The Voice of Rotterdam, an online community for issues in the social domain
The Brede Raad 010 works as an advisory body for the City of Rotterdam. It forms a link between the municipality and citizens. But in order to represent the voice of Rotterdammers, the Broad Council 010 naturally needs to know how citizens experience certain themes in the city. They gather these experiences from their own network, but how can they gather the experiences of even more Rotterdammers? Blauw created an online community for the advisory body, the Voice of Rotterdam.
Challenge
The mission of Brede Raad 010 is to advise the Municipal Executive of Rotterdam. It wants to be a link between the municipality and citizens, an authority that is aware of the concerns of Rotterdammers within the social domain. To hear this from an even larger group of Rotterdammers, Brede Raad 010 turned to Blauw.
Vision
The Voice of Rotterdam
Blauw founded an online community, the Voice of Rotterdam, which is still growing. It currently includes about 300 Rotterdammers who are representative of the various target groups the city has. The long-term community can be used for many different themes or issues in the future.
Solution
How does such an online community work?
Once a specific theme, such as loneliness or accessibility, has the attention of the municipality, the Brede Raad 010 wants to discover what is going on within this theme among Rotterdammers. How do they experience this theme themselves? And what problems do they encounter? In this way, the Broad Council 010 can give well-considered advice to the municipality. The advisory body can easily gauge how citizens think about this theme via the online community by, for example, asking a number of questions about the theme or giving an assignment via the platform. In addition to their experience with the theme, participants can also be asked to name their own ideas for possible solutions. All answers and insights are collected in an orderly manner. Then the Broad Council 010 can use the experiences of the community participants in an advice for the municipality.
What are the benefits of having your own online community?
In your own online community you are in contact with your own target group, because in your own community there are participants who are completely attuned to the wishes and needs of your target group.
You can build on previous issues; for example, the Brede Raad 010 can ask Rotterdammers how they perceive the theme of loneliness in general and, a few months later, if the municipality wants to campaign for it, revisit this theme in the community with more personal questions.
The answers you collect in your own community are rich in context and information. Because you ask open-ended questions, you often get more, longer or more personal answers than you expected. Thus, you also receive insights you may never have thought of yourself.
In your own community you can have various assignments carried out; for example, a while back the Brede Raad 010 commissioned Rotterdammers to keep a diary for every time they encountered an inaccessible situation in the city. There can be surprising answers and stories among them.
Result
What does the online community provide for the Broad Council 010?
When the Brede Raad 010 wants to advise the municipality on a particular social theme or issue in the city of Rotterdam, the council can share a concrete question or assignment in the community. It then gathers knowledge and experiences based on real stories from Rotterdammers. In this way, Brede Raad 010 knows what is going on among the citizens and wants to propagate that authority. The answers or experiences collected from Rotterdammers can be used by the advisory body in an advice and submitted to the Municipal Executive of Rotterdam. The college can adjust its policy on the basis of this advice. And so the Broad Council 010 serves as the Voice of Rotterdam.
Want to know more about community research at Blauw? Read more here
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