This NCDD Tech Tuesday featured Zilino, a web-based solution that enables practitioners to host deliberative online forums and other types of well structured, well facilitated engagement processes.
The webinar was hosted by Tim Bonnemann, founder and CEO of Intellitics, Inc., a long-time NCDD organizational member and co-sponsor of the 2012 NCDD Conference. Intellitics is a digital engagement startup based in San José, CA that helps its clients apply technology to support, enhance and extend participatory processes.
Intellitics is currently working with a non-profit on the East Coast to translate their in-person citizen deliberation process (National Issues Forum approach) into a meaningful online experience using Zilino. This session aimed to provide a brief overview of the tool and present insights from this ongoing project.
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Zilino NCDD Tech Tuesday presentation
1. NCDD Tech Tuesday
September 17, 2013
Hello, everyone. Thanks for joining us today! We’ll start with a brief conceptual overview of
Zilino followed by a recent case study and live demo. We have plenty of time reserved for
discussion. If you have any questions, please raise your hand or post in the chat box.
2. But first…
We usually hate to do this but since NCDD insisted that today’s presentation be a sales
pitch… here ya go! ;-)
* We’re kidding, of course. Pennsylvania residents do not need to apply sales tax.
3. Chapter 1: Context
Now with the sales pitch out of the way…
Let us tell you a little bit about who we are and what we do.
4. “GROUP PROCESS IS LIKE
BUILDING GREAT PLAYGROUNDS:
THE KIDS LOVE IT, ANYTHING IS
POSSIBLE, AND EVERYBODY GETS
HOME SAFE.”
Unknown source
Unfortunately, it’s not known who spoke these wise words (or maybe it’s just something I
made up myself this morning). At any rate, it’s useful because it helps us illustrate how we
think about digital engagement.
6. Plus, let’s not forget about the many, many ways in which technology is creating entirely new
opportunities for engagement today that weren’t even available just a few short years ago.
Let that sink in for a moment. The possibilities!
Photo credit:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dingopup/3800498100/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10297122@N00/4604468725/
7. Got Strategy?
Sure, it’s always oh so tempting to get giddy over the latest gadget, but to us that’s never
where the real conversation starts. Like you, we know it’s key to first understand the big
picture: What are we trying to accomplish? With whom? In what kind of environment and
under which circumstances?
Many factors must be considered, and only a thorough assessment will inform which tools
and technologies may be an appropriate choice. Realize that if we were talking to you today
about applying Zilino in an actual project context, we normally would have already gone
through the exercise of figuring out whether it’s a good fit to begin with.
Photo credit:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/35740357@N03/4726884403/
9. A web-based solution for hosting
deliberative online forums and other
types of well-structured, well-facilitated
participatory group processes.
Our current one-sentence product description. What do you think?
18. To sum it up, think of Zilino as kind of like a canvas that will—as it grows and matures over
time—enable you and your fellow practitioners to create beautiful participation experiences
for the people you serve in your organizations and communities.
Photo credit:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pmo/533680927/
21. Event Timeline
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Introductions,
issue guide Q&A
Perspective 1
Perspective 2
Start
End
Reflection &
closing
Survey
Perspective 3
Day
Invite
General process facilitation
Plenary
Roundtable
Pulse
Logbook
Content repository Library
We’re taking what is usually a 3-hour in-person event and are translating it into a week-long
asynchronous online process.
22. Activity by User
jea
fra
rog
pla
jkr
kgo
pjg
jul
ken
bet
jba
mar
wat
gre
sbs
she
alk
ell
has
lga
0 10 20 30 40
# Items
User
Participant comment
Admin post
Admin comment
Note: Usernames shortened for privacy purposes,“items” here refer to both posts and comments.
Engagement analytics! This is just one of the areas where we believe online environments can
truly shine. Web applications generate lots of data, and we are turning this information into
actionable insights to help practitioners manage and optimize their engagement flows. We’ve
started to prototype around a first set of metrics and expect the first version of our facilitator
dashboard to roll out this Fall. Here are four examples.
First, who is contributing and how much?
23. Time to Activation
fra
jul
pjg
wat
rog
jkr
mar
kgo
ken
jba
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
Time (in days)
Participant(active)
Time-to-activation
Second, how long does it take participants to activate, i.e. join the conversation? Our goal
with Zilino is to provide visibility into these kinds of dynamics in order to support the work of
the facilitators.
24. Word Count per Day
Note: Numbers do not include word count from content in the Zilino Library module or the project FAQ.
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
7000
05/28 05/29 05/30 05/31 06/01 06/02 06/03 06/04 06/05 06/06 06/07 06/08 06/09 06/10 06/11 06/12 06/13 06/14 06/15 06/16 06/17
Words
Date
Cumulative word count
Word count per day
Third, how is activity evolving over time?
27. During the live demo we’ll walk you through the project space used during round 2 of the
West Virginia project (http://firstthreeyears2.zilino.com). We’ll also show you how it takes
less than 5 minutes to create a new project. Of course, planning and preparing may take
quite a bit longer, but you knew that already.
Photo credit:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jocke66/3171422675/in/set-72157594149478018/
28. Chapter 5: Business
Public participation, community engagement, dialogue and deliberation—whatever you want
to call it, it’s usually a very consulting-dependent line of work. These things don’t ever run
on autopilot. We’re building Zilino with the keen understanding that the tools still require
someone who’s in the driver’s seat, someone skilled in group process. You can hire us, of
course, but we don’t want to be the only ones putting this tool to work. Instead, we want
other practitioners and consultants to use it and take it to their clients (and then tell us what
works and what doesn’t).
35. Intellitics
Digital Engagement Solutions
We are open for business! Get in touch if you’d like to learn more about how we can serve
your digital engagement needs.
You can email us at info@intellitics.com, or just give us a call at +1 (408) 596-2520.