How to bust lockdown boredom with interactive engagement on a budget

It’s true that many people right now are experiencing, perhaps for the first time in their lives, anxiety. There’s some fear of the unknown, uncertainty about the future and an unnatural craving to be able to eat a kebab on a park bench without being arrested.

However, underlying many of these feelings is a deep and hostile sense of boredom, the type that drives you to tidy your linen cupboard, match up the lids to your Tupperware containers and make hilarious but unnecessary online purchases.

Now is the perfect time to engage

Communities are crying out for new ways to fill their days of iso. Gone are the excuses of never having enough time to participate in forums, complete surveys or write submissions. In fact, give people an issue to talk about that isn’t corona virus and watch their faces light up as they remember that time before social distancing, before toilet paper wars. A time when they bemoaned the decisions of organisations but did little to actively contribute to the discussion that led to them.

People are bored

While restrictions are starting to ease, our audience is still relatively captive in their own homes, full of restless energy, ideas, know-how and expertise just waiting to be tapped. So, how do we do it without the workshops, the pop ups and the drop-in sessions?

There are, of course, many online platforms poised and established for this very purpose. They have suites of tools from ideas walls to interactive maps, discussion boards, surveys and participatory budgeting. Sounds brilliant and they are. They can also be expensive depending on your subscription and the modules you want access to.

There is another way

Organisations can use their existing resources to create interactive, connected engagement that serves their purposes and supports social cohesion
and unity. And they don’t need to build a website or spend a million bucks to do it.

It’s the good old-fashioned kitchen table or dinner box discussion, with a twist. For those who are unfamiliar, the kitchen table discussion is where a host would invite family, friends, colleagues and
neighbours into their home to literally sit around a table and discuss some key questions provided by the organisation. The participants record their own
responses either on paper or a device while enjoying a cup of tea, a biscuit and a bit of a chinwag. The same applies to a dinner box discussion where, you guessed it, you eat dinner instead. At Spectrum, we’re more wine and cheese but to each their own.

Mixing it up iso-style

Obviously in the time of Rona, having family, friends and others around for an ash brie is still restricted to two adults and their kids, but it doesn’t mean the discussion can’t go on. The government, Facebook, the media, everyone is urging us to get online and connect with our friends and family. It’s important to our mental wellbeing. So why not use these catch ups to debate some important community issues, record your responses and participate?

Organisations need only provide a webpage with all the information on the issue or decision to be made, perhaps a few print outs, some FAQs, background, stats, figures – anything you would normally provide to stakeholders – that will help them provide feedback and input. Participants can
submit their responses online using a form, scan and email their handwritten notes or send them via the post.

Why we love it

Kitchen table discussions are great because you usually end up with people having their say who wouldn’t normally participate. They went along for the 2015 chardonnay and before you know it, they’ve come up with seven ideas no one else had thought of.

Let’s face it, we’re in iso – we’re all running out of
things to do and talk about. As organisations, now is the time to throw your issues out there and see what comes back from your community. They might just come up with something amazing.

Alysia Norris, Senior Communications and Engagement Consultant