When Councillors take to the tweets. Part 2.

Engagement!

My second question in the list of nine was, “What is Engagement?” My own understanding of engagement rests on another question, which I have previously written about. In slightly old-fashioned language, “How do you treat people as ends in themselves?” In turn, you can understand this by considering the opposite – treating people as a means to an end.

It’s a challenge I first put to Marketing. How do you Market, even ‘’nice cuddly Marketing”, without treating people as a means to an end? That is, without seeing them solely as a mass of people who will buy [as much of] your stuff [as possible, at the highest possible price] and deliver your turnover or profits? Most marketers probably see that as the only sane focused description of their job. That includes those who have started to talk more about ‘Engagement’ since the advent of social media. These accept there’s now a return channel in response to the messages they used to just broadcast. But for most this is still bound up with the ultimate goal of causing ‘consumers’ to act in a certain way, or at best it is about getting back ‘thumbs up’ signals to say you have hit your target, or it’s about people allowing themselves to be the means by which your promotional messages are passed on to others.

So how would Marketing treat people as “ends in themselves”? It would involve them as equals, give them full information, and the means to discover and understand their own real needs. It would help you to improve your products in response [on those terms], set an affordable price [not the same as a maximum achievable price] and make you part of a bigger sustainable eco-system. This is ‘Engagement’. The strongest argument against it, probably generalised as “realism”, is that unless every other vendor in the world does the same thing you are putting yourself at a relative, and perhaps fatal, disadvantage. The argument in favour of this kind of Engagement is that it is morally right and creates a better society… including for the owners, shareholders, managers and workers in the vendor organisation.

What’s this got to do with politics?

Firstly, if politics is about Party and your party is effectively a brand, then politicians face exactly the same dilemma as Marketers. People are there as a means to an end – to buy your political product by giving you their vote. Or they are there as an end in themselves – to work with you to make their own lives, community and thus the lives of others… better. They are voters or citizens.

Actually, though, are the two mutually exclusive? Politicians will argue that you have to get people’s votes in order to protect them from that worst of all worlds – one governed by ‘the other lot’… those purely power hungry, citizen disregarding, villains in the other party. That’s still maybe OK, if it’s an honestly held belief, until you reach the point where this end is to be achieved “at all costs”.

This year we are starting to commemorate World War 1. One way of looking at that conflict is that it was overseen by people who said, “We will save our people from being ruled over by the other lot, at all costs, even if it kills them.” And it did – by the million.

That may seem a long way from a bit of local politics on social media. It is. But I hope it shows the ultimate conclusion of treating people as a means to an end.

So I think that, like the Marketer, the politician has two choices in their use of social media.

ENGAGEMENT: Using these channels to involve people in understanding and articulating their needs. Using these channels to involve them in defining and [crucially] committing to work towards as well as fund, changes which better meet those needs. This involves a lot of listening, reflecting and dispassionate information sharing. It demands self-restraint about defending or condemning the status quo for the sake of it. Engagement uses transmit and receive.

CAMPAIGNING: Using these channels to push messages, often selectively, with a view to influencing how people vote. This includes focusing excessively on ‘the other side’ and their conduct or personality [or ‘integrity’], rather than on what people need to know, or need to be given the means to consider. Campaigning narrows the agenda to a set of familiar well-rehearsed arguments and rituals. It treats ‘voters’ as a means to an end. Campaigning uses the receive button only to spot when things are said which can be affirmed or contradicted by the politician … not learned from.

So I would urge politicians using social media to ask themselves whether they are Engaging or Campaigning, and which is appropriate. I think there’s obviously a case to make for Campaigning during an election period, particularly if you spent all your other time Engaging and have now set out your [complex, messy and sometimes at risk of being dull?] policies. But the rest of the time I think Campaigning gets in the way of Engagement and will clog the channel, or deter people who might otherwise have been drawn into Engagement online. Those might be the very people who would never have become involved via traditional channels in the past.

Even if I’m broadly right – is this just a counsel [pun intended] of perfection? Am I asking too much, or too much too soon? Probably. But it’s good to have something on the horizon for people to work towards and sign up to.

Also, I’d be a terrible hypocrite if I wasn’t engaging and listening. So what do you think? If you are a Councillor or MP, do you accept my split between Campaigning and Engagement? Do you think you are currently striking the right balance? Do you have the tools, resources and knowledge to Engage more online, if you thought this was a good thing?

If you are a member of the-rest-of-the-public, do you want to be Engaged with? Are you put off ‘community’ social media by partisan campaigning amongst online politicians or not? Do you feel politicians regard you as ‘a vote to be won’ or as an equal to be drawn into running your community? Do you think these two actually go together, or agree they are at odds with each other?

How can I improve my argument? What might persuade you to try to create more Engagement? What might it do for us?

Should we ask our online politicians to sign up to a ‘Pledge to Engage’ kitemark?