Speak out Sutton use Dialogue App

Posted on June 22, 2011 by AdamC

Sometimes our clients take the software we build and extend our understanding of how it can be used to create participation.

Ever the council renowned for going the extra mile when it comes to engaging with residents, London Borough of Sutton recently adopted the Dialogue App as the platform to drive stakeholder participation online.

Using the tool on an ongoing basis, LB Sutton have created one space where residents can discuss issues with each other, as well as discussing them with their council.

We’ve created a case study on why the Borough chose Dialogue App and what benefits have been brought about as a result. Please read or download using the Scribd embed below.

www.speakoutsutton.co.uk

Dialogue App – Speak Out Sutton Case Study

Posted in News about Dialogue App | Tagged , , , , , , |

Warrington use Dialogue App to consult on budget

Posted on March 16, 2011 by AdamC

As with all local authorities, budgets are being reduced in drastic measure. This means there’s more importance than ever on conveying your financial climate to the public whilst
understanding and protecting the services that matter the most.

Warrington is one such council who opted to run a budget consultation that was high-profile and engaging at the same time as offering cost-effectiveness. They used Delib’s Budget Simulator to understand people’s priorities for services and Dialogue App to get people talking about how to meet the challenge in-hand.

Warrington Dialogue App

You can see a case study of Warrington’s budget consultation here.

You can see other examples of local authorities using Delib apps to consult on budget issues here.

We’ve helped over 40 UK authorities in the last few years consult on their budget. If you’d like to talk about how you can engage with residents cost-effectively, please get in touch.

Posted in News about Dialogue App | Tagged , , , , |

Dialogue App – the 2010 highlights including Nick Clegg’s “Your Freedom”

Posted on December 18, 2010 by Andy

2010 was an exciting year for Dialogue App. Highlights included:

  • The mainstream adoption of online dialogue as a policy tool – in the US and in the UK
  • Dialogue App was used for Nick Clegg’s “Your Freedom” law reform initiative
  • HM Treasury used Dialogue App as a key tool for the UK Spending Challenge
  • Dialogue App was used in the US by wide ranging organisations, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the United We Ride initiative, and the Green and Healthy Homes programme.
  • UK local authorities including Bristol, Norfolk, Sutton and Warrington adopted Dialogue App for participatory budgeting and for long term ideas generation

Dialogue App saw many improvements 2010, driven by us listening to our clients’ needs. » Find out about the most recent improvements

Also during 2010, we introduced a free trial version of Dialogue App. The simple online signup takes just minutes. Or for more information or a walk-through demo, simply get in touch.

Finally, for more on Dialogue App in 2010 check out this more comprehensive post: http://www.delib.co.uk/dblog/a-look-back-at-2010-dialogue-app/

Posted in News about Dialogue App, Policy crowdsourcing | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment |

Dialogue App improvements: Tweet button, Facebook Like button, Locked Ideas …

Posted on December 9, 2010 by Andy

We’ve been working hard to make some enhancements to the Dialogue App. You can either watch the embedded video or read below to find out about them:

Tweet button
If you use Twitter, you can now share a good idea with your followers by clicking the “Tweet” button on that idea. A “Share this on Twitter” window will appear where you can customise the text of your tweet and then send it.

Facebook Like button
Similarly, if you use Facebook you can share your support for a good idea with your friends by clicking the “Like” button on that idea. A link to the idea will appear in your feed where all your friends will be able to see it and visit it to read more.

Locked Ideas
Moderators can now lock an idea for commenting. Locked ideas are visually distinct from other ideas so that you can see at a glance whether a given idea is open for discussion.

Rejected comments visible to moderators
Moderators can reject an individual comment from an idea if it is offensive. Rejected comments are clearly marked. Ordinary users are no longer able to read the contents of rejected comments, however Moderators can still them and can reinstate a comment if it was rejected by mistake.

Improved WYSIWYG
When you add an idea to a Dialogue, you can format the text of your idea using an interactive editor that is built into Dialogue App.

For instance, you can emphasise a specific sentence, create a bulleted list, highlight a block of quoted text or paste pre-formatted text from a program such as Microsoft Office or OpenOffice.org.

We have improved the interactive text editor in Dialogue App to make it easier to use and more accessible to people who use assistive technology such as screen readers

Admins and moderators comments highlighted
Comments made by administrators and moderators are now visually distinct from comments made by ordinary users. Moderators and administrators can upload a profile picture which is displayed on any comment they make.

RSS
You can subscribe to a feed of the ideas on a discussion using an RSS reader such are Mozilla Firefox’s Live Bookmarks or Microsoft Office Outlook 2007. An RSS button appears on the “All Ideas” page for each discussion.

Ideas will appear in the RSS feed only once a moderator has reviewed them and deliberately approved them. This ensures that ideas containing offensive content will not be published to RSS subscribers by mistake.

Welcome e-mail to users after sign up
When you register an account for a Dialogue, it now sends the user a welcome email. This helps them get started and gives them a reminder of where to go so that they can track on top of the discussion.

So those are the latest updates to the Dialogue App. If you have any suggestions as to how we can make it better, or you’d like to discuss using one, get in touch: adam.cardew@delib.co.uk

Posted in News about Dialogue App | Tagged , , , , , , , |

Another Dialogue App Launched: National Dialogue on Green and Healthy Homes

Posted on November 4, 2010 by Andy

Always good to report shipping news from the studio here at Delib Towers.

