Ethelo: the Digital Tool for Engagement Consultants

Historically, there have been no shortage of tools that consultants could use to understand customers and deliver results for their clients — surveys, focus groups, and visualization tools, just to name a few.

In recent weeks, physical distancing efforts have limited, and in many cases eliminated the usability of these tools, leaving consultants in a bind regarding how to engage their stakeholders without relying on in-person engagement strategies.

Ethelo is the digital tool every consultant needs in their repertoire - it  effectively combines the requirements of education, community building, interactivity, and problem solving within constraints, while ensuring fair, broadly-supported outcomes within every single public engagement. What's more, all this can be done without participants having to leave the couch.

Ethelo is an award-winning online platform that gives participants a meaningful role in the decision-making process. It empowers stakeholders to learn about issues, evaluate options, discuss and add ideas, weigh priorities, and make trade-offs — all in real-time. The platform also allows for conversation amongst participants to encourage collaboration and group decision-making.

The real magic happens under the hood, when Ethelo’s patented decision engine evaluates the data to balance each participant’s interests and create fair outcomes that everyone can support. Results are calculated quickly and presented in a way that’s both easy for participants to understand and ready for client presentations.

Argyle Communications (formerly Context Research), used Ethelo for the It’s Time project with Vancouver’s Mobility Pricing Independent Commission. That project received the Gold Prize for Digital Campaign of the Year from the Canadian Public Relations Society and the Core Values award from IAP2 Canada, for “Extending the Practice through Creativity, Contribution & Innovation in the Field.”

Argyle used Ethelo to collect public feedback from Metro Vancouver residents online. The Ethelo consultation engaged more than 17,000 participants and received more than 11,000 comments in 4 languages over two phases, hosting a lively discussion about future transportation options and fairness in a region facing traffic congestion and an affordability crisis.

“We were drawn to Ethelo because of our shared commitment to meaningful engagement and transparency,” said Miranda Eng, a senior consultant at Argyle Communications. “We want people to understand and trust our engagement process, and we knew that Ethelo could help us do that.”

Ethelo is designed for engagement professionals, and its highly customizable interface can be configured for just about any participatory process. We provide expert engagement support that includes not only technical services, but also participant recruitment and offline engagement support. We are committed to providing a high-end digital solution that eliminates the need to shop for multiple technologies and suppliers.

Looking to learn more about how Ethelo can enhance your next project? Register for our upcoming eDemocracy Webinar - being held on Friday April 3rd at 11am PST/2p EST - on Consultants and Meaningful Online Engagements using the form below.