I submitted a report to the Kettering Foundation last October that I wanted to finally share with the whole network.  Before the 2008 conference, NCDD embarked on a research project with the Kettering Foundation to learn about how attendees at the 2008 National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation see themselves playing a role in democratic governance.  Kettering was also especially interested in two of the five challenge areas we took on at the conference (the Systems Challenge and the Action & Change Challenge).

Many NCDDers are quoted in this report, and I write about a number of your innovative projects and initiatives.  88 of you were surveyed or interviewed as part of this research project, and others contributed through our graphic recording team at the conference, and during the online dialogue we held on the 5 challenge areas at CivicEvolution.org before the conference.

I think this report is worth a read.  It’s 38 pages long, but it’s full of gorgeous photos and graphic recordings from the conference (so it’s shorter than it looks!).

The report represents a snapshot of a specific time in this rapidly growing, maturing field of practice.  An exciting time, when process leaders and networks in our field are being brought into discussions about federal policy, and when our field is exploring how and whether it fits into a broader “democracy reform” movement.  It’s also a time in which we’re seeing clear shifts in approach in the field.  Practitioners, organizations and institutions are starting to think in terms of capacity building and find ways to demonstrate perceptible shifts in civic capacity.  Practitioners are focusing more on developing ongoing relationships with institutions, decision-makers and other power-holders in the communities they serve.  And people are becoming more and more adept at using multiple models, combining elements of different models, and designing unique processes to fit different contexts.

You can download the full report here, download a 3-page overview of the report here, or learn a bit more about the report by clicking on “more.”  Feel free to share this report or the overview with others. (more…)

NCDD member Cynthia Gibson added an interesting post to the Public Conversations Project’s blog today, titled The Coffee Party: Long Time Brewing.  (PCP is an organizational member of NCDD as well.)  In her post, Cindy writes:

How heartening to see ordinary people coalescing around the notion that the government is theirs and that they have a role to play in ensuring its vitality.  Rather than bash government, the Coffee Party wants to work with it.

What the Coffee Party movement may not know, however, is that there already is a powerful movement rippling across the country that’s doing likewise.  It’s called deliberative democracy, through which people are coming together to identify common concerns and find ways to work together to solve them.

Cindy’s blog post is pretty brief, and I added a comment that may just be longer than her post.  We’ve been discussing the Coffee Party Movement on the main NCDD listserv, and Cindy’s post suggests all those of us interested in democratic governance take advantage of the popularity of the Coffee Party Movement to “join together toward rebuilding a process that’s all but vanished in the halls of our government.”

I included some quotes from listserv subscribers in my comment (anonymously) so people can get a sense of what NCDDers think about how we should get involved in or ride the wave of this progressive response to the Tea Party Movement.  Feel free to add your comments, too, and check out PCP’s other blog posts while you’re at it.

Archon Fung (professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government) sent me an email a few days ago letting me know about a short article he wrote that was published in the March/April 2010 edition of Capitol Ideas, the magazine of the Council of State Governments.

Archon’s article can be seen online at www.csg.org/pubs/capitolideas/mar_apr_2010/howto.aspx, and outlines 5 tips for holding an effective public meeting: be clear on the purpose, get help (he links to NCDD here!), avoid the usual format, go beyond the usuals, and avoid promises you can’t keep.  It’s a nice, concise one-pager worth sharing with public officials and others.

In July 2009, more than 250 campus and community leaders (including myself and many members of NCDD) came together at the University of New Hampshire to talk about the “deliberative democracy” field, the tide of civic change on campuses and in communities, and what those changes mean for the practice and teaching of democracy. “No Better Time: Promising Opportunities in Deliberative Democracy for Educators and Practitioners” was hosted by two NCDD organizational members, the Deliberative Democracy Consortium (DDC) and The Democracy Imperative (TDI).

TDI and the DDC work to promote best practices, research, and teaching for a strong democracy. “No Better Time: A 2010 Report on Opportunities and Challenges for Deliberative Democracy” not only summarizes what happened during the conference, but brings you up to date on projects and activities that began there, as well as other related developments in the field. It is now available at www.unh.edu/democracy/pdf/NBTReport_1.pdf.  NCDD member Tim Bonnemann of Intellitics has reviewed it at www.intellitics.com/blog/2010/02/08/no-better-time-conference-report-available/.

Steve Zikman brought an interesting article to my attention today, suggesting we share it with the network…

In a brief article titled “Appeals court rejects public comment time” at PNJ.com, a Florida appeals court upheld a year-old judgment that, in essence, found that government meetings required to be “open to the public” don’t necessarily have to give citizens a chance to speak at them.

