Is your organisation facing a problem that affects people separated by boundaries, borders, barriers or distance?
It is possible to transcend these limitations and have meaningful, cross-border conversations that reach further and have more impact.
It’s time to reimagine what 'borders' mean in the context of engagement and facilitation. We want to open organisations up to new opportunities and support them to embrace approaches that involve many more people in the issues that impact their lives.
time zones
government areas
geographic distance
states
countries
language and cultural differences
multiple organisations
levels of government.
Like everyone, for the past two years, the MosaicLab team has been learning and refining our virtual facilitation practice. This has certainly given us the opportunity to further explore how online engagement can help us to work across borders. However, our learnings extend well beyond the online formats and are based on the exploration of how people connect across space and time.
OUR LEARNINGS, YOURS FREE
Download the free resource
Learnings from the Lab:
Effective and Meaningful Engagement Across Borders
We want to challenge organisations to think beyond old limitations and consider how they can hold the conversations that matter with diverse communities located across vast distances. Virtual platforms are certainly one of the enablers of these conversations, but they are just as possible face-to-face.
Here are some examples of real projects and conversations that broke through border barriers. The learnings from these experiences have been built into the free Learnings from the Lab resource. We hope they show what is possible and give you some cross-border inspiration.
our conversations across borders: PROJECT SPOTLIGHTS
Conversations across the world:
Conversations across Australia:
Conversations across Victoria:
Recent and significant interstate conversation:
Kainga Ora training, New Zealand
March 2022
Snapshot: MosaicLab delivered virtual facilitation training to staff from Kāinga Ora, a public housing provider in New Zealand. We worked to empower Kainga Ora’s national, community engagement and partnership teams with knowledge, skills and confidence in facilitating effective conversations in a virtual environment.
Talking ‘argumentation’ with university students, Germany
February 2022
“The students asked excellent questions like ‘do people disagree and how do they handle this’, ‘is it hard and uncomfortable for the participants’, ‘where is this occurring and why’. Great group of engaged and thoughtful students thinking about how we interact in the world.”
Snapshot: MosaicLab Co-Founder and Managing Director Nicole Hunter and senior facilitator Jessica Connor Kennedy took part in an online discussion with students from Germany's University Burg Giebichenstein - University of Art and Design Halle.
The students are exploring the power of effective 'argumentation' (how do you listen and learn with someone who thinks differently to you). Nicole overviewed deliberative processes and their principles and explored what this looks like in real life situations (case studies), and then opened up the conversation to questions from the group.
Healthy Democracy, Portland Oregon, USA
November 2021
“To see people’s faith in democracy restored is the biggest thing that drives what I do and what inspires me. ”
Snapshot: US organisation Healthy Democracy teamed up with experts from across the world, MosaicLab Co-Founder Nicole Hunter among them, to discuss lottery-selected deliberative panels. Democratic lotteries are being used around the world to guarantee diversity, representation, and inclusion of new voices in public policymaking.
Watch the webinar:
Guaranteeing Representation: Reimagining Community Participation through Democratic Lotteries
International connections and new horizons for deliberation
Ongoing
Snapshot: Democracy Research and Development is an international network of organisations, associations and individuals helping decision-makers take hard decisions and build public trust. They are committed to collaboratively exploring and promoting ways of doing democracy differently. MosaicLab is a member of and contributor to the network and we provide overviews of the work we do, post questions about key challenges in the deliberative democracy space and learn and explore with other international like-minded people and organisations.
“We’re committed to giving back through advocacy research and sharing knowledge and resources. Our work with Democracy R&D enables us to share ideas and learn from each other so we can collectively advance deliberative practice across the globe. ”
enHealth risk communication principles
“Our work with EnHealth resulted in the development of the only known diagnostic tool for assessing which type of risk communication approach is needed for different situations. It’s a great tool that can be applied in other sectors. ”
May – August 2021
Snapshot: MosaicLab worked with the Environmental Health Standing Committee (enHealth), a standing committee of the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee (AHPPC) - an organisation that engages with environmental health professionals across Australia and New Zealand, to facilitate the development of updated risk communication principles around environmental health issues.
This included the creation of a unique new tool to assess and respond to risk communication situations. There were three collaborative workshops which shaped final outputs needed to update the enHealth ‘Risk Communication’ guidance material. MosaicLab was honoured to work with world-renowned risk communication expert Dr Peter Sandman on this project.
“This work was completed through a series of online and dynamic workshops. MosaicLab brought together committee members from all states and territories, ‘critical friends’ and a renowned global expert in risk communication.
The result is a refreshed and contemporary set of risk communication principles that can be used by all environmental public health practitioners and public health agencies when working with communities on environmental health issues. ”
AER Consumer Vulnerability Strategy Workshops
April – May 2021
““The different approaches by various energy retailers and other regulators in other jurisdictions towards consumer vulnerability sparked imagination about how we can redesign the system.”
“Thinking broadly about how to get a better deal for consumers rather than just ‘what’s our problem’ that can be fixed - good wrap-around ideas.” ”
Snapshot: MosaicLab facilitated a series of three stakeholder workshops for the Australian Energy Regulator’s Consumer Vulnerability Strategy. Workshops identified opportunities for the Australian Energy Regulator (AER) and the energy stakeholders to work together to support vulnerable consumers and support connection and relationships with energy stakeholders. A total of 77 participants attended all three workshops, with representation from energy businesses and retailers, consumer advocates, government and market bodies and AER staff and Board Members.
