Our 3CMA Educational Webinar - What and Who Are You Listening To? Using the Right Input for Important Decisions

“I wished this webinar could have gone on for another hour! Great information from start to finish."

If you missed our acclaimed webinar on COVID-19 data and community input, you can watch it here.

It's 56 minutes packed with "so many fascinating and really applicable examples" for local governments that can give you "a totally new lens". You can also scroll down to see specific shorter clips below.

We hope you agree with 3CMA host Michelle Bono who promises: "You're going to love this webinar".

Full Webinar (56 min)

Webinar Segments (10 total)

We've also broken the webinar into parts and short excerpts you can watch in just 3 to 12 minutes each.

Introduction - meet the host and speaker, then learn how investing in knowledge ("working wiser") can pay you back 100x or more.

Part 1 - uses COVID-19 data to illustrate data challenges and give you the full story about the risks we face.

Part 2 - is all about community input: what it is, whey we need it and how it goes wrong.

Part 3 - ties everything together into simple guidelines for getting input that's helpful and avoiding input that's not.

Conclusion - gives you a few quick and dirty ways to get input without major biases.

Here they are in order... enjoy!

Introduction: Kickoff (3 min)

Meet your 3CMA host, learn about your presenter and hear about the topics that will be covered.

Introduction: Why Do We Need Data? (3 min)

Forget working harder or working smarter... you'll be able to "work wiser" with the right data.

The smartest cities and counties are getting 100x returns (or more) from investments in knowledge.

Part 1A: Problems With COVID-19 Risk Data (6 min)

How deadly is COVID-19? And why did we get the answer wrong until recently?

You'll get those answers and learn how self-selection makes data unusable.

Part 1B: COVID-19 Risks By Age (3 min)

What is your risk of dying from COVID-19 based on your age?

You'll see why data may need to be "disaggregated" into smaller meaningful chunks to answer questions and inform decisions.

You'll also see what age group has the highest increased risk of death and how residents are balancing health versus economic concerns in their own minds:

Part 1C: COVID-19 Risk Context and Mistakes (5 min)

You'll learn about using the right data in the right context.

You'll see how COVID-19 is in the range of risks that younger people already manage, like driving a motorcycle. But you'll also get proof that it is NOT "just the flu”.

Part 2A: The Government Communications Machine (5 min)

You'll see all the pieces needed for the government communications machine to operate. You'll also learn about the different input functions and channels with two simple frameworks.

Part 2B: Why We Need Community Input (8 min)

Why is community input so important? And why does it need to be representative?

You'll see how our democratic system depends on it. You'll also see the problems with unrepresentative input, from both citizen and government perspectives.

Part 2C: The Challenges With Community Input (7 min)

Ever wondered how the input you get compares to the reality of what your whole community thinks?

You'll see examples that show just how unrepresentative and misleading your input is. You'll also learn exactly why that happens.

Part 3: How To Get Good Input and Avoid Bad Input (12 min)

Want to learn how to manage the input you get and get the input you need? Ever wished you could ignore some grouchy member of the public with scientific precision?

Watch this to learn those things and more. You'll get simple guidelines and checklists you can start using and sharing immediately.

Conclusion: Final Tips and Tricks (4 min)

Learn a few quick and dirty ways that you can get usable community input on your own.

And that's a wrap. Thanks for watching!

BONUS: How can you get affordable scientific survey data? (1 min)

We want every government to be able to have representative community input. So we've invested many years and millions of dollars to make scientific community surveys over 90% faster, cheaper and easier.

If you want to eliminate all the headaches that bad input is causing you now - and you want the joy and savings that come from having better data for better decisions, you can learn more from this one minute video. Or contact us today!

How do agencies like mine use FlashVote?

We typically help agencies solve these problems:

They want to overcome the noisy few. They have a small number of noisy voices at meetings or online that may influence decisions for the worse.
They need representative community input. They have individuals or groups claiming to speak for the whole community, but they strongly suspect they aren’t.
They want to stop using bad data. They have been using data from online surveys/engagement that they know isn’t representative enough for decisions.
They wish that good data was affordable. They would love scientific survey data, but they can’t spend $20,000 to $50,000 or more each time they need it.
They want to build trust and respect. They feel a lack of trust and respect from the community, usually because of past decisions based on unrepresentative public input.
They want to improve services and morale. They only hear complaints and squeaky wheels instead of measuring true community satisfaction and hearing from their happy majority.
They want to make great decisions. They believe that elected officials could make better choices on issues with nudges from compelling data.
They want to engage more residents. They want a way to connect with the busy majority and those that are harder to reach because of technology or language.

Do any of those sound good to you? If so, we can help you right away.

How much does FlashVote cost?

We've worked hard to give FlashVote all the features that make it a no-brainer for local governments of all sizes - including its cost.

You can get a whole year of FlashVote scientific surveys for much less than the cost of just one traditional scientific survey.