What’s next for AI in community engagement?

00;00;01;01 - 00;00;03;28 Nexus, Publish By GHD. 00;00;03;28 - 00;00;05;17 Where ideas connect. 00;00;08;18 - 00;00;09;02 When you're 00;00;09;02 - 00;00;12;02 building the strategy for how you're going to engage. 00;00;12;14 - 00;00;15;05 Analytics needs to be in that conversation 00;00;15;05 - 00;00;18;14 because you need to build something that can be appropriately analyzed. 00;00;18;22 - 00;00;21;23 And that there's often a disconnect in engagement with that. 00;00;22;17 - 00;00;26;09 Welcome Today we're going to have a really engaging conversation 00;00;26;12 - 00;00;29;05 with two engagement practitioners, Emily and Danielle. 00;00;29;05 - 00;00;32;28 And really, we're going to unpack how might I contribute 00;00;33;01 - 00;00;35;21 to shaping resilient, future ready communities. 00;00;35;21 - 00;00;41;07 And what opportunities are possibilities can we explore to maximize its impact? 00;00;41;19 - 00;00;46;03 So before I get started, I'm going to ask what is one word 00;00;46;12 - 00;00;50;08 to describe your current feelings about the word engagement? 00;00;50;11 - 00;00;52;24 So Emily, I'll pass it over to you and then you can pass it. 00;00;52;24 - 00;00;54;28 Daniel. Thanks, Divya. 00;00;55;01 - 00;00;56;05 My name is Emily Glantz. 00;00;56;05 - 00;01;00;12 I am from Toronto, a long time engagement practitioner, 00;01;00;21 - 00;01;04;08 and have done some work at the macro level of collaboration, 00;01;04;11 - 00;01;08;18 being large cities down to the micro with leadership teams and how, 00;01;08;28 - 00;01;11;22 you know, smaller groups engage in progress. 00;01;11;25 - 00;01;15;03 Great question right now. 00;01;15;06 - 00;01;18;07 So that's always an evolving answer depending on where you are I suppose. 00;01;18;10 - 00;01;22;23 But right now I'm feeling like the word is opportunistic. 00;01;22;26 - 00;01;25;24 I think we're really on the edge of something 00;01;25;27 - 00;01;29;04 pretty amazing in the engagement space that I'm really excited about, 00;01;29;19 - 00;01;33;23 and it's so exploratory and there's so many opportunities 00;01;33;26 - 00;01;36;25 to chat about, discuss, try. 00;01;36;28 - 00;01;40;06 So I think we're really on the brink of something transformational. 00;01;40;29 - 00;01;42;06 Okay. Next. 00;01;42;09 - 00;01;44;00 Daniel. Hi. 00;01;44;02 - 00;01;45;21 Thanks for having me here today. 00;01;45;22 - 00;01;47;01 My name is Daniel Fusco. 00;01;47;01 - 00;01;51;22 I am the manager of public consultation in the Parks and Recreation department 00;01;51;25 - 00;01;52;23 at the City of Toronto. 00;01;52;24 - 00;01;57;18 So I lead a team of about 14 people, and we design and implement consultation 00;01;57;21 - 00;02;01;03 and engagement processes for mostly capital projects, 00;02;01;06 - 00;02;06;10 but also other projects that the Parks and Recreation Department is involved in. 00;02;06;13 - 00;02;10;26 I also teach at the University of Toronto and Toronto Metropolitan University. 00;02;10;29 - 00;02;14;10 I teach engagement and I am an openness in residents 00;02;14;13 - 00;02;17;12 this year at the University of Toronto School of Cities. 00;02;17;22 - 00;02;20;22 And my word, I think, is going to be hopeful. 00;02;20;29 - 00;02;25;00 I'm hopeful that engagement is evolving 00;02;25;03 - 00;02;30;26 in a really positive way towards better, enabling citizens 00;02;30;29 - 00;02;34;10 and residents to better contribute to government decision making. 00;02;35;07 - 00;02;39;19 Daniel, could you explain the engagement industry to me, 00;02;39;22 - 00;02;43;20 and where does technology and innovation sit in that industry? 00;02;44;06 - 00;02;44;17 Sure. 00;02;44;17 - 00;02;50;06 Well, the engagement industry is fundamentally focused on enabling 00;02;50;09 - 00;02;54;16 people to be involved meaningfully in decisions that affect them. 00;02;55;08 - 00;02;58;12 There are two typical approaches to engagement. 00;02;58;15 - 00;03;02;22 There's participatory approaches which look to involve as many people 00;03;02;25 - 00;03;07;03 as possible in sharing their views, their experiences, their ideas. 00;03;07;13 - 00;03;12;04 And that's using tools like surveys, polls, open houses, town halls. 00;03;12;16 - 00;03;15;14 And it tends to be what some people in the profession 00;03;15;17 - 00;03;19;11 refer to as thin engagement, meaning it activates people as individuals 00;03;19;14 - 00;03;22;10 but doesn't necessarily facilitate a conversation. 00;03;22;13 - 00;03;26;02 And then there's deliberative engagement, which puts a lot of emphasis 00;03;26;05 - 00;03;30;02 on the power of conversation and is more focused 00;03;30;05 - 00;03;34;11 on developing like a shared understand or consensus among participants 00;03;34;18 - 00;03;38;02 to help communities really think and decide together. 00;03;38;14 - 00;03;41;27 I'm in Canada and, Canada, I think is a leader 00;03;42;00 - 00;03;44;12 in both of these approaches, though participatory engagement 00;03;44;12 - 00;03;47;18 is sort of the primary form of engagement that takes place here. 00;03;47;21 - 00;03;50;28 And I think that's also the case elsewhere as well. 00;03;51;12 - 00;03;55;21 And I think, technology in my work 00;03;56;03 - 00;04;00;03 has played an increasingly important role 00;04;00;06 - 00;04;04;28 in our engagement processes, especially in the last ten years or so, 00;04;05;04 - 00;04;09;10 and really in a very accelerated way since the pandemic. 00;04;09;21 - 00;04;12;19 I would say that when I started my career in this field 00;04;12;22 - 00;04;16;04 about 15 years ago, we didn't use technology a lot in engagement. 00;04;16;07 - 00;04;18;06 A lot of it was all very analog. 00;04;18;09 - 00;04;21;21 You might have done a survey, maybe you reached 50 people, 00;04;22;04 - 00;04;25;29 but it wasn't really a major part of our processes. 00;04;26;15 - 00;04;30;11 Today, we are using technology 00;04;30;21 - 00;04;33;19 to help us reach more people in our processes. 00;04;33;22 - 00;04;37;24 So again, using tools like survey platforms, social mapping that allows 00;04;37;27 - 00;04;43;00 people to put pins and comments on maps and platforms like zoom and WebEx. 00;04;43;15 - 00;04;47;21 I would also say that the AI boom is having an impact on engagement 00;04;47;24 - 00;04;51;25 with new tools that are being released all the time that enable more meaningful 00;04;51;28 - 00;04;54;11 virtual conversations, or that help us to scale 00;04;54;11 - 00;04;56;12 and different engagement in different ways. 00;04;56;15 - 00;04;59;13 And my team, we engage a lot of people every year. 00;04;59;14 - 00;05;03;02 Last year we engaged 55,000 people in our work, 00;05;03;10 - 00;05;06;09 and most of those people are in fact engaged through technology, 00;05;06;12 - 00;05;10;05 mostly through standard surveys, but also through other methods. 