View the whole article here at PNJ.com, but I’ve copied it below so we have an archive of it.  Please comment on this post and share what you think about this judgment and its implications. (more…)

The American Library Association (ALA) and the Kettering Foundation have signed a research agreement to establish a Center for Public Life.  The Center will train librarians from different types of libraries to convene and moderate deliberative forums and frame issues of local and national concern, using National Issues Forums materials and processes.

During the first year, ALA will form an advisory committee and begin training moderators to convene and conduct local deliberative forums.  Initially, the new Centers will tap into the experience of libraries already convening deliberative forums.  They will form the hub of a network of active mentors capable of strengthening and expanding their work locally, statewide and nationally and connecting it with other forum conveners throughout the country. (more…)

All NCDDers are welcome to join us next Thursday (March 18) at 7-8pm Eastern / 4-5pm Pacific) for an NCDD Confab call with Martin Carcasson, director of the Center for Public Deliberation at Colorado State University. We’ll be talking to Martin about his must-read Public Agenda occasional paper titled Beginning with the End in Mind: A Call for Goal-Driven Deliberative Practice (Summer 2009).

Martin’s article, which can be downloaded for free from www.publicagenda.org/cape, outlines three broad categories of goals for deliberation. The essay explores how a clearer understanding of the goals and purposes we are trying to achieve through public engagement can sharpen our methods and increase our impacts. It offers a practical framework to help practitioners systematically consider both their short-term and long-term goals and the strategies that will set them up for success.

If you plan to join us on the Confab call, be sure to look over Martin’s article.  I also encourage you to check out the July NCDD blog post titled New Framework for Understanding the Goals of Public Engagement, which reflects on Martin’s article and introduces a graphic I created that expands on the article’s three orders of goals slightly.

“NCDD Confabs” are conference calls for NCDD members where we explore dialogue & deliberation’s role in current issues, learn about exciting projects and interesting methods from fellow NCDD members, and encourage new connections among members.

Hi, all!  I am a new NCDD blogger, and I am also the founder of Idealogue, Inc., which develops interactive web platforms to empower people and organizations to solve difficult challenges through dialogue and collaboration.

The active NCDD listserv recently addressed the question of the ability of online dialogue to provide value to the practitioner’s toolkit. At Idealogue, Inc. we have been developing an online platform for dialogue on difficult and pressing issues. On the one hand, online interaction and social networking is enormously popular, but on the other hand, public discussion boards and comment systems are not the first place many people think of for constructive dialogues–me included.

Maybe the lack of face-to-face interaction is part of the problem, but can we also better implement technology?

A recent experience with our first dialogue site, BeyondTolerance.org, an online network that promotes discussion and understanding within academic and non-profit communities about religious, social and political issues, illustrated to me that some important elements of in-person dialogue can be transferred online. (more…)

In February, NCDD gained 1 new organizational member, 10 new individual members (6 dues-paying and 4 non-dues-paying) and 14 of our dues-paying members renewed their memberships (2 organizations and 12 individuals). Welcome to our new members, and thank you to all those who re-upped!

Our new organization member is Politalk (Contact: Tim Erickson).  Tim has been an individual member since 2002 and upgraded his membership.

Our new 6 dues-paying individual members are

1. Stephanie Miller, Executive Director at the Health Consumers Alliance of South Australia
2. David Kimball, Former Host of the Conversational Café
3. Barbara Chappell, Consultant
4. Tammy Bormann, Principle Consultant for Tammy Bormann Consultants
5. Julie Stuart, Owner of Making Ideas Visible
6. Daniel Fisher of New York

We gained 4 new individual NCDD members (non-dues):

1. Jan Levinson at the Russell Forum for Civic Life in Georgia
2. Cathy Kelly at KRIO Consulting
3. William Ball at Stetson University
4. Laura Keir at Sterling College

In the month of February, 14 NCDDers renewed their membership.  The following 2 organizational members renewed:

1. Dialogue Partners, Inc. (Stephani McCallum)
2. Columbia University (Beth Fisher-Yoshida)

And the following 12 people renewed as dues-paying individual members:

1. Susan Clark at Woodbury College
2. Kathleen Conway with the Law Offices of Kathleen M. Conway, LLC.
3. John Spady at the Forum Foundation
4. Patricia Perry with Patricia D. Perry Associates
5. Ariana McBride at the Orton Family Foundation
6. Daniel Horsey at the 3 Story Stage
7. Richard Chasin at the Public Conversations Project
8. Rod Reyna at the Pflugerville Neighborhood Association
9. Tom Murray at Perspegrity Consulting.
10. Richard Alper at Conflict Resolution Center of Montgomery County
11. Shara Pavlow at University of Miami’s School of Communication
12. Luigi Morelli of Haverhill, MA

To learn about other NCDD members (there are over 1,240 of us now!), find members in your state or city, etc., visit the NCDD members network at www.thataway.org/ncddnet/.

