As part of the development of Ausgrid's 2024-2029 regulatory submission, two randomly selected customer panels deliberated over a collective 10 full days. The panels, facilitated by MosaicLab and Gauge Consulting, considered how Ausgrid should look to the future while remaining fair to customers today. Ausgrid's three-year engagement process allowed customers to influence what Ausgrid spends customers money on, giving them a rare insight and influence over the cost of electricity, an issue that directly impacts the lives of everyday people.
We’re feeling energised as we zoom through the first month of the new year. That’s because we can see what’s ahead, and we’re excited about the possibilities. Are you ready to set sail with us? We’re celebrating what’s been achieved in partnership with people just like you so far, while setting our sights on facilitating more important conversations in more places and having even more positive impact on more communities. We’re ready to embrace where engagement and deliberation are going, are you?
A message of thanks to you - our clients, participants, partners and friends - and hope for what’s ahead. As we head towards the end of a big year of big conversations, our team shares what they’re grateful for, their biggest highlight of 2023 and what’s really lighting them up when they think forward to the new year ahead.
Meet the newest additions to the MosaicLab team: Belinda Lowing and Fox Gillen. Both Belinda and Fox have long career histories that span across interesting and complex roles that have included facilitation and engagement in many forms. Learn more about these two and gain some insights into who they REALLY are through their answers to our fast five questions!
Ever wondered what makes our facilitators tick? Meet the newest additions to the MosaicLab team: Jody Kingston and Aaron Bosch. Both Aaron and Jody have fascinating, diverse backgrounds and have come to MosaicLab and facilitation via interesting pathways. Find out what they love about their work, what impact they hope to have and how they answered a list of fun and probing questions that we like to call The Telling Top 10...
It’s an easy trap to fall into, and an approach that’s often taken as a matter of course – solidify your organisation’s position before you engage with any external community or stakeholders. While this may appear (in the short term) to make your organisation feel more ready to engage, it actually undermines many of the objectives of a robust engagement process.
There are many ways our brains actively work to bias our thinking and, therefore, our decision making. Each of these different sorts of biases can stop us from seeing an issue from a different perspective.
This tendency can limit our understanding of new and different evidence and therefore restrict our ability to make the best overall decision/s. By understanding these biases and using different tools to help question others and ourselves we can access more information and weigh up data more thoroughly.
So, to help you out, we’ve provided a new, free download highlighting six of the most common brain biases that affect our everyday decision making – because identifying them is the hardest part!
A Research and Development Note detailing the process and outcomes of a recent study we worked on with Lyn Carson of Active Democracy and the newDemocracy Foundation has been published.
The study considers the question - How can we enhance the ability of randomly-selected citizens in mini-publics (such as citizens’’ juries) to understand and evaluate expert evidence?
The 'Participatory Democracy - Exploring Experiences' session at the IPAA Public Sector Week 2017 featured active, experiential learning and an interactive discussion with a group of diverse panellists.
Attendees experienced a mini, deliberative discussion, answering the question: 'what are the biggest challenges facing the public sector when it comes to gaining trust in the community?'. The group then engaged in an energetic Q&A with the panel which included specialist consultants and public sector representatives with extensive experience in using deliberative engagement to help tackle major public policy challenges.
Facilitated by MosaicLab, the workshop saw great ideas generated and invaluable knowledge shared. The discussion was relevant to anyone working in the public sector (and beyond), so, today we're sharing a snapshot of the ideas generated and a summary of the Q&A discussion - a fabulous, free resource for anyone interested in quality engagement or participatory processes.
Did you see last month's invaluable deliberation insights post? We shared a video chock full of ideas and advice from project managers who had been through a deliberative journey.
This month, we're sharing the second video in this series - insights from decision makers who have led their organisations though a deliberative engagement experience.
In June 2017 we ran our first ever Deliberation Ready Training session for leaders, managers and decision makers in Melbourne. The day was designed to help participants get themselves and their organisation ready for a successful journey into deliberative engagement.
Because we love to share resources and are always seeking to help others to improve their engagement skills and processes, we are giving you free, exclusive access to one of our fabulous Deliberation Ready Training resources our participants had access to during their session.
Advisory committees – we love them and we hate them – and we can’t stop setting them up. They're possibly the number one method of engagement in Australia.
When used effectively, these groups (also called stakeholder/community reference groups and a whole host of other titles) can provide an opportunity to gather local knowledge and input, test ideas and proposals and improve communication and relationships. However, when used improperly, run poorly, or put in place as a substitute for a comprehensive engagement process, they can create more risk than reward.
This post will help you to overcome some of the biggest challenges associated with advisory committees, and ensure that both organisation and group benefits from the experience.
Group decision making processes (particularly deliberative processes such as citizens' juries, community panels and people's panels) can be both exciting and overwhelming for participants.
We all want every group we work with to get the most out of every moment they spend together, so, we created a handy, free video outlining some suggested 'do's and dont's' for participants that will help the whole group to get the most out of their journey.
The MosaicLab team is regularly involved in events that feature speakers and presentations. As we all know, regular old PowerPoint presentations can sometimes be a little lengthy, dull and un-engaging. So, to shake things up and ensure each presentation really connects with the audience, we often encourage the speakers we work with to adopt a very high-energy, fast-paced style of presenting known as Pecha Kucha ...