00;05;10;14 - 00;05;14;25 And one of the things that I'm interested in is how we can use technology to move 00;05;14;28 - 00;05;19;05 beyond just engaging more people towards actually using it 00;05;19;07 - 00;05;22;23 to make engagement more meaningful for the people who are participating. 00;05;23;01 - 00;05;26;28 And so are you using technology right now to analyze that information? 00;05;27;01 - 00;05;29;24 That seems like a lot like it going from 50 to 50,000. 00;05;29;24 - 00;05;30;27 It's a drastic jump. 00;05;30;27 - 00;05;34;04 So do you want to talk a bit about that analytic side? 00;05;34;07 - 00;05;36;25 Where do people sit on the analytic side? 00;05;36;28 - 00;05;40;02 I'd like Emily to speak a bit about it too, but it is a challenge for us. 00;05;40;05 - 00;05;44;25 And one of the ways that we manage that is not really through AI yet, 00;05;44;28 - 00;05;50;01 although sometimes, but it's primarily through how we ask questions, right? 00;05;50;04 - 00;05;52;29 We try not to ask too many open ended questions in our surveys, 00;05;52;29 - 00;05;58;17 because we end up with data that is, can be very difficult to manage. 00;05;58;20 - 00;06;00;23 So coding the data is really important 00;06;00;23 - 00;06;02;10 if you're going to understand what people are saying. 00;06;02;10 - 00;06;05;03 And if you're going to report back to people what you heard. 00;06;05;06 - 00;06;08;17 So you've got to look at every piece of feedback that you get in a survey. 00;06;08;20 - 00;06;09;29 You've got to give it a code. 00;06;10;02 - 00;06;12;22 You've got to give it some theme, 00;06;12;25 - 00;06;15;09 so that you can then make sense of it later. 00;06;15;12 - 00;06;17;08 And so AI does help with that. 00;06;17;11 - 00;06;21;15 We've used AI a little bit to help us with that, including GHD. 00;06;21;18 - 00;06;26;01 It's own unpack, but I would say we're not really 00;06;26;05 - 00;06;30;05 at a point where we're using that kind of technology consistently. 00;06;30;11 - 00;06;35;15 Where we are using AI a little bit is more in how we engage people. 00;06;36;05 - 00;06;37;11 Emily, do you want to add to that? 00;06;37;12 - 00;06;38;20 I think I'm on consulting side. 00;06;38;20 - 00;06;41;20 You're getting multiple perspectives, and I'm sure you're seeing 00;06;41;23 - 00;06;45;09 a lot of movement in how AI is enabling community engagement. 00;06;45;12 - 00;06;47;06 So I'd love to hear your thoughts. 00;06;47;09 - 00;06;47;21 Yeah. 00;06;47;21 - 00;06;48;19 I mean, 00;06;48;22 - 00;06;53;15 there's so much going on right now that it is very invigorating and exciting. 00;06;53;29 - 00;06;57;23 Because I'm starting to see in the industry this shift towards 00;06;57;26 - 00;07;01;20 wanting to do things better and almost 00;07;02;07 - 00;07;06;04 like a really palpable desire for organizations 00;07;06;09 - 00;07;12;07 to be trying new things, to be exploring AI in pilots, in tests, 00;07;12;15 - 00;07;17;03 to really start building their own AI literacy and their comfort with AI. 00;07;17;19 - 00;07;20;12 And from an industry standpoint, to Daniel's 00;07;20;12 - 00;07;23;12 point of the difference 00;07;23;15 - 00;07;27;00 and the emphasis put on in-person engagement versus online engagement. 00;07;27;17 - 00;07;30;01 I just want to echo that over the last ten years, we've seen 00;07;30;01 - 00;07;32;04 that when I first started an engagement, 00;07;32;07 - 00;07;35;10 online engagement was like this tiny little sliver of the budget. 00;07;35;20 - 00;07;38;25 You know, maybe we could do something, but it didn't have that much impact. 00;07;38;28 - 00;07;41;28 And now we're just seeing that totally flip. 00;07;42;03 - 00;07;46;05 Now, lots of valuable room for in-person and the dialog that you can have 00;07;46;08 - 00;07;49;19 with people, the connections you can make, the stories 00;07;49;22 - 00;07;53;27 you can hear, like the deep, kind of awesome, impactful work 00;07;54;00 - 00;07;58;23 that engagement practitioners do, will always be the most important. 00;07;59;02 - 00;08;02;15 So I'm curious to see how the industry can adopt 00;08;02;18 - 00;08;05;10 things like AI or test things like AI. 00;08;05;13 - 00;08;08;12 Elevate our time spent doing that really deep 00;08;08;15 - 00;08;11;25 personal work, because that's why people get into engagement. 00;08;12;13 - 00;08;15;01 And so with technology, with the onset of AI, 00;08;15;01 - 00;08;20;25 we've seen a real opportunity to use AI in analysis of qualitative feedback. 00;08;21;09 - 00;08;25;17 Often engagement strategies across all different types of client types. 00;08;25;20 - 00;08;30;15 You know, public and private sector both tend to defer to quantitative questions, 00;08;30;28 - 00;08;34;08 tend to defer to a typical type of survey that I'm sure 00;08;34;11 - 00;08;38;01 everyone listening has completed, and there hasn't been innovation there 00;08;38;04 - 00;08;39;19 in a significant way. 00;08;39;22 - 00;08;40;28 And there's lots of reasons for that. 00;08;40;28 - 00;08;45;04 But I see one of the main reasons to deferring to quantity of is really just 00;08;45;07 - 00;08;50;22 our inability to analyze qualitative data at scale and it's perspectives. 00;08;50;25 - 00;08;52;21 It's rich, it's lived experience. 00;08;52;21 - 00;08;56;04 It's boots on the ground, people in communities 00;08;56;07 - 00;08;58;10 that are directly impacted by these projects. 00;08;58;10 - 00;09;01;17 So it's incredibly rich, valuable data. 00;09;01;28 - 00;09;06;15 And it's weird and seems dehumanizing to call it data, but it is actually data. 00;09;06;18 - 00;09;10;14 Once it comes to the practitioners analyzing it. 00;09;11;05 - 00;09;15;06 There's always been this elephant in the engagement space. 00;09;15;09 - 00;09;19;02 On how challenging that point of the engagement process really is. 00;09;19;20 - 00;09;21;23 And then it has systemic impacts, right? 00;09;21;23 - 00;09;27;11 So our struggles with analyzing data like that at scale, it's felt throughout 00;09;27;14 - 00;09;31;15 the decision making process, you know, things are seemed very high level. 00;09;31;18 - 00;09;34;15 Sentiment is positive, negative, neutral 00;09;34;15 - 00;09;37;26 which is not actionable or doesn't provide any insights. 00;09;38;09 - 00;09;42;11 And then decision makers are left often with data 00;09;42;14 - 00;09;46;23 or information or recommendations that are challenging to defend 00;09;47;07 - 00;09;50;08 or are too high level to really impact change. 