are also considered a closed environment which does not allow for the community to see others’ positions or weigh in on the debate. Consider choosing a platform that offers a spectrum of engagement feedback tools( including surveys) to provide greater flexibility to support:

• Listening to and understanding stakeholders;

• Crowdsourcing ideas and priorizing them;

• Discussing solutions interactively;

• Consulting and collecting quantitative and qualitative submissions;

• Visualizing and co-designing options;

• Co-creating and collaborating to deliver solutions; and

• Building long-term online participant communities as a source of reputation capital.

The ability to measure through reports and analytics should be the most important consideration. Not only is the ongoing measurement of the process helpful( i. e., promotion monitoring, participation analytics), but reports can be used to increase internal and public understanding of decisions to foster support. Management and council will be making policy- and project-related decisions based on strong purpose-built reports. Engagement-centric analytics can provide accurate and relevant feedback reports while helping understand how people are interacting

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with project-related media. This is important as it helps measure how well informed people are regarding a project, issue or initiative. You may, for example, conclude a high level of community satisfaction for a draft proposal through low participation numbers( few comments) when the project’ s informed analytics are high. A small number of negative comments in this scenario may also indicate a vocal minority which is not a true representation of the community.

Other Ontario-centric considerations in choosing an online engagement platform include:

• Web content accessibility compliance to standards: WCAG 2.0 level AA( for AODA compliance);

• You own your data which are hosted in Canada by the vendor;

• Reputable vendor( similar clients based on region and / or population size);

• Vendor can provide local support( phone and in-person).

Here are some examples of Ontario-based live online engagement sites:

• City of Oshawa- www. connectoshawa. ca( Connect Oshawa)

• Township of Centre Wellington- www. connectcw. ca( Connect CW)

• Town of Halton Hills- www. letstalkhaltonhills. ca( Let’ s Talk Halton Hills)

• City of Niagara Falls – https:// letstalk. niagarafalls. ca( Let’ s Talk Niagara Falls)

• City of Mississauga – https:// yoursay. mississauga. ca( Your Say Mississauga)

Ron Shaw is the president of Ron Shaw & Associates, Inc.

44 Q3 2017 www. amcto. com