50 Apps for Sensemaking & Deliberation in Your Organization
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Sensemaking and deliberation are essential for informed decision-making in today's digital environment. These processes involve interpreting complex data and discussing it comprehensively to reach well-considered conclusions.
Effective sensemaking allows organizations to turn raw data into actionable insights, while deliberation ensures diverse perspectives are considered, promoting inclusivity and balanced decision-making.
As organizations grapple with increasing data volumes and complexity, selecting the right tools becomes crucial for achieving clarity and fostering productive dialogue.
This blog post reviews various sensemaking and deliberation apps, emphasizing their key features.
First, we look at the app landscape depicted in the image above. Then, we summarize each app listed.
Overview: Voxiberate is a platform designed for membership organizations to facilitate online community deliberations, ensuring purposeful and equal participation. It leverages AI to bridge knowledge gaps and automate facilitation, making it easier to achieve consensus among diverse groups.
Features: AI-powered Q&A for knowledge bridging, automated facilitation, deliberation algorithm, incentivized participation, community engagement.
Overview: Pol.is is a real-time opinion mapping tool that visualizes consensus and dissent within large groups. It allows participants to express their opinions on various topics, and its AI clusters similar viewpoints to reveal patterns and group dynamics. This makes it a powerful tool for large-scale deliberations and public consultations.
Features: Real-time opinion mapping, AI clustering of similar viewpoints, visualization of consensus and dissent. Pol.is’s opinion mapping capabilities are comparable to Consider.it and ThoughtExchange
Overview: DeForm focuses on enhancing community engagement and data collection, especially within the web3 ecosystem. It supports creating custom forms and quests, integrating data sources, and rewarding user participation.
Features: Custom forms and quests, data integration, verification and filtering, community engagement, security.
Overview: Bundlr aggregates diverse viewpoints using AI to create cohesive narratives, aiding in comprehensive understanding and decision-making. It collects and organizes information from various sources, presenting it in a way that highlights key themes and insights.
Features: Aggregation of diverse viewpoints, cohesive narrative formation, highlights key themes and insights.
Overview: Mural is a digital whiteboard platform that provides sticky notes and diagramming tools for visual collaboration and brainstorming. It supports real-time and asynchronous collaboration, making it versatile for both remote and in-person teams.
Features: Digital whiteboard with sticky notes, diagramming tools, supports real-time and asynchronous collaboration. Mural’s whiteboard features are akin to Miro and Microsoft Whiteboard.
Overview: Miro offers an interactive whiteboard platform with extensive templates and integrations for real-time and asynchronous teamwork. Its features include mind mapping, Kanban boards, and video conferencing, making it a comprehensive tool for collaborative work.
Features: Extensive templates and integrations, mind mapping and Kanban boards, built-in video conferencing. Miro’s comprehensive collaboration tools are similar to Mural and Conceptboard.
Overview: SenseMaker is a distributed ethnographic tool that captures large-scale data within a quantitative framework, allowing respondents to self-signify and interpret their experiences. It combines the explanatory power of narrative with data visualization to provide actionable insights without requiring statistical expertise.
Features: Self-signification, distributed ethnography, narrative-driven data collection, sophisticated visualizations, human-centered data interpretation, web-based software ecology.
Overview: Cloverpop is a Decision Intelligence platform that combines Human and Artificial Intelligence to streamline decision-making processes, resulting in faster decisions, reduced analytics costs, and improved shareholder returns. It offers structured decision flows, AI-driven automation, and collaborative tools to enhance decision quality and speed.
Features: Decision Playbooks, Decision Flows, AI-powered insights (D-Sight engine), automated recommendations, decision system of record, collaboration tools, institutional knowledge tracking, decision analytics. Cloverpop’s decision automation and collaboration features are comparable to ThoughtExchange’s AI-driven analysis and engagement methods..
Overview: ThoughtExchange is an AI engagement and experience platform that enhances data collection and analysis through deeper, more personalized engagement. It unifies quantitative and qualitative data collection, providing actionable insights swiftly.
Features: Quantitative data collection, qualitative engagement methods, AI-driven analysis, in-survey chat, interactive AI interviews, digital focus groups, advanced survey analytics, interactive AI advisor, unified data, targeted cohort insights, instant action plans.
Overview: Jokerace is a gamified decision-making platform where users compete to suggest and vote on the best ideas. Its competitive element makes deliberation engaging and encourages active participation.
Features: Gamified decision-making, competitive idea suggestion and voting, engaging and participatory format. Jokerace’s gamification aspect is unique among deliberation tools.
