Just wanted to share a quick announcement about Slim Lambert’s new blog on Reinventing Change Managerment.  Lambert has implemented numerous change management programs in global international companies focused on changes such as collaborative corporate cultures, delivering the people side of re-organisations and using talent management practices to empower people to develop their talents.

His new blog is about sharing ways to build REFRESHING change management process. That is, Resistance free, Empowering, Fair, Result focused, Event based, Solution focused, High speed, Involving, Non-disruptive of delivery, Guided by the people. In other words, a process that is fast, fair, empowering and collaborative. It is a way to address the fact that the current 80% failure rate of change management processes is not acceptable anymore because change management has become too important. It is about new, radically different ways of designing and driving a change management process. Slim Lambert can be reached at slimlambert@gmail.com.

A group of top researchers and practitioners in deliberation we’ve been involved in recently got some great news we wanted to share with everyone…

How can collective deliberation by citizens lead to wise and timely action on climate change, including by municipal and provincial governments? Alberta (Canada) will be a testing ground for this question over the next five years. An international team of scholars, NGOs, businesses, and governments will be addressing it, supported by $1 million in funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and over $3 million in contributions from other sources.

The research team includes leading researchers and practitioners of deliberative democracy, environmental organizations, energy companies, municipal governments, and Provincial ministries. The project, called Alberta Climate Dialogue (ABCD), will help to convene groups of citizens within Albertan municipalities to shape policies on greenhouse gas emissions and adaptation to climate change, and also build province-wide deliberation and dialogue on climate issues.

Learning alongside citizens, the team will investigate how the design of citizen deliberations — how participants are selected, who participates, how the agenda is set, how often the citizens meet and for how long, whether policy makers are involved, and so on — shapes their social and political influence. The team will also explore the sorts of influence that citizen deliberations can have on climate issues, including informing and directing policy makers and processes, as well as shaping citizens’ knowledge, their sense of environmental citizenship, and their political capacities and networks. Through this work, we will seek to show how citizens can lead effective responses to climate change, and how political leaders and institutions can skillfully engage with citizens to develop policy.

This groundbreaking research project was initiated by NCDD member David Kahane (pictured), a professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Alberta. I am listed as a “collaborator” in the grant application and on the website, and the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation (NCDD) is a Partner of the project.  We plan to be as involved as resources will allow us to be, and to keep the network as informed as possible about project learnings and benchmarks.

The project website is at www.albertaclimatedialogue.ca and email can be sent to albertaclimatedialogue@gmail.com.

The National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation (NCDD) moved in some new directions in 2009, in large part in response to President Obama’s focus on open government and citizen participation. Our work with the Open Government Initiative and on the Principles for Public Engagement both invigorated our membership and raised NCDD’s profile and status in many people’s eyes. NCDD continues to be one of the most trusted organizations in the field of public engagement, and seems to have more respect in the field now than ever before.

We made significant progress in 2009 on several of the priorities identified by NCDD’s Board of Directors in our February 2009 retreat. Namely, we found ways to refocus on what it means to be a “coalition” and to move on things we can uniquely do “in coalition,” and we focused more on moving the field forward, with special attention paid to the five challenge areas we addressed at the last NCDD conference.

The following projects defined 2009 for NCDD:

1. NCDD’s role in the Open Government Initiative (the White House’s open government dialogue, the collaborative evaluation of that dialogue, keeping the network informed about news and opportunities related to the Initiative, participation in Strengthening Our Nation’s Democracy).
2. Taking the lead in creating the Core Principles for Public Engagement, with prominent partners, many dozens of practitioners and scholars contributing to the drafting process, and over 80 leading organizations endorsing the Principles.
3. Responding to the fall healthcare town halls by creating and distributing several tools (a flyer and several articles for web and print) to help public officials and community leaders hold more effective, engaging public meetings about contentious issues.
4. Playing a major leadership role at the September IAP2 conference in San Diego (co-organizing the final day plenary, Sandy’s speech during that plenary, etc.).
5. Writing about two of the five challenges (embedding D&D in our systems and framing D&D in more accessible ways) for the International Journal for Public Participation (article here).
6. Writing about members’ perspectives on democratic governance and on two challenges (embedding D&D in our systems and strengthening the link between D&D, action and policy change) for the Kettering Foundation (full report here).
7. Creating, in close communication with Martin Carcasson, Will Friedman and Alison Kadlec, the Goals of Dialogue & Deliberation graphic based on Carcasson’s 2009 article Beginning With the End in Mind. The graphic emphasizes improved community problem solving and increased civic capacity as longer-term goals of public engagement work, and Sandy’s leadership in creating the graphic and NCDD’s role in distributing it and sharing Carcasson’s insights marked a new direction for NCDD.
8. Reaching beyond our existing network using social media tools (our FaceBook group currently has 1700 members, and our LinkedIn group has 453, for example).

