business that depends on selling goods or services. Councils are not required to have a measurement for customer loyalty and their consequential reputation, whereas customer loyalty and reputation is mission critical for most businesses reliant on selling goods or services.

Public sector organisations can learn much from their counterparts in the private sector when it comes to understanding and managing their reputation and influence. In the private sector, reputation has everything to do with profitability and business success. In today’s online world an organisation’s reputation can be destroyed in the blink of an eye, which makes monitoring it and managing it carefully absolutely critical.

In the public sector, where organisations have a mandate to operate that is enshrined in law, the attitude towards reputation is somewhat different. They can still operate, irrespective of the views of their customers. This often leads to a very blinkered approach to any consideration of how customers feel about decisions made by public sector organisations and their ongoing impacts on people affected.

Reputation and influence are things that elected members rarely focus on at a governance level. Some sort of crisis requiring a reactive response is often they only time such governance groups focus on reputation. Once that matter has been “sorted” it drops off their radar, sometimes with little thought given as to why it occurred in the first place and what can be done to stop it happening again.

Sadly a lot of organisational focus for public sector engagement and communication is on what it costs. This is generally a good signal that reputation enhancement is not a priority and the value or benefits to that organisation from having a good reputation that’s worth investing in have not been thought of in those terms. In other words the organisational mind-set is in a wrong place.

Things like trust, respect and credibility should be part of a reputation KPI for any organisation, whether public or private. There are other high level outcomes that could be added to that list. Other measures, like sales made or return on investment will be shaped by those high level outcomes being achieved and should not be thought of as KPIs in themselves. While they may be easier to measure than things like trust, respect and credibility, just because something is hard to measure doesn’t mean that it can’t be. If that were true, then those things wouldn’t be able to be managed. And if that were true, then organisations that have great reputations and who are highly trusted and respected must have achieved that position by good luck?

Organisational performance is never straightforward and measuring success requires more than one source of reliable data. For example: Working out the fuel efficiency of a motorcar requires data from two sources – the car’s odometer and a fuel retailer’s pumping device. Working out the running cost of that vehicle requires the per litre cost of fuel to be known. This combination of reliable information can then shape decisions about whether driver training is a worthwhile investment to help reduce vehicle running costs.

Enhancing reputation and influence and the benefits that great engagement and communication practices can add can only be appreciated if there are clear outcomes set which can be supported by reliable information. That sounds easy but it’s really hard to do, even when an organisation’s mind-set is in the right place for that to happen. It’s impossible to do if it isn’t.

At this time of year New Zealand’s 78 local authorities are involved in crafting their annual plan documents or, once every three years, a long-term plan with a 10-year vision in accordance with section 93 of the Local Government Act (LGA).

These plans are supposed to be tailored by the needs and aspirations of the communities each council is elected to serve. Their contents and priorities should be shaped after extensive community engagement. Indeed the LGA requires, as a minimum, the Special Consultative Procedure to be used to develop a Long-Term Plan. The LGA also talks about these plans providing a basis for accountability between a council and its communities. A worthy ambition.

Given the importance that a long-term plan plays in shaping a council’s decision-making and priority setting, with flow-on impacts on the levels of rates set to fund those, it is surprising that so few community members take the time to become involved in any associated discussion or debate.

Formal submissions will be sought, usually through advertisements published in newspapers or on a council’s website. Public meetings will be scheduled and held in venues and at times that work best for elected councillors. Many councils will know with a high degree of certainty in advance of a draft plan being released who they will receive submissions from and what those will say. But how representative are those submissions of wider community ideas and opinions?

It may be argued that if there is no interest in or discussion about the content of a long-term plan, then it must be a fair representation of community views. It may also be argued that additional efforts to connect with communities will impose additional demands on a council’s time and money for no apparent additional benefit in terms of information received. That may be true, but what about the connectedness a council should be aiming to have with its communities, particularly the basis of accountability the LGA says should be provided?

Long-Term Plans are large, hard to read documents built to satisfy the needs of auditors. It is not surprising that very few people, other than auditors, actually read them. Councils invest time summarising these into smaller documents that may be put into letterboxes with the outpourings of Big Box Retailers and real estate agents. Adaptations of these summary documents may also get placed on council websites where analytics will reveal they attract scant interest from cyberspace inhabitants.