00;09;50;24 - 00;09;54;27 So AI is just such a huge opportunity for us 00;09;55;00 - 00;09;59;16 because humans, we read and we forget, you know, when we code. 00;09;59;19 - 00;10;02;11 Daniel, like your teams go through all that coding, 00;10;02;11 - 00;10;05;11 we read ten comments, then we read another ten. 00;10;05;20 - 00;10;08;00 And our bias is coming into play there. 00;10;08;03 - 00;10;12;12 Our fatigue, our feeling that in that moment and we forget as humans, 00;10;12;15 - 00;10;17;12 we just don't have the human capability to really process data like that at scale. 00;10;17;21 - 00;10;20;12 And I can do that. I reads and remembers 00;10;20;12 - 00;10;24;13 and it makes connections and it is so much more valuable. 00;10;24;21 - 00;10;29;15 So I think we're at a moment right now where exploration in this space, 00;10;29;29 - 00;10;32;29 I think is required by engagement practitioners. 00;10;33;09 - 00;10;36;21 It's not that you need to go and throw all your stuff into copilot 00;10;36;24 - 00;10;40;03 or a publicly available large language model by any means. 00;10;40;19 - 00;10;41;29 We wouldn't suggest that. 00;10;42;02 - 00;10;44;29 But you know where along the engagement spectrum 00;10;44;29 - 00;10;48;26 on the process of engagement, can we try innovating? 00;10;49;02 - 00;10;50;18 Can we try exploring? 00;10;50;18 - 00;10;52;27 Because I think we have a duty to do that. 00;10;54;00 - 00;10;54;28 It seems like 00;10;54;28 - 00;11;00;12 technology is quite new to the industry, and practitioners have traditional methods 00;11;00;15 - 00;11;04;06 of using tech tools like the survey tools, or that in-person engagement 00;11;04;09 - 00;11;08;06 to really get that in-person discourse, like the emotional sentiment 00;11;08;09 - 00;11;09;23 of conversation. 00;11;09;26 - 00;11;12;25 Emily, you had some great points about using AI 00;11;12;26 - 00;11;16;00 to help reduce human bias and human unconscious bias. 00;11;16;03 - 00;11;19;02 So I'd love to know, what are you seeing when you're talking 00;11;19;05 - 00;11;22;06 to other individuals to answer your question. 00;11;22;09 - 00;11;23;26 Yeah, it's definitely a mixed bag. 00;11;23;27 - 00;11;27;24 Obviously, there's people who are into it and keen to explore on one side 00;11;27;27 - 00;11;30;06 and people who are quite resistant on the other, and that's fine. 00;11;30;07 - 00;11;33;18 Of course, that's not unique to using AI for engagement. 00;11;33;21 - 00;11;35;07 That's just AI in general. 00;11;35;10 - 00;11;38;24 But what I'm seeing specifically with using AI and analysis 00;11;38;27 - 00;11;42;24 of qualitative data, I'm seeing such a reaction in 00;11;43;09 - 00;11;45;29 that I actually have never seen before in my career. 00;11;46;02 - 00;11;51;27 So internally to PhD, the response from people is almost immediate 00;11;52;00 - 00;11;54;29 because it's not necessarily just applicable to engagement. 00;11;55;02 - 00;11;57;02 It's any type of qualitative data. 00;11;57;05 - 00;12;00;25 It's monitoring evaluation data, it's social science data. 00;12;00;28 - 00;12;05;08 It's any organization that has qualitative data 00;12;05;11 - 00;12;09;15 of any kind can benefit from exploring what I can do with it. 00;12;09;29 - 00;12;14;07 We had an interesting example where we looked at safety logs 00;12;14;10 - 00;12;15;18 for an environment project 00;12;15;18 - 00;12;19;03 where normally an incident happens and you fill out a form. 00;12;19;06 - 00;12;22;06 And it's important because safety is absolutely critical, 00;12;22;09 - 00;12;23;23 especially in engineering. 00;12;23;26 - 00;12;26;20 Then there's that section at the end where you add that qualitative data. 00;12;26;23 - 00;12;30;23 And so even going into that and pulling out that that experience 00;12;30;26 - 00;12;35;10 and pulling that sentiment out, and not just a sentiment that the context 00;12;35;13 - 00;12;37;24 of what they're saying and then looking through, you know, 00;12;37;24 - 00;12;40;24 hundreds or thousands of safety logs, what might you learn? 00;12;40;29 - 00;12;43;23 So we did a test on that, and it was incredible. 00;12;43;26 - 00;12;46;25 So the response I'm seeing is palpable. 00;12;46;28 - 00;12;48;18 People have excitement around it. 00;12;48;21 - 00;12;51;10 There's lots of questions on, you know, security. 00;12;51;10 - 00;12;53;01 What are the security measures? 00;12;53;04 - 00;12;54;16 Who owns the data? 00;12;54;19 - 00;12;57;01 Where does the data go? Where does it live? 00;12;57;04 - 00;13;00;05 All super important questions to be asking 00;13;00;08 - 00;13;04;29 anyone, getting into AI and working on behalf 00;13;05;02 - 00;13;07;19 or in service of stakeholders of any kind, 00;13;07;22 - 00;13;09;17 they have a duty to be asking those questions 00;13;09;20 - 00;13;13;28 and to be building those guardrails from an ethical standpoint 00;13;14;16 - 00;13;18;18 as well, around how we use it right now and how we don't, considering that it's 00;13;19;13 - 00;13;22;11 so yeah, the response has been great. 00;13;22;14 - 00;13;25;14 I think it's going to impact the entire engagement industry. 00;13;25;22 - 00;13;27;23 I think it's going to be disruptive. 00;13;27;26 - 00;13;29;20 Biggest change is disruptive. 00;13;29;23 - 00;13;33;23 There'll be some challenge in that as well for different types 00;13;33;26 - 00;13;38;15 of organizations or, practitioners who might not be so AI enabled. 00;13;38;29 - 00;13;41;06 I think we're going into a state of disruption. 00;13;41;09 - 00;13;44;06 So how are we taking care of the people that are going to feel 00;13;44;06 - 00;13;47;06 the impact of that is really, really important? 00;13;48;00 - 00;13;50;27 If I could just add to that, I'm struck by your comment, 00;13;51;00 - 00;13;55;15 Emily, that most people at GHD get excited about it. 00;13;55;22 - 00;13;58;22 And what I have experienced in the public sector 00;13;59;02 - 00;14;02;20 is that people are less excited, they're far more cautious. 00;14;03;00 - 00;14;06;09 They really lean into those questions that you identified, Emily, like, 00;14;06;18 - 00;14;08;01 is it secure? 00;14;08;04 - 00;14;10;10 Do we have to worry about privacy? 00;14;10;13 - 00;14;11;24 Is there bias? 00;14;11;27 - 00;14;14;26 How are people going to react to the idea 00;14;14;26 - 00;14;17;25 of using AI to make sense of their feedback? 00;14;18;06 - 00;14;22;04 I think public servants are trained to be a lot more cautious 00;14;22;07 - 00;14;25;07 and to see the potential roadblocks to something. 00;14;25;17 - 00;14;28;22 And so I think there's a lot of work to be done still in the industry. 00;14;28;25 - 00;14;29;21 I agree with Emily. 