When Thierry Solere, Deputy Mayor of Boulogne-Billancourt in Paris, decided that he needed a fresh and effective way to solicit public opinion about a particular topic of concern to the citizens of his district, the logical choice was HotGrinds. Using the HotGrinds survey and opinion platform, Thierry Solere was able to conduct a very efficient exercise in participatory democracy, by reaching out to the public in order to solicit their opinion about whether or not bicycle helmets should be mandatory or not for users of the free bike rental service now available called Velib.
Launched mid-June 2009 and continuing on to this day, ordinary citizens are voicing their opinions in writing, often referring to or linking to a number of interesting studies on the web, conducted on the topic of bike safety and helmet usage. An emerging consensus has surfaced around support for the bike helmets with thorny issues and potential drawbacks relating to availability of helmets, personal hygiene issues, individual versus collective rights, etc. The HotGrinds Real-Time Opinion Dashboard supplied with the service has allowed Thierry Solere's team to quickly zero in on key citizen concerns without having to actually read through all of the hundreds of postings.
As a result Thierry Solere's team will be able to make intelligent public policy decisions that will respect their citizens' will as well as take into account their dissenting opinions and concerns. A truly successful exercise in participatory democracy at work.
If you are interested in conducting such surveys or opinion gathering exercises in the context of public policy administration or simply to better gauge as a corporation what your customers, employees and partners are expecting from you, please contact us here at HotGrinds.
