Using keypad polling to make meetings more productive, educational, and participatory

Using Keypad Polling to Make Meetings More Productive, Educational, and ParticipatoryIdeally, participants in a meeting convened by publicofficials should feel as though they were invited toexpress themselves. They should feel connectedwith others, and they should feel hopeful about theprospect of positively affecting their surroundings.For people to feel this way, public officials need toconstruct meetings differently from how they aretypically organized. The traditional structure formeetings involves everyone listening to featured“spokespeople,” followed by a relatively smallnumber of those in attendance giving a shortspeech at the microphone. This format creates theresult of public meeting participation being likethat at sporting events: attendees are primarilyobservers who express support or opposition to thecentral action in soft or loud cheers, boos, or sidecomments.

Despite these dysfunctions, the town hall meetingstill occupies a hallowed place in the public mind as a representation of democracy in action.Unfortunately, the “brand” of the town hall meetingsuffered significant degradation in the summer of2009, when many of these events became a forumfor shouting, insults, and even low-grade violence.Public officials have an interest not only in seeingmeetings fulfill their potential but also in rebrandingthe town meeting.

Fortunately, there is good news for public officials.In the past few years, there has been a dramaticincrease in the affordability, accessibility, and ease ofuse of a computer-based tool that can transformpublic meetings. This tool, audience response systems (ARS), or keypad polling, is a combinationof handheld devices, computers, a receiver, and pro-jection capacity; together, ARS allows an audienceto be asked a multiple-choice question, with agraphical/numeric summary of the range of answersbeing quickly displayed to the entire gathering.Essentially, ARS allows public officials to ask anentire gathering a question on any issue of concern,

with the responses immediately displayed. Our opin-ion is that these devices are underappreciated bypublic officials. In addition to their effectiveness inchanging meeting dynamics, they can also help pub-lic officials get a reading of the public’s views that issuperior to other strategies.

This article explores how ARS can transform tradi-tional public meetings. The devices can give officialsmuch better information about their constituents.They allow each participant in a meeting to have hisor her voice heard on issues. They foster a greatersense of connectedness and community. Finally, theyoften push participants to a more nuanced under-standing of the complexities of finding solutions toproblems for diverse populations. This article dis-cusses these benefits and explores some considera-tions that public officials should keep in mind asthey evaluate using ARS in public settings.

Terminology and Background

In the literature on this technology, the systems thatallow a convener to ask for instant display responsesare called audience response devices (ARS), or audi-ence polling technology (APT). Informally, mostusers of these devices often refer to them with theshorthand “keypads” or “clickers,” terms for the handheld devices participants use to registertheir answers to questions. In this article, keypadsignifies the entire system, and keypad polling isused to describe the process of engaging groups withthese systems. We use the terms public official andfacilitator interchangeably to describe who is man-aging the meeting, because in some cases a publicofficial will run the meeting alone and in other caseswill engage staff or professional assistance for this purpose.

Our views on keypads and their effectiveness inmanaging groups are based on much experienceusing ARS in multiple circumstances over a number

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© 2010 Wi ley Per iodicals , Inc .Publ ished onl ine in Wi ley InterScience (www.interscience.wi ley.com)

Nat ional Civ ic Review • DOI : 10.1002/ncr.20002 • Spr ing 2010

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of years. In exploring the possibilities, we use com-posite, hypothetical examples that reflect a numberof real-life experiences. A few of our experiences indesigning and facilitating keypad-enhanced meet-ings are assisting twenty-five hundred citizens in giving a big city mayor feedback on budget priori-ties; discerning the consensus on priorities for long-term disaster recovery plans in rural areas afterhurricanes (two meetings, four hundred peopleeach); exploring challenges to greater regionalism(seventy people); helping a federal agency distill consensus opinions about the risks and benefits ofvarious disease treatments (thirty people); andorganizing multiday summits for mayors, countyexecutives, and other civic leaders on regional racerelations (two hundred people). The compositeexamples in this article are speculative and shouldnot be interpreted as reports of actual meetings onthose specific topics. Yet the reader should knowthat our predictions about how groups tend tobehave at keypad-enhanced meetings are based onmuch professional experience in using the technol-ogy while facilitating groups.

