Project Summary Paragraph Please provide a summary of your project/program in 150 words or less.

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1 2013 COMMUNITY EXCELLENCE AWARDS Category Worksheet BEST PRACTICES, Civic Engagement Name of Local Government: Project/Program Title: City of Nanaimo e-town Hall - Bridging the Local Government Engagement Gap Project Summary Paragraph Please provide a summary of your project/program in 150 words or less. The City of Nanaimo believes in transparency and citizen engagement, and has developed an innovative tool to allow citizens to more easily participate in the democratic process: e-town Hall. e-town Hall allows Nanaimo residents to participate in live meetings using various mediums, including Facebook, Twitter, telephone, website submissions, and face-to-face interaction. The key component is a technological tool that collects questions automatically from all media channels, organizes them for easy moderation by senior staff, and displays the questions to the presenter and Council without disturbing the meeting. All of this takes place before a live audience and is also broadcast on television and the web. Project Analysis Please answer the question in 300 words or less in 11 pt Arial font (our judges value directness and brevity). If you experience difficulty answering a particular question, consider the aspects of your program that may relate to the question and show us how they are linked. Remember to include measurable results whenever possible. 1. INSPIRATION What was the inspiration behind the program/project? The City of Nanaimo is consistently looking for ways to improve civic engagement and enhance community understanding of local government challenges and priorities. The inspiration behind the project was to have the community involved in the budget process and actively participate in budget discussions, fostering community engagement and support for the financial plan. Traditionally, budget meetings have lower participation rates and the primary goal for the project was to increase the amount of interaction with citizens. In addition, in July 2012 the City of Nanaimo adopted the Strategic Plan, which has particular emphasis on Taking Responsibility and communications policies that support that. In addition to making changes and enhancements to Council meetings, Council has recently adopted a communications policy and strategy that is transparent, respectful, and uses two-way communication to facilitate strong internal and external communications.

2 2. GOALS What did you set out to accomplish with the program/project? How effectively did you meet your goals? The goal of the project was to improve civic engagement, which would ultimately result in enhanced community understanding of local government challenges and priorities, exposure to innovative ideas suggested by the public, and ensuring that Council has a clear understanding of the community s desires. The City s first e-town Hall Budget Meeting was held on March 25, 2013, starting at 7:00 pm in the Shaw Auditorium at the Vancouver Island Conference Centre, and was a resounding success. There was a dramatic increase in participation over previous years engagement attempts, and the volume of questions exceeded the allotted meeting time. Questions that were not able to be answered during the meeting were followed up the next meeting in a public report to Council. Measurable participation results are outlined below. 3. PARTICIPATION a. How was the community involved in your program/project? Please provide measurable results. In prior years, budget meetings have drawn less than five people to the auditorium to participate. The March 25th budget meeting increased participation by measurable amounts, demonstrated as follows: There were 139 viewers watching the online meeting using web broadcasting. There were 39 budget questions/comments that were communicated during the meeting, with an additional 12 questions/comments that were added after the meeting was closed, for a total of 51 questions. If there were multiple questions that were similar in nature, these were grouped together as one question and referred to as a trending question. The breakdown of the various mediums used is as follows: o Web form 36% o Twitter 28% o In Person 10% o Facebook 13% o Trending 8% o Telephone 5% o Total 100% Nanaimo s first e-town Hall meeting received favourable comments from participants and the community, and has also generated positive media attention. The event received local reporting coverage, and other community newspapers including Metro News and the Times Colonist also reported favourably on the event. 2

3 b. Tell us about all levels of teamwork involved in making this program/project possible. Include a description of any barriers or challenges it was necessary to overcome. In late December 2012, Councillor George Anderson--a strong user of social media--proposed that the City hold a budget town hall meeting and open it up for people to ask questions and make suggestions remotely. Council quickly adopted this proposal, and directed staff to find a way of increasing public engagement through online participation. The goal of this project was to further involve the public in the budget process, fostering community engagement and support for the financial plan. Several alternative methods for supporting a high level of interaction were discussed, and it was concluded that, to be successful, the town hall had to encourage broad participation. The City of Nanaimo s Information Technology Department created an application to manage the information flow from these various media channels with a lead time of under two weeks. In order to make the first e-town Hall meeting a success, the application needed to be created, tested, and ready for use at the March 25 th meeting. The amount of teamwork between Information Technology staff, Senior Leadership staff, and Council was remarkable. 4. ECONOMIC IMPACT How has the program/project saved the community money and/or resources or encouraged economic development? The technology was developed by the information technology staff members at the City of Nanaimo, so there was no incremental cost to creating the application. However, this is only a small part of the economic impact of the project. The e-town Hall meeting concept will allow all community members to provide input and feedback to Council. The first meeting was used in a budget context, but future Council meetings will be held in this format, which will allow all community members to provide their input and ideas. The ability to generate quality discussion regarding important issues that will impact the City s resources is invaluable, and will most certainly encourage economic development in the future. 5. ACCOUNTABILITY How has this program/project improved upon accountability to the community's citizens? The concept of the e-town Hall meeting is key when it comes to responding to the needs and expectations of citizens. It allows residents to easily provide their input and feedback, encouraging the participation of residents that wouldn t have otherwise contributed their thoughts and ideas. Increased civic engagement will help to shape the future of Canadian municipalities by providing a broader spectrum of participants. 3

