As 2024 wraps up, our facilitation team is sharing their standout moments. From mysteriously missing catering and questionable gong skills to a surprise bush trek under the stars, 2024 had its fair share of laughs, twists, and unforgettable memories.
The City of Melbourne views affordable housing as crucial infrastructure for maintaining a liveable, inclusive, and prosperous city. With a projected shortfall of 23,200 affordable homes by 2036, immediate action is needed to address this long-standing issue. While there is broad community support for affordable housing, acceptance often wanes at the neighbourhood level. To tackle this, a People’s Panel of 39 diverse community members was established to represent local perspectives.
A support facilitator studying psychology, our first team member based in NSW and a brand new participant recruitment coordinator... meet the newest additions to the MosaicLab team: Polo, Polly and Gus! Learn more about this trio of terrific team members and gain some insights into who they REALLY are through their answers to our fast five questions!
How should we plan for the new energy future while providing affordable services that meet changing customer and community needs? Two representative ‘Voice of the Customer’ panels in Queensland answered this question. Randomly selected, everyday customers deliberated and agreed on recommendations that electricity distributors Ergon Energy Network and Energex used to prepare Regulatory Proposals for the Australian Energy Regulator (AER). Delve into a tale of two deliberative customer panels, and gain ideas and insights you can draw on for your next project.
We believe in supporting emerging and underserved people and communities to have deeper conversations that lead to stronger democracies. ML Giving is the new name of the not-for-profit part of MosaicLab - a banner for the work we do that gives back. We’re focussing on furthering community inclusion and action beyond just getting input and instead moving into enabling local decision-making. Explore the principles ML Giving will operate under, and the kind of projects and conversations we’re supporting.
A deliberating group is made up of randomly selected citizens from all walks of life. Just as we would see in any community group, these ‘mini-publics’ are made up of people with diverse backgrounds, perspectives, communication styles and behaviours. We're exploring some of the most common types of behaviours we might see in a deliberative process, their impacts, and some guidelines for working with them effectively.
Power is always at play and often in surprising and unexpected ways. It’s your job as a project manager, leader, facilitator or engagement professional to notice and foresee power problems, address and prevent power imbalance and protect the integrity of your engagement process. In this deliberation disaster we let you know where power issues tend to lie, what you can do about them, and what your role is in tackling them.
Have you heard about standing panels? They’re a form of deliberative engagement that can be super effective, particularly if you have a lot of different issues and topics you need to engage your community around. They’re also a really cool way of embedding deliberative practice in decision-making. Plus, they’re already happening in Australia. We’ve got the lowdown on what they are, the key considerations in planning for them and some snapshots of the two ongoing standing panels we’re facilitating in the local government realm.
What are you asking your participants to help you with? Topic choice and how you craft the question, challenge or remit you put to your community is critical to a successful process. In this deliberation disaster, we explore the most common mistake we see made. Plus, there are free tips for selecting and communicating a topic that will result in better response rates, a more meaningful experience for participants and more useful outputs for decision makers.
Deliberation – what can go wrong? The short answer is lots! A new series to help your organisation avoid possible future pain and learn from the mistakes of those who have deliberated before you. In our first article, we’re exploring the complex, specialised world of recruitment. It’s a critical part of the deliberation puzzle and one of the biggest tripping hazards organisations face. Get it wrong, and it can undo everything you’re trying to achieve. Discover how to avoid disaster inside …
Recruiting people for deliberative engagement costs time and resources. With more deliberations taking place and new rules in Victoria for councils about how they engage, organisations are undertaking multiple deliberations consecutively. We’ve teamed up with the newDemocracy Foundation to explore how to make the recruitment element more affordable and effective, developing a research note that explores solutions for streamlining this step.
We’re kicking off our 2019 #MonthlyMyth series by addressing a topic we’re often asked about. We’ve noticed that it’s an issue that makes organisations nervous. There’s a fear that (where a randomly selected panel or jury is involved) stakeholder and interest groups will be cut out of the conversation and oppose the process or decision.
Luckily, not only is it important to incorporate these groups in a deliberative process, there’s also lots of ways they can be involved. Today we’re exploring why it’s a good idea to do so, and giving you seven ways to bring them on your deliberative journey.
It’s important to consider and tailor your engagement approach to ensure you meet the needs of all stakeholders, and that includes those who have the most to say.
This mistake, however , lies in forgetting about everyone else. Suddenly, you realise the needs and opinions of a few have demanded time, attention and resources at the expense of the rest of your stakeholders or community.
Today we’re addressing this myth by providing 9 ways to ensure diverse perspectives make it into your next process.
