The Hub

Ideas is a tool for the early, or divergent, stages of a community engagement program. It is used to gather lots and lots of ideas quickly from as many people as possible, and then to carry out a preliminary prioritisation (or sifting) of those ideas. It is not designed to provoke deeper and more deliberative consideration of the proposed solutions. This is for a later phase in the process.

Stories are at the heart of our experience. The story we tell ourselves and the stories we share determine who we are and how we respond to the world around us. Sharing stories affects both the story teller and the listener (or reader) more profoundly at both a emotional and cognitive level than sharing facts.

Q&A is an issues management and communication risk mitigation tool. It is a managed space for your community to ask you questions and for you to respond either publicly (to create a Q&A library) or privately.

Places is our spatial consultation tool. It is a simple way to gather community feedback (via a fully functioning survey) geographically. Community members simply click on the map, fill in the survey, select a "category" (if you have built any), and hit enter.

The Guesbook is a simple space for gathering text based feedback. It is not a discussion space. It is not dialogue space. It is not a debating space. It does not permit rich media uploads. It can be pre or post comment moderated, so further reduce any perceived risk. It is the simplest of tools.

Forums are a space for discussion, dialogue and debate. The tone and tenor can vary depending on the nature of the issues, any local history, the social context, and the specific people involved. Which is why we like to moderate the discussion 24/7 for you.

Surveys are consultation tools, rather than engagement tools. But, they have two benefits. People are generally used to filling them in, so you tend to high response rates; and they can provide you with quantifiable data for analysis. Try using them in conjunction with other tools.