If you’re reading this, you may well be in the same field I am in. It goes by various names: civic engagement, deliberative democracy, dialogue, citizen participation, and more. The basic idea is that ordinary people have a lot more to say about self-rule than we often give them credit for.

There are many of us, and we’ve been toiling in obscurity for many years — some more than two decades.

There’s a heady whiff in the air, though. The Obama Administration likes us! The White House has created an Office of Social Innovation and is actively making plans to institutionalize a more collaborative way of getting things done.

This has so many of my colleagues jumping for joy, albeit in a sober and dignified way. After so much work, innovating and slogging, we’re about to see the culmination.

So, here is some counterintuitive advice. I am trying hard to take it myself, and it’s not easy.

Many of us have spent the last decade or so working out what we know. We’ve been creating new frameworks, honing them, experimenting in small ways to see how and whether they work. The temptation, now, is to shift to “dissemination mode,” because the time seems so right. But, when the music stops, not everyone will have a seat. Only a handful of the players in this field will see their models win out. Others will need to get in line behind these leaders. (And the leaders may not be theones with the most innovative ideas, or even the best. They will be the ones who can execute the best.)

Time To Move On

I suggest that the best thing for an innovator to do now is to move onto something else. What’s the next  important idea? How can it play out?

Here are some things to think about:

• Are online social networks changing face-to-face democracy, and if so how?
• Is it worth “scaling” collaboration or does it work best on a community level?
• Has hyperpartisanship made “dialogue” obsolete already?
• What’s the best response when politics-as-usual assimilates the language of participation without really using it?
• What will the backlash against civic engagement look like?
• What seemingly “dead” ideas are really just sleeping? (For instance, “authority.”)

Some of these might spur some ideas about what’s next. I’m sure this is an incomplete list. Please let me know your thoughts in the comments.