What do YOU think about NCDD’s projects and accomplishments in 2009?  If you were a member of NCDD in 2009, did these projects make you feel engaged?  Represented?  Bored?  What new or different directions do you think we should be moving in?  We would love to hear your thoughts on this!

This month’s Open Government Directive Workshop will take place at the Charles Sumner Museum and Conference Center (17th and M Street NW, Washington, DC).  The workshop will take place from 9am to 4:30pm on February 17th.  RSVP is required by February 9th (instructions are below).

NCDD is a partner of this workshop series, as is the General Services Administration (GSA), the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) and GovLoop.  NCDD member Alex Moll will facilitate February’s workshop.

We have a great program planned.  Building off the January 11th workshop at the US Department of Transportation (over 200 people attended the January event; the photo you see is from that event), we are going to transition from divergent thinking to convergent thinking.  This workshop will be focused on creating specific ideas that agencies can drop into their actual open government plans which are due on April 7th.  Some agencies are farther along than others, so this workshop will help spread good ideas from one agency to the next.

This workshop will be different.
This workshop will be highly productive and engaging.  We are using a framework of competitive collaboration to surface the best ideas.  There will be six teams with twenty participants each.  Teams will work in separate spaces for four hours and then a few representatives will present the team’s work to a panel of judges at the end of the workshop.  Judges will be high-ranking thought leaders from the public sector.

How to RSVP (more…)

NCDD is a Conference Affiliate for the Including the Excluded Online Conference that will take place March 2-4, 2010. This unique online conference will be focused on Social Inclusion, Social/Environmental Justice and Accessibility, and will feature interactive presentations, networking and more. A portion of your registration supports NCDD, so be sure to use the NCDD discount code (“NCDDspecial”) when you register, so you can save $40 and support NCDD at the same time!  Registration for NCDD members is just $139.

Here is the latest press release (January 27th) for the conference:

Social/Environmental Justice, Accessibility and Social Inclusion the focus of Stakeholder Engagement 2010 Online Conference

Tuesday, March 2nd through Thursday, March 4th

(Alexandria, Virginia) Public, private and nonprofit/NGO professionals who experience challenges with effectively engaging diverse people or groups are invited to attend the Stakeholder Engagement 2010 Online Conference: Including the Excluded. The three-day program highlights practical insights and best practices from around the globe for engaging people who have historically been excluded (for example, those subject to racial or ethnic discrimination), individuals with physical or mental disabilities, or persons who are socially excluded for a variety of reasons (such as people who are homeless or in a country illegally). (more…)

Check out this 66-minute video of the NCSL (National Conference of State Legislatures) 2009 Fall Forum held on Friday, Dec. 11. “The Rise and Fall of the Town Hall Meeting” video features three legislators talking about the effective use of town hall meetings and deliberation.

One of the legislators featured is NCDD member and Hawaii State Senator Les Ihara. The other speakers included: Representative Sheryl L. Allen (Utah), Representative Ellen Roberts (Colorado), and Katie Ziegler (NCSL).

Senator Ihara’s presentation cites NCDD’s work heavily.  He talks at length about our Upgrading the Way We Do Politics resources, which we created in response to last fall’s town halls on health care reform, and he presents the 7 Core Principles for Public Engagement, explaining that the D&D community worked together to agree on the Core Principles in response to Obama’s memorandum on transparency, collaboration and public participation.  You can view or download Senator Ihara’s powerpoint presentation here.

Here’s the description of the Fall Forum from NCSL:

Town hall meetings have traditionally been a wonderful opportunity for legislators to meet with their constituents, both to hear what is on people’s minds and to tell them about legislative news. However some recent town hall meetings have seen disruptive and uncivil behavior. This session described some recent legislator experiences and examined methods to hold productive and courteous meetings. Presenters provided tips and best practices and also explained how to use a legislator’s “power to convene” to hold collaborative meetings to solve community problems.