This could be because community members believe that councils really aren’t interested in listening to them. If they were, then they may be more active in creating opportunities or using engagement tools that communities understand and are comfortable with. There is an abundance of tools that can be used, either for face-to-face interactions as well as online. Citizens shouldn’t have to make a formal written or verbal submission. Such measures are a barrier to engagement, as the numbers of people using those, as a percentage of all community members, shows.

This isn’t a challenge that is particularly difficult to improve on. All that is required is a little imagination and a willingness to listen to communities – earlier rather than later – and show them how what they said was considered and shaped the final outcomes. Councils need to focus on delivering simple messages that are clearly expressed and easily understood, particularly by hard-to-reach community members, such as people with language disabilities. Pictures and infographics work really well as communication enhancers.

From 1 December 2014 all 78 councils will be required to have a significance and engagement policy in place. It will be interesting to observe what changes will be seen in council community engagement, particularly annual plan engagement, from 2015 and onwards.

The public should have a big stake in what sort of community they want for themselves, their children and their grandchildren. Their willingness to contribute to their “ideal” is greatly influenced by the contribution that they are able to make to the long term planning for their community.

Fair enough. But isn’t this what already happens? Regrettably no.

However recent changes to the LGA relating to significance and engagement creates an opportunity for councils to rethink their approach about how they interact with communities. This may act as a catalyst to change how councils make decisions by acknowledging that communities are important and can make a valuable contribution, particularly if successful community outcomes are desired.

This would mean looking beyond just legal compliance to good practice processes. In an LTP development this would involve the community in deciding what should go into the LTP in the first place and being engaged through the various steps ultimately leading to the more formal special consultative procedure consultation at a later stage of development prior to adoption.

This effectively relegates the special consultative procedure to a tick-the-box exercise, as with good prior community engagement, all of the important decisions will have already been made with the full involvement of the affected community.

Observing activity on social media should be interesting in the run up to September’s general election.

Although Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram and others have been around for a while, including previous general elections, their significance is still emerging as a meaningful form of engagement between organisations, celebrities, politicians and everybody else in the world that comprises Socialmediadom.

Following MP Judith Collins’ testy forays on Twitter earlier this year, the prime minister remarked he supported his minister’s decision to withdraw because Twitter was full of “trolls and bottom-feeders”.

Other comments made by leading politicians suggest that their primary interest in social media channels is to push information and comments out to whomever. This is probably because having a presence on mainstream social media is seen to be modern and “hip” and because it’s a task that can be easily delegated or automated.

Effective engagement, whatever channels are used, comes at a cost. This is particularly true for social media. The cost involves time and intellect. If the necessary investment in both of these communities is neglected, it shows. Lack of investment also creates a fertile environment for “trolls and bottom-feeders” to do what they do best.

All successful relationships and conversations need to be shaped and participants must be treated as equals. Mainstream social media makes hard work of lending itself to that sort of intercourse where many participants seem to believe that louder is better, and abuse and bullying are OK. Discussions quickly divert from their initial focus, meme builders apply their craft, camp followers arrive and circle their wagons. Apart from occasional flashes of inspiration or insight, nothing much happens until the next foray.

While it’s easy for engagement specialists to say “it doesn’t have to be that way”, there appears to be scant interest from people wanting to build better pathways to allow more meaningful connections. That’s short-sighted, because there are some powerful tools, including those for online engagement. These tools are widely available, even to politicians!

And no, those tools don’t include Facebook or Twitter. The “better” tools allow meaningful, moderated discussions and exchanges of ideas and opinions where online exchanges can be captured and analysed. Moderation is an essential component, as it keeps conversations on topics and minimises the effects that “trolls and bottom-feeders” can wreak.

These tools are being used by some New Zealand organisations, but not widely or frequently. On the other hand many organisations are using Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube and some other channels, but not particularly effectively. Quantity does not always align with quality.

Choices of tools shouldn’t be random or based on a “me too” approach. Decisions should be based on a carefully crafted engagement plan that has a clear picture of what success looks like and a detailed pathway to get there. “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there,” as Lewis Carroll’s Cheshire cat once famously observed. The same can be said for choices of tools.

Yes, these specialist online engagement tools cost a bit more to operate than the likes of Twitter and also take a bit of time to set up. But like most things in life, one gets what one pays for. To quote legendary American oil well firefighter Red Adair “If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur.”

