Client Resources Centre

RSS Feeds are a great way to keep in contact with what is happening on your Consultation Hub, individual online engagement projects as well as your entire site.

Project News & Discussion Topics RSS Feed

• To get an RSS feed of project news items and new discussion topics from an individual project simply add “/rss” to the project URL. e.g. http://yoursitename.com/yourproject/rss
• Note that this feed will include content from any designated “child” pages for the project.

Smart Forum Comments RSS Feed

• To get an RSS feed of new comments from all the discussion topics within a single project simple add “/rss/comments” to the project URL. e.g. http://yoursitename.com/yourproject/rss/comments
• Note that this feed will also include content from any designated “child” pages for the project.

Site wide RSS Feed

• To get an RSS feed of the newsfeed, discussion topics and comments from across your entire site simple add “/rss” to the site URL. e.g. http://yoursitename.com/rss

My tip....create some RSS Feeds and stay in touch with the action.

As things wind down for Christmas - new year, you've just got to love the work of Megan and Elena at Holdfast Bay in South Australia.  They have changed their intro on the YourView HQ consultation hub at http://yourviewhq.holdfast.sa.gov.au to tell the "story so far",  let their community know when they will be back with more consultations and in a friendly South Aussie way, wish everyone a Merry Christmas. The frequency with which they change the Your View HQ introduction, the default image and images in their photo gallery, as well as, add videos and create interesting news articles keeps the Your View HQ consultation lively and fresh. My tip : try some of this with your consultation hub and throw in some links to your latest newsletters, publications and community calendars!

The first conference specifically for users of EngagementHQ will be held in the Gold Coast on 24 and 25 May 2012.  This is a chance to learn about best practice from community engagment experts, network with other practitioners and learn some of the lessons from over 400 projects.  To learn more click here and to register click here.  And hurry, spaces are strictly limited.

Ray's Tip...."offering an incentive can help target a specific demographic or both increase and broaden participation across a range of demographics"

We all love the attraction of a sizzling offer or that little incentive that sparks our interest and gets us involved. Melton Shire Council demonstrated the lure of an incentive by offering the opportunity for youth to be in the running to win and iPad in it's recent online youth forum and survey. . Not to be out done, Byron Shire Council jumped on board by offering the opportunity to win an iPad simply by completing it's Community Plan online survey. Now Port Macquarie Hastings Council is offering the chance for it's community to win three iPads by completing its Rates Options online forum and survey.

Either its something in the water or iPads are the big thing! Whatever, offering incentives can help you target a specific demographic or both broaden and increase community participation in your consultation.

My tip.......why not look at offering incentives for community participation in your next consultation project.

You may have noticed some changes to the EngagementHQ platform this week.  These are part of a ongoing program of changes designed to empower our clients to do more themselves and rely on us less.  There were a host of small changes but the most notable are:

1. Clients can now archive their own projects.  You will find an archive button just near the page title and by clicking this the ability for users to comment further on the page will be removed.  If you press it in error then just press 'unarchive' to reactivate the page.  Coupled with the Publish function

Ray's Tip...."include "Community Video Vox Pops in your next online engagement!"

Video imagery is a powerful medium to communicate ideas, sentiments and community responses about local issues. Video vox pops are easy! Ask one simple question, use a mobile phone to capture the responses (ideally 30 to 60 seconds) by any number of people from different ages, genders and backgrounds living within your community. Add them to your online consultation.

"Check out Lake Macquarie City Council's community video vox pops at http://haveyoursaylakemac.com.au/project/videos/3

"Community Video Vox Pops"...my tip is to embrace them!