Overview: Consider.it allows users to weigh pros and cons of proposals, visualizing community consensus through interactive argument maps. It helps groups understand the strengths and weaknesses of different options and build a shared understanding.
Features: Interactive argument maps, visualization of pros and cons, community consensus building. Consider.it’s argument visualization is comparable to Pol.is and Kialo.
Overview: Remesh enables large-scale, real-time conversations by using AI to synthesize and summarize group feedback. It can handle thousands of participants simultaneously, making it ideal for large public consultations and corporate surveys.
Features: Real-time large-scale conversations, AI synthesis of feedback, handles thousands of participants. Remesh’s real-time synthesis is similar to Voixberate’s discussion analysis.
Overview: Your Priorities is a citizen engagement platform where users can propose, discuss, and prioritize community ideas. It supports inclusive decision-making by allowing diverse voices to contribute and vote on ideas.
Features: Citizen engagement platform, proposal and discussion tools, inclusive decision-making support. Your Priorities’ focus on citizen engagement is similar to Decidim.
Overview: Ethelo uses advanced algorithms to identify optimal decisions by balancing stakeholder preferences and priorities. It provides a structured approach to decision-making that ensures all voices are heard and considered.
Features: Advanced decision algorithms, balances stakeholder preferences, structured decision-making process. Ethelo’s algorithmic approach is similar to Cloverpop.
Overview: All Our Ideas uses pairwise voting to allow users to compare and select the best ideas from a pool of suggestions. This simple yet effective method ensures that the most popular ideas emerge from the collective input.
Features: Pairwise voting system, simple and effective idea comparison, collective input prioritization. All Our Ideas’ voting system is unique in its simplicity compared to more complex tools.
Overview: Figjam offers a collaborative whiteboard experience within the Figma ecosystem, enhancing design and brainstorming workflows. It integrates seamlessly with Figma, making it ideal for design teams.
Features: Integration with Figma, collaborative whiteboard, enhances design workflows. Figjam’s integration with design tools is similar to Miro’s extensive templates.
Overview: Aiki Wiki is an interoperable computational tool designed for transparent consensus building, deliberation, brainstorming, and conflict resolution without relying on voting algorithms. It supports diverse decision-making processes through structured conversation and narrative logic.
Features: Consensus building, deliberation, brainstorming, conflict resolution, computational system, narrative logic.
Overview: Kialo structures debates into clear, argument maps, helping users explore complex issues systematically. It supports in-depth analysis and thorough exploration of different viewpoints.
Features: Argument maps, structured debate format, in-depth issue exploration. Kialo’s debate structuring is similar to Consider.it’s argument maps.
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Overview: Thinkscape enables real-time conversations for groups up to 400 participants, optimizing group insights and amplifying collective intelligence using Swarm AI technology. It supports market research, enterprise collaboration, civic engagement, and employee intelligence.
Features: Real-time group deliberation, AI-powered small group discussions, market research, employee and civic engagement, brainstorming, focus groups, sentiment and theme analysis, rapid report generation. Thinkscape’s AI integration for group discussions is unique compared to other tools.
Overview: Loomio supports group decision-making with discussion threads and voting mechanisms for transparent and inclusive deliberation. It is designed to help groups reach consensus efficiently.
Features: Discussion threads, voting mechanisms, transparent and inclusive deliberation.
Overview: Sensemaking Networks enhances scientific communication by integrating AI-augmented social media with decentralized semantic nanopublishing. It improves information flow, participant agency, and data sovereignty.
Features: Nanopublications, AI-augmented social media, federated/decentralized networks, enhanced feedback loops, and inclusivity. Sensemaking Networks’ social media focus is unique compared to other tools.
- Simscore
Overview: A Wisdom of Crowds process in which contributions are semantically ranked based on the 'center' idea, and subsequently deliberated on by the group. The process enables reliable and fast prioritization and decision making. SimScore works best when contributions are made independent and egalitarian.
Features: Wisdom of Crowds, pairwise similarity scores, semantic ranking, graphical and tabular presentation of results.
Overview: Publics engages citizens in policy-making through interactive simulations and discussions, promoting informed participation. It helps governments and organizations gather diverse input on policy issues.
Features: Interactive simulations, citizen engagement in policy-making, informed participation promotion. Publics’ simulation and engagement features are similar to Decidim.
Overview: Harmonica uses AI agents to facilitate asynchronous group discussions that replace forums, surveys and virtual workshops. Agents talk to each user individually, and synthesize all that input into useful artifacts. It increases user engagement, meeting efficiency and quality of outputs. It is platform agnostic and uses ‘templates’ (prompts) to address a wide range of use cases focusing mainly on self-governance, strategy, and community management. Harmonica can generate artifacts such as proposals, roadmaps, canvases, OKRs, based on selected templates.
