A couple of weeks ago the FCC delivered its National Broadband Plan to Congress. It is an interesting bill based on an even more interesting process. The FCC deployed the ultimate participatory effort in the creation of this bill. Here is what they incorporated:

• 36 public workshops (including some streamed online) that elicited the involvement of more than 10,000 people. The input received formed the basis of the eventual bill.
• 31 public notices that incorporated more than 23,000 comments – some 74,000 pages of reactions to the initial proposal
• Nearly 1,100 ex parte filings that added another 13,000 pages to the discussion
• 9 public hearings
• Extensive interagency dialogue and collaboration to address the complexity of the task and compensate for the limitations of the FCC’s operations and expertise
• 130 blog postings on the FCC’s special website for this project, generating more than 1,500 comments
• Interaction with the 330,000 people who follow this via the FCC’s Twitter account?

If you want engagement in the process, it’s hard to imagine being more inviting than this! Why did the FCC go to such lengths? After all, its mandate is no different than it has been for years. My read of the situation points to several factors.

First, leadership changes at both the White House and FCC facilitated greater openness to broad external input. In a governmental process, people really only have a voice if the leadership provides them with the platform for using that voice. In this case, both President Obama and his FCC chairman Julius Genachowski offered people that platform.

Second, there is a burning need for something to be done about our broadband situation. The U.S. is currently 17th in the world in access to broadband connections. With an ever-increasing emphasis being placed upon the Internet for communications, we need a better system. By 2015 it is estimated that the amount of information we will be moving through the Internet each year will be the equivalent of the content contained in the Library of Congress – times 50! Right now, only 27% of Americans have high-speed access, and the average speed is not very fast – about 4MB per second. Most developed countries exceed that average. For the United States to remain competitive economically; to remain safe in a fast-paced, dangerous world; to have an informed electorate, government and commercial sector; and to enable people to remain connected with each other, we need a serious upgrade.

Third, the public has a personal interest in this matter. This plan would increase broadband connectivity to an estimated 100 million households by 2020, at speeds averaging 100 MB/second (25 times faster than today). With young people completely beholden to the Internet and all the mobile communications devices it empowers, millions of Americans consider this enhancement a necessity more than an option. A national broadband system might also lower the cost of connectivity. (I’m reluctant to accept at face value the government’s claim that costs would be reduced.)

Here are a few thoughts for church leaders about lessons we might learn from the FCC’s process.

Personally, I was intrigued by the extensive engagement that they sought in this process. Unlike past FCC efforts, it was not a simple posting of intent in a few poorly-circulated government bulletins and a couple of sparsely attended hearings on the Hill. They aggressively pursued the participation of many people. This was not a “build it and they will come” approach to getting feedback. They targeted different groups to get in the mix – from end users like you and me, to communications and technology lawyers, representatives of the business world, voices from the educational community, and so forth. The variety of means made available to the public showed how determined they were to give people a chance to add their ideas.

How aggressive – and inclusive – are you at getting valuable input when you have a new initiative you wish to develop?

By the same token, I think the scope of what the FCC undertook begs the question of how much input is too much? Bureaucracies do not blanch at the thought of dealing with more than 100,000 pages of documents to read, categorize and analyze. Yet I’m in the information business and I’m on the verge of passing out at the thought of handling that avalanche of data. Typically, such extensive information collection results in wasted time, dashed expectations, and a product that is compromised beyond true value.

Perhaps the question we need to ask is: how much information – and what kind – is needed to make the best possible decision?

Finally, I’d be willing to argue that the entire public’s participation is not necessary – or helpful – in every decision that the FCC makes. The same goes for ministry. Everyone has an opinion, but not everyone’s opinion on every matter is of equal value or usefulness. My neighbor has strong opinions about terrorism, but I’m not willing to let him – someone who has never travelled outside our county, never been involved in law enforcement or the military, never studied the mind of militant groups or the Muslim world – form national policy on this matter. There are approprioate times for an inclusive process for developing solutions and there are times when a more limited process is wiser.

What is the mechanism you have developed for figuring out when to involve everyone in your community, the full congregation, your lay leaders, the aggregate staff, or perhaps just you and a trusted confidante? How do you figure out when it’s smart to allow plentiful input and when it’s wiser to limit the flow of ideas?