In the absence of a clear strategy, it is most likely that politicians’ efforts in Socialmediadom this election will produce more heat than light and, as many online citizens are expecting, bountiful embarrassment and entertainment, an all-you-can-eat buffet for the trolls and bottom-feeders.

Half the fun in learning new things is acquiring new language that describes them. New words, or old words recycled with new meanings, new phrases and even a whole bunch of new TLAs – three-letter acronyms. We’re currently working on an RFP for the DIA, but that’s another story entirely.

Let’s have a brief look at some of the language we use.

Engagementworks is in the community engagement business. “Community” in this sense is about collections of people bound together, either by a common place or by a common issue or cause. “Engagement” is about making meaningful connections between groups of people. Joined together, these two words describe strategies and planning programmes designed to connect organisations with affected or interested people in ways that everybody gets value and greater understanding from. A bunch of stuff underpins all of this, not least of which should be an Ears-To-Mouth Ratio of no less than two to one.

Organisations enjoy talking. So too do politicians – to such a degree that underpins what we at Engagementworks refer to as the “Announce and Defend” model of engagement. At best this is simply telling people what is going to happen to them and, that if they don’t like that, they have until a designated date to make their concerns known. In writing. It’s a process often referred to as “consultation”. Under this model there is no guarantee that anything the community says will have an effect on the outcome. This is probably why so few people take the time to make submissions.

At worst this is nothing more than minimum compliance with legislation by those in positions of power. Under this model, communities are usually only accessed, grudgingly, at the end of a process, rather than at the beginning. There are much more effective ways of gaining useful community input that won’t cost much more or take that much longer to do. Overuse of “consultation” probably explains why communities attach strong reliance on referendums or elections, tools that let them derail something that they haven’t been allowed to engage with meaningfully.

Communities are incredibly diverse. With the possible exception of hermits, everybody lives in a community. That could be a community of place, like New Zealand, or Taranaki, or Eltham, or Ladys Mile, depending on how specific the issue in question may be. It could also be a community of interest, like mountain biking, or health, or a business, or conservation, or public transport. The Internet has given power to both types of community but particularly to communities of interest, which can be global in their reach. But how many organisations use the Internet for engagement?

Organisations are great at hiring people who are good at figuring out solutions to problems. Government departments and local government councils are very adept at this. However in some cases there may not be any agreement from a community that there is actually a problem that needs fixing. Communities can get a bit grumpy when a solution comes along that causes them discomfort or inconvenience. In such cases they get even grumpier if it’s their money that is going to be used to provide the solution. Their grumpiness gets even worse if they haven’t had a chance to have a say about either the “problem” or the “solution”.

What would be better would be for organisations to become great at valuing and hiring people who are good at discussing ideas, opportunities and potential problems with the people who are most likely to be affected by those. If communities can’t agree on a problem, there’s a strong chance that there either isn’t one or that it isn’t particularly significant. That sort of feedback can save planners wasting a lot of time.

What about “stakeholders”? “Stakeholders” should be part of any community engagement process. By definition they are people or organisations who have a “stake” in an organisation. Hopefully not a Buffy The Vampire Slayer stake. How their input is weighed against input from community groups will depend on the issue. In some cases distinguishing between stakeholders and community interest groups may be a matter of semantics.

Some people believe that community engagement is just public relations in a different frock. If they do, that’s probably because their views have been formed by seeing PR in a different frock marketed as community engagement. The truth is that PR is, or should be, a sub-set of community engagement, not the other way around. Information exchange is an important part of community engagement, but only a part. Using the Ears-To-Mouth Ratio, delivering information should be less than half of effective engagement. A lot of organisations have a PR or corporate communication team. How many have a community engagement team?

So how should community engagement be monitored to see how well it works? Asking communities is a great place to start. Opinion polling isn’t expensive and can provide a scientifically valid set of results, provided the right questions are asked.

Engagementworks is founded on a belief that community engagement actually works and that by sharing knowledge and experience, people can learn to value it and what it can deliver. Many of the services we can deliver aren’t rocket science. Rather they’re about good principles and processes and valuing those and the benefits they can unlock.

An RFP is a request for proposal, and the DIA is the Department of Internal Affairs. We think we can help them with something, and we’re hopeful that they will agree with us.