00;14;29;21 - 00;14;32;22 I think it will be disruptive, but I think we have a little bit of ways 00;14;32;25 - 00;14;38;10 to go before that's a reflected in the way it gets used to the public sector. 00;14;38;17 - 00;14;42;05 And Daniel, like, how are you answering those types of questions? 00;14;42;08 - 00;14;42;15 Right. 00;14;42;15 - 00;14;45;15 Like as a person that's advocating for technology and innovation. 00;14;45;23 - 00;14;48;25 What are the things that help with that dialog 00;14;48;28 - 00;14;53;03 when you're addressing something like ethics or even data ownership 00;14;53;07 - 00;14;54;26 or even bias, like unconscious 00;14;54;26 - 00;14;57;25 bias that exists in humans, and maybe also technology? 00;14;57;28 - 00;15;00;25 Exactly. Look, I'm not an expert in AI. 00;15;00;25 - 00;15;03;25 I'm an expert in engagement, so I don't have all the answers. 00;15;04;06 - 00;15;07;05 You know, when people are concerned, I think what you just said 00;15;07;08 - 00;15;08;07 is absolutely true. 00;15;08;08 - 00;15;10;12 Like, there's human bias as well. 00;15;10;15 - 00;15;12;16 There's always going to be some form of bias. 00;15;12;16 - 00;15;12;27 And I think 00;15;12;27 - 00;15;16;18 Emily did a really good job of explaining why human bias can be problematic 00;15;16;21 - 00;15;19;21 and the challenges with having humans do this, some of this work, 00;15;20;00 - 00;15;23;15 and how things can fall through the cracks and be missed or misinterpreted. 00;15;24;05 - 00;15;25;19 So there's that piece. 00;15;25;19 - 00;15;30;25 When people talk about privacy and security, I wonder why 00;15;31;07 - 00;15;35;27 that is such an important consideration when we're talking about feedback 00;15;36;00 - 00;15;39;13 related to how a person wants a park designed. 00;15;40;00 - 00;15;42;09 I think it really matters with the subject matter 00;15;42;09 - 00;15;45;27 is in relation to how important that question is. 00;15;46;13 - 00;15;49;15 So, you know, how I respond depends on the context. 00;15;49;18 - 00;15;51;29 But these are some of the arguments that I make. 00;15;52;02 - 00;15;54;21 You know what excites me too about what you just said. 00;15;54;24 - 00;15;57;25 Yes. Like public sector a little slower, a little bit more cautious 00;15;57;28 - 00;16;01;00 private, a little bit more gung ho for different reasons. 00;16;01;10 - 00;16;05;04 To me, those are both so valuable, right. 00;16;05;07 - 00;16;09;20 Like bringing those public private partnerships that actually bring both 00;16;09;23 - 00;16;13;25 of those very essential perspectives to the table. 00;16;14;07 - 00;16;18;04 Creates the dialog that is deliberative 00;16;18;11 - 00;16;22;07 so that that sits on, you know, what is the art of the possible 00;16;22;10 - 00;16;24;28 and what needs to be considered and what is the current state, 00;16;24;28 - 00;16;29;04 and what's the future desired state that we want and what needs to be planned 00;16;29;07 - 00;16;34;12 and guardrails and what doors do we need to open to explore along that journey? 00;16;34;23 - 00;16;37;25 I think that that is where the power of partnerships is really going 00;16;37;26 - 00;16;43;04 to come in to make those sustainable, lasting decisions on projects. 00;16;43;07 - 00;16;45;06 But also how to embrace AI. 00;16;45;09 - 00;16;46;23 I think that's such a cool opportunity, 00;16;46;23 - 00;16;49;21 because won't that make the dialog so much better 00;16;49;24 - 00;16;53;13 when you bring those perspectives all into the room to solve one problem? 00;16;53;28 - 00;16;55;06 That kind of excites me. 00;16;55;09 - 00;16;56;20 Emily, I have a question for you. 00;16;56;21 - 00;17;00;12 How does an AI enabled community engagement strategy differ 00;17;00;15 - 00;17;01;22 from the traditional models, 00;17;01;22 - 00;17;04;20 like speaking to what you're just saying about public private partnerships? 00;17;04;23 - 00;17;09;03 Like, I'd love to know your thoughts on using AI for community engagement. 00;17;10;04 - 00;17;12;26 One thing I'll correct there is for a community engagement 00;17;12;26 - 00;17;16;26 strategy to be AI enabled is, I think, maybe the wrong language 00;17;17;05 - 00;17;21;03 because community engagement is enabled by many other things. 00;17;21;15 - 00;17;25;10 I think it's an AI supported engagement process. 00;17;25;27 - 00;17;29;01 AI is a tool that engagement practitioners are using. 00;17;29;08 - 00;17;31;02 So what kind of tools do we have access to? 00;17;31;03 - 00;17;32;23 How do we use those? 00;17;32;26 - 00;17;36;07 How do we build it into how we collect feedback? 00;17;36;10 - 00;17;38;27 How do we build it into how we analyze it? 00;17;39;00 - 00;17;40;16 What do we explore? 00;17;40;19 - 00;17;46;14 What I've seen just from the analytics component of it is the efficiency. 00;17;46;17 - 00;17;49;16 The efficiency and the quality 00;17;49;25 - 00;17;53;15 at scale and the consistency in that analysis. 00;17;54;01 - 00;17;57;21 It's almost mind blowing to me, because I've never been able to do that 00;17;57;24 - 00;18;01;04 or see that as an engagement practitioner in a meaningful way. 00;18;01;14 - 00;18;04;10 My experience doing it, which is where the innovation came from, 00;18;04;13 - 00;18;07;12 was a project where we got so many comments. 00;18;07;12 - 00;18;11;03 We had 10,000 open ended, amazing values based comments back, and I was like, 00;18;11;06 - 00;18;14;03 oh man, how am I going to do this justice? 00;18;14;06 - 00;18;17;04 And so that's the initial problem it's solving. 00;18;17;07 - 00;18;20;06 Is the practitioner in our ability to analyze data. 00;18;20;15 - 00;18;24;06 But then we've seen, you know, over the past couple of years of doing this 00;18;24;20 - 00;18;27;20 actually how many other systemic impacts it can really have. 00;18;28;04 - 00;18;31;03 And what it really means to be able to have data 00;18;31;06 - 00;18;35;02 driven, defensible results in an engagement report 00;18;35;11 - 00;18;39;16 where when something is questioned, you can point to data to support it. 00;18;40;03 - 00;18;41;24 I just think that's so invigorating 00;18;41;26 - 00;18;45;00 and the possibilities for how we might use that. 00;18;45;19 - 00;18;48;19 I'm not saying that I should run engagement by any means. 00;18;48;29 - 00;18;51;20 It is the people who need to run engagement. 00;18;51;20 - 00;18;57;01 And how might integration of AI elevate that person's experience of their job? 00;18;57;06 - 00;18;59;25 Their experience being in the community? 00;18;59;28 - 00;19;04;04 How can we use it as a tool to have greater impact? 