[Hank]

Debriefed Phase 1 and extracted several lessons for iterating to Phase 2.
(Actually I call them phases 0.1 and 0.2. … Silicon Valley, “pre-alpha” habit :-):

Recap:

• Recall that the initiating objective was to create a channel to enable productive dialogue with people holding opinions we did not understand, so I could explore why they hold their opinions.
• In the initial phase I transparently went right at that objective. The appeal was (to paraphrase), “I’m trying to learn, for the purpose of helping us all learn, so please engage with me to help that happen.” Did not specify any topics; let them choose. Was going to be one-on-one and anonymous, so their comments would not get public exposure.
• This appeal was an abject failure. Though it reached several thousand viewers, and many clicked through, not a single one agreed to participate.

Key Learnings (abbreviated):

• Appeals to “civic responsibility” are not sufficiently motivating.
• Prospects need to be motivated to interact, so we need to leverage a topic they have passion about.
• They interact on Facebook in order to be heard, so we need to give them a mechanism that gets them exposed
• It has to be easy to interact, without a lot of steps, nor a bunch of reading to digest.

So we revised the approach, as follows:

• Choose one topic that we know our test audience is passionate about.
• Show them that their viewpoint will be broadcast — give them a megaphone — by creating a public document (later dubbed “viewpoint map”) that memorializes each interaction.  The controversial statements captured there may also act as triggers for people, to more likely motivate them to engage.
• Reach out one-on-one to seed initial attributable quotes into the Viewpoint Map.
• Segue to a poll that engages the audience on the identified subject, then follows that up with a freeform question.
• I then could follow up on their freeform answer, if I want to explore for deeper understanding
• Collate the poll responses as a publishable data product.
• Consider presenting more broadly than just Facebook: Reddit, NextDoor, etc.  This will increase participation as well as establishing a rationale for participating — broader exposure.

So I’m designing a new approach using these elements, for launch in June.

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[Anonymous]

I really like the part about motivations. Thats great.

[Author]

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