Journey to the Centre of

Effective Online

Community Engagement
In this highly interactive forum, community engagement practitioners from various industries
will share their experiences and case studies of how they are engaging communities online

and getting the most out of it.

One day connected forum with two half day post-forum workshops
8-9 July, 2014 Rydges Sydney Central, Sydney, Australia

Department of Human Services

Yarra Valley Water
Parsons Brinckerhoff
Best Practice Local Government
Warringah Council
Willoughby City Council
University of Wollongong
Bang the Table
GHD

Half day post-forum workshops:

Wednesday, 9 July 2014

Workshop A:

Topic: Beyond "tick-in-the-box" engagement

Facilitated by: Tracey Gobey, Client Experience Manager, Bang the Table
Workshop B:

Topic: Engaging the community by building a Smart City

Facilitated by: Ravi Fernando, Director and James Digges, Director, Best Practice Local Government

w w w. a r k g r o u p a u s t r a l i a . c o m . a u

AGENDA

Journey to the Centre of Effective Online Community Engagement

8-9 July, 2014 TRydges Sydney Central, Sydney, Australia

The emergence of online media has created greater opportunities for organisations to connect with
citizens. Effective online community engagement strategies help to build greater community and
stakeholder confidence and trust through proactive and transparent engagement. Using social media tools
such as facebook, twitter, you tube and google+ can help influence behaviours, manage expectations and
build reputation.

COnnected forum - Tuesday, 8 July 2014

8:30 Registration and refreshments
9:00

Chairperson's opening remarks

Matthew Crozier, Director and CEO, Bang the Table

9:15

12:30 Business networking lunch (let us know if you have any special dietary
requirements two weeks prior to forum)

Creating a sustainable online engagement strategy

1:30

Empowering communities through online engagement

Establishing and maintaining an online community
Getting the most from contentious discussions

Identifying your organisations and customer needs for engagement

Understanding the limitations online engagement

Mixing online and offline engagement for maximum benefit

Darius Turner, Corporate Planning and Governance Co-ordinator,

Willoughby City Council

2:15

Online engagement and decision-making

Balancing online and traditional engagement methods

Using online mapping as an engagement tool

Kate Lewis, Community Engagement & Research Manager,

Warringah Council

The role of online engagement in decision-making

The relevance of online comments compared to other engagement
results quantity vs quality

10:00 Adopting effective online community engagement strategies

taking your organisation on the journey
How the evolution of a strong corporate culture has helped
consolidate a place for online community engagement approaches
at Yarra Valley Water
Key challenges and learnings from using online community
engagement approaches

The importance of asking the right questions

Naomi Holmes, Senior Consultant Stakeholder Engagement,

Parsons Brinckerhoff

Afternoon refreshments and networking

How these approaches can steadily build greater customer and

stakeholder confidence and trust

3:00
3:15

Open Panel Discussion

Toni Meek, Manager Community Engagement, Yarra Valley Water

How have emerging technologies affected community engagement

in the last five years?
New tools/ technologies/ trends

10:45 Morning refreshments and networking

11:00 @commUniversity: Moving towards online engagement in the
University space

How are technologies impacting engagement?

How are these challenges being overcome?
Panellists:

Telling a regional story, together. Engaging the community in the

context of shifts towards 'knowledge economies' and the struggles,
opportunities and inspiration that this brings

Toni Meek, Manager Community Engagement, Yarra Valley Water

Darius Turner, Corporate Planning and Governance Co-ordinator,

Willoughby City Council

Enriching regional communities through a strong and connected

online presence

Marian Blythe, Digital Media Strategist,

Department of Human Services

Mobilising a dynamic content driven strategy- enabled by Key

online platforms including a blog, Linkedin, Twitter and through
the resourcing of innovative community driven digital community
engagement projects

Facilitated by: Matthew Crozier, Director and CEO, Bang the Table

4:15

Online activism, slactivism and protester communication

Online activist communities greater than the sum of their parts

Keirin McCormack, Community Engagement Co-ordinator,

University of Wollongong

11:45 Social media use in government How the Department of Human

Services engages online

Slactivism vs Feet on the ground the power of many

Activist behaviour and communication a smart phone makes you
an investigative journalist

Michael Ulph, Senior Communications Specialist and Community

Consultation Specialist, GHD

4.45

Chairpersons closing remarks

5.00

End of connected forum

Using Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google+ to influence

customer behaviours, manage expectations and build reputation
Finding where our customers are, and engaging with them there
Connecting with citizens through external social media sites like
Yahoo!7 Answers and Whirlpool. Sharing practical tips and hints
on social media monitoring and how to engage with audiences in
social media in a transparent way, outside of your organisations
official accounts
Efficiently providing one-on-one support to individuals in a
crowd within a limited window of time - a detailed look at the
departments Facebook Live Q&A sessions

Marian Blythe, Digital Media Strategist,

Department of Human Services
.

POST- FORUM workshopS

Wednesday, 9 July 2014

Beyond "tick-in-the-box" engagement

Registration: 8.30 am
Workshop starts: 9.00 am
Workshop ends: 12.00 pm
Facilitated by:
Tracey Gobey, Client Experience Manager, Bang the Table
About the workshop:
EngagementHQ has hosted more than 2,000 online community engagement projects, managed by 200+ organisations over the past seven years. These span a range of topics, issues and community sensitivities.
"Beyond tick-in-the-box engagement" looks into what it really takes to pull off successful and meaningful online
community engagement projects. The session looks at the top performing organisations and distils their success
into some key learnings.
Over the course of the session, participants will cover:

What the best in the business are doing (case studies)

The Engagement Triangle - understanding engagement objectives in the triangle - each is unique
The online engagement tools available, and when best to use them
A simple to follow A - Z planning process (takeaway)
Institutional buy-in for online engagement and how you can get it

About the workshop leader:

Tracey Gobey, is Bang the Table's Client Experience Manager. Tracey manages the team that provides
strategic advice and technical support to EngagementHQ clients so they feel like Pro's!