00;19;04;27 - 00;19;07;21 And so where do people sit with that? 00;19;07;22 - 00;19;08;04 Is it 00;19;08;04 - 00;19;13;04 that they're they're assigning the themes that inform how the tool is being used? 00;19;13;07 - 00;19;17;07 Is it something that you have to do in an iterative approach where you know 00;19;17;09 - 00;19;19;29 you're going through the process and then you recognize, 00;19;19;29 - 00;19;22;27 hey, I need to actually change the way we're tagging all of this 00;19;22;29 - 00;19;25;28 information or the outcome here is quite surprising. 00;19;26;01 - 00;19;29;01 Maybe the information was clustered in an interesting way. 00;19;29;05 - 00;19;30;23 What are you noticing? 00;19;30;26 - 00;19;32;26 Yeah, I might jump to you, Daniel, in a second, 00;19;32;26 - 00;19;35;14 but I will say that it's not often a one person. 00;19;35;17 - 00;19;37;13 Oh, it should always be more than that. 00;19;37;16 - 00;19;39;21 Daniel, I might actually throw to you even. 00;19;39;21 - 00;19;41;20 Maybe if you think back, like two years ago. 00;19;41;20 - 00;19;43;01 I know you have data scientists. 00;19;43;01 - 00;19;46;24 Even in your team, which I think is probably quite unique to engagement. 00;19;47;08 - 00;19;50;08 What was the current state two years ago for analysis? 00;19;50;22 - 00;19;52;23 Well, it wasn't that sophisticated. 00;19;52;23 - 00;19;55;29 I would say. We would pull up a spreadsheet 00;19;57;17 - 00;19;59;27 and every comment would have 00;19;59;29 - 00;20;03;24 a theme or a code attached to it, and you go through each comment. 00;20;04;15 - 00;20;05;26 It is kind of iterative. 00;20;05;29 - 00;20;10;09 So typically the way my team has worked is we would just code as we go. 00;20;10;25 - 00;20;16;00 And that became very, very problematic for us recently, 00;20;16;03 - 00;20;21;11 with a, a survey that we ran that was quite robust. 00;20;21;14 - 00;20;25;23 I will say we surveyed, Torontonians 00;20;25;26 - 00;20;31;06 about their feelings about their parks and how they wanted to see parks. 00;20;31;09 - 00;20;36;14 So, you know, overall, our approach to how we build and manage our parks evolves. 00;20;36;29 - 00;20;40;04 And so we got a lot of feedback from thousands of people. 00;20;40;21 - 00;20;44;00 And, that's when Emily and I met, actually, 00;20;44;03 - 00;20;47;03 and I was telling Emily about this problem. 00;20;47;09 - 00;20;50;01 And that's when she told me about unpack. 00;20;50;04 - 00;20;53;00 So what we had been doing was multiple 00;20;53;00 - 00;20;56;26 team members spending hours a day slowly 00;20;56;29 - 00;21;01;09 going through this data and very slowly coding it. 00;21;01;12 - 00;21;06;02 And there was just this huge database that was extremely unwieldy. 00;21;06;23 - 00;21;10;02 And so we were able to bring GHD on board 00;21;10;05 - 00;21;13;04 to help us manage this data. 00;21;13;07 - 00;21;17;14 And I think Emily told me after a while, they were sort of looking at the data 00;21;17;17 - 00;21;20;05 that because of the way the survey was designed, 00;21;20;08 - 00;21;22;21 it was really like because there was a lot of branching in it. 00;21;22;24 - 00;21;26;24 So really there were like 3000 surveys in that one survey. 00;21;26;27 - 00;21;29;00 So, so much data. 00;21;29;03 - 00;21;33;21 And the way we had coded it just I don't want to say it was a bit of a mess, but 00;21;34;09 - 00;21;36;06 because I don't I don't mean to put anyone down. 00;21;36;07 - 00;21;37;17 Everyone was doing their best. 00;21;37;17 - 00;21;41;10 It was just so unwieldy that it was really difficult to take 00;21;41;13 - 00;21;46;14 a systematic approach to the coding in a way that really made sense. 00;21;46;20 - 00;21;49;27 It was going to take a lot of work to clean up those codes, 00;21;50;10 - 00;21;54;29 and then unpack was able to do that work for us in the span of a week. 00;21;55;16 - 00;21;58;14 We gave for a week for our listeners. 00;21;58;17 - 00;22;01;18 Emily, do you want to just briefly talk about one item pack? 00;22;01;18 - 00;22;05;07 Is GHD pack is an engagement offering 00;22;05;10 - 00;22;08;28 where we go all the way back to what kind of questions are you asking? 00;22;09;07 - 00;22;11;00 What's the purpose of that question? 00;22;11;03 - 00;22;13;04 What are the objectives of asking that question? 00;22;13;04 - 00;22;14;26 What do you actually want to know from it? 00;22;14;29 - 00;22;17;22 And is there an opportunity to ask an open 00;22;17;22 - 00;22;22;00 ended question that is going to elicit richer feedback? 00;22;22;09 - 00;22;25;05 Because now we have the ability to analyze that type of feedback. 00;22;25;05 - 00;22;27;04 And we know that when you ask 00;22;27;04 - 00;22;30;24 better quality questions, you get better quality feedback. 00;22;31;01 - 00;22;34;07 That's true in one on one conversations with people. 00;22;34;11 - 00;22;38;21 I'm sure many people have can recall a really great conversation 00;22;38;24 - 00;22;40;04 that they were a part of, 00;22;40;07 - 00;22;44;04 and it probably had some really quality questions in there. 00;22;44;10 - 00;22;46;28 So it's also applicable at the macro level. 00;22;47;01 - 00;22;49;21 So we started it a couple of years ago. 00;22;49;24 - 00;22;53;18 We were piloting it around the world, and it's really just changed 00;22;53;21 - 00;22;59;00 my entire perspective on engagement and has brought out that elephant of, 00;22;59;03 - 00;23;02;15 oh wow, this is such a critical part of engagement 00;23;02;28 - 00;23;05;29 that Daniel, you guys aren't the only ones that have that challenge. 00;23;06;04 - 00;23;10;21 Everyone in engagement has that challenge globally or had it. 00;23;11;08 - 00;23;14;21 So whether you're public, whether you're private, if you collect 00;23;14;24 - 00;23;19;29 and look at stakeholder feedback, this challenge is applicable to you. 00;23;20;10 - 00;23;22;02 And we try our best in engagement. Right. 00;23;22;02 - 00;23;23;05 Because it's all we ever knew. 00;23;23;05 - 00;23;27;05 It's all we could do to do it manually and do our very best. 00;23;27;08 - 00;23;30;08 It's so labor intensive and costly. 00;23;30;14 - 00;23;33;10 So much resources going to that. 00;23;33;13 - 00;23;37;01 When a lot of engagement practitioners maybe didn't sign up to be in engagement 00;23;37;04 - 00;23;41;12 to sit behind Excel sheets, but rather, you know, how might this shift, 00;23;41;15 - 00;23;44;28 how we allocate our resources so that we can spend more time 00;23;45;01 - 00;23;48;19 in the community building connection, creating dialog 00;23;48;29 - 00;23;53;16 and take out this relative flawed process of analytics? 00;23;54;01 - 00;23;55;12 I think that's such a good point. 00;23;55;12 - 00;23;59;06 I just want to comment on that point because that's really hitting me. 00;23;59;09 - 00;24;02;00 Engagement specialists are engagement specialists. 