Listening should definitely be first and foremost for community engagement. You can’t know if you don’t listen. People won’t engage if they don’t feel heard.
The first step in digital development is to learn from the user or, in Design Thinking terms, to empathize with them. A hallmark of community venturing, a la Venture, is to it create a space for all participants to be heard without any agenda or requirement
other than to show up. It is fascinating to me how the two practices overlap!
The extent to which the Study Group develops a plan is to be determined. It’s a bit premature to make the decision and, really, others who are not engaged in the group should be responsible for that. We can channel the voice of the community. Then, presuming
group members want to, we can facilitate and evaluate the use of that input for strategic planning by relevant leaders/organizations.
Any other thoughts, folks? Do you agree? Do you know of specific means or opportunities for doing this? The way I see it, it’s all about
practice—defining practices, enacting them, and improving them.
My plan is to use this focus — “how might we do better and make more?” — as the object for the first Facilitator Bank cohort. If you are interested or have specific thoughts about that, email me directly at
greg@eduity.net.