4 6. AWARENESS How has this program/project created more awareness in the community about local government actions? The City of Nanaimo has placed a priority on continuous improvement in civic engagement, and creating more awareness in the community is a function of this objective. Local governments across Canada have recognized a lack of public engagement. Suspected reasons for this could include the requirement to attend a weeknight meeting, a reluctance to speak in public, and lack of available time. The e-town Hall meeting concept eliminates many of these barriers that have previously kept community members from becoming active in local government. In addition, by integrating local government actions with social media, City communication protocols are able to have a further reach. In this way, the City is able to connect with citizens and increase awareness in people that might not have otherwise participated in these important community discussions. 7. INNOVATION What makes this program/project innovative and creative? The innovativeness of this project is about creating a unique solution to address a problem that is common for municipalities stagnant or decreasing levels of civic engagement. The e-town Hall Budget Meeting was essentially an experiment to see if the use of social media and other electronic mediums would encourage higher levels of citizen participation. The results of the e-town Hall meeting are very encouraging and the City of Nanaimo will be conducting additional meetings in this format in the future, with the overall goal of regular increased participation in issues facing the community. The concept of the e-town Hall meeting has also piqued the interest of other municipalities, and Capital Regional District (Victoria-area) Mayors have said that the event impressed them. Many municipalities are working on being able to live-stream Council meetings, and the concept of the e-town Hall meeting has added the element of real-time interaction. The e-town Hall meeting could easily be implemented by other municipalities, as the concept and the technology is easily transferable. 8. SUSTAINABILITY What measures have you put in place to ensure the continued operation of this initiative? (e.g. staff time, resources, financial) The success of the initial e-town Hall meeting will ensure the continued use of this technology. Community and Council feedback on the meeting was extremely positive, and Council has committed to holding more electronic Council meetings in the future. From a financial resource perspective, the technology has already been developed and the staff time has already been committed, so ongoing resources necessary to support this program are minimal. 4

5 9. BEST PRACTICES What sets this program/project apart as a winning idea? Why should it be considered a best practice, in comparison to other similar programs? This new enhanced meeting model could make major positive improvements to the number of residents that are participating in civic meetings, especially younger residents. This age group has been traditionally hard to reach, and research has shown that there have been declining civic participation rates among young people. The e-town Hall meeting would be a great initiative for other local governments, as the benefits are vast and far reaching, and the concept is transferable in the following ways: Adaptability and choice Community involvement can be achieved using a variety of different platforms and can be adapted to different community sizes and populations. Municipalities can pick and choose the mediums that would work for them. Flexibility the process can be changed and adjusted to meet the needs of the Community and their unique priorities. 10. TRANSFERABILITY How is this program/project transferable to other local governments? As outlined in the information above, the e-town Hall meeting is a concept that is directly transferable to other local governments. The City is willing to share its technology with other municipalities that wish to utilize this type of meeting model. There are three main technical components: Video Streaming Application this allows residents to watch online Council meetings that are indexed by agenda item. This combination of custom code, open source and commercial-off-the-shelf software, and commodity hardware provides an extremely costeffective and flexible solution. This was already in place before the City s first e-town Hall meeting, but had to be modified to include a question submission form and links to Twitter and Facebook for the e-town Hall meeting. Moderator Application this collects questions from Facebook and Twitter and from web forms designed for our switchboard operator and the public. These questions are displayed in a way that allows the moderator with a single click to promote the question to the presenter's queue or defer the question. Alternatively, the moderator may accumulate similar questions as a trending question to be addressed by Council and staff. Mobile Web Application this allows the presenter to see the selected questions on their ipad Mini, and mark them as asked in real time. A simple view-only application provides Council and staff insight into upcoming questions so that they have a short time to compose their thoughts before having to answer. 11. KNOWLEDGE SHARING 5

6 What helpful advice would you share with other communities looking to embark on a similar project? Though simple in concept, there are several key design decisions in this application that led to its success. 1) First, it was transparent to the public. Social media tools, web form, and telephone were all used natively, with no special requirements to participate in the town hall. If you were familiar with the media, the input method felt natural. On Facebook, the public posted a question on the event s wall. For Twitter, a special hashtag was used. For the web form, the user simply visited the City s website, was directed to a form, and clicked on the submit button. And for the phone, they called the City s main number. Finally, as with all of the City s public meetings, residents were welcome to participate in-person. 2) Second, it allowed staff and Council to feel comfortable with the information flow from the wild west of social media. With the combination of a moderation function, allowing filtering of duplicate or inappropriate input, along with early insight into upcoming questions, it quickly became apparent to participants that, if anything, this would be a more predictable experience than in-person questions. 3) Third, the single-click moderation and presentation functions allowed the meeting to flow seamlessly. By getting out of the way and letting the participants focus on the questions, the meeting felt natural to all, despite the novelty of the concept. 12. TELL US MORE Please share any other information you think may help us better understand your submission. The e-town Hall meeting is an innovative tool that could change the way the public sector interacts with residents on a regular basis. It directly addresses the issue of declining civic participation and represents an opportunity to share a new concept and a new approach, in order to generate new results. The e-town Hall meeting is a result of forward-thinking direction, and encompasses true civic engagement. 6