Features: Free core functionality, bots for messengers (Telegram, Discord, Slack, etc) as well as ChatGPT-like web interface, web dashboard with history, insights and team management, adding domain knowledge / relevant documents (RAG), facilitation templates library, template editor.
Overview: Ledgerback is a collectively-owned nonprofit focused on research, tool-building, ecosystem-building, education, and knowledge-sharing. It supports community-owned digital infrastructures, especially for DAOs and frontier media.
Features: Ledgerback’s emphasis on community ownership, innovative exit strategies, and development of specialized tools for understanding and supporting DAOs and frontier media distinguishes it from traditional research and information centers.
Overview: BGIN (Blockchain Governance Initiative Network) creates an open platform for global collaboration among blockchain stakeholders, fostering dialogue and shared understanding for sustainable development. Focused on transparency and innovation, BGIN addresses complex challenges in the blockchain community through inclusive and collective efforts.
Features: Global dialogue, inclusive collaboration, shared understanding, transparency, sustainable development, academic resources..
Overview: Seed Protocol allows creation of immutable content "Seeds" on the Ethereum network, ensuring permanence and adaptability. Content evolves through dynamic Versions and flexible attestations, supporting a participatory ecosystem.
Features: Immutable Seeds, dynamic Versions, flexible attestations, participatory ecosystem, Ethereum integration, content permanence, adaptability to future contexts.
Overview: Granicus focuses on government-citizen engagement, offering tools for public consultation and feedback collection. It helps public organizations gather and analyze citizen input.
Features: Government-citizen engagement, public consultation tools, feedback collection and analysis. Granicus’ focus on public consultation is similar to Your Priorities.
Overview: Real Deal provides an online multilingual deliberation platform with integrated tools to enhance participatory democracy. It addresses inclusion, scalability, and digital participation challenges, supporting online and hybrid deliberative processes.
Features: Multilingual, integrated deliberative tools, scalable, inclusive, supports diverse formats (focus groups, assemblies), open source, adaptable, privacy-focused, bridges physical distances.
Overview: GoVocal is a comprehensive platform designed for meaningful community engagement, enhancing decision-making, and building trust through centralized project management and improved input analysis. It supports public decision-making by being inclusive, participatory, and responsive.
Features: Centralized engagement platform, project management, input analysis, extensive training and support, participation specialists.
Overview: The Stanford Online Deliberation Platform is a video discussion tool for small group conversations, ensuring structured and equitable participation. It uses Deliberative Polling to scale discussions, allowing unlimited participants in small groups simultaneously.
Features: Automated moderator, speaking queues, timed agendas, equitable participation, easy-to-use, abuse prevention, real-time analytics, multilingual support, proven in national events.
Overview: Decidim is a participatory democracy platform that enables citizens to co-create policies and proposals with their governments. It supports transparent and collaborative governance processes.
Features: Participatory democracy platform, co-creation of policies, transparent governance. Decidim’s participatory focus is similar to Your Priorities and Publics.
Overview: ACTE represents the civic tech sector in Europe, empowering citizens and addressing democracy's challenges. It fosters citizen participation, supports activism, and creates innovative public services, promoting civic engagement.
Features: Diverse sector representation, citizen participation, activism support, innovative public services, independence from political/economic influences, EU-level advocacy, collective civic tech representation.
Overview: LucidChart provides diagramming and visualization tools to support collaborative planning and problem-solving. It integrates with popular productivity tools, enhancing workflow efficiency.
Features: Diagramming and visualization, integration with productivity tools, workflow efficiency. LucidChart’s diagramming features are similar to Mural’s visual collaboration tools.
Overview: Conceptboard offers an online whiteboard for visual collaboration, featuring tools for brainstorming and project management. It supports real-time and asynchronous collaboration, making it versatile for remote teams.
Features: Online whiteboard, brainstorming and project management tools, real-time and asynchronous collaboration. Conceptboard’s whiteboard features are similar to Miro and Mural.
Overview: Stormboard turns brainstorming sessions into actionable plans with digital sticky notes and real-time collaboration features. It helps teams capture and organize ideas efficiently.
Features: Digital sticky notes, real-time collaboration, actionable plan creation. Stormboard’s sticky note features are similar to Mural’s brainstorming tools.
Overview: Microsoft Whiteboard provides a digital canvas for team collaboration, integrating seamlessly with the Microsoft ecosystem. It supports drawing, writing, and image insertion for comprehensive brainstorming.