Today we’ve shipped another Dialogue App for our good friends at NAPA in the USA. This one’s a National Dialogue on Green and Healthy Homes, which you can read more about here.

The nice thing about Dialogue App is that it’s so easy to put together a customised one for people if they want it. This one’s got a custom design primarily, with a Youtube video embedded into the homepage, a ‘jump into the dialogue’ button which takes people to a random idea in the site, and of course its own URL.

Will be interesting to see how many ideas, tags and comments get submitted to this one. The Spending Challenge Dialogue did set the bar rather high after all.

Posted in News about Dialogue App | Tagged , , , , , |

Dialogue App powered QHSR project wins Intergovernmental Solutions Award

Posted on May 26, 2010 by Gez Smith

Going one better than our previous nomination for a Citizen Service Award, the pioneering National Dialogues for the US Department of Homeland Security won an Intergovernmental Solutions Award this week.

The project was based on the Dialogue App platform (albeit a pretty souped-up and customised version), and we’re immensely proud to see the work recognised.  Massive props should go to our friends at NAPA who oversaw and ran the entire project, and to DHS for stepping out and using this open, online approach.

A bit more info about the Intergovernment Solutions Awards:

The 2010 theme for the annual Management of Change conference is 30 Years of Collaboration. We have expanded that concept for the ISA competition to incorporate the three priority areas addressed in the President’s Open Government Initiative – transparency, participation, and collaboration.

A panel of judges, including senior executives from government and industry, reviewed all nominations and selected the  finalists based on the following criteria.

1. Operational Eligibility

2. Executive Summary and Project Description

3. Intergovernmental and Collaborative

4. Transforming the Business and Improving the Operations of Government

5. Advancing Open Government

Win!

Posted in News about Dialogue App | Tagged , , , , , |

MHRA Report Published by Delib

Posted on March 30, 2010 by JoannaH

Following the successful dialogue from the MHRA, Delib has published a report on the Medicine Information Online Discussion which ran between February and March 2010. It was designed to discuss whether making the MHRA’s definitive database of patient information leaflets (PILs) and Summary of Product Characteristics (SPCs) available online is a good idea and, if so, what the site should look like. The report provides an overview of the entire project including demographics of participants, traffic analytics and key themes which emerged from discussion.

Here’s a brief snapshot of some of the key facts and figures from the report:

Aim of Dialogue

  • Discuss the proposition: ‘The Government’s medicines watchdog want to put their comprehensive and up-to-date drug information online. Is this a good idea? How would you use it?’

Brief Overview of Participation

  • 252 registered users (including 20 admin users from either the MHRA or Delib)
  • 65 ideas from 60 different users
  • 149 comments (mean average of 2.3 per idea)
  • 135 ratings (mean average of 2.1 per idea)

Brief Overview of Participants

  • 31% described themselves as a member of the general public
  • 32% described themselves as a pharmacist
  • 13% described themselves as a member of the pharmaceutical industry
  • 5% described themselves as a doctor
  • 3% described themselves as a nurse

Outcomes of Dialogue

  • Overall participants felt an online comprehensive medicine database was a good idea
  • Main debate was whether a new database should be created or whether existing databases (namely the ems) could be added to

Action Taken by the MHRA

  • “This research indicated that there is a broad consensus among patients/ members of the public on the benefits of providing product information online.”
  • “However, due to the current financial climate [...] the Agency has no immediate plans to proceed with this development. We will, of course, be continually reviewing the situation and hope to be able to implement this project in the future.”

A PDF of the full MHRA report can be downloaded here. For more of information about the dialogue or make a comment about the report, feel free to get in touch: info@delib.co.uk or 0845 638 1848.

Posted in News about Dialogue App | Tagged , , , , |

The Quadrennial Homeland Security Review (QHSR) National Dialogues nominated for citizen service award

Posted on March 9, 2010 by Gez Smith

Last summer, we, in partnership with NAPA, worked on a series of three pioneering National Dialogues for the US Department of Homeland Security. Excitingly, this project has now been nominated for a Citizen Service Award.

The awards, which are hosted by the U.S. General Services Administration, recognise innovative citizen outreach efforts by government offices. The Quadrennial Homeland Security Review was an initiative by DHS to engage their huge audience of stakeholders and staff, as well as the general public, in providing input on their four year homeland security plan. As the entry to the Citizen Service Award says:

The National Dialogue on the QHSR was one of the largest, most complex stakeholder consultation efforts that the federal government has undertaken. Rather than set policy internally and implement it in a top-down fashion, DHS undertook the QHSR in a new and innovative way by engaging tens of thousands of stakeholders and soliciting their ideas and comments throughout the process.

Read the whole DHS QHSR entry on the Citizen Service Award blog.

There’s always pride to be had when a project you’ve been involved in is up for formal recognition – but just as exciting to me has been reading the user comments alongside the entry; things like:

It was truly a pleasure to participate in the “Dialogues on the Quadrennial Homeland Security Review”. It was very helpful for us as citizens to be allowed to voice our opinions on the problems we see here in the trenches and provide input on focal points we believe should be addressed.

The format of posting ideas and allowing others to voice their opinions on those ideas was interactive and informative to both our government and its citizens.

In some ways, it’s so simple but it’s still always satisfying when projects work for the client and their end users and people looking for best practice. Hopefully, each one is also another step towards this kind of success story becoming the norm.

Posted in Digital democracy news, News about Dialogue App | Tagged , , , , |