00;24;02;00 - 00;24;03;16 We're not data scientists. 00;24;03;19 - 00;24;07;08 We would rather be facilitating a conversation, designing a process 00;24;07;25 - 00;24;10;00 than coding data. 00;24;10;03 - 00;24;11;24 It's just not our forte. 00;24;11;27 - 00;24;14;24 And so that's also why there's just 00;24;14;27 - 00;24;18;22 a lot of varied outcomes when it comes to to how data gets coded. 00;24;18;25 - 00;24;22;06 It's sometimes it's done successfully and sometimes it's done less successfully 00;24;22;25 - 00;24;25;28 because that's just not what we're actually trained to do. 00;24;26;01 - 00;24;29;13 You know, this very little time devoted maybe not 00;24;30;18 - 00;24;30;28 in my 00;24;30;28 - 00;24;34;18 education was devoted to how you code survey data. 00;24;34;21 - 00;24;35;19 Same, right. 00;24;35;22 - 00;24;37;12 So that's something you figure out on your own. 00;24;37;13 - 00;24;40;23 I mean, I teach it a bit in my class, but to be honest, 00;24;40;26 - 00;24;43;26 it's not something that I'm not interested in doing myself. 00;24;44;02 - 00;24;47;09 And data scientists love it like they love it. 00;24;47;12 - 00;24;50;25 Yeah, there are people out there that love it and they love it. 00;24;51;07 - 00;24;54;03 So I was going to ask like, does that mean engagement for tomorrow? 00;24;54;03 - 00;24;55;19 Like, what does the time dial look like? 00;24;55;19 - 00;24;58;08 Our engagement practitioners, engagement specialists 00;24;58;08 - 00;25;02;02 are they getting that time back to do the thing that they love with technology? 00;25;02;09 - 00;25;04;23 And Danielle, going back to this survey, 00;25;04;26 - 00;25;08;12 were you able to learn from the output to like redesign better surveys? 00;25;08;15 - 00;25;10;05 Like what does that look like? 00;25;10;08 - 00;25;12;25 You know, we're in a process of learning. 00;25;12;28 - 00;25;15;11 And I to be honest, I haven't spent much time 00;25;15;11 - 00;25;18;16 with the outcomes of the work that Emily's team has done. 00;25;18;19 - 00;25;20;22 You went on vacation real quick. 00;25;20;22 - 00;25;22;25 I went on vacation. To be fair. That's true. 00;25;22;26 - 00;25;27;03 I've been away for a while, and I also I'm the manager of the team, 00;25;27;06 - 00;25;32;08 so I don't always get super involved in the weeds of the projects. 00;25;32;25 - 00;25;37;03 But we do always try to learn something from every experience. 00;25;37;06 - 00;25;40;21 We definitely learned something about the complexity of that survey, 00;25;41;10 - 00;25;44;20 about open ended questions and the challenge with open ended 00;25;44;23 - 00;25;48;01 questions, and when it's best to ask them and when it's not. 00;25;48;13 - 00;25;51;12 And as the value of these tools 00;25;51;15 - 00;25;54;25 to help us do all that work better. 00;25;55;07 - 00;25;58;26 So maybe if we chatted again in a year, I'd be able to answer that 00;25;58;28 - 00;26;00;19 question better. 00;26;00;22 - 00;26;03;08 But you know, we will definitely be thinking about it. 00;26;03;08 - 00;26;07;24 And we absolutely will be tweaking our approach in order to 00;26;08;05 - 00;26;12;25 to not face those same challenges again or to be able to face them in a better way. 00;26;13;26 - 00;26;16;14 To build on it to we're exploring too. 00;26;16;15 - 00;26;16;25 Right. 00;26;16;25 - 00;26;20;14 Everybody is like, there's no absolute expert in this field. 00;26;21;00 - 00;26;23;19 There's just people who are trying and trying and have been trying 00;26;23;19 - 00;26;25;28 for a certain amount of time and trying in unique ways. 00;26;26;01 - 00;26;29;23 You know, when it comes to surveys, what I've explored 00;26;29;26 - 00;26;32;28 through this whole process and working with data scientists and teams 00;26;33;01 - 00;26;37;20 and really trying to get reflective and provoke thoughts within us 00;26;37;23 - 00;26;41;14 about how deep and meaningful this could be and what it could be. 00;26;41;27 - 00;26;43;04 What I've come to realize 00;26;43;05 - 00;26;46;27 is that survey design, I think, really needs to be innovated. 00;26;47;10 - 00;26;50;10 It's the same way it's been since surveys really came out. 00;26;50;14 - 00;26;53;13 Now you can branch surveys and you could do some things with it. 00;26;53;16 - 00;26;57;24 But I think the social science and behind surveys 00;26;57;27 - 00;27;00;25 and how people take them and what is the best approach 00;27;00;25 - 00;27;04;21 for different types of groups like I know Daniel, you guys had a long option 00;27;04;24 - 00;27;06;08 and a short option. 00;27;06;11 - 00;27;10;17 Like I think there's so much possibility to change for the better. 00;27;10;25 - 00;27;14;28 How surveys are constructed and the analytics, how you're going 00;27;15;01 - 00;27;19;20 to analyze the data needs to be at that point in the conversation. 00;27;20;01 - 00;27;23;17 When you're building the strategy for how you're going to engage, 00;27;24;00 - 00;27;26;20 analytics needs to be in that conversation 00;27;26;20 - 00;27;29;29 because you need to build something that can be appropriately analyzed. 00;27;30;07 - 00;27;33;08 And that there's often a disconnect in engagement with that. 00;27;33;23 - 00;27;36;16 So I think there's a lot of potential, of course. 00;27;36;16 - 00;27;40;17 And I think we just have such an opportunity to harness data science 00;27;40;20 - 00;27;45;14 and decision science and survey science to really elevate engagement 00;27;45;23 - 00;27;49;25 in a way that has a more direct impact on the decisions that are being made. 00;27;50;12 - 00;27;51;04 That's what I want 00;27;51;04 - 00;27;55;17 the future to look like is engagement is valuable without question. 00;27;55;25 - 00;27;56;13 Sometimes. 00;27;56;13 - 00;28;00;11 Now there's questions around how valuable it is in certain circumstances. 00;28;00;24 - 00;28;03;06 And I think we have an opportunity to do that. 00;28;03;09 - 00;28;05;17 I'd love to see this conversation a year from now. 00;28;05;18 - 00;28;07;15 You know, we should come back. 00;28;10;02 - 00;28;10;28 But I would add 00;28;10;28 - 00;28;13;25 to that, I mean, I totally agree with that comment, Emily. 00;28;13;28 - 00;28;17;08 And, you know, I think when we talk about engagement tomorrow 00;28;17;21 - 00;28;21;14 for me, technology is a part of that conversation. 00;28;22;00 - 00;28;24;03 It's certainly not all of it. 00;28;24;03 - 00;28;27;18 It's not even necessarily the most important part of it. 00;28;27;21 - 00;28;31;19 I think how we approach engagement is changing. 00;28;31;22 - 00;28;34;22 I think it needs to change more. 00;28;35;01 - 00;28;37;28 I think engagement needs to be come more embedded. 00;28;37;28 - 00;28;40;09 I think it needs to become more deliberative. 