How Keypads WorkThe meeting facilitator (perhaps a public official)projects onto a screen a multiple-choice questionthat has between two and ten possible answers.Each audience member pushes a button on ahandheld device that signifies the answer reflect-ing the person’s perspective. After the pollingperiod ends (usually five to twenty seconds), thefacilitator can choose to display the resultsinstantly; this display may be in a pie chart, bargraph, or other format. Unless a special processhas been created to assign keypads to particularpeople, the answers to the questions are anony-mous. (It is possible to manage the keypad distri-bution process so the facilitator can track answersto particular individuals; this is usually done onlyin special circumstances, outside of classroomenvironments.) The computer is always trackinganswers to particular keypads, but if the keypadshave been distributed randomly, the answers areessentially anonymous to the facilitator and every-

one else. In addition to the histogram of answersthat is displayed instantly, the data from the ques-tion become part of a dataset that can be analyzedlater, made available to meeting participants, orused in other ways.

We have found it most useful to think about thekinds of questions in four general categories.

1. Demographic questions ask participants to con-vey some “objective” information about them-selves. Examples: How long have you lived inthis community? What is your household annualincome? Demographic questions lead partici-pants to understand the diversity of participants’backgrounds.

2. Fact questions ask participants to give theiranswer to a question that has an “objective”answer. Examples: What percentage of adultsvoted in the last election? How many generalpractitioners practice in our community? Howmany acres of public green space do we have inour district? Fact questions lead meeting partici-pants to better understand the diversity of partic-ipants’ knowledge. Most important for ourpurposes here, fact questions are a mechanismfor introducing key facts into a group in anengaging way.

3. Experience questions ask participants whether orhow frequently they may have had a specificexperience. Examples: Do you have any close rel-atives who do not have health insurance? Whenwas the last time you shopped in the local shop-ping mall? Experience questions lead the facilita-tor and the group to better understand thediversity of participants’ experiences.

4. Perspective/opinion questions ask participantstheir assessment of some situation or condition.To what extent do you feel government officialsare taking the public’s views into account? Howsatisfied are you with your health insurance coverage? How attractive is our downtown areacompared to other ones of similar size? Perspec-tive questions elicit attention to and greater clar-ity about the diversity of participants’ opinionsand worldviews.

Other Important FeaturesThere are three other capabilities of keypad systemsthat can bring significant benefits in helping facilita-

National Civ ic Review DOI : 10.1002/ncr Spr ing 2010

Unless a special process has been created toassign keypads to particular people, the answersto the questions are anonymous.

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tors and groups make sense of the diversity of per-spectives present during a meeting. One is showingcomparative data; this is particularly relevant fordemographic questions. For example, imagine acitywide meeting about educational quality where,early in the meeting, participants are asked a demo-graphic question about which part of the city theylive in. After showing a bar chart indicating wheremeeting attendees live, the public official/facilitatorcould display the percentage of the population fromeach part of the city. Most likely, some parts areoverrepresented and other parts underrepresented,and this would be visually apparent. Showing com-parative data draws attention not only to the diver-sity in the room but also to the potential limitationsof this room’s diversity in the context of the com-munity. In some cases, the results of experience oropinion questions can be compared to survey dataon the same issues, so the present audience sees howit is similar to or different from larger samples ofpeople.

Another useful capability of keypads is allowingparticipants to choose multiple items of preferencefrom a list. If each person chooses two or three pre-ferred items from a list, the display conveys whichitems were most selected by the entire group. Thefacilitators have the choice of weighting the partici-pant choices or having them all of equal priority.This capability is particularly valuable when a groupis wrestling with how to prioritize among manycompeting choices.

One of the most powerful capabilities is cross-tabu-lation, which allows the facilitator to show how thegroup’s answers to one question compare to answersto another question. Going back to the educationalquality example, imagine that after the initial demo-graphic questions participants answer a questionabout their assessment of the school systems. Cross-tabulation allows display of a slide that shows thatpeople from some parts of the city are more likely topositively assess the school system than people fromother neighborhoods. Such a slide gives furtherdepth and nuance to understanding the diversity ofopinions. This knowledge might be very useful notonly for the public official but also for attendees.

