At Experiencing Engagement on Friday afternoon, we used an exercise called “Thirty Five” — involving 3×5 index cards — to bubble up key words and phrases most important to participants. The way it worked: People wrote a word or phrase on a card. Then we circulated and passed cards. Each pair of people discussed the two cards they held, and wrote on the back two nmbers — one on each card — which together numerically totaled seven. Then we circulated and did this again — five times. Eventually each card had a set of numbers on the back, ranging from 0 to 7. Summing the numbers “ranked” each card — and the phrase on it. Here’s background on this debriefing “game”:
http://www.thiagi.com/archived-games/2015/2/22/thirty-five-for-debriefing
Here’s what we came up with:
25 Reciprocity
25 Elevate authentic voices
24 It’s to be honest, authentic and true with those I’m working with, to follow through on promises so trust can be built because without that quality everything falls apart
24 Desire to go beyond “two sides” of the issue
23 Build bridges between empathy (personal interest stories, arts expression, local connections) and data (context, backstory, facts, charts) as well as “action” (more from consumer to doer)
23 Empathy, building to create connection to create a more compassoinate world
22 Work with those most affect, not those who claim to represent them
22 Don’t work alone; invest in relationships as much mor more than products
22 Engagement is partly about sharing control and ownership
21 is the person in front of me (or on the line) feeling like he/she/they have been listened to?
21 We need our engagement work to be more intentional — with planning, someone to shepard it, and ways to evaluate the success of the effort
21 Honesty about where we are and where we want to go
21 Empowerment
21 Openness (to new perspectives, ideas, partnerships, etc. etc.)
20 Inclusion — finding unpopular and unheard voices
20 Listen from the ground up
20 Trust built over time
20 Context
20 Meet people where they area, not where I want them to be
20 Accountability
19.5 Curiousity
19 Caring
19 Authenticity, going deep
19 Mutual respect
19 Meaning / trust / dialogue
19 Humility
19 Trust: Without trust, engagement is at best incomplete and at worst non-existent or even toxic. We live in untrustworthy times, so we need better models.
19 Understanding
19 Exposure to and appreciation of diverse political views
18.5 Community of subscribers and loyal supporters speak to us all the time / inclusion
18 Who benefits
18 Connecting
18 Inclusiveness
18 Listening to understand, not explain
18 Transparency equals (?) honesty
18 Connectivity
18 Work with, not for, people
18 Authentic
17.5 Listening / empathy
17 Integrity
17 Authentic collaboration
17 People need to feel hurt
17 Storytelling
17 Solution based
17 Know thyself beyond all things in order to be fully available for others. Practice seeing every person in their full dignity, without labels, without diminishing thjem.
17 Engagement is worthwhile for everyone involved — everyone gets something from it
17 Holding the space for engagement
17 Inclusion
17 Open heart and mind
16 Do what you can to allow stories to flow between people — the shortest distance between two people is a story
16 Someone in the “audience” knows much more about any subject than we as journalists
16 Supporting self determination
16 Compassion
15 Carve out time to collaborate without distractions
14 Buy in from the newsroom
14 Residents: Connecting I to us.
14 Democracy
14 All opinions matter
13.5 Synthesis
13 Trustworthy engagement
13 Justice: Bedrock value that informs my engagement.
13 That I am not doing enough of the right type of engagement
12.5 Engagement is about redefining the role of media so that our resources and expertise continue to have value for readers
12 Remember the people
12 To be useful
11 Authenticity
10 People already know what needs to be done; I’d like to give people a tool to do that
10 Not being contained by speed but pay attention to practicality
9 Rawness