00;28;40;10 - 00;28;45;08 As I talked about earlier, I think it needs to become more co-creative. 00;28;45;11 - 00;28;48;22 We need to establish stronger feedback loops 00;28;48;25 - 00;28;51;24 where we kind of share back what we heard with people. 00;28;51;27 - 00;28;56;24 And I think increasingly, engagement to our will be supported by technology 00;28;56;27 - 00;29;02;05 such as AI tools that help us to scale engagement in different ways, 00;29;02;15 - 00;29;06;28 like helping us to synthesize conversations or visualize patterns, 00;29;07;08 - 00;29;10;06 but also in a lot of different ways as well. 00;29;10;06 - 00;29;14;01 And, I was talking to Emily earlier today about this paper 00;29;14;19 - 00;29;15;28 put out by this organization 00;29;15;28 - 00;29;19;25 that I have done some work with called democracy Next, called Five Dimensions 00;29;19;28 - 00;29;23;21 of Scaling Democratic Deliberation with and beyond AI. 00;29;24;09 - 00;29;25;27 One is scaling out. 00;29;25;27 - 00;29;29;17 So that's about using AI to increase the number of people 00;29;29;20 - 00;29;32;01 who are participating in deliberative processes. 00;29;32;01 - 00;29;36;26 And remember, that means like conversation based processes, scaling up. 00;29;37;03 - 00;29;41;12 So using technology to facilitate deliberation happening at higher 00;29;41;15 - 00;29;44;28 levels of governance, like national and transnational levels of governance. 00;29;45;09 - 00;29;46;22 Scaling across. 00;29;46;22 - 00;29;50;11 So using AI to increase the number of deliberative processes 00;29;50;14 - 00;29;55;27 in government and other institutions, scaling deep, which is about using 00;29;56;00 - 00;30;00;28 AI to increase the impact of deliberation by institutionalizing it 00;30;01;23 - 00;30;04;20 and then scaling in, which is about actually increasing 00;30;04;20 - 00;30;07;00 the quality of the deliberation when it's happening. 00;30;07;03 - 00;30;12;11 So I'm most interested, in the promise of scaling across. 00;30;12;14 - 00;30;16;08 So I would love to see more deliberative engagement processes 00;30;16;18 - 00;30;19;18 happening all across society. 00;30;19;24 - 00;30;23;07 I would like to see AI help us to scale deep 00;30;23;12 - 00;30;28;14 so that we can adopt these tools more effectively as institutions, 00;30;29;00 - 00;30;32;15 and then scaling in so that we can improve the quality of the operation. 00;30;32;18 - 00;30;35;03 So how does I do all that stuff? 00;30;35;03 - 00;30;36;16 I have no idea. 00;30;38;18 - 00;30;40;09 I mean, I have a little bit of an idea. 00;30;40;10 - 00;30;42;17 Yeah. But I'm, you know, I'm interested in learning. 00;30;42;18 - 00;30;44;12 I have an open mind. 00;30;44;15 - 00;30;47;02 Daniel is at all a part of deliberative dialog. 00;30;47;05 - 00;30;49;20 I know that's something that you specialize in. 00;30;49;20 - 00;30;51;21 And so I actually want to ask, what is it, 00;30;51;22 - 00;30;54;11 why is it important and how my I enhance it. 00;30;54;12 - 00;30;58;00 But I think you might have just started on that to just answer that. 00;30;58;03 - 00;31;00;18 You answer that question. 00;31;00;21 - 00;31;02;29 Well, we could talk a little bit more about like what it is. 00;31;03;00 - 00;31;03;22 Sure. Yeah. 00;31;03;25 - 00;31;07;04 So it's basically like thoughtful discussion 00;31;07;10 - 00;31;11;22 that's aimed at making well-informed decisions together. 00;31;12;14 - 00;31;16;28 So in a deliberative process, you get people to talk to one another. 00;31;17;16 - 00;31;18;19 And what's important 00;31;18;19 - 00;31;22;00 in a deliberative process isn't really what each individual wants, 00;31;22;03 - 00;31;26;28 which is what's important when you're surveying people, for example, right? 00;31;27;01 - 00;31;30;18 When you're doing a participatory process, it's actually what the group 00;31;30;27 - 00;31;34;04 can move forward with together, right? 00;31;34;07 - 00;31;37;07 What the group feels comfortable moving forward with together. 00;31;37;13 - 00;31;41;05 And so in a deliberative process, you ask people to listen 00;31;41;08 - 00;31;44;28 to different perspectives with an open mind, to ask questions 00;31;45;01 - 00;31;48;15 of other people to share their views, to share their lived experience. 00;31;48;27 - 00;31;54;05 Two way trade offs focus on the common good and build off each other's ideas, 00;31;54;16 - 00;31;58;04 and these processes are typically focused on a few key principles. 00;31;58;07 - 00;32;00;13 One is representative participation. 00;32;00;16 - 00;32;03;14 So in a deliberative process, you try to bring together a group 00;32;03;14 - 00;32;03;29 that looks 00;32;03;29 - 00;32;07;07 as much as possible, like the people who are going to be impacted by a decision. 00;32;07;21 - 00;32;11;15 And one of the ways we do that is through civic lotteries, 00;32;12;04 - 00;32;14;16 where people volunteer to participate. 00;32;14;16 - 00;32;17;01 They fill out a survey of their demographics. 00;32;17;04 - 00;32;21;00 We've already done some research to determine 00;32;21;03 - 00;32;25;05 what the demographic makeup of the group should look like based on, again, 00;32;25;13 - 00;32;28;13 what the community looks like, what the demographics of the community are. 00;32;29;00 - 00;32;32;03 And then you pick people randomly, 00;32;32;06 - 00;32;34;19 but you control for those demographics, by the way. 00;32;34;19 - 00;32;36;05 I can help with that as well. 00;32;36;05 - 00;32;38;08 And it is used in that way. 00;32;38;11 - 00;32;42;13 You want to make sure that the group will have a meaningful influence on a process. 00;32;42;29 - 00;32;45;19 To do that, they need a clear purpose and mandates. 00;32;45;19 - 00;32;47;18 They need a lot of clarity as to what exactly 00;32;47;18 - 00;32;49;23 their role is in the overall process. 00;32;49;26 - 00;32;53;20 You need to give them a lot of information so that they can really make sense 00;32;53;23 - 00;32;56;23 of what they're being asked, and make an informed decision. 00;32;57;02 - 00;33;00;07 You need to give them time to have those conversations. 00;33;00;24 - 00;33;04;05 Often, you ask the participants in the process to 00;33;04;08 - 00;33;06;00 develop the reports themselves, 00;33;06;00 - 00;33;10;08 or at least to have a say in those reports once they've been developed. 00;33;10;27 - 00;33;14;04 You want to be transparent as much as possible with the wider public, 00;33;14;07 - 00;33;18;00 so they know what's happening is they want to and oftentimes 00;33;18;03 - 00;33;22;10 also people will, point to the need for independent facilitation. 