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...
Four language interpreters. Child-minding. Recruitment challenges. Birthday cake and a lot of laughs. These are just some of the unique highlights of our work with Quit Victoria and VicHealth in 2022 on a project to reduce tobacco-related harm in public housing. This case study takes a detailed look at how MosaicLab supported this process with a residents’ panel and sense-making workshops. All to drive improved, long-term outcomes for community and public health.
To help local councils in Victoria navigate the deliberative engagement requirements in the new Local Government Act, MosaicLab has launched a free, short guide.
This e-book is specifically for local government staff and decision makers, and aims to provide assistance and information to help councils better understand deliberative engagement, its principles and how it can be implemented into council processes to meet the new requirements of the Act.
It takes time, effort and resources to achieve best practice engagement at the best of times. And right now it’s not the best of times. We’re hearing from many that engaging at all (let alone engaging well) is difficult.
Your organisation may be grappling with how to respond to the crisis, facing reduced revenue and budget cuts, responding to increased demand for community support and services, and wondering how to sustain it all long term. Local government bodies are also working to comply with the enhanced engagement requirements set out in the Local Government Act.
So we’ve announced two new service options designed to help you engage robustly, cost-effectively and appropriately.
If you’re planning for engagement you need to consider how you engage one of your most critical stakeholder groups – decision makers. Involving them in an appropriate, effective way is a crucial step. We often see employees struggling to successfully navigate this part of their planning journey and, unfortunately, not only can it be tricky, it’s also one of the top reasons engagement processes fall over.
Get it wrong and you face a myriad of potential (unwanted) consequences. From lengthy delays to mid-process back tracking, community outrage to complete project cancellation –not only might your whole process fall over, you could cause irreparable damage to the reputation and relationships you’re attempting to build.
In today’s post, we’re highlighting the most common mistakes made in this space and providing 8 top tips for upping your decision maker engagement game.
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.
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.
Recently, we posted an interview with Lyn Carson of Active Democracy and the newDemocracy Foundation, who is working in partnership with MosaicLab to research what happens when critical thinking skills, techniques and concepts are introduced to participants in a deliberative process.
Today, in Part 2, we're talking with MosaicLab co-founder Nicole Hunter, an experienced facilitator with extensive experience in deliberative engagement. Nicole, alongside MosaicLab's other two co-founders Keith Greaves and Kimbra White, has been working to integrate critical theories into real, on-ground processes.
If you happened to come across our previous post ‘A new venture into critical thinking’, you will know that MosaicLab is currently working on a fascinating research project with Lyn Carson of Active Democracy and the newDemocracy Foundation.
A final report is now in development, and, excitingly, early indications suggest that introducing critical thinking concepts to participants during deliberative processes can result in a number of benefits.
From increased trust (between both participants themselves and between participants and decision makers) to increased ability for participants to question and understand information (including complex or technical data), the work is highlighting how these skills can enhance and transform both processes and participants.
Welcome to MosaicLab's first ever #MonthlyMyth post. There are a number of myths and misconceptions that often surface in relation to facilitation, deliberative democracy, outrage management, conflict management and community engagement more broadly.
As part of our work to promote quality engagement practice and share information and learning we are addressing some of the most commonly expressed myths and misconceptions each month on our blog. We hope you find this series interesting, informative, and perhaps a little surprising!
