Online Idea Management for Civic Engagement Jorge Saldivar1, Florian Daniel2, Luca Cernuzzi1 & Fabio Casati3 Glasgow, Scotland A study on the benefits of integration with Social Networking Image credit: Office of the City of Clerk 1 2 3

01 Context

Using technology to engage citizens in urban planning, budget allocation, and public service innovation* 3 *e.g., Anwar et al., 2015; Bailey et al., 2011; Aitamurto et al., 2014; Bojovic et al., 2015; Garcia et al., 2011; Hagelskamp et al., 2016; Leighninger, 2011; Manatt, 2011

Idea Management (IM)* 4 Organization submits an innovation problem Third party (customers, providers, stakeholders) discusses ideas, votes, and comments Organization (or in some cases even third party) evaluates ideas Organization implements promising ideas Innovation Organization has an innovation need * Klein and Convertino, 2014

Information system that lets people propose ideas, as well as, rate and place comments on other users’ suggestions * 5 Idea Management Systems (IMS) * Hrastinski et al., 2010

contributions of participants key assets* 6 * Di Gangi and Wasko, 2009 the larger the community the more chances are to have diverse views+ + Geiger et al., 2011; Hsieh, 2011; Iandoli et al., 2007; Wu et al., 2015; Landemore 2013

more diversity increases the possibility of producing valuable ideas* 7 * Heylighen, 1999; Surowiecki, 2004; Page 2008; Bonabeau, 2009; Kavadias and Sommer, 2009; Jeppesen and Lakhani, 2010; Malone et al., 2010; Woolley et al., 2010; Erickson et al., 2012

02 Proposal

9 Enlarge the communities that support online IM processes for civic engagement by including diverse sectors of the society in IM Goal

1 Current technologies of IM for civic engagement impose barriers of participation by working disconnected from where citizens go about their daily routines The Problem

Proposal: Integrate IMS with Facebook • Novel approach to integrate IMS with Facebook • Goals: • Reduce participation barrier • Reach people “where they are” • Allow people to take part in IM by using familiar and ordinary technology 11

12 Main UI Submit ideas Vote and comment

13 Mapping Model

14 automatic synchronization Example Facebook post to idea comment to comment

03 Study

Oct-Dec’15 (electoral period) organizer Political Party duration 7 discussion themes Garbage and recycling, infrastructure, urban mobility, etc. 16 Voz y voto: Public services innovation Results. 154 people participated. In total, 36 ideas, 88 comments, and 429 votes were posted through both platforms. 26% submitted ideas, 48% only observed

• RQ1. Does our integration proposal help to increase diversity in the group of participants regarding demographic profile (age, gender, district of residence, occupation, level of education)? • RQ2. Does our integration proposal help to increase the number of participants? • RQ3. Does our integration proposal help to increase contributions (i.e., ideas, comments, votes)? 17 Research questions

04Results

19 • The group of participants consisted of equally distributed men and women, mostly young, wealthy, well-educated, technology-savvy, and mainly Internet content consumers, not frequent voters but moderately active in society • No significant differences (alpha: 0.05) were found when comparing the groups of Facebook’s participants with the group of IdeaScale’s participants Could not find strong evidence that the inclusion of Facebook fostered diversity in the group of participants Participants’ profile (RQ1)

20 Communication about Facebook Very likely Facebook helped to boost registration in IdeaScale Enrolling of participants (RQ2)

21 Facebook participants took part in the initiative mainly as observers In this case, people used Facebook to create just some ideas and comments Possible Reasons - Introduction of Facebook was late - The presence of a new channel of participation was confusing - Some participants did want to be associated by their Facebook contacts with the political party that organized the initiative Participation from Facebook (RQ3)

05Findings

23 • Opportunity to reach large groups of people who are already using Facebook to discuss politics and public-interest issues • Participants welcomed the possibility to use Facebook to follow updates • About 40% (13 out of 36) that tried both platforms only participated from Facebook after joining the group • “Everyone knows how to use it [Facebook]” • “It [Facebook] is popular, proper and adequate for political discussions, and almost everyone likes it and is familiar with its functionality” • “Having to learn a new technology would represent a strong barrier of participation, specially for the occasional participants” Benefits of the integration

24 1) The presence of two channels of participations might be confusing. Be clear when communicating about the purpose of each channel and the steps to get involve on them 2) The adoption of new conventions is not straightforward, even within daily basis platforms such as Facebook. Step by step guidelines can be used to facilitate the use of these new techniques 3) People might be reluctant to disclose one’s identity when talking about political topics and specially within electoral periods. Anonymous participation should be considered 4) The seamless integration of independent platforms requires more than simply a pure technical job. Each platform has their own practices or “culture” and understand them is mandatory Design challenges

06Summary

26 It helps to attract more people to ideation processes oriented to address public-interest issues More research is needed to understand how the approach can help to increase diversity and contributions Approach that seamlessly integrates Facebook with civic engagement platforms Thanks! - Jorge Saldivar | Catholic University of Asuncion - Florian Daniel | Polytechnic University of Milan - Luca Cernuzzi | Catholic University of Asuncion - Fabio Casati | University of Trento Funded by