00;33;22;13 - 00;33;26;11 So people who are not associated with the sponsoring organization 00;33;26;14 - 00;33;30;14 running those processes, although that's not a principle 00;33;30;17 - 00;33;33;24 that we adhere to in Parks and Rec, we're trying to be 00;33;33;26 - 00;33;37;03 as innovative and, sort of forward thinking as possible. 00;33;37;06 - 00;33;41;07 And so we as an engagement team, act as this kind of independent group 00;33;41;21 - 00;33;44;22 from the rest of the division while still being embedded in it. 00;33;44;25 - 00;33;46;11 And that's kind of how we describe it. 00;33;46;14 - 00;33;49;25 So all that to say that I think that 00;33;50;03 - 00;33;55;12 this is the future of engagement is these kinds of processes 00;33;55;15 - 00;33;57;11 where you're actually having people talk to one another 00;33;57;11 - 00;34;00;19 because we don't know how to talk to one another anymore. 00;34;01;12 - 00;34;02;26 That's so interesting. 00;34;02;26 - 00;34;05;26 Yeah, that is crazy because that is like your field. 00;34;06;03 - 00;34;06;21 Yeah. 00;34;06;24 - 00;34;11;04 I'm just sitting here like, yes, I literally had to make a noise for you 00;34;11;06 - 00;34;16;08 then like, no, my agreement with that is we see that in organizations too. 00;34;16;14 - 00;34;17;17 And I've seen that over the past 00;34;17;17 - 00;34;21;05 couple of years in my previous role working with leadership teams. 00;34;21;15 - 00;34;24;14 Leadership teams make decisions, they collect 00;34;24;17 - 00;34;27;17 information, they understand what's going on in an organization. 00;34;27;22 - 00;34;29;03 They deliberate. 00;34;29;06 - 00;34;31;23 But what is that deliberative process look like? 00;34;31;23 - 00;34;35;10 What's that decision making process look like for different types of decisions? 00;34;35;25 - 00;34;39;07 I've been entrenched in work internally inside organizations 00;34;39;10 - 00;34;40;17 in the past couple of years. 00;34;40;20 - 00;34;43;19 Seeing what kind of engagement techniques 00;34;43;19 - 00;34;47;15 from public engagement can we pull into an organization? 00;34;47;18 - 00;34;52;00 Because an organization is inherently a community of people. 00;34;52;12 - 00;34;55;04 There's lots of literature about that. 00;34;55;04 - 00;34;59;01 But what if you treat an organization like you would treat a community? 00;34;59;16 - 00;35;00;20 What might that look like? 00;35;00;20 - 00;35;04;24 So things like deliberative dialog, Daniel, like really piqued my interest 00;35;04;27 - 00;35;10;08 because it's not only applicable to macro collaboration and macro engagement, 00;35;10;11 - 00;35;16;06 but also micro around the boardroom table or in a workshop with different 00;35;16;09 - 00;35;21;24 technical experts, you know, trying to come up with a path forward. 00;35;22;08 - 00;35;23;22 And I see it all the time. 00;35;23;22 - 00;35;27;08 People struggle in those environments because they're tricky, 00;35;27;28 - 00;35;31;01 deliberative dialog and figuring things out and perspectives 00;35;31;04 - 00;35;34;16 coming to the table and opinions 00;35;34;26 - 00;35;37;25 and sometimes for sure, emotions. 00;35;38;05 - 00;35;41;28 It's a people process, businesses, people. 00;35;42;08 - 00;35;43;23 So I'm really keen. 00;35;43;23 - 00;35;47;20 I think it'd be very cool to take the deliberative dialog process 00;35;47;23 - 00;35;48;29 that you're exploring there, Daniel, 00;35;48;29 - 00;35;51;29 and see what it can do at the boardroom table for sure. 00;35;52;08 - 00;35;54;02 You know, it's interesting 00;35;54;05 - 00;35;57;01 as much as this conversation was about technology, 00;35;57;01 - 00;36;01;10 and I felt more about culture change and just understanding 00;36;01;13 - 00;36;04;24 what processes we could put in place that can be enabled by technology. 00;36;04;27 - 00;36;07;28 So I like that we deep dive into that 00;36;08;01 - 00;36;11;19 element of even micro cultures, and Michael processes. 00;36;12;00 - 00;36;14;04 So I wanted to get closing remarks. 00;36;14;04 - 00;36;16;28 What do you both hope to see in the future? 00;36;16;28 - 00;36;18;06 We talked a little bit about the future, 00;36;18;06 - 00;36;21;06 but anything that you wanted to add for closing. 00;36;21;13 - 00;36;23;29 Yeah, I'll just say, you know, that 00;36;23;29 - 00;36;27;19 I have a lot of hope that we can harness 00;36;28;00 - 00;36;31;00 AI and other technological tools 00;36;31;04 - 00;36;35;05 to scale up to make these conversations 00;36;35;23 - 00;36;40;07 more regular, to make them happen more often, to make them more meaningful. 00;36;40;22 - 00;36;43;15 I could not agree more. 00;36;43;18 - 00;36;48;01 I just think stakeholder perspectives can sometimes be seen as a risk. 00;36;48;04 - 00;36;50;13 A lot of people see stakeholders as a risk. 00;36;50;16 - 00;36;56;10 It's very common, very common, and I really think that's the wrong mindset. 00;36;56;13 - 00;37;00;23 I think if we go into engagement with the mindset of I'm 00;37;00;26 - 00;37;04;07 going to mitigate this risk or I'm going to manage these stakeholders 00;37;04;21 - 00;37;07;25 and control it, I think it's the wrong mindset. 00;37;08;12 - 00;37;12;08 Risk mitigation might be an output of a really powerful engagement strategy. 00;37;12;25 - 00;37;15;18 But the mindset I think that we need to go into engagement 00;37;15;18 - 00;37;20;09 with is stakeholder perspectives are an asset to harness. 00;37;20;26 - 00;37;24;03 And if we can harness them well and we can create the right dialog 00;37;24;13 - 00;37;28;20 and we can understand their feedback at scale, I think we have the potential 00;37;28;23 - 00;37;32;06 to really make changes that I almost can't even imagine. 00;37;32;18 - 00;37;35;23 Would you change your word now that we're at the end of this conversation? 00;37;35;26 - 00;37;37;19 So are you still hopeful and optimistic? 00;37;37;19 - 00;37;40;12 Are you just curious? I think I'm both. 00;37;41;16 - 00;37;42;13 That's good. 00;37;42;16 - 00;37;43;16 Yeah. 00;37;43;19 - 00;37;46;19 Yeah I think curious is actually a great work. 00;37;47;05 - 00;37;49;06 It's very hopeful to be curious isn't it. 00;37;49;07 - 00;37;52;07 It's it's a great way to take on a new venture. 00;37;52;26 - 00;37;54;23 Thank you both so much. 00;37;54;23 - 00;37;57;21 We have such a delightful conversation and I hope we revisit this 00;37;57;24 - 00;38;01;02 in one year where all of our one year predictions come true. 00;38;01;05 - 00;38;02;07 And, yeah. 00;38;02;08 - 00;38;03;14 Thank you so much. 00;38;03;17 - 00;38;05;13 Look forward to it. Thank you for having me. 00;38;05;16 - 00;38;06;11 Thank you. Divya. 00;38;11;06 - 00;38;14;06 Brought to you by Nexus, Publish By GHD. 00;38;14;14 - 00;38;15;18 Where ideas connect