The events surrounding the Keystone and the Northern Gateway pipelines point to the emergence of social licence as a key business consideration.

When evaluating large scale development projects, decision-makers focused on the economic and regulatory aspects of the project. If both of these conditions could be satisfied, project leaders would feel confident with the decision to proceed.

Social licence – people consenting to a project in their community – has emerged from the regulatory shadow to become the third leg in decision-making on large scale infrastructure and energy projects.

The concept of social licence is not new. Municipalities have a lot of experience in this field as do natural resource companies. Yet, what was once a secondary consideration has become a primary consideration.

Why is social licence evolving?

The evolution of social licence is a function of the convergence of social, technological and political forces overtaking mature democratic societies.

1. Our concept of community has evolved

People accept the environment as something beyond borders or jurisdictional limitations. In many respects, we are all astronauts looking down at the earth and seeing it as one. When you add the Internet and the social network to the mix, community has moved beyond the purely local/regional to include national and even international.
Securing social licence once meant working with the local communities, often indigenous, to get approval to proceed. With today’s massive energy projects, organizations seeking social licence must now engage on a mass level. Keystone’s community is North-American. Northern Gateway’s is international.

2. Web 2.0 makes it easy for people to learn, organize and mobilize

People concerned about an issue or a project have access to low-cost or no-cost social networking tools that make it easy for them to find and join like-minded groups. There are over 600+ million Facebook users and Canada is number 10 on the Facebook users by country list. If you Google “Northern Gateway Pipeline” today, you’ll find “Pipe Up Against Enbridge” on the first results page. Canadians are connected and they know how to mobilize digitally.

Decision-makers who fail to understand the web 2.0 dynamic will find themselves facing an army of David’s with web 2.0 sling shots. “Spin”, the Goliath of public relations, is no match for the social web.

3. Our public processes don’t connect with popular expectations

Our current public consultation processes are based on public meetings and submitting letters. These processes have failed to adapt to people’s expectations around communications in the web 2.0 world. The websites that do offer consultations are seldom user friendly, often constrained by the imperatives of a corporate “common look and feel” and fail to offer the opportunity for authentic and open dialogue. In today’s communications environment, when concerned citizens and organizations come up against antiquated and poorly designed public engagement processes, they can easily set up their own.

4. Our regulatory processes have become lightning rods for public policy

Governments’ failure to engage in substantive and open conversations about complex public policy issues are pose a challenge our regulatory processes. We find ourselves in a situation where people passionate about environmental, social and economic issues are looking to participate in government-led conversations. In the absence of conversations about energy policy or climate change, our regulatory processes have become the lightning rods for social licence activity.

[CIRA is a Thornley Fallis client]

The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) has been hosting the second Canadian Internet Forum (CIF), a national forum for dialogue on the development, deployment and governance of the Internet in Canada since November 2011.

CIRA will be closing the online forum for the 2012 CIF on February 12, 2012 to prepare for the CIF national event. This means that you only have four days left to have your voice heard about the Internet in Canada!

We want to hear from you. Please visit http://cif.cira.ca and comment on one of our topics or start your own topic for discussion. Are you interested in security? Cost and speed of broadband? Digital literacy? The sovereignty of the Canadian Internet? Let us know today at http://cif.cira.ca.

This is the second year CIRA hosts a national dialogue on the development of the Internet with the CIF. The 2011 CIF was the first opportunity of its kind for Canadians to have a say on how they would like to see the Internet develop.

On February 27, the results of the online discussion forum will be presented at a national event in Ottawa. The event will also be webcast. We are very excited that star of CBC’s The Dragons’ Den Robert Hejavec will be delivering the keynote presentation at the CIF event. A panel that draws from a diverse section of the Internet community will also be part of the event. Panellists include Micahel Geist (University of Ottawa), Steve Anderson (Open Media), Bill Graham (Internet Society), Bertrand de la Chapelle (OpenWSIS Initiative), and Frédérick Gaudreau (Sûreté du Québec).

Registration for the CIF national event is free and open to all Canadians. More information is available athttp://www.regonline.ca/builder/site/Default.aspx?EventId=1049659.