Members of the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation (NCDD) have let us know about a number of workshops and trainings they are offering in the coming months.  Most of them are discounted considerably for dues-paying NCDD members.  They are…

• What Methods to Use When?
• Advanced Public Engagement Training
• CogNexus Institute’s Issue Mapping Webinar Series
• Masterful Facilitation Institute’s Spring Programs in Vancouver, BC
• Dynamic Facilitation Trainings for Individuals, Groups, and Large Systems
• “Hidden in Plain Sight”: a Center for Strategic Facilitation workshop
• Two Trainings for Dutch-Speaking Members

What Methods to Use When?

Analyzing Whole Situations (course ICAE 290) is a March 23-25 open enrollment online course offered by Antioch University McGregor that offers you practice in thinking through situations to decide (a) whether a participatory public process is needed, (b) for what purpose, and (c) of what kind. We’ll use cases brought by participants and an integrated systems framework to figure out just what it is about different kinds of participatory methods that suit them for different kinds of situations.

Participants may apply this workshop towards completion of Antioch’s new Graduate or Professional Certificate in Civic Development & Systemic Transformation, or as part of its Master’s Degree in Conflict Analysis & Engagement. The certificate program begins April 9, 2010 on-line. It includes three, 3-day workshops and can be completed in 6-9 months. For more details, email Sara Ross at sross3@antioch.edu or Nancy Glock-Grueneich at nglock@post.harvard.edu. You can read about all ICAE courses here.

Advanced Public Engagement Training

The Canadian Trainers Collective is partnering with Dialogue Partners Inc. and gWhiz Consulting Ltd. to include three additional courses in their schedule that provide additional learning opportunities in public engagement techniques:

• Group Facilitation Skills for Public Involvement
• Analyze This! Making Sense of Conflict in Public Engagement
• Standing in the Fire: Transforming Conflict Through Collaboration

Offered in Calgary in April, Ottawa in June, Washington DC in September, and Halifax in October, these courses build advanced skills in engaging participants.  The courses are presented by some of the most experienced trainings in Canada, and dues-paying NCDD members receive 15% discounts on all Dialogue Partners trainings.

For a brochure and registration info for all courses, visit www.dialoguepartners.ca/forms/index.asp?tid=131.

CogNexus Institute’s Issue Mapping Webinar Series

CogNexus Institute is excited to announce their next Issue Mapping Webinar Series, which starts on April 14, 2010. Every time we have offered this course participants have said that they are able to work more effectively with highly complex (or “wicked”) problems. The course teaches a new disciplined approach to listening, thinking through issues, and making decisions in groups and as individuals. Discounts: early bird discount ($100 off) ends April 5; Colleagues (people from the same organization) get an extra $25 off, and NCDD Members are being offered an extra $50 discount.

Register at www.cognexus.org/april_imws_registration.htm.

Masterful Facilitation Institute’s Spring Programs in Vancouver, BC

Enhance your facilitation competencies and mastery to enable groups of any size in any setting to tap their creativity and wisdom, and produce extraordinary results. Register now for significant Early Bird savings! (NCDD members earn extra 10% savings!)

• The Virtual Facilitator: Leading Interactive TeleCalls and Webinars – March 4, 11, & 18, 2010
• The Confident Facilitator: Essential Skills for Guiding Groups – March 24-26, 2010
• The Engaging Facilitator: Conversation Methods for Collaboration and Wise Action – April 13-15, 2010
• The Inspired Facilitator: Achieving Mastery in Engaging Organizations and Communalities – May 19-21, 2010
• The Artful Visual Facilitator: Bringing Meeting Results to Life with Graphics – May 26-27, 2010

For more information on any of these programs, visit www.masterfulfacilitation.ca.

Dynamic Facilitation: Emergent Leadership & Self-Organizing Change Skills for Individuals, Groups, and Large Systems

Dynamic Facilitation is a unique form of facilitation that feels like dialogue in that people share deeply from the heart about has meaning to them and generates group decisions and unanimous outcomes similar to deliberation. Its large-scale applications, known as the Creative Insight Council and the Wisdom Council, are being used to transform democracy in the public and private sphere, helping diverse groups address systemic and complex issues creatively and collaboratively and reached shared outcomes. In this introductory seminar, you’ll learn how to use these skills to help groups and large systems think together creatively and collaboratively to achieve self-organizing, win/win outcomes at home and in workplaces, schools, government agencies, and community settings.

Upcoming seminars are scheduled in:

• Atlanta, GA – Feb. 22-24
• Santa Fe, NM – Feb. 27 – Mar. 1
• Port Townsend, WA – Sept. 20-22

Dues-paying NCDD members receive a 20% discount on DF trainings. Visit www.tobe.net/df/page24/learn_df/seminars.html for more information and to register.