Features: Digital canvas, integration with Microsoft ecosystem, drawing, writing, and image tools. Microsoft Whiteboard’s integration is similar to Figjam’s design workflow enhancements.
Overview: Ziteboard is an online whiteboard optimized for visual collaboration and interactive presentations. It supports sketching, diagramming, and real-time collaboration, making it ideal for remote teams.
Features: Online whiteboard, visual collaboration, interactive presentations. Ziteboard’s sketching features are similar to Limnu’s realistic whiteboard experience.
Overview: Limnu offers a realistic whiteboard experience with collaborative drawing tools for team brainstorming sessions. It provides an intuitive interface that mimics a physical whiteboard, enhancing usability.
Features: Realistic whiteboard experience, collaborative drawing tools, intuitive interface. Limnu’s physical whiteboard mimicry is unique compared to digital-focused tools like Ziteboard.
Overview: Google Forms is a survey administration app that allows users to create and analyze surveys directly in their web browser. It integrates seamlessly with other Google Workspace apps.
Features: Customizable surveys, real-time response tracking, integration with Google Sheets, easy sharing and collaboration.Google Forms' seamless integration with Google Workspace apps is similar to how Microsoft Whiteboard integrates with the Microsoft ecosystem.
Overview: Formless is a modern form builder designed to create flexible and dynamic forms for various purposes. It emphasizes simplicity and ease of use.
Features: Flexible form creation, dynamic fields, easy integration with other tools, user-friendly interface. Formless’ emphasis on flexibility and simplicity is similar to tally*’s focus on no-code, accessible form creation.
Overview: Typeform is an online tool for creating dynamic forms and surveys that engage respondents with a conversational interface. It is widely used for gathering feedback, conducting surveys, and collecting data.
Features: Conversational forms, customizable templates, integration with various apps, advanced logic jumps. Typeform's engaging, conversational interface is unique compared to the more traditional form structures of Google Forms and SurveyMonkey.
Overview: BlockSurvey is a privacy-focused survey and form creation tool that ensures respondent data security. It leverages blockchain technology for data protection.
Features: Blockchain-based privacy, secure data storage, customizable forms, anonymity for respondents. BlockSurvey’s privacy-focused approach using blockchain technology sets it apart from other tools like Typeform and SurveyMonkey, which do not emphasize this level of data security.
Overview: Fillout is an online form builder that offers a wide range of customization options. It is designed for creating forms quickly and efficiently for various use cases.
Features: Extensive customization, drag-and-drop interface, real-time collaboration, integration with other tools.
Overview: tally* is a no-code form builder that allows users to create forms for free. It focuses on simplicity and ease of use, making form creation accessible to everyone.
Features: No-code form creation, free to use, simple and intuitive interface, integrations with various apps.
Overview: SurveyMonkey is a popular online survey tool that allows users to create, distribute, and analyze surveys. It is known for its ease of use and robust feature set.
Features: Advanced survey design, real-time data analysis, extensive template library, powerful reporting tools. SurveyMonkey’s robust feature set and extensive template library provide more advanced options compared to Google Forms and Tally, which are more straightforward in design.
Overview: Voca is an Open SaaS and hosting service designed to enhance the Decidim platform's accessibility, simplicity, and stability. Voca focuses on user experience, offering robust support and additional features to make participatory democracy tools easy to use.
Features: Knowledge base & tutorials, UI theme, participation templates, launch & manage multiple platforms, ethical cloud hosting, technical support, custom domains & emails, automatic backups, scalable hosting, improved UX & interface. Voca’s user-friendly enhancements and comprehensive support set it apart from other Decidim hosting services.
Overview: Talk to the City is an open-source LLM interface designed to enhance collective deliberation and decision-making by analyzing qualitative data. It aggregates responses and clusters similar arguments, making it easier to understand diverse opinions and reach informed decisions.
Features: Frontier LLM analysis, opinion summarization, automated summaries and visualizations, open-source development, non-profit initiative. Talk to the City's ability to process large datasets and create detailed opinion maps sets it apart from other deliberation tools.
Overview: Fora is a new conversation platform that facilitates small-group dialogues to share life experiences, amplify underheard voices, and guide informed action. It aims to create civic spaces for trustworthy dialogue, strengthening democracy through authentic community engagement.
Features: Recorded small-group conversations, AI-enhanced qualitative analysis, custom portals for actionable insights. Fora’s unique combination of human dialogue and AI analysis sets it apart from traditional surveys and focus groups.
In conclusion, these apps provide diverse features to enhance sensemaking and deliberation in your organization. Choosing the right tools can improve communication, collaboration, and decision-making within your teams and communities.