Digital participation for planning firms

Your workshops stay. We add the people missing from the room.

Steering groups and neighbourhood workshops reach the committed. Families, commuters and young people rarely have time in the evening. In the Citizen Dialogue, they write anonymously what they think of your planning project and weigh each other's contributions. Multilingual, on their phone, under your name if you wish.

After 21 days you have priorities you can take straight into the consultation report.

Proven with more than 60 clients in business, public administration & politics. On average, our clients did not know 8 of the 10 strongest contributions.

What you deliver to your clients

1. Those missing from the room: Whether public consultation, citizen engagement or population survey: you reach the wider public, not only the steering group.

2. Majorities and fault lines: The decision matrix shows where consensus holds and where you need to build bridges.

3. Report-ready results: Ranking, segment analysis and the strongest arguments in residents' own words, ready for the consultation report.

Your business case as a partner

• An edge when pitching: Hardly any other firm offers digital participation with an Insight Guarantee.

• No extra operational effort: We handle setup, moderation and analysis. Weighing up and recommending stay with you.

• White label: If you wish, the dialogue space runs under your name.

How it works

• Strategy workshop: Three hours with you and your client. We arrive with a concept for your process.

• Launch: Within 48 hours the dialogue space is ready. We write the invitation, the municipality sends it.

• Dialogue: Three weeks, moderated daily. Every contribution is checked. You follow along live.

• Result: Report, one-pager and a ready-to-send response to residents, fitting your process.

Why BrainE4 is different

• Complements your formats: Workshops provide depth, but only for the few in the room. The larger the group, the more the loudest voices dominate. The dialogue adds breadth.

• Reasoning instead of commenting: Not another platform with a comment section. Every argument is judged by many in direct comparison.

• Robust: Through weighting we derive representative statements, with the uncertainty disclosed.

• Insight Guarantee: In the strategy workshop we record six assumptions per question: what you expect. We mix them covertly into the contributions. If on average at least five of the top 10 are new to you, your knowledge has doubled. Otherwise we refund the dialogue.

For whom

• Spatial planning and urban design: when a local plan revision needs broad support.

• Transport and open space planning: when options are disputed in the neighbourhood.

• Process facilitation and participation: when you want to offer clients more than workshops.

In practice

Municipality of Schwyz: External project manager Franz-Xaver Strüby protected the town centre development from special interests: four questions, 11.2% of the population, over 1,000 ideas and a decision matrix for the council. Read the interview

«I would recommend BrainE4 to all municipalities and organisations that are willing to listen seriously.» Franz-Xaver Strüby, Strüby Consulting AG

City of Bern: Transport planner Sebastian Clausen planned traffic-calmed streets and shared zones in the Wyler district and wanted real backing. He got it, from the residents themselves. Read the interview

«Physical participation alone is no longer enough today.» Sebastian Clausen, transport planner

Ideal for:

Local plan revision · Town centre development · Design plan · Transport master plan · Open space concept · School space planning

Frequently asked questions

Does this compete with our workshops?
No. Workshops bring depth, the dialogue brings breadth. You can use it before the workshop to know what is worth discussing, or afterwards to test options widely.

Who controls the results?
The results reach you and the municipality first. The client decides what gets communicated. Nothing becomes public during the dialogue.

How much work stays with us?
Three hours in the workshop and one approval of the communication. We handle moderation and analysis.

How do we bill it?
You receive a quote with a binding cost ceiling in advance, which you can build into your offer.

All questions and answers

See more

Video: The Citizen Dialogue in brief. Watch the video

Citizen Dialogue: Use cases from major projects to public consultation. Learn more

Sample report: What a finished citizen dialogue report looks like. View the report

Your plan, with the whole community behind it.
Participation that makes a difference.

braine4.com