Lastly, keypad systems also allow before-and-aftercomparison. For instance, participants in the hypo-

thetical education meeting might be asked initiallyfor their opinion about their hopefulness that thepublic’s preferences will be listened to by public offi-cials. Near the conclusion of the meeting and afterwhat would hopefully be a healthy and civilexchange, they might be polled again on the samequestions, with the comparative results graphicallyjuxtaposed to the first result. Generally groupsengaging in a reasonably well-run process increasetheir hopefulness about the outcome of the meeting.Seeing this result reinforces the idea that civicengagement is empowering.

The Impact of Keypad Polling on People and GroupsThe benefits of using keypad polling in meetings arenot limited to public officials’ cognitive understand-ing of the public’s diverse views. Keypad polling, ifused wisely, has a substantial effect on the quality ofmeetings themselves and can lead to positive effectson participants. It is worthwhile to explore how andwhy this happens.

In a typical meeting with more than a few dozenpeople, every person has few opportunities or noneto let a perspective be directly known. By contrast,keypad polling allows each individual to directlyexpress a perspective on whatever questions areasked. Whether or not the person gets to the micro-phone, his or her opinion is acknowledged andcounted equally.

While acknowledging the individual contribution ofeach person, keypad polling simultaneously directspublic attention to the diversity of answers in theroom. The polling satisfies (at least partially) eachindividual’s desire to heard, and the display reposi-tions that expression within the context of commu-nity views. This depiction of diversity is an inherentreminder that there are many opinions, and the pub-lic official has the duty to make decisions that con-sider a variety of points of view.

Beyond directing attention to the group’s diversity ofanswers, the second advantage of keypad polling is


Generally groups engaging in a reasonably well-run process increase their hopefulness about theoutcome of the meeting.

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that the collective response of the group presented istypically viewed as objective. Without the technol-ogy, any summary statement about the group’sresponse is inherently subjective and interpretive.Without some transparent process of polling thegroup, everyone comes up with a personal conclu-sion about what the group “thinks,” based oncrowd body language, murmurs, shouts, or otherexpressions. Keypad polling directs attention to the“mind” of the entire group, and the results create ashared and somewhat objective picture of the diver-sity of the group mind that is less subject to inter-pretation than a summary created by a participantor the facilitator.

In our experience, there is a nonrational effect ofkeypad polling that many people experience.Participants in keypad polling exercises havereported to us that they leave feeling a palpablesense of connectedness to others. Although it is dif-ficult to say precisely why this occurs, two dynamicsseem likely. First, each member of the group has par-ticipated in a collective process of creating an image(the chart or table representing the views) that isunique to that meeting. That the participants allcooperated to create the screen image of the sum-mary has, in our opinion, its own emotional effect ofenhancing the feeling of connectedness among theparticipants.

Perhaps more important, a sequence of unbiasedquestions with a set of distinct choices creates asense of a “container” for the entire group.Although the range of answers is precisely aboutexploring diversity, the fact that everyone has aplace within the answers creates a subtle feeling ofcommunity. Because this is often done multipletimes and in different ways, the process creates aweb of invisible connections between people; by theend of a series of questions, a person does not know

who answered any question the same way he or shedid, but it is easy for each person to imagine thatothers answered at least one question in the sameway. This is different from what happens in a typi-cal meeting, where a person learns of links to only asmall portion of the others in attendance.

If keypad questions are used with a high level ofskill, the process and a few well-placed facilitatorquestions and solicited audience comments can helpraise audience awareness of the complexities of the issues being discussed. The key to this effect ischoosing and sequencing questions such that partic-ipants can easily see how some experiences might berelated to people’s perspectives.

