Using SmartParticipation for your public-comment or other public-input process means that you want more thoughtful, substantive, and interactive participation than you can get from social media campaigns or formal public hearings. But, motivating people to invest the kind of time and energy required by such participation can be a significant challenge.

Persuading people to invest in high-quality participation has to start in outreach messages. See Rulemaking 2.0: Understanding & Getting Better Public Participation (pdf), at p. 21-25. It can continue in a Learn slide focused on why participation matters. Key points for such a panel are:

• concrete ways that the issues at stake will affect various groups
• the role that public participation has in the process, including the possibility that participation can uncover or clarify facts and generate new ideas
• an assurance that decisionmakers will read and consider the participation output (If you can't make this assurance, what's your best argument for why people should bother?)

See examples on RegulationRoom.