“Hidden in Plain Sight”: a Center for Strategic Facilitation workshop

The Center for Strategic Facilitation’s Technology of Participation (ToP) Learning Community is offering an interesting workshop called Hidden in Plain Sight: A Workshop on Unpacking Multiple Dimensions of Privilege and Facilitation. The workshop will take place in Oakland, California from 5:00 to 8:00 pm on February 17, 2010. Dues-paying NCDD members receive a 20% discount on all CSF trainings.

One of the ways institutional privilege operates is that when we have it, we’re often the last ones to see it. We have inherited a system of inequity that hurts us all. Some of us have more access to structural privilege than others, depending our age, body size, class background, physical/mental/emotional abilities, gender and gender-identity, race, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, citizenship status, native language… These forms of privilege shape our experiences and perspectives and therefore influence our facilitation. Join us for an opportunity to reflect on:

• What are some of the ways privilege impacts my facilitation, including in ways I may not be aware?
• How could increasing my awareness help me be in better service of the groups with whom I work?

Kathleen Rice will be sharing from the research she has conducted on white privilege and facilitation as a spring-board for reflection and small and large group discussion. Planning team members Steven Bucholtz, Sarah Calhoun and Marti Roach will also guide our work.

RSVP and Information: contact Marti Roach, Senior Partner, CSF at 925-376-3853 or martiroach@sbcglobal.net.

Two Trainings for Dutch-Speaking Members

NCDD member Kees Voorberg of Centrum Dialoog en Samenleving announced two upcoming trainings:

Two-day workshop : The Power of Dialogue
The workshop is mainly experiential, partly theoretical. We’ll work in the dialogue circle and in small groups and with other dialogical methods. You will experience the effect of dialogue on yourself and on the quality of communication, the connectedness and the creativity in the group. You’ll learn about backgrounds and methods of Dialogue and you’ll discover what the long term effects of dialogue can be. The workshop is open to all and participation in it is also a pre-requisite for those who want to register for the Professional Training Program for Dialogue Process Facilitators. Language: Dutch. Venue: Conference Centre De Voorde, Laag Zuthem, The Netherlands. Dates: 22/23 march or 24/25 june. Info: www.keesvoorberg.nl/cm/index.php?page=introductieworkshop

Professional Training Program for Dialogue Process Facilitators
In september 2010 the next Training Program in Dialogue Process Facilitation will get started. Participants get acquainted with the dialogical principles and with a wide variety of dialogical methods. You’ll learn how to build a sustainable dialogical culture, that can function as a solid base for all kinds of change projects. The Training Program is focused on Facilitating Dialogue Work both within and without the context of organisations. Language: Dutch. Venue: Conference Centre De Voorde, Laag Zuthem, The Netherlands. Start: 22 september 2010. Participation in the two-day workshop ‘The Power of Dialogue’ is a prerequisite for participation in the Professional Training Program. Information: www.dialoogopleiding.nl

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See the entire list of trainings that are discounted for NCDD members at www.thataway.org/discounts.  And email sandy@thataway.org if you would like to offer NCDD members a discount in exchange for publicity on the NCDD website, facebook group, linkedin group, listservs, and email updates.

Thought some of you would be interested in looking over the Society for Organizational Learning’s 2010 program schedule.  According to Sherry Immediato, SoL will be offering a variety of workshops for individuals and teams in 2010. “Our intention is to help those with unconscious competence – that is, all of us – develop greater capacity for organizational learning, and to make these practices the rule rather than the exception in business, government and civil society.” Please contact Frank Schneider at 1-617-300-9535 or by email if you need help with registration, have questions or would like to know more about the value these programs offer. (more…)

Here are five books by NCDD members which have recently come to our attention that I highly recommend you add to your library…

Standing in the Fire: Leading High-Heat Meetings with Clarity, Calm, and Courage
by Larry Dressler

Focusing on how to stay “cool” during high-heat deliberations, consultant, author, and NCDD member Larry Dressler drew on his 25-years experience facilitating high-stakes meetings and also interviewed 40 other veteran practitioners for this new book, co-published by Berrett-Koehler and ASTD and available this February. To read a description of the book, sample chapters, and free resources visit www.larrydressler.com. You can also pre-order it from Amazon.com.