Two Hypothetical Scenarios

In this section, we further explore the advantages ofusing keypads in public meetings by discussing twohypothetical situations. For each example, we willdiscuss how the public officials might sequence key-pad polling questions to achieve a result that is, inour view, superior to what is obtained from a tradi-tional meeting. In scenario one, the public official isthe director of a city planning department who isholding a public input process to elicit views on downtown development. In scenario two, thepublic official is a member of the U.S. House ofRepresentatives convening a town hall meeting onhealth care reform, even though his position on health care bills is reasonably well known.

After each scenario is described, we offer our ideasabout how the public official might strategically usekeypad polling to create a more effective meeting.We first offer what it might mean for the official tomake a minimal adjustment by asking just a fewquestions before the traditional process; then wedescribe a more strategic and complex strategy ofrunning the meeting differently to create evengreater positive impact.

Scenario OneThe director of the city planning department desiresto redirect energy toward a downtown developmentplan that has lain dormant for several years. Thepublic appears to be of many minds about develop-ment. The recently elected mayor made economicdevelopment of downtown a major campaign issue;


Keypad polling directs attention to the “mind” ofthe entire group, and the results create a sharedand somewhat objective picture of the diversity of the group mind that is less subject to interpre-tation than a summary created by a participant orthe facilitator.

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however, a recent ballot initiative to fund open spaceconservation also won handily. The planning direc-tor intends to hold a series of charrettes throughoutthe city to get input from hundreds of people. Cityordinances require that before initiating a publicinput process the planning department must con-vene a public meeting to get feedback on how theprocess should be structured. These preliminarypublic input meetings are typically structured in atraditional format: citizens sign up for their twominutes at the microphone, and the meetings last aslong as there remain people who have signed up.The planning director wants the preliminary meet-ing to signal her desire to do things differently.

The planning director’s three primary objectives forthe meeting are:

1. Gaining a better understanding of how the pub-lic thinks about competing uses for downtown,such as open space, retail development, historicpreservation, and a vibrant nightlife

2. Getting input on how to construct a publicprocess that will be accessible to a broad cross-section of the public

3. Helping meeting participants have a greater senseof the tradeoffs between different priorities ofdowntown development

In a traditional public hearing process, employeesfrom the planning department might take notes onthe comments of each speaker, indicating whichspeakers and issues seemed to have the most reso-nance with the crowd. Likely the vast majority ofthe speakers would talk about development priori-ties, with comparatively few offering commentsabout the public input process that the director mustdesign.

The planning director could quickly and dramati-cally improve on this result by asking a few key-pad questions at the beginning of the meeting. Thesequestions might be:

• Which three of these would you consider themost important in your vision of a future down-town: open space, restaurants, corporate andbusiness hubs, retail shopping establishments,public venues for medium to large events, eco-nomically diverse residential community?

• Assuming each session is interesting, how manythree-hour planning charrettes would you bewilling to attend on Thursday evenings over thenext six months?

By asking these questions before the meeting, theplanning director gets a clear picture of meeting par-ticipants’ preferences for development and for civicengagement processes.

If the director combines keypad polling with someskillful facilitation choices, she can generate muchmore information about these preferences and alsomake headway on objective three, elevating partici-pants’ understanding of the tradeoffs between dif-ferent development priorities. What would this looklike?

At the start of the meeting, the planning directorannounces that she plans to use a different processto get more information from the meeting. She saysshe will start with a few demographic questions tofind out who is present. These questions focus onage, race, gender, neighborhood of residence, andincome. After the results are displayed for each ques-tion, the planner shows how the results in the roomcompare to census results for the entire city. Thesedata demonstrate that the attendees in the meetingtend to be older, whiter, and of higher-income thancity residents as a whole. While expressing appreci-ation for those who have attended, the directormight convey that one thing she intends to keep inmind as she designs public input processes is thatsome groups who may want to participate are not inattendance.

To get a sense of which people are using down-town now, the director might ask a few experiencequestions:

• How frequently do you attend work activities inthe downtown area?

• How frequently do you shop downtown?• How frequently do you use the open spaces

downtown?