The result of the 2012 CIF will be a white paper for presentation to the international Internet Governance Forum (IGF), a United Nations entity where nations, the private sector and non-governmental organizations convene to discuss Internet-related issues.

If you have any questions or comments, please do not hesitate to contact me at mark.buell@cira.ca.

[The following is the event notice from Third Tuesday Ottawa]

Third Tuesday is back with another blockbuster speaker: President of the Treasury Board, Tony Clement on Tuesday, February 7^th at the National Arts Centre.

Tony Clement is well-known as a politician who maintains an active Twitter presence, sharing what is on his mind and what he’s doing, and engaging in conversations with Canadians.

Tony Clement is also the President of the Treasury Board of Canada. That puts him in charge of Canada’s public service and makes him responsible for setting the standards and rules by which social media is being introduced into the Government of Canada.

As a Minister, Clement has pushed forward with initiatives to enable Canada’s public servants to use social media in the workplace and a broader initiative to introduce open government principles to the Government of Canada.

In just the past three months, Mr. Clement

• unveiled the Guideline for External Use of Web 2.0, the reference document that will be used by Canadian Public Servants in determining whether and how they should use social media in the workplace.
• announced that completed access to information requests now will be posted online.
• announced the addition of 4,000 data sets to the Open Data Portal.
• initiated a public consultation on Open Government. (The consultation closed in mid-January and the Treasury Board site promises that a final report on the findings will be posted in March 2012.)
• participated in a Twitter Chat on Open Government to give people a chance to raise issues, ask questions and engage with him online.

That’s a lot of action in a short period of time. But, what’s happening now? How are the Web 2.0 Guidelines being applied by Canadian public servants? What did Canadians tell the Minister during the consultation? What’s on the agenda for 2012?

Third Tuesday participants will get a chance in February to ask these questions and talk directly to the Minister when he appears as our featured guest.

If you’re interested in open government and the use of social media by government, this session will be of real interest to you. I’m looking forward to a great evening of discussion with a man who has matched his actions to his convictions. I hope to see you there.

Thank you to our sponsors

Third Tuesday is a community-oriented, volunteer-driven event. And we wouldn’t be able to bring great speakers to Third Tuesdays across the country without the support of some like-minded sponsors. We’ve been lucky to have some great companies step up over the past several years to help us make Third Tuesday happen. Big thanks are due to CNW Group, Rogers Communications, Canadian Internet Registration Authority, Radian6 and Cision Canada for making the 2011/12 Third Tuesday season possible.

Student Admission

We want students to be able to participate. So, if you’re a student, simply present your valid student ID at the registration desk and we’ll refund your admission fee. Courtesy of Thornley Fallis.

If you work in the field of consultations, public involvement or communications, chances are you are being asked to deliver an online consultation program. Welcome to the field of online public engagement – where communications and public consultation come together.

As a practitioner and presenter on the practice of “Online Public Engagement”, I thought it worthwhile to share the ideas and feedback gathered over the course of numerous presentations and discussions. This is a new and emerging field, and I would appreciate your feedback over the course of the journey.

First, let’s focus on a working definition of “online public engagement”.

A few thoughts on context

Before defining the concept, it’s best to start with the context surrounding communications and public consultations in a connected society. With social media and online news media, people now have the capability to easily and cost-effectively express their ideas and opinions about public issues that matter to them. They do this on their blogs, on community association discussion forums, on local newspaper website, or on the myriad of social networking sites available to them. If they are unhappy with an organization’s consultation process, they can mobilize online and set-up their own consultation.

What does this mean for consultation leaders and communicators?

Consultation leaders and communicators tasked with seeking public input need to understand two things about online public engagement. The first is that conversations about their issues are happening in social media and will be shared in online news media. The second is that if they want to engage people, they need to use the tools and methodologies to sync with society’s current communications and public participation habits. The upside of both of these is that they provide rich listening, learning and engagement opportunities.

A working definition of online public engagement

In light of this, I propose a working definition of online public engagement to be “the use of digital communications tools and public engagement methodologies to involve people in public consultation processes”.

Next up, the public engagement ecosystem

My next post will focus on a description of the constituent parts of the public engagement ecosystem – the pieces in the puzzle. If you would like a copy of the presentation, you can find it here on slideshare or you can send me a note and I will gladly share it.