Canada's World: 100,000 conversations and counting...

What makes a "great conversation?" For some its lots of laughter, for others its deep discussions, close friends and a good glass of wine. For those in policy-land it may be something akin to what Shauna Sylvester has created with Canada's World, where the term the "great conversation" meant talking to over 4,000 Canadians face-to-face, plus another 100,000 online, about the future of Canada's international policy. She recently published a summary of these discussions in a report entitled "Back on the Map," which presents "a new vision for Canada in the world."

It's rare that such extensive effort is made to engage citizens in the important issues on our national policy agenda. Citizen participation is one of Samara's three areas of focus and so we were pleased to have Shauna stop by our offices and talk to us about the process she used to create this level of engagement. Not surprisingly, it involved using everything from traditional methods such as questionnaires and interviews, newer methods that included open forums, interactive workshops and deliberative dialogues - as well as the entire Web 2.0 range of blogs, Facebook, and YouTube. She's now circling back to the participants and to a range of policy-makers to share the results.

You can watch Shauna describe this effort and its results on Samara's newly-created YouTube channel. And as our regular readers know, we're always looking to profile great examples of public service and we welcome ideas, however fully-formed, at any time!