After each question, the planning director asks forbrief comments from a few people who representcontrasting answers. For example, she asks peoplewho shop downtown frequently why they do so,


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and asks people who rarely shop there why not.After exploring these questions, the planning direc-tor shows some cross-tabulated results; these resultsindicate that although working and shopping down-town are highly correlated, a substantial portion ofpeople do not work downtown but visit there specif-ically to enjoy the open spaces. The director asks fora few comments from this group about why theyenjoy open spaces downtown.

The planning director moves on to opinion ques-tions about downtown development:

• What is your relative preference for small retailestablishments that don’t require major buildingchanges but can be economically unstable, asopposed to large anchor establishments that arestable but may require more changes to thecityscape?

• How would you prioritize these aspects of thefuture downtown: open space, restaurants, corpo-rate and business hubs, retail shopping establish-ments, public venues or medium to large events,economically diverse residential community?

• Assuming each session is interesting, how manythree-hour planning charrettes would you bewilling to attend on Thursday evenings over thenext six months?

As before, the planning director solicits a few briefcomments that reflect differing answers to eachquestion after the results are displayed.

After this part of the meeting is over, the directorannounces that the meeting will take a fifteen-minute pause before the open microphone periodresumes. A signup sheet is distributed where peoplecan submit their email addresses if they want toreceive a report containing all the results of the key-pad polling. In addition, people are asked to fill outa brief evaluation form. The form also asks them forany comment they want to make about developmentpriorities and about the public input process thatwill be designed. It also invites them to stay for theopen microphone period.

At the end of this meeting, the public official has agood deal more information about people’s views ofdowntown development and about participation in

public processes than happens with a traditionalpublic hearing. Equally important, the first portionof the meeting has become an actual discussion thatmight be a collective search for solutions, instead ofa sequence of small speeches where each person sim-ply states a set of talking points prepared inadvance.

Scenario Two: A Town Hall Meeting on Health CareReformA Democratic congressional representative in aswing district has publicly stated his position for sig-nificant health care reform but has also expressedsome concerns from his party leadership about thecosts of the proposals. Partially in response todemands from Republican constituents, the repre-sentative decides to have a town hall meeting. Theseare his four primary objectives:

1. Determining the degree of support for modesthealth reform and for more aggressiveapproaches, such as single payer

2. Sorting out the “fringe” opinions (health reformis akin to German Nation Socialism) from main-stream conservative concerns about governmentintervention in the economics of health care

3. Being perceived as directly addressing main-stream objections in a reasonable way

4. Modeling a public meeting that includes diverseperspectives but remains civil

In opening remarks, the representative mightacknowledge that not every person will be able toask a question or make an extended statement, butit is important to him to hear statements from allpoints of view. He then explains that the primaryreason for using audience polling technology is sothat everybody will be able to express an opinionand have it counted, even though not everyone canmake a speech to the entire group or ask a questionpublicly. The representative also hands out a formasking a few open-ended questions about the rela-tionship between health care proposals and thenation’s future.

Since many members of the crowd would probablybe somewhat hostile and impatient when theyarrive, it might be best to ask participant these ques-tions first:


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• On the basis of what you know today, what isyour degree of support for current health careproposals emerging from the Democratic con-gressional leadership?

• Which of these best describes your current healthinsurance situation:• I have health insurance; all or virtually all of

my close relations have health insurance.• I have health insurance; some or many close

relations do not have health insurance.• I have no health insurance; all or virtually all

of my close relations have health insurance.• I don’t have health insurance; some or many

of my close relations do not have healthinsurance.

These questions confront everyone with somethingmost are already sensing: that there are people pres-ent who oppose the current proposal, some whosupport them, and some who are undecided. Nomatter what these proportions are, the representa-tive can reiterate his desire to hear from people in allgroups. He then might announce that he will appor-tion the public comment time in rough proportionto how many people are against, for, and undecidedabout current health reform proposals. As a generalmatter, it would probably be the better crowd man-agement decision to first hear from several peoplewho oppose his position.

The representative could say he wants to get to theopen question and comment period, but he wants toask the audience several questions to find out whothey are and how they feel on a few issues related to health care. The representative polls the audienceon age, gender, race, income level, health insurancestatus, and political party affiliation. For each demo-graphic question asked, the representative can showhow the diversity in the room compares to censusdata or other government information about the dis-trict’s population.