Who Dialogues? (and when and where and how?)
by the Network for Peace through Dialogue

Network for Peace through Dialogue’s new 51-page book Who Dialogues? (and when and where and how?) provides a solid introduction to the subject through the personal stories of 10 practitioners who use dialogue in their work. Among the variety of uses these practitioners describe are: laying the groundwork for conflict resolution, designing a large UN conference, helping to heal the wounds of the Holocaust, teaching in a university, working with youth and conducting dialogue online. The book is available directly from the Network for Peace through Dialogue and costs $5.00 plus shipping. Ordering details can be found at their website and you can call them at 212-426-5818 for more information.

The Talking Point: Creating an Environment for Exploring Complex Meaning
by Thomas R. Flanagan and Alexander N. Christakis
(A Collaborative Project of the Institute for 21st Century Agoras)

The Institute for 21st Century Agoras is proud to announce an important new book, The Talking Point: Creating an Environment for Exploring Complex Meaning. The authors, Agoras president Tom Flanagan and Agoras founder Aleco Christakis, present user-friendly stories of how Structured Dialogic Design continues to generate significant social innovation. Available at Amazon.com.

Democracy as Discussion: Civic Education and the American Forum Movement
by William M. Keith

Using primary sources from archives around the country, Democracy as Discussion traces the early history of the Speech field, the development of discussion as an alternative to debate, and the Deweyan, Progressive philosophy of discussion that swept the United States in the early twentieth century. Available at Amazon.com.

When the People Speak: Deliberative Democracy & Public Consultation
by James S. Fishkin

In this book, NCDD member James Fishkin combines a new theory of democracy with actual practice and shows how an idea that harks back to ancient Athens can be used to revive our modern democracies. The book outlines deliberative democracy projects conducted by the author with various collaborators in the United States, China, Britain, Denmark, Australia, Italy, Bulgaria, Northern Ireland, and in the entire European Union. The book is accompanied by a DVD of “Europe in One Room” by Emmy Award-winning documentary makers Paladin Invision. Available at Amazon.com.

If you haven’t yet, be sure to check out the site sociologists (and NCDD members) Caroline Lee and Francesca Polletta created at http://sites.lafayette.edu/ddps/ to display the results of the 2009 Dialogue and Deliberation Practitioners Survey. You can also download the full survey results here.

The survey was conducted online last Fall for the purpose of academic research on the deliberation field by the researchers. Francesca and Caroline felt that the field of public dialogue and deliberation has been growing so dramatically that no one fully knows what the field looks like. They sought to answer questions like:

• Who is doing public dialogue and deliberation work?
• What forms is their work taking?
• What common challenges do they face?
• How they would like to see the field develop?

The data they collected is extraordinarily valuable for our field, and you are encouraged to site it and utilize it widely. On the site, you can download or browse the survey results, ask a question of the researchers, or join a discussion about the findings.

Here are some of the results I found most interesting/useful from NCDD’s perspective:

Participants were asked to rate the importance of the 5 challenges facing the D&D community that were identified by NCDD conference participants:

• 34% identified the Systems Challenge as our most important challenge (making D&D integral to our public and private systems).
• Three of the challenges were seen as most important by 20% each:  the Framing Challenge (framing D&D work in a more accessible way), the Action & Change Challenge (strengthening the link between D&D, action and policy change), and the Evaluation Challenge (demonstrating to powerholders that D&D works).
• Notably, only 6% indicated that the Inclusion Challenge (addressing oppression and bias) as the most important challenge facing our field.

When asked who should take the lead in advancing dialogue and deliberation in the U.S., “professional associations” like NCDD and IAP2 was selected most often (62%), followed by an “alliance of experienced local organizations” (51%), the White House Office of Public Engagement (48%), “national D&D facilitation organizations” like AmericaSpeaks and National Issues Forums (47%), foundations that support D&D (47%).

57% of respondents prefer the term “community of practice” to describe the people and organizations currently leading D&D efforts, compared to 16% who prefer “movement” and 11% who prefer “profession.”

Of the 4 engagement streams (exploration, conflict transformation, decision making and collaborative action), conflict transformation was the only one selected by less than half (38%) of respondents indicating the type of D&D work they practice. (more…)

Peter Levine had an important article published on the Huffington Post yesterday titled The Path Not Taken (So Far): Civic Engagement for Reform. The article outlines the Obama Administration’s failure–so far–to engage the public in our great national challenges.

In his article, Peter writes…

Candidate Obama argued that positive change comes from organized social movements, not from the government alone. Social movements should be broad-based, not narrow groups of people who all agree with one another. They should promote discussion and collaboration across lines of difference–including ideological difference.

