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There is a strong growth of interest in public support. Public support means the support within a large group of people for something that an organization wishes to achieve. Public support makes it unnecessary to rely on power too much. In many countries, it has become more and more difficult to realize objectives by means of using power only.
By using communication, public support can be created to a certain extent. But then there must already be some breeding ground. In fact, there must already be a certain extent of public support which could be increased.
Therefore, an important question is: How much public support do we already have?
There are some types of research which are suitable for measuring the public support on a subject. These tools also give clues on how to increase public support. Some tools have an action research character. This means the increasing of public support is already worked on during the research itself.
Large organizations are sometimes characterized by a great distance between the management and those who are involved with the ultimate product of the organization. The top managers of, for instance, a large organization which provides health education to women in poor quarters usually maintain no contacts any more with the target group and only speak with their own executive staff members. It is conceivable that public support from the grassroots will diminish, without the management noticing this in time. This difficulty is sometimes overcome by setting up panels: groups of customers, who meet one or more times to give their opinion about various aspects of the product and of the organization. It is important that workers be involved and get an active role, otherwise such a panel system may start to function as a means for the management to check on the volunteers. If this should be the case, it will lead to conflicts. Customer panels function best, if they have become a generally adopted policy within an organization and if the results are incorporated in an identifiable way. into the organization's policy. Customer panels should not meet more than three times. After that the users will not be unbiased to a sufficient degree any longer - they stop being real customers.
This method comes from the US and is often applied to commercial marketing and also to election campaigns. One gathers a group of approximately ten persons, who form a reasonable representation of the target group one wishes to know more about. Next, this group is faced with cases, which are intended to find out when the group changes over from being unmotivated to being motivated.
An example. Your organisation wants to enlist more unemployed men between the age of 25 to 40 as members. You bring together a group of non-members of the right age and start a discussion in which you present advantages in a specific order of attractiveness. Suppose no membership fee was involved; suppose the organization had a clubhouse; suppose your chances to get a job would increase; suppose more of these advantages were combined, etcetera. The reaction of the group comes into being through interaction - the members of the group are stimulated to consult with each other. In addition to the chairperson who brings up the cases, the meeting is also attended by an observer. The yield of these focus groups is that, especially if the technique is repeated some times with different groups, proper insight will be gained into the exact conditions under which the target group changes over from unmotivated (no public support) to motivated (public support). The outcome may also be that there will be public support under certain conditions, but that the organization will have to pay a disproportionately high price for that. Example: It will be possible to successfully launch a membership recruitment campaign among unemployed men between 25 and 45 years old, if the membership is free, if they have free access to the clubhouse and if they get help in finding a job.
This model is suitable for checking whether conflicting interests can be harmonized in such a way, that there will yet be public support for a certain idea. One gathers a group of approximately 40 people, who have different interests in a certain idea. The group may consist of members of different organizations who wish to realize something together. They are asked to split up into four subgroups of mixed composition. Each subgroup promotes a certain interest. There is a facilitator and a negotiator. The negotiator stands in the middle of the room and successively negotiates with the different subgroups, whereby the others may only watch. The theme of each negotiation is: how should we adapt the basic idea in order to obtain the approval of your subgroup? If the negotiation is rounded off successfully, the negotiator goes to the next subgroup and asks the same question again. In this way, the idea gradually changes. The outcome may be that a final form is achieved, with which everybody is satisfied (public support) or it may turn out that no form can be found which takes away everybody's approval (no public support).
In Denmark the consensus conference is an official tool used by the parliament. By means of consensus conferences it is examined whether public support can be won for technological changes to which moral aspects are attached. In other countries, too, this tool is applied, often under the name of "technology assessment", but only in Denmark is it part of the parliamentary system. The working of the consensus conference is as follows: an issue (for instance, the making of medicines through genetic engineering of large mammalians) is selected and people are asked via a public channel (in Denmark: advertisements in newspapers) whether some of them are interested in engaging with this subject for a while. A group of twelve persons is selected on the basis of the letters of application received. These persons are selected in the best possible way according to population group, age and region and they must be interested in the issue concerned, without being experts or already having an outspoken opinion. Under the leadership of a neutral chairman, these people come together during two weekends. They will explore the problem, read documentation and, ultimately, draw up a list of experts they wish to consult. During the third weekend the experts give answers to the questions raised by the twelve persons. After that, the twelve persons write down their final conclusion, usually in a document of not more than three pages. The neutral chairman may write it down for them or they may do it on their own. Parts of the process are covered by the press. The final outcome often is a good reflection of the public opinion on the issue. Or, to put it in other words: Consensus conferences produce advices which have public support.