And to see if your membership is in good standing, search for yourself in the members network and look at what’s in the Member Type field in your profile.  If it says “lapsed” or “non-dues-paying,” please consider becoming a current dues-paying member (see payment details here).  You can also email office manager Joy Garman at joy@thataway.org if you have questions about your status, need payment instructions, or want to change the info on your profile page.

Check out these two videos on YouTube by Matt Leighninger (pictured), E.D. of NCDD organizational member the Deliberative Democracy Consortium.

The videos feature photos of deliberation, voice-over about how democracy is evolving to incorporate more citizen input, and footage of Matt’s three boys. The videos were produced for the No Better Time conference and the recent Recentering Democracy Around Citizens meeting.  One of the videos is about 6 minutes long and the other is 4 minutes long, and most of the content of the shorter one is included in the longer version.

You can view both videos at www.youtube.com/user/mattleighningerddc.

This article is co-authored by Lucas Cioffi and Alexander Moll, the two NCDD members who co-organized the February Open Government Directive Workshop in partnership with the US General Services Administration, the National Academy of Public Administration, NCDD, and GovLoop.

Summary and Purpose of the OGD Workshop

The February 17^th OGD Workshop in Washington, DC was a blast.  We convened sixty participants working in-person and online, from the public and private sectors, and across agencies.  Third in an evolving four-part workshop series, this workshop was designed to help the federal government implement its recent Open Government Directive.  Fellow NCDD member Kaliya Hamlin facilitated the previous two workshops.

Since federal agencies are currently working on their individual open government plans that are due on April 7^th, frontline federal managers needed the opportunity to exchange best practices across agencies.  The purpose of this particular workshop was to provide that opportunity, to synthesize, cross-pollinate, and transform great ideas into actionable recommendations.

(more…)

NCDD member Jim Fishkin sent this out to the main NCDD listserv the other day…  Jim wrote, “see veteran columnist Walter Shapiro’s musings about whether a deliberative democracy process could be used among republicans to start the next presidential nomination process.”

Shapiro’s article, titled Taking Republicans’ Presidential Pulse at a Political Reality Show appears on Politics Daily.

The Harriet Beecher Stowe Center in Hartford, Connecticut, will inaugurate the Stowe Prize(tm) in 2011.  The Stowe Prize is a $10,000 biennial award to an individual from the United States whose written work embodies the tradition and impact of Stowe’s most famous work, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by making a tangible impact on a social justice issue critical to contemporary society.

Submissions must be postmarked by June 1, 2010.  The Stowe Prize winner will be announced in March 2011, with an award ceremony in June 2011. (more…)

We wanted to share the audio from Thursday’s NCDD Confab call. The call focused on the role of dialogue & deliberation practitioners and organizations in Haiti, and in disaster recovery in general.  Featured guests were BJ Diamond of the Global Facilitator Service Corps (GFSC) and John Engle, co-founder of Haiti Partners. Larry Schooler initiated and facilitated the call.

BJ talked with us about GFSC’s work helping communities deal with crises.  John Engle was kind enough to call in from Haiti,  to tell us about his work fostering participatory leadership and discussion-based education in Haiti before and since the earthquake.  He also talked about his involvement in and knowledge of various relief efforts in Haiti, and helped NCDDers on the call think about what they can do now to help.

You can listen to the audio by clicking below if you’re interested (press the play button or download the mp3 file).

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Or download: NCDD Confab – February 25, 2010: Haiti (~50 MB)

The NCDD Confabs are a new series of regular conference calls for NCDD members where we explore dialogue & deliberation’s role in current issues, learn about exciting projects and interesting methods from fellow NCDD members, and just get to know each other a little better. Add a comment here if you have ideas about topics and featured guests for future Confab calls.

NCDD member Tyrone Reitman sent us this opening to share with the network…

Healthy Democracy Oregon is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that was founded in 2007.  The mission of the organization is to develop and implement innovative political reforms based upon deliberative methods of public engagement.  The organization is currently focused on a reform to Oregon’s ballot initiative process, called the Citizens’ Initiative Review (CIR). The Citizens’ Initiative Review is an application of the Citizens Jury model of public deliberation, designed to evaluate ballot measures, and provide voters with a new source of clear, useful, and trustworthy information during elections.  A bill passed by the Oregon Legislature in 2009 allows for one to three Reviews will be conducted during the 2010 election cycle.  Healthy Democracy Oregon is currently working to convene these Reviews in August, 2010.

Healthy Democracy Oregon is seeking an Outreach & Research Coordinator.  The Outreach and Research Coordinator will raise awareness of the Citizens’ Initiative Review though community event organizing, and public relations work both with print media and online.  The Outreach & Research Coordinator will also work with HDO’s Directors and Staff to coordinate presentations, and conduct background research, for the Citizens’ Initiative Reviews.  The ideal applicant for this position will have both strong communications and research skills.

Download the February 23, 2010 job announcement for more details.