By showing how this group differs from the entirecongressional district, the representative moderatesthese hostile views in a somewhat different way, by(to some extent) bringing these neighbors into theroom. Even though the representative might compli-ment the overrepresented groups for their enthusi-asm in making their voices heard, such statistics are

a public reminder that there are groups that matterwho are underrepresented; this nudges the groupinto thinking about their views of health care in asomewhat broader context.

After a few demographic questions, the representa-tive could ask questions to explore people’s perspec-tives on health care issues:

• How concerned are you about the cost of thehealth care you get?

• How concerned are you that current health careproposals represent an inappropriate takeover ofthe private sector by the government?

The representative might tell the crowd that he isgoing to take some comments from people who havemade up their minds about the issue, and then makea few brief comments before taking questions frompeople who are undecided. After hearing from re-form supporters and opponents, the representativeasks the group to pick up the keypads again and usethem to introduce a few key facts into the discus-sion. Some questions might be:

• The United States ranks very low among indus-trialized nations in life expectancy. How does itrank with respect to spending per person onhealth care?

• What percentage of the American population arenot insured, and thus often use the emergencyroom for basic care?

• What percentage of Americans report they arebasically satisfied with their current health insur-ance plan?

• According to the Congressional Budget Office,how fast are health care costs projected to growover the next ten years?

Although these questions give the representativesome information about how much the participantsknow about health care issues, the primary importof these questions is to have an impact on the meet-ing itself. Using fact-based keypad questions oftencreates a better learning environment within a groupthan traditional presentations do. If questions andanswers are constructed wisely, the responses to key-pad polling can demonstrate most participantsknow less than they think they do.


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Summary

This meeting produces a set of results vastly superiorto a traditional meeting:

• Each person can communicate directly to thepublic official his or her level of support for keymajor issues.

• Each person can answer one or more questionsabout experience relevant to health insurance orhealth care.

• The time is allocated in a way that meets almostany definition of proportional representation.

• Everyone in attendance sees multiple slidesreminding them of the demographic diversity inthe room, and how this diversity compares to thedistrict as a whole.

• Each person has brief engagement with a few keyfacts the representative thinks are relevant to hisposition on health care.

• Everyone leaves the meeting with a commonlyshared picture of the range of perspective present.

• The representative obtains hard data not only onsubpopulations of his constituents showing upfor the meeting but also on how membership indifferent subpopulations is related to the degreeof support or opposition to his position.

For both hypothetical meetings, our speculation(based on experience) is that strategic use of keypadsis likely to turn the meeting into a much more pleas-ant, productive, and satisfying process.

Instantly taking the pulse of a group and feeding itback so it sees itself more clearly has a transforma-tional effect on meetings. We recognize that publicofficials reading this may be cautious about makingchanges to traditional meeting formats, howeverimperfect they might be. In this section, we exploresome of the questions and concerns we have fre-quently heard about using this technology.

What Do These Systems Cost?Though costs of using ARS have gone down signif-icantly in recent years, they still require an outlayof capital. One can expect prices to drop even fur-ther. There is at least one company offering anInternet-based subscription service that allows par-ticipants to submit responses using text messaging.We expect that more services of this type are likely

to be created, and that handheld separate ARS willlikely continue to decrease in price and increase incapability.

Importantly, as keypad polling systems becomesmaller, new options emerge for sharing them.Public officials (or for that matter, consultants) canshare the capital costs, and if necessary share themacross long distances through mailing services.

Aren’t Some People Hesitant About New Technology?There is no doubt that introducing a technologicaltool into a meeting may be resisted by some people.In some circumstances, public officials who want touse keypad polling to augment a meeting will needto clearly express their own rationale for why thisapproach is desirable. In addition, some people mayneed active encouragement to use the devices, orassistance in using them. However, our experienceteaches us that if keypad questions are introducedappropriately into a meeting (for example, easyquestions such as identifying gender should be posi-tioned early) most audiences quickly adapt to usingthe devices. In fact, we find that professional facili-tators can be more resistant to using keypad pollingthan participants themselves.