Also coming up
The Thought Leaders for KM Australia 2014
Dave Snowden, Cognitive Edge (a recognised leader in knowledge management)
Mara Tolja,Deutsche Bank (United Kingdom)
Nirmala Palaniappan, Senior Manager - KM and Social Enterprise, Oracle APAC
Tech(India)
Dan Cotton,University of Nebraska- Lincoln Extension
Richard Vines; Kieran Murphy, Department of Environment and Primary
Industries
Lynne Curtin, EPA Victoria
Brigid Costello, Comcare
Angela McCormack, NSW Office of Environment and Heritage
Colin McIvor, WorleyParsons
Felicity Badcock, King & Wood Mallesons
Fiona Evans, Norton Rose Fulbright Australia
Tania Soler, Dairy Food Safety Victoria
Michael Bourne, Country Fire Authority VIC
Paul McGuiggan, NSW Fire Service
Rhonda Andrews, McKinsey & Company
Marie OBrien, The Partnership People; NSW KM Forum
Sally Hawse, Transport for New South Wales
Michelle Lambert, Social Media Navigator
Ric Medlin,The Super Retail Group
Marina Lobastov, ANU

POST- FORUM workshopS

Wednesday, 9 July 2014

Engaging the community by building a

Smart City

Registration: 12.30 pm
Workshop starts: 1.00 pm
Workshop ends: 4.00 pm
Facilitated by:
Ravi Fernando, Director and James Digges, Director,
Best Practice Local Government
About the workshop:

Local governments around the world are increasingly turning

to technology to drive job creation and economic growth
in an environmentally sustainable manner. Councils need
to focus their efforts on building the infrastructure for the
future by listening to changing community needs and an
increasingly mobile community. Supported by innovative
technology partners such as Cisco and IBM, Smart Cities
are emerging around the world with prominent examples in
South Korea, North America and the Middle East.

Smart Cities seek to address emerging challenges

presented such as:

Rapid urbanisation
Retention of the viability of regional towns
Ageing population and the popularity of community
care
Mobile and flexible working arrangements
Environmental sustainability
Community collaboration

Responsibility for addressing these challenges is globally

shifting from state and federal governments to local and
community-based organisations. This trend is now emerging
in Australia providing an imperative for Councils to increase
their focus on the technology infrastructure needs of the
future.

About the workshop leaders:

Ravi Fernando is a Productivity Improvement
and Business Excellence professional with
20 years experience working with Australian
and Global organisations. Having started his
professional career as a process improvement
specialist with Accenture, Ravi has worked
with leading management consultancies like
Deloitte, CGI and SAI Global to deliver tailored improvement
solutions to global clients. Prior to joining Thrive Plus, Ravi
was the Head of Improvement Solutions for SAI Global and
led a team managing the Australian Business Excellence
Framework. Over the years Ravi has developed a passion
for helping his clients to improve productivity and sustain
performance through the adoption of business excellence
principles.

This workshop will explore how Smart Cities can enhance

community collaboration promoting ongoing community
engagement with the Council and increasing the
communitys perception of value. The focus of a Council is
to provide increasing value to the community and to engage
residents not only with the area, but also with the Council
and its services. Ideally value is measured through ongoing
collaboration, in order to:

Understand the diverse needs of the community

Negotiate agreed outcomes to be achieved

Demonstrate achievement of those outcomes

Improve processes and capability

Adjust expectations as the world changes
Public sector interaction with customers and stakeholders
often elicits a response from the same small segment of
passionate stakeholders. The challenge is to broaden the
interaction to allow collaboration with a broader set of
stakeholders. Thankfully, online technology has already
enhanced a Councils ability to interact with the community
within available budgets. Smart Cities can further enhance
that collaboration.

The workshop will provide an overview of how

organisations are using online applications to
broaden engagement with the community. Learn
how to:

Leverage Smart City technology to promote

community engagement
Effectively plan meaningful engagement
Enhance a communitys access to the Council and
vice versa
Broaden your access to community and stakeholder
perception
Drive collaborative community innovation
Increase the breadth of the stakeholders you engage
with
Develop meaningful insights from the diversity of
data

James Digges has more than twenty years

experience delivering organisational improvement
services in national and multi-national firms,
across a variety of industries and in numerous
countries. James is a specialist in dealing with
complex and ambiguous tasks. He tackles
problems with innovative solutions, applying well
practiced improvement and problem solving methodologies
to resolve challenges and develop solutions that improve
performance.
James is constantly called upon to design and deliver
systematic methodologies which will drive innovation
within organisations. He recognises that innovation is
dependent upon providing people with the appropriate tools
and motivation to adopt new approaches and make better
decisions. James has significant experience in managing and
supporting improvement projects, organisational redesign
and development and initiatives to improve decision making.

5 way s t o b o o k yo u r p l a c e AT t h i s e v e n t
Phone: +61 1300 550 662
+61 (02) 8913 4000

Fax: +61 1300 550 663

+61 (02) 8913 4099

Email: aga@arkgroupasia.com
Web: www.arkgroupaustralia.com.au

Post: Send the completed registration form to Ark Group Australia Pty Ltd, Main level, 83 Walker Street, North Sydney, NSW 2060

Effective Online Community Engagement

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8-9 July, 2014 Rydges Sydney Central, Sydney, Australia

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