As he said in May 2007, “politics” usually means shouting matches on TV. But “when politics gets local, when the person talking to you is your neighbor standing on your front porch, things change.” In that speech, he called for dialogues in every community on Iraq, health care and climate change.

Later, on Obama’s executive order on transparency, participation and collaboration, Peter writes…

“Transparency” came to mean feeding information to organized interest groups, reporters, and a few independent citizens who have deep interests and skills in particular areas. Participation and collaboration have not been part of the agenda since Inauguration Day.

Service and transparency are not nearly “edgy” enough; there is no fight in them. People are angry – from the Tea Partiers to MoveOn. When citizens try to solve serious social problems, they identify enemies. They do not just hold hands and serve together; they strike back at those whom they perceive as threats. “Active citizenship” reduced to non-controversial “service” or downloading government data completely loses touch with the legitimate anger of the American people.

An expanded version of the article is posted here in Peter’s FaceBook and here on his blog.  What do folks think of Peter’s article?  Do you agree?  Disagree?  Feel free to comment here.

Two NCDD organizational members, AmericaSpeaks and Ascentum, just launched a great new blog called Open Government Directions.

Open Government Directions will be a resource for those who care about the Open Government Directive and creating a more participatory and collaborative government. At this point, as Joe Goldman explains, it includes four kinds of resources:

1. Several thought pieces that we have written about best practices in open government, as well as links to resources that others have written. Specifically, we have written a few interesting pieces on key questions that agencies should ask before launching an online dialogue as well as recommendations for what agencies should include in their open government web sites. These will be regularly updated and added to
2. Online dialogues about best practices in online engagement using IdeaScale and Mixed In
3. A newsfeed with links to new stories and articles about Open Government
4. And links to specific elements of the Open Government Directive

Be sure to also check out the Open Government Playbook, a wiki-based resource site launched by NCDD member Lucas Cioffi of OnlineTownHalls.com. As knowledge about the OGD is spread out across the Web; the purpose of the Playbook is to serve as a directory to those resources.

The Golden Fleece is seeking proposals on You, Me and We: Connecting through Story for workshops and presentations on storytelling in the workplace and our teams, communities, and beyond for our upcoming one day Conference to be held Saturday, April 17, 2010 from 9 to 5 at George Mason University, Arlington VA Campus (Washington, DC area).

The workshop proposal submission deadline has been extended to January 29, 2010.

Golden Fleece, in conjunction with the 2010 Storytelling in Organizations seminar of the Smithsonian Institution’s Resident Associates Program (April 16, 2010), is pleased to announce the ninth annual International Storytelling Weekend in Washington.

This one-day conference offers the possibilityfor change leaders, executives, storytelling professionals, organizational development practitioners, students and researchers to conduct workshops, present findings, and discuss the important aspects of using story to explore all of the myriad of contemporary challenges we face today and in the future.

Please contact Denise Lee for more info: denise.lee@us.pwc.com

Saw this in my inbox this morning…

The Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (HD Centre), an independent mediation organisation, is seeking to recruit a Project Manager to support its activities in Africa. Reporting to the Africa Regional Director, she/he will:

• Project manage selected Africa based conflict mediation activities;
• Identify potential new conflict mediation work;
• Conduct research and analysis in support of conflict mediation efforts;
• Fund raise and maintain regular contacts with donors in the region.

Candidates should have 7-8 years of professional experience in an international environment, particularly in an African context, and a Master’s degree in conflict resolution, political science, development studies or another related field. (more…)

Jim Fishkin shared this on the NCDD Discussion list tonight, and I thought I’d share it here as well…

The documentary from MacNeil/Lehrer Productions about the statewide Deliberative Poll in Michigan is now being broadcast around the country. It can also be seen on the PBS Newshour website at www.pbs.org/newshour/video/share.html?s=news01pd8e.

It is hosted by Jim Lehrer and produced by the Newshour team. Detailed results are on our CDD web site at http://cdd.stanford.edu/polls/btp/#michigan.

It is very striking that when the people grappled with the state’s economic problems, they moved to raise the taxes whose pain they directly feel (the sales tax and the income tax) and they moved to lower the taxes they feel only indirectly (business taxes, presumably to stimulate jobs). They really grappled with hard choices. It was also a great sample, representative in attitudes and demographics. The whole state in one room faced up to the state’s difficult choices.

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Jim is the Director of the Center for Deliberative Democracy at Stanford, creator of Deliberative Polling and author of When the People Speak: Deliberative Democracy and Public Consultation.