What About Technology Failure?Our experience is that these devices are extremelyreliable. This is not to say that breakdowns neveroccur. Usually, however, when analyzed the problemsare seen to be caused by operator error, projectormalfunction, or other issues not related to the ARSitself. Nevertheless, we advise that officials who posi-tion keypad polling as a key element of a meetingdouble-check and triple-check to ensure that equip-ment is functioning properly, and have a backup planin case unrecoverable breakdowns happen. The sim-plest backup plan is the traditional town meeting for-mat that most citizens were expecting.

What If the Meeting Participants Are Not FullyRepresentative of the Community of Constituents?As noted earlier, one factor that every public officialmust consider is the degree to which the perspectivesshared are representative of the relevant constituentpopulation. Without question, keypads do not solvethis problem. Unless a meeting has been accompa-nied by well-executed outreach strategies—and even


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sometimes when they are in place—any public meet-ing could comprise a set of attendees whose diversityis not representative of the relevant constituent pool.

In our opinion, however, the use of keypads does notworsen this problem. Rather, it allows both the pub-lic official and meeting attendees to see this issuemore clearly. As noted, keypad systems allow agroup to be polled on key demographic dimensions,and the results can be compared to known factsabout the community. The use of keypads neitherworsens nor solves the problems of representation,but at least it surfaces the issue transparently. Whatis important is that public officials remind partici-pants and the media that the results from any meet-ing are only a sample of the relevant constituents,and one that is likely not representative.

Doesn’t This Just Allow a New Way of Manipulating aMeeting?Our earlier discussion of the strategic use of keypadswithin a meeting raises the possibility of using themto covertly manipulate a meeting. The distinctionbetween “covert manipulation” and “effective facil-itation” can be endlessly debated. There is no doubtthat someone running a meeting can formulate waysto lead participants to conclude that the official hasthe “correct” opinion. (For example, the question“What is your level of support for health reform?”might show that many people support reform, evenif a large portion are against any reform measuresbeing actively considered.) In short, these risks arereal. Like any tool, keypad polling can be misused,even if it is unmatched for increasing meeting trans-parency and for putting democracy in the hands ofthe savvy and ethical. As keypad polling grows

increasingly affordable and accessible, we suspectthat audiences will become capable of quickly notic-ing manipulative uses and will voice their objections.

Conclusion

Polling technologies allow public officials to probethe minds of an entire group of participants simul-taneously. Not only does every person in a grouphave more opportunity to “speak to” the public offi-cial about issues of concern, but the official can alsoleave the meeting with a quantitative picture of thegroup’s perspective.

This is a boon to democracy in two important ways.First, the fundamental purpose of public meetings isto create a setting for accurately assessing the pub-lic’s mind. Polling devices bring a much higher levelof precision to this than other strategies do. In addi-tion, the group process itself should have as manydemocratic elements as possible. Keypad pollinggives every person a tool for giving feedback aboutboth the substantive issues being discussed and theprocess of the meeting itself. In this way, thesedevices help move toward greater democracy in themoment.

With the town hall meeting at risk of becoming aspectacle that at best is useless and at worst under-mines of our sense of civility and comity, it is impor-tant that public officials take better control of thisvital ingredient of a vibrant, healthy, democraticself-governance. The great opportunity presented byaudience response systems is not only in stoppingdegradation of the town hall concept but in factmaking these meetings much more engaging, effec-tive, and community building than ever.

David Campt and Matthew Freeman are affiliated with theDWC Group, which works with public officials, governmentagencies, and nonprofit organizations and specializes indesigning and delivering meetings and conferences thatimprove stakeholder engagement, increase the civility of dia-logue, leverage group wisdom, and achieve concrete results.


If keypad questions are introduced appropriatelyinto a meeting (for example, easy questions suchas identifying gender should be positioned early)most audiences quickly adapt to using thedevices.

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Using keypad polling to make meetings more productive, educational, and participatory