Equity-Centred Community and Stakeholder Engagement
“Equality is giving everyone a pair of shoes. Equity is giving everyone a pair that fits”Unknown Engagement is more than simply informing stakeholders of key organisational decisions. It’s about nurturing relationships, building trust, and cultivating shared visions. Engagement is a complex process …
Ten ways to engage with young people
If you want fresh thinking and innovation, then you need to engage with young people. We’ve run Australia’s first youth summit on climate change initiated by a Council, and engaged thousands of students through travelling shows, and ran a curated film competition. …
Reaching young people doesn’t need to be hard, but it needs to be engaging
Youth engagement is becoming an increasingly important part of engagement activities where projects and decisions have an impact on the youth of today and are likely to keep impacting them into the future. In any engagement project young people are typically one …
Substance over slogans
When you think about some of the great marketing campaigns in the world, you think about the slogan and the catchy jingle. You know the ones – they give you ear worm when you turn on the TV or radio. Undeniably these …
School holidays. To engage or not? When it’s appropriate and why it’s usually not.
As a general rule the school holidays are best avoided when planning community engagement activities because people are generally harder to reach and disengaged from reality during holiday periods. This is especially so at Christmas when everything tends to get that little …
Are online surveys dead?
You may have heard that online surveys are dead. Even though you’re constantly being bombarded with emails and website pop ups requesting your valuable input in the form of an online survey. How many of them do you simply ignore? …
Why everyday people turn up to community engagement activities
It was a Saturday morning. The first day in a four-month process for members of a citizen engagement process to tackle a very tricky issue. …
The truth about common ground and community engagement
Common ground is something that people agree about even if they disagree about other things (Merriam-Webster, 2018). It can be an important objective of community engagement where there is strong disagreement or conflict between groups. However, reaching common ground is not always an …
No one’s listening, right?
How good are your powers of persuasion? Here’s 5 simple steps to selling the most complex ideas. …
When engagement gets tricky: tips to get you across the line
When engagement gets tricky: tips to get you across the line A question we hear time and time again from our clients is how to tackle difficult engagement. Whether it be highly emotional issues, opposing viewpoints, lack of strategic direction, or differing …
What makes a great leader?
Drawing from my own personal experience, there is one exceptional leader who I will never forget. He had a way of connecting and cutting through. His authenticity, energy and commitment to delivering his vision was palpable, you could feel it simply by …
Could non-verbal expressions add value to an engagement campaign?
Communication is so much more than the spoken word. While many of us like to verbalise how we feel or think, it’s often the expressions that go with our words that add meaning. The question begs then, could we analyse only those …
Consultation does not necessarily mean that the community gets what it wants.
There have been a few projects in the media of late where community groups have lamented a lack of consultation on projects prior to delivery. Many of these projects have centred on construction and development but a few have involved policy development …
Eight Easy Steps to Workshop Greatness!
There are workshops that conjure up images of a dreary room full of disinterested people, negative attitudes, poor outcomes and bad coffee. I’m going tell you how to avoid running one of these workshops, ever again. …
“So what is it you do for a living” – Your SME story
If you’re running an SME, your story, your point-of-difference, your services need to be instantly ready to roll off the tongue. …
Online Engagement and the Online Disinhibition Effect
The online disinhibition effect is a loosening of social restrictions and inhibitions that would otherwise be present in normal face-to-face interactions. …
Why Small Business Should Spend Big on Communication
The key for business is to add value to logos and visual branding. That value comes from communication which transforms a logo and brand into reality. …
Why Engage? Because we’re Human.
In an age where data is king, and every transaction and enquiry is trackable, some will ask “why engage?”. Why spend the time? Why take the added expense? …