OUR LEARNINGS, YOURS FREE
Download the free resource
Learnings from the Lab:
Effective and Meaningful Engagement Across Borders
IGEM bushfire inquiry
March 2021
“It’s always good to hear from different people and it’s great that these are still happening even with current circumstances, as it is important for recovery.”
Snapshot: MosaicLab facilitated community meetings as part of the independent inquiry into the 2019-20 Victorian Fire Season, conducted by the Inspector General for Emergency Management (IGEM).
Sessions were held face-to-face before transitioning online due to COVID-19 restrictions. Ninety remotely-based participants from multiple parts of the state came together across 10 online sessions.
Developing Victoria's Antimicrobial Resistance Strategy
July – August 2021
Snapshot: Victoria’s Department of Health and Human Services undertook engagement to inform the development of Victoria’s Antimicrobial Resistance Strategy 2021-2031. We facilitated six workshops (four sector-specific, two sense-making), attended by 111 people and Strategy Working Group members. All data outputs were reviewed and synthesised into seven recommendations to inform the next draft of the strategy.
“I enjoyed the online workshop experience more than I had anticipated. It was well structured and kept moving. I think it was a more efficient way to run the workshops than face-to-face.”
“I was a bit nervous about the sessions as I wasn’t sure how we could engage with all of the stakeholders that were attending. By using breakout rooms and mixing up the sessions with diverse stakeholders we were able to get insights from other groups that we did not know before.”
Local Government Victoria
August – October 2020
Snapshot: MosaicLab has done extensive work with LGV, including a process that supported local councils to understand and successfully implement some of the new requirements of the Local Government Act 2020. We worked with LGV and staff from all councils, plus peak bodies and professional associations, to codesign materials that gave councils the confidence and independence to deliver the integrated planning requirements of the Act. Outputs included a discussion paper and principles to inform the way integrated planning can work across councils.
Various local government authorities
March 2020 – September 2021
Snapshot: The new Local Government Act required councils to undertake deliberative processes for four key strategic plans. MosaicLab facilitated 11 deliberative engagement community panel processes, that directly shaped the future of 10 Victorian council regions.
COVID Debrief
““Today I had a realisation that I was not alone in what I was feeling.”
“Highly interactive, great use of technology and not too driven by the facilitators - really made participants do the work/thinking. Much, much better than I was expecting!” ”
December 2021
Snapshot: MosaicLab was engaged by the Department of Health and Human Services Health Protection Branch to design and facilitate a series of lessons learned sessions to understand what worked well and what could have been improved in the Branch’s response to COVID-19 across Victoria. We facilitated four sessions that involved a total of 74 staff members and produced a report of all comments and data provided by participants during the group sessions.
Shaping Victoria’s Biosecurity Future
June 2021
Snapshot: Agriculture Victoria commissioned a workshop as part of broader efforts to strengthen Victoria’s biosecurity system. MosaicLab designed and facilitated the workshop, breaking it up into six sessions that ran over two days. The workshop brought together a grand total of 350 people across all sessions; 95 attended the opening plenary session alone. They were a diverse mix of individuals from industry, community and all levels of government that hailed from across the state. Participants came from various sectors including agriculture, land management, environmental protection and biosecurity regulation, among others.
“Seeing the level of enthusiasm and participation with all the stakeholders, it was such a buzz to be part of. I think people felt their voice was heard - that was through well-designed and fit-for-purpose process, as well as MosaicLab creating the safety for that space. I was surprised to see that you can create a dialogue setting with such a large group and online. That still surprises me that it can be done with 100-plus participants.”
“The sessions were really well thought through and designed; made the most of the digital environment.”
Award-winning climate change training for councils
April – June 2021
Snapshot: MosaicLab delivered 10 highly interactive three-hour virtual training courses to 150 councillors and executives representing nine Victorian councils. The Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) in partnership with the Northern Alliance for Greenhouse Action (NAGA) initiated the training to help local government leaders understand and plan for climate change impacts on their communities.
The ‘Your Council and Climate Change’ training program won the Service Excellence category in the DELWP Environment and Climate Change annual departmental awards.
TAC stakeholder engagement training
June 2018
Snapshot: The Transport Accident Commission initiated stakeholder engagement training for its staff from the Disability Branch. MosaicLab facilitated a full-day workshop that aimed to increase knowledge of best practice principles and stakeholder engagement techniques, develop a common understanding (concepts, language) and approach (framework, tools) and link concepts and techniques to TAC Stakeholder Engagement Framework and draft Disability Branch Provider Performance Monitoring and Accountability Framework.
Ausgrid price proposal review, NSW
October 2021 – May 2022
Snapshot: MosaicLab designed and is facilitating a comprehensive deliberative engagement process that includes online and face-to-face sessions and area-based deliberative forums with customers from the Newcastle/Hunter, Central Coast and Greater Sydney regions. Our client Ausgrid, the largest distributor of electricity on Australia’s east coast, has developed a framework for engaging customers and stakeholders during the development of a draft price proposal for 2024-2029.
OUR LEARNINGS, YOURS FREE
Download the free resource
Learnings from the Lab:
Effective and Meaningful Engagement Across Borders
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