How to... run a succesful Call for Ideas

Asking for people's ideas and suggestions is a simple and powerful way of allowing people to contribute.

With izwe's call for ideas each idea submitted can be viewed, commented on and voted for by other participants, allowing the best options to emerge from the aggregated thoughts and opinions of many. Here are some tips for successfully getting ideas on izwe

See here for technical instuctions for setting up and managing them

Why?

  • No other method is as simple for participants to use, as convenient for many people to take part in.
  • You can easily aggregate lots of views and get ideas from those who were previously not involved who have different and helpful perspectives.
  • Being able to see and interact with other people's suggestions lets those take part who perhaps don't have the skill or the time to articulate their suggestions themselves'

The Essentials

  • Ask the right question
  • Let the right people know
  • Know what you're going to do with the ideas

Key Guidance

Create a clear title

  • Think: 'would I be interested in giving an answer to this question?'

Know and communicate what will happen to the ideas

  • Integrate If you can, use them as a concrete part of a process. If you've got meetings coming up, make an important part of the meeting discussing how to take ideas forward.
    Similarly, whenever you are making plans, decisions, or seeking to form options, think: would it be useful to collect different ideas online? Remember that they can be invitee-only.
  • Motivate Competition structures work well to increase submission and voting, as the idea creator stands to gain and each vote has a clear effect on the outcome
  • Communicate Put this clearly in the description box. And if it is complicated, think about using a conversation 'info' page to explain the process
    for example: 'We're meeting in x weeks to go...', 'The three with the most votes will be...', 'We'll look over them all at this date'

Getting it going

  • Specifically ask a few identified stakeholders to kick off with ideas. This sets a constructive tone and encourages others

Publicise

  • Let the people know who might be interested
  • Know your communication channels well
  • Use social networks - both old-fashioned and online
  • Use new social media - contact local blogs as well as newspapers, twitter as well as radio
  • Try to get it circulating around email lists
  • Work up a quick press release with a story to it, for local radio and newspapers

Facilitate

  • Ask questions to develop ideas or get more input
  • Link up different ideas that are similar
  • Contact people and groups who you know of who might be interested in particular ideas to get their views, votes or opinions

Feedback

  • Depends on your process
  • At minimum, post a blog post with a brief overview of the ideas submitted, a notice of what you are doing and what the next steps are
  • The more detailed the feedback (whilst also being easy to understand), the better response you'll get

Taking them further

It can often be advantageous to harness the energy in the process so far and use the community you've built up to take the ideas further. Potential options include:

  • more specific forum threads or a survey to help develop particular ideas
  • groups set up around involving interested community members in taking particular ideas forward and working on them. This could be an ongoing collaboration with you (co-production) or groups might take ideas forward independently, working towards the change they would like to see.
Why not try...
  • Holding a competition! Prizes can range from simple things (vegetable box or voucher) to an amount of funding and a support package from local organisations to help people take their ideas further.
Combining with offline...

it might be that you are collecting these ideas in advance of an community or stakholder meeting, where those without online access can take part. But here are some other ideas for widening participation and helping to bridge the digital divide:

  • Encourage people to sign up as community collectors, going out and collecting ideas from people which they can then enter online.
  • Create a small flyer with a space for someone to fill in their idea, write their email address and include an address to send it to. Distribute them around town or get community groups to fill them in together
  • Provide a 'workshop pack' with a simple process people can follow to discuss the challenge with a community group they are part of and think about ways the challenge can be addressed. make sure you collect the outcome!
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