Newsletter, April 2007

Contents this month

• Main article: Dialogue between the Two Cultures
• A new free process design tool!
• Communicating complex subjects to the public
• Project news
• Naples event

Dialogue Designer

Designing public and stakeholder engagement processes is both art and science. The art part comes from long experience and some intuition about how people and processes tend to function.

The science part is more objective and based, like all science, as much on knowing what does not work as what does. It boils down to taking all the key variables -

What do you want from it?
Who should be involved?
How sensitive or complex are the issues?
How long have you got?

- computing the possible methods, rejecting those that will not deliver, and then choosing between those that remain.

Sounds simple? It is, now, because we have developed Dialogue Designer to do all the hard work for you.

We used to think the art part of process design was too complex to reproduce in any meaningful way: all that staring at the ceiling and endless mulling over the possibilities. But we know that the art is based on some sound principles: knowing what type of results you need; understanding the sort of responses you get from different people; learning how to tackle complex issues in sensitive situations; appreciating how long a task can take.

Dialogue Designer uses the principles of process design and computes the results for you. It takes you through a sequence of four questions and each time you respond gives you some sage advice or points you to something you need to consider. When you have answered the final question it tells you what methods would work for you and tells you more about them.

There is one aspect of Dialogue Designer we regret. The fact that it will probably make redundant all of us process artists.

Go to the website to use Dialogue Designer – FREE

As subscribers to our newsletter we regard you all as friends and family and welcome your feedback. Please send feedback to sarah@dialoguebydesign.com.