Today, I was a part of a focus group on Parks and Recreation within Palm Beach County. This particular Needs Assessment meeting was held at the John Prince Administration Building, 2700 6th Ave. South, Lake Worth, FL.
Those who signed up were there to "candidly discuss perspective and ideas about the leisure needs, desires, and issues here in our community." Many of those attending happened to be Palm Beach County employees. All sat around a table and put forth their ideas and input that will be used by what they tell us will be assimilated by "an objective outside specialist to formulate survey questions that will be sent at a later date to randomly selected residents of the County." The results of this countywide needs assessment will be out this Fall.
It all started when the County put out an RFP. Management Learning Laboratories won the bid, a company out of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Ananda Mitra, Professor of Communication at Wake Forest University conducted the focus group that will be held over several days in different locations throughout the County. His company has provided survey solutions in hundreds of communities across the United States having worked in 22 different states. The principal services provided include: Recreation needs assessments, Citizen survey, Interest and attitude surveys.
Those of us there all got to speak. What was curious to me is that NO one other than myself and two others even brought up that the County Board of Commissioners even entertained an idea of a national baseball field being built at one of our county parks. The other curious thing was the timing of this entire focus group meeting. Why was the County doing it? For what real purpose? Why were they spending the money on a study especially when one employee mentioned that they were in need of revenue? When Mr. Mitra was asked that question he said, "We don't get into local politics."
Most people don't use our parks on a regular basis; some never at all but I would think that most people want our parks to stay as parks and are proud of all of them and the amenities they provide. Depending on how these survey questions are worded, an analyst can manipulate the question in order to get a certain result.
3 comments:
Why in the heck were county employees there ?!? Wasn't this a study for the people who live in the area? This is a crappy set up !
Crappy Setup - Sales Pitch - Buy In
Delphi Technique WILL BE USED at the "People's Public Meetings".
Developed by the Rand Corp (60's?) to lead you to consensus. You will be split up and shown before and after pictures of "What could be" but THINK what happens to what is there? What is the cost to make major changes in an established Communities? You'll fill in PRE PRINTED questionnaires and rate ideas (not your own because there is No "OTHER" choices given) and many will be surprised when they put the group back together that you all agreed on so many things!
"First, a facilitator is hired. While his job is supposedly neutral and non-judgmental, the opposite is actually true.
The facilitator is there to direct the meeting to a preset conclusion. The facilitator begins by working the crowd to establish a good-guy-bad-guy scenario. Anyone disagreeing with the facilitator must be made to appear as the bad guy, with the facilitator appearing as the good guy. To accomplish this, the facilitator seeks out those who disagree and makes them look foolish, inept, or aggressive, which sends a clear message to the rest of the audience that if they don't want the same treatment, they must keep quiet. When the opposition has been identified and alienated, the facilitator becomes the good guy - a friend - and the agenda and direction of the meeting are established without the audience ever realizing what has happened.
Next, the attendees are broken up into smaller groups of seven or eight people. Each group has its own facilitator. The group facilitators steer participants to discuss preset issues, employing the same tactics as the lead facilitator.
Participants are encouraged to put their ideas and disagreements on paper, with the results to be compiled later. Who does the compiling? If you ask participants, you typically hear: "Those running the meeting compiled the results." Oh-h! The next question is: "How do you know that what you wrote on your sheet of paper was incorporated into the final outcome?" The typical answer is: "Well, I've wondered about that because what I wrote doesn't seem to be reflected. I guess my views were in the minority."
That is the crux of the situation. If 50 people write down their ideas individually, to be compiled later into a final outcome, no one knows what anyone else has written. That the final outcome of such a meeting reflects anyone's input at all is highly questionable, and the same holds true when the facilitator records the group's comments on paper. But participants in these types of meetings usually don't question the process.
Why hold such meetings at all if the outcomes are already established? The answer is because it is imperative for the acceptance of the School-to-Work agenda, or the environmental agenda, or whatever the agenda, that ordinary people assume ownership of the preset outcomes. If people believe an idea is theirs, they'll support it. If they believe an idea is being forced on them, they'll resist.
The Delphi Technique is being used very effectively to change our government from a representative form in which elected individuals represent the people to a "participatory democracy" in which citizens selected at large are facilitated into ownership of preset outcomes. These citizens believe that their input is important to the result, whereas the reality is that the outcome was already established by people not apparent to the participants."
http://www.rollbacklocalgov.com/node/17
Post a Comment