The General Services Administration highlighted best practices for planning a public dialogue in a new blog post on HowTo.gov.
The best practices come from a panel held recently at the Digital Government Society of North America’s 2012 annual conference that included representatives from GSA, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Best practices:
- Begin with the end user in mind and know what is it you want to achieve.
- Use intermediaries or catalysts to reach out to their networks and lend credibility to the dialogue.
- Consider challenges and prize competitions to engage the public, bring the best ideas and top talent to bear on problems.
- Tell people what you plan to do with the information up front and show them the results.
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Key challenges:
- How to measure success
- Identify and reach out to stakeholders (beyond the usual suspects), and
- Build the bridge between suggestions and action.
To learn more about the conference read Part